Baltimore Orioles: 5 Examples That Show the O's Stink at Rebuilding

If the Baltimore Orioles' top executives told us die-hard fans that they're going to enter another rebuilding period and the team should be competing by 2014 or so, would you believe them?

I'm not sure I'd buy it.

Fourteen years, fourteen losing seasons. It doesn't get much worse, unless you're the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The direction the O's are going to take this offseason is still quite unclear, mostly due to the fact that the team still has yet to name the new general manager, or president of baseball operations, whichever title you'd prefer.

But it isn't out of the question for whoever takes over as the top baseball decision-maker to want to start from scratch yet again.

Were that to be the case, I pray the man with the plan doesn't have the same combination of bad moves, poor personnel, and incredibly bad luck.

The following slides are proof (as if you didn't already believe) that the O's have pretty much sucked at rebuilding over the last decade-plus.

Old Guys

A nice veteran piece here and there can do wonders for a team, but slotting too many of those over-priced, under-performing names onto your 25-man roster spells trouble.

Especially when you do it year in and year out.

I'm not going to deny that I was one of the many excited about Vladimir Guerrero's (pictured) signing last offseason, but that doesn't take away from the fact that it proved to be a bad move (hey, at least I'll admit I was wrong).

Add a declining Derrek Lee to the equation, and that's just one season of over-the-hill bad player acquisitions the Orioles have made over the last 14 seasons.

Finding the right veteran pieces for your ball club can be really tricky, but the team will never improve until that starts happening.

Failed Draft Picks

For having picks around the top for the last decade, the O's haven't done much with that luxury (or is it a curse?) to improve the team.

Too many picks have gone wrong. How many stars have the Orioles churned out of their minor league system during their consecutive losing streak?

Billy Rowell. Larry Bigbie. Adam Loewen (pictured). Brandon Snyder. Mike Fontenot. Matt Hobgood, though to be fair, it could be too soon to declare him a bust. The list is almost as long as the O's streak.

And not only is it top draft picks that don't pan out, it's picks later in the draft, too. Arguably, the O's haven't been smart with their later picks, as nobody has come up to be impressive who wasn't a top pick since Brian Roberts.

Though, that could be more attributed to the next slide...

Poor Player Development

That many top draft picks don't fail on accident. Granted, some of them are just plain poor picks (Matt Hobgood), but players can only do so much. They need to be taught how to play at the big-league level.

As well, later draft picks can be turned into good players, or even stars (St. Louis' Albert Pujols). It all goes back to the coaching and development, and it's pretty obvious that the O's are lacking in that department.

Somewhere, something is seriously screwed up in the system, and hopefully it can be addressed this offseason. You can't expect the O's to turn their fortunes around without first turning their farm system around.

Teams like the Tampa Bay Rays, New York Yankees, Atlanta Braves, and Texas Rangers develop players. Teams like the Orioles do not. It's that simple, and it needs to be changed.

International Market

Amazingly, the Orioles have done almost absolutely nothing in the international market over the years, with their only notable signing being pitcher Koji Uehara out of Japan prior to the 2009 season.

I'm not sure if that's impressive, sad, or both.

If you look at the successful teams in the majors, they have ventured into the international market, signing young prospects, and not quitting after that. The Orioles desperately need to venture into that area.

And it doesn't have to be specifically the Japanese market. Many players are actually from Hispanic countries: the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and other similar countries and islands.

For a lot of those young men, they live in poverty, and baseball is the only chance for them to better their lives and their family's lives financially. So they'll play hard, because they've got nothing to lose.

If the next O's GM is smart, he'll send in plenty of scouts into the international areas and load up on prospects.

14 Straight Losing Seasons

As if it weren't a dead giveaway, the 14-year losing streak is the biggest indicator showing the Orioles organization just plain stinks at rebuilding.

There have been multiple rebuilding attempts during that time, and for whatever reason, all of them have had the unfortunate fate of failure.

A losing streak of that proportion warrants an extreme attempt at rebuilding the organization from top to bottom.

The seats at Camden Yards have been too empty for too long. It's time the Orioles put all of these trends to an end.