Zach Britton looks back at O's season and ahead to team's future

A few Orioles were approached in the clubhouse today to talk about the Orioles being officially eliminated from the postseason and to look ahead to the team's uncertain future.

As usual, closer Zach Britton put it into perspective in both looking back and ahead.

"I'm pretty disappointed," Britton said. "As a team, there wasn't one person or two people that were the reason behind it. It was a team effort. We didn't play up to our capability and that's frustrating, knowing that on the 4th we're going home. Extremely disappointing based on what we did last year and not being able to duplicate that season. Disappointing for everybody in here that we didn't have a good season.

"We had some guys that had breakout years. In the offseason, you start to think about that, moreso than the fact we didn't have a very good year. A lot of the young guys are starting to come into their own. (Manny) Machado and (Jonathan) Schoop, and that gives you hope for the future."

With a list of pending free agents, Britton knows what every O's fan knows. This team could look very different in 2016.

"Now that we have been eliminated for sure, I look around and see Chris Davis' locker. (Matt) Wieters and (Wei-Yin) Chen and (Steve) Pearce. There is a chance these guys are not in our clubhouse next year," Britton said. "It's not a good feeling, first off. You'd like to be able to retain guys. I understand we don't spend that big on free agents, but you'd like to get these guys back based on what they bring to our team. Just as a person and teammate.

"It's going to be a challenge. Darren (O'Day) is another guy we'd miss down in our bullpen if he doesn't come back. That would be a big loss for us there. He's been a leader for the last few years. Like I said, it's going to be interesting, but that's not my job. But it will be interesting to see what we do. We had a pretty good thing going last year. Hopefully we don't go all the way back to square zero. We still have some guys in here that could do some special things next year."