Lee Mazzilli, who was fired yesterday by the Baltimore Orioles after less than two years on the job, was overmatched by the demands of managing the team, but that’s not such a big deal; so was his predecessor Mike Hargrove, and his predecessor, Ray Miller. The Orioles have finished below .500 every year since 1997, when the team actually beat out the defending champion Yankees for the division title with a record of 98-64 under Davey Johnson.

Under Mazzilli last year, the team finished with a .481 winning percentage, the team’s best record since 1999. Mazzilli departs the 2005 edition with a winning percentage of .486, which, if sustained, would have qualified for the team’s best season since 1998. Mazzilli’s record isn’t anything to brag about, but at least he had battled mediocrity to a standstill. That should be good enough for middle management.

The Orioles organization has always spent enough money to give its managers some quality players to work with, but only so many at a time. In large part, this is because the team’s farm system has long resembled the dustbowl Oklahoma of “The Grapes of Wrath.” Since 1995, only five homegrown O’s have played even 350 games with the team, one of whom was Cal Ripken, who carried over from an earlier era.

The list stretches the definition of homegrown; Jay Gibbons was drafted away from the Blue Jays and brought directly to the major leagues, while Chris Hoiles was acquired from the Tigers. That leaves Jerry Hairston and Brian Roberts. As for pitchers, the Orioles developed Mike Mussina and not much else.

To make up for their fallow farm, the O’s have acquired veterans by the pail: Pat Hentgen, Jimmy Key, and Doug Drabek were all here on the wrong side of their careers. Delino DeShields, Harold Baines, Albert Belle, Bobby Bonilla, Eric Davis, Will Clark, and, most devastating of all, David Segui, got to wear the Oriole feathers. What the Orioles have failed to learn is the lesson that finally penetrated the upper echelons of Yankees thinkers back in the early 1990s (and they have since forgotten): No matter how many free agents you sign, you can never sign enough to staff an entire club.

When you can only go to one market, the free-agent market, to fill out your ballclub, you’re limited by what that market carries. It’s like shopping at a supermarket that only carries cheese.

The free-agent market works the same way. Consider what the Yankees dealt with this winter. They went up to the order window and said, “We would like to buy Joe Morgan, Sandy Koufax, and Walter Johnson, please.” The free agent market said, “Sorry. All we’ve got is Tony Womack, Jaret Wright, and Carl Pavano. Take it or leave it.” Lacking ready players in the system (or at least they thought they lacked them), the Yankees took it. The Orioles have been doing business this way for years, and for practically all their needs.

Thus, the Orioles signed Miguel Tejada before last season, a no-brainer, but they needed more. They signed catcher Javy Lopez, but needed more. They brought back Rafael Palmeiro for an encore, not because Palmeiro had much to offer them beyond embarrassingly emphatic statements to Congress, but because he was available.

Now, when we say “the Orioles” have been slow to get the message, we’re dancing around the truth, because there’s no such thing as “the Orioles.” There are only “those with decision-making authority.” Since the Orioles went more or less permanently south back at the end of the last century, the managers have changed, the general managers have changed, but ownership has remained the same. The assassins live in the penthouse suite. Good manager or bad, how could Lee Mazzilli not have been overmatched by that?

Mr. Goldman is the author of “Forging Genius,” a biography of Casey Stengel.