When Dan Duquette took over the Orioles, they were fresh off a season where they won just 69 games, spinning wheels in a rut with the failure of “the cavalry” and no backup plan in sight. With only about three months to work with, Duquette turned that roster of losers into one that went on to win the wild card in 2012 and the American League East in 2014. For this, he deserves to be remembered as a hero in Baltimore sports lore.
Unfortunately for Duquette, despite his apparent best efforts to get a promotion to a better job in Toronto after that 2014 season, the Angelos family made him stay here to fulfill his contract, and then his narrative began to turn as the Orioles fortunes sank.