The Orioles are the worst organization in baseball and have been for 25 years. Think about that. Since Jeffrey Mair robbed them in the Bronx (the event you can point to as the start of the slide) the Royals won a WS, Pitt had a multi-year run in the playoffs, the Rays went to the WS twice, 2 expansion teams went to the WS and one won, the cubs and sauwx both broke century long cursesm and the team that moved in down the street won a WS. All the small market teams had good runs. The only team that can be even put in the discussion is Seattle but during that time they had the record for most wins in a season.

As for being a few years away, that has been the story for 2 decades. I remember sitting in Camden Yards talking to an Os fan early in the run of futility (watching the Yankees beat them up again) and he said the same thing. That catcher btw came up, was OK for a few years, then had Tommy John and was done.