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There’s a common theme to 2025’s worst MLB teams, and it’s that they were pretty clearly going to have rough seasons. And yet, none of them did the things that would keep this from occurring. Three of those four squads have also fired their managers already — the Orioles being the latest thanks to getting rid of Brandon Hyde, following the Rockies and Pirates doing so a little earlier in May — because that’s one way to pretend you’re Doing Something about losses that have been brought about by an organizational-wide philosophy.
You can argue that the Orioles weren’t expected to be quite as bad in 2025 as they’ve been — they’re 15-30, on pace for 108 losses — but this is just arguing a matter of degrees. The O’s made it so that a whole lot of things had to go right for them to compete in 2025 like they did even a year ago when they won 91 games and lost in the Wild Card round, and none of those things have gone right. Instead, they’ve just hit the worst-case scenario in a few instances, but all within the realm of plausibility without the need for hindsight.
Continue reading “Brandon Hyde suffers for Orioles’ organizational sins”