Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across MLB. Throughout the year we ask questions of the most plugged-in Orioles fans and fans across the country.
The Orioles entered trade deadline day earlier this week with a 2.5 game deficit to the third wild card spot in the American League. We have seen the myriad flaws of the team through the year and on a rational level understand the case not to push aggressively to make something happen this season.
I don’t think I was the only one hoping the Orioles
would decide to just let it ride with the roster, maybe add a piece or two who will be able to help next year too while thinning out the mid-range prospect depth that has to be added to the 40-man roster so it’s not lost in the Rule 5 draft. Mike Elias had other ideas, trading away three players who figured to be a part of next year’s team, headlined by Adley Rutschman. This is still a tough one to stomach.
In our poll this week, I asked Orioles fans, clearly feeling raw in the aftermath of the Rutschman trade, when they think that our favorite baseball team will make it back into the postseason. These were the results:
Optimism often reigns in these polls, but it seems the post-Rutschman trade was not inspiring a lot of optimism for the near future. The 34% plurality for 2029 or later isn’t too strong, but we’re talking 59% who think the Orioles won’t make the postseason this year or next year either.
Three years out of the postseason in a row would be pretty bad! I think that Elias should be fired after this season if it gets to two years. It is not clear that the owner agrees.
While this poll was open, the Orioles made it as close as within half a game of the wild card spot. They’ve since lost their series finale to the Angels and their series opener against the Rangers, the team they’re now chasing for that third wild card. They can pull back ground if they can win the other two games this weekend. That’ll take them scoring some more runs, which they kind of… aren’t doing. The team has scored ten runs in six August games. Yikes.
Baseball Reference gives them a 10.4% chance of making the postseason. FanGraphs has them at 10.8%. They probably need to go 28-16 from here.
This week’s survey is sponsored by FanDuel.
