Since Mike Elias arrived as the general manager in Baltimore, there has never been a draft season where the big league team was doing spectacularly in the standings until this year. Even last year, when they went on a ten-game winning streak immediately after I got married, the Orioles still headed into the All-Star break with a .500 record at 46-46.
What that means is that the importance of the farm system takes on a new dimension. This is not just the only way for the Orioles to return to relevance. Now it needs to be a source of prospect depth that the team might be able to use to acquire proven big leaguers with two or three years of team control before free agency remaining.