Zach Wilt: Motivation for the offseason

Champagne was popped last night at Camden Yards as the stadium hosted an American League East champion celebration for the second consecutive season. This year, however, it was a bit different from 2014's festivities. It was the visiting clubhouse that was covered in plastic and the modest home crowd contained just a few thousand unenthused fans as the Toronto Blue Jays won their first division title in 22 years.

In 2014, the scene was just the opposite. Fireworks blasted into the September sky from center field and confetti rained down as the crowd screamed for the hometown Orioles, who ended a 16-year drought and were crowned champions of the division. After enjoying themselves in the clubhouse, the O's players ran back out on field to celebrate with the Baltimore fans and share the moment with the city that had supported them through thick and thin. This year, a handful of Jays fans behind the visiting dugout applauded their team on the road as they head to the postseason.

These two teams faced each other when the Orioles won the division a year ago and Blue Jays general manager Alex Anthopolous cited watching the rival O's celebrate as motivation for building this year's division-winning club. "I remember we sat right up there and we watched it for about an hour and it really sunk in," he told reporters after last night's doubleheader. "We just said 'We're going to stick to something.' We're going to bring in high character, quality individuals. You want talent, but I will never go back to the other way again. Whether you win or lose, this is the type of group you want to go to war with day in and day out."

Among those "quality individuals" are free agent signing Russell Martin, offseason trade acquisition and likely AL Most Valuable Player Josh Donaldson, as well as trade deadline additions Troy Tulowitzki and David Price. It was a substantial overhaul to the core of Blue Jays that contained sluggers Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion, but in the end, the moves put Anthopoulos' club exactly where he hoped to be a year later: celebrating a trip to the postseason.

I wonder what effect watching Toronto's players pour Budweisers on each other in the visiting clubhouse will have on how the Orioles approach their most crucial offseason in recent years. These two teams have been bitter rivals over the past few seasons and had very different plans when it came to roster construction last winter. Despite the Orioles' losses in free agency, they still believed that plugging a few holes would get them back to October. The Jays wouldn't sit still and proved to never be content with their club.

How aggressive will Baltimore be in building around a strong core that contains veteran Adam Jones with budding young stars Manny Machado and Jonathan Schoop? What will it take to keep baseball's home run leader Chris Davis, who launched two more in Game 2 last night, in orange and black for a few more seasons? Perhaps most importantly, how can the O's improve upon a starting rotation thank ranks 25th in ERA (4.55)?

It won't be an easy task, especially when you consider the aspect of clubhouse chemistry that Anthopoulos cited last night. Over the years, we've seen plenty of high-payroll ballclubs make big moves only to fall flat because their teams just never gelled. The Nationals and Red Sox are baseball's latest examples. Jones and Buck Showalter's involvement in the process is important and keeping as much of this current group together will be vital in their success moving forward.

This winter could set the Orioles up for success for years to come or close a small window to win that was constructed during a lengthy rebuilding process. Whatever the approach ends up being, I'm sure watching a rival team celebrate in Baltimore will be fresh in the minds of the everyone in the O's front office. Hopefully, it'll be extra motivation this offseason.

Zach Wilt blogs about the Orioles at Baltimore Sports Report. Follow him on Twitter: @zach_wilt. His views appear here as part of MASNsports.com's season-long initiative of welcoming guest bloggers to our pages. All opinions expressed are those of the guest bloggers, who are not employed by MASNsports.com but are just as passionate about their baseball as our roster of writers.