If all goes well, the Orioles won't need any of their farm arms until 2018. What does the crop currently growing look like?
The "grow the arms, buy the bats" philosophy laid down by former Orioles GM Andy MacPhail was always a good plan, even if the O's never seemed to make it work in his tenure, or even afterwards.
The reason for it is simple. Pitching on the free agent market is both expensive and volatile. We have seen that for ourselves in the last few years as the O's have shelled out for mid-tier (or worse) pitchers Ubaldo Jimenez and Yovani Gallardo.