ORIOLES: 2018 Could Be a Hard Season to Watch

A number of clues suggest the Baltimore Orioles owner may be pulling the plug on the current team, perhaps to rebuild completely in coming years. The team:

1. Only signed superstars Manny Machado and Jonathan Schoop to one-year deals under threat of player arbitration.
2. Did not replace Buck Schowalter as manager, despite a spectacularly bad finish to the 2017 season.
3. Have not matched to slugger acquisitions by rival Yankees (Giancarlo Stanton) and Red Sox (J. D. Martinez).
4. Added middling to mediocre pitchers to the bullpen in the offseason.

Shifting Machado to short might be viewed as a way to enhance his value for ultimate sale. 

Keeping Schowalter, despite an end-of-season collapse that would have sacked the great Casey Stengel, is hard to justify for a team seriously intending to contend in 2018. Perhaps the current manager is seen by Angelos as the best steward for the great unraveling of the team he plans — allowing the biggest contracts to expire, hoping to start up again with high draft picks, low-cost newbies, and prospects from the famous Orioles "farm league".

We can't expect Angelos to show his hand on this. Witness what happened to Mark Cuban recently when he admitted his Dallas Mavericks were tanking intentionally.

This could be a very hard season to watch for those of us who suspect the owner's pulling the plug on the team — and for those who don't.