Sorry to hawk someone else's site, but has anyone checked out the new BaseballReference.com site?   Some of the new features are pretty friggin great.   You want to know Mora's stats between 2002 and 2005?   Just click on those years and it'll sum it up for you (including league adjusted stats).   You can generate all stats in CSV format, so you can load them up in Excel.  They also sum up stats automatically per team a player played for.   And they finally added some advanced fielding stats (which was probably their  biggest weakness), but still no VORP or WARP that I can find (although they do have batting wins and batting runs).

There seems to be a ton of changes and a ton of new stats.

Looks like Oriole fans won't be able to greet Arod on opening day.   According to his brother, he's going under the scapel and rehab should take about 10 weeks.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3954457

The way I figure it, that's mid-May, although I tend to doubt that his brother has a medical degree.   I know we aren't supposed to take joy in a player getting injured, but I'm not exactly going to shed tears over this either.  

Baseball Prospectus came out with their top 100 prospects today and the future HOFer is #1.    No surprise, it's either him or Price.   Other Orioles are Chris Tillman at #16, Brian Matusz at #19, Jake Arrietta at #52, and Brandon Erbe at #98.

http://baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=8506

A lot of these predictions are getting a little redundant, but its February and Ft. Lauderdale hasn't opened yet so what the heck.  

It seems something may have come up in Ty's physical and the O's apparently want a second look.  

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/sports/schmuck/2009/02/orioles_lets_get_physical.html

It sucks if this doesn't work out, this seemed like a very good (cheap) deal for a solid player, but there is no reason to buy damaged goods right now.   Hopefully it turns out to be nothing and the deal ends up going through.

This is a bit off topic, but doesn't that seem like grossly overpaying for a guy with 2 years of arbitration left?   Especially a guy whose stats have been declining every year.  Seems that in comparison, Markakis was a huge bargain.   Heck, they could have signed Adam Dunn for probably around $10M to $12M/year (assuming he could play 1B).

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3892759

MVP award aside, this makes no sense to me. 

I kind of gave up on anything happening with BRob this offseason, but I guess Brian does want to stay after all.  According to Ken Rosenthal, Orioles have offered $30M for 3 years.   Brian wants 4 years.

3 years would take him through age 34.  That would probably be the ideal length for this team, but if it doesn't look like there is much of a trade market for Brian (and there doesn't), it may make sense to go for the fourth year.    If you're in the position the Orioles are, you probably don't want to commit to 4 years for a guy going into his 31 year old season, but we're pretty barren when it comes to middle infielders.

Yeah, he sucked.  Yeah he liked needles.  But I kind of admire the guy for coming out, swallowing his pride and asking for a shot:

Writing this letter is both painful and humiliating. It has been almost six weeks since my release from the Orioles and I am still unable to land any opportunity at a second chance to play the game that I love.

All I need is a chance -- any chance -- anywhere. I am more than willing to begin the process of proving that I can and will be a productive major league player by playing in the minor leagues.

I am so willing to prove myself as a player, and a person, that I will donate ALL of my minor league earnings to your Club's charity. In the event that I earn the right to play at the major league level, I will gladly donate a significant sum to that same charity.

 Way too much history for him to come back to the O's; but I hope he does get another shot.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3437067    [sidebar] 

I normally work from home; and I do so with the TV on in the background.  Just so happens that today Showtime had a movie on that I've never heard of, "Joe Torre, Curveballs All the Way," which was about the Yankees 1996 season.  It has to be the worst movie I've ever seen associated with baseball.  So bad that it was entertaining, until the end that is.  The Maier incident wasn't portrayed as a bad call and unfortunate incident, but rather an act from Joe's dead brother.  Even though I knew the ending was coming, it still gave me douche chills.

It got me wondering, what are the most god awful baseball movies out there (that have actually been seen).  I always hated Bull Durham in the same way that I hated Jerry McGwuire; but I don't think I would list that as one of the all time bad movies and I know most people loved it.  The Pete Rose story was quite bad as was Babe.  Major League 3?

I don't know if you need a subscription or not to view these; but Baseball Prospectus came out with their PECOTA standings for this year.  Nothing really shocking about what they say about us, although it's really not that bad.  69 Wins for the Orioles, 13 games behind the Rays for fourth (that seems optomistic for both us and the Rays in my opinion).  They have Yankees winning the division.

The real reason for this diary though is the Mariners.  They're predicting the Mariners to only win 73 games and finish in last place.  And yes, they are including Bedard.  If that's anywhere near where Seattle finishes then they got royally screwed in this deal.

http://baseballprospectus.com/fantasy/dc/

Rosenthal is reporting on Fox Sports that it's complete:

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/7777230/After-long-process,-M's-finally-nab-Bedard

Same package that we've heard forever, Jones, Sherrill, Tillman, Butler and Mickolio.

Bout friggin time; now lets see what we can do with Roberts.  If they start now, they should have something worked out by the trading deadline.

(Ed note: There has been no official announcement yet. Rosenthal cites "a major league source" who told him the Seattle players in the deal have been notified that the trade is complete. Confirmation from the Orioles' end, particularly by MacPhail, would be nice. -zk 3:02pm EDT)

UPDATES:
Confirmed by Zrebiec at the Sun, although he does not cite any sources...Now also confirmed at the official site: Bedard era over in Baltimore

UPDATE #2:Érik gives an exclusive quote to SI.com, probably because of the story they just did on him...

Garrett Olson had yet another dominant start last night according to Roch, 8 innings, 2 hits, 7 K, 0 ER.  Meanwhile, we got the Trashman going tonight.

The only reason I can see us still sticking with Trachsel is the outside hope that he can put up a decent performance and we can get some sort of prospect for him.  But do you really want to showcase him against Boston, in Fenway???  Why not skip his start, move Guthrie up to tonight, and Burress up to tomorrow.  They would still be on there normal rest.  And then you can hope that Trash can look like a ML pitcher against Tampa Bay.

No matter, this should be the very last chance he gets.  If he fails tonight, then either take whatever crap someone is willing to give us, if that's nothing then either DFA him or put him in the pen.  

O's sent Olson down to AAA and looks like Trax is going to start for us tomorrow night.  I'm hoping this is just an audition for a trade.  Trachsel has done a pretty good job for us, better than what I was expecting (and I was in favor of the signing).  That being said, he has little value for us right now and other teams seem to have a need for even a marginal ML pitcher.  Hopefully he has a good game or two and is able to get us a decent prospect or two.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/baseball/bal-sp.olson20jul20,0,5194794.story

In his ESPN chat, he was asked the question:

Shannon (Martinsburg WV): Joe: Say Girardi doesn't accept the O's job. Who's next in line? Have you ever considered managing?

His answer:

Joe Morgan: Well if he does not take the job, I have no idea who else they have in mind. I am not sure that is a great situation. And yes, I have thought about it and then I come to my senses. There are good jobs out there for managers, but I am not so sure about the Oriels job at this point.

Is he suggesting that he has actually thought about taking this job, as if it was or would be offered???  He could be the one guy that would be a worse choice than Dusty.  Besides, shouldn't you know how to spell Oriole before managing them?  (That doesn't seem to be a typo; I've seen him spell it that way many times)

Did anyone see the AL All Star voting so far???

If not:   All-Star Voting

I didn't expect him to be leading the vote, but how does BRob not make the top 5??? Personally, I would probably put Upton over B-Rob, but Cano, Polanco, Kinsler, and Pedroia are ahead of him???  That's a little absurd.

This time it's Roch.  Apparently, although Erik Bedard is a pretty good pitcher, he just isn't talkative enough for the local media:

Roch Bitching

His friggin job is to get people out, not to give you some great quote to put in the paper in the morning.  If Bedard doesn't want to talk then who the hell cares.  

Although if Erik goes through an extended bad spell; expect him to get killed by the media.  They can't touch him if he's pitching well; but if he starts to suck he'll be worst than Hitler.

Don't know if anyone saw this or not; but our favorite Cy Young candidate from last year, Rodrigo Lopez, was put on the DL last night.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2843091

Roddy was having a good April, putting up a 1.59 ERA.  I'm sure this injury is somehow the Orioles fault.  We probably didn't start him enough last year, which probably caused him arm to atrophy a little, which he wasn't able to get back.

Why are we keeping Todd Williams in AAA???  Does this make sense to anyone?  If we don't need him in the majors than why not trade the guy?  He had a really good spring, his numbers last year weren't really that bad, at least his ERA wasn't, and there are many teams that need a ton of help with MR (Phillies for one).  We now have 3 lefties in our ML pen, so at best the club considers him our 4 best lefty option.

The guy is 36 years old and if there isn't room for him on the 24 man roster; than I don't see what value there is in keeping him.  I realize we aren't going to get a ton for him; but why not take something.  The only reason I bring this up is it seems like we several relievers that aren't going to get much of a chance to make the team for several years to come, plus we have a few young guys that look like they will be coming up and will ready to play in Baltimore in a few years, so  why not look to trade what we have an excess of?

Looks like In Demand has agreed to match Direct TV's offer; which was the requirement for them to carry Extra Innings.  Or at least they say they have.  

MLB still has to review the offer, but this is kind of suprise to me; In Demand said about a week ago that it wouldn't be possible for them to meet MLB's requirements.

Sportsline article

Another great spring training game.  3.0 IP, 1H, 5K, 0ER  and get this, NO BB!!!

So far this spring, 5IP and 0 friggin walks!  

I'm having a hard time not getting excited about this team.  Between Bedard, Loewen, and Cabrerra it looks like we could possibly have a top 3 that isn't an embarssment.  Hopefully Danny really has matured and taken a step forward and can carry this over into the regular season.