SB Nation User Blog: silverstadium

Hardball Times writer likes the Gonzalez signing

silverstadium — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 20:04:27 -0000

Hardball Times writer likes the Gonzalez signing

Talent-wise, I agree, but with his injury history, I'm not so sure.

I Need Your Help With a Good O's Name

silverstadium — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 14:58:40 -0000

This is on the down low, as most of the family doesn't know yet, but we are expecting our third child next year.

My current dilemma: what to name the fetus. I'm not talking about what to name the baby. No offense, but there's no way I go to any blog to discuss what to name our child. No, I'm talking about the fetus.

When my wife was pregnant with our first child, my uncle--a die hard Mets fan--talked about how he gave good Mets names to his children when they were in utero. My aunt tolerated it since the baby immediately received a new name once it saw the bright shiny lights of the delivery room. One of the fetal names was Mookie. I can't think of the others right now.

I loved the idea and our first fetus was named, of course, Boog. It was pretty easy to come up with Tippy for #2. But we're now well into the first trimester and no Orioles name has clicked just yet. My wife nixed Elrod.

And so, I come to the wise followers of Camden Chat for advice. What good Orioles names do you suggest for the fetus? Criteria:

It should have some spunk to it.
Ideally it would be gender neutral. We're not into finding out the sex of the baby in advance, so it's nice to have a name that is ambiguous.
It should belong to a likable Oriole.

Thanks in advance for your help!

F--k Face t-shirt

silverstadium — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 17:39:35 -0000

F--k Face t-shirt

I just stumbled across this t-shirt. I'm not about to pay $32 for it, but I thought everyone would be interested. I personally prefer this shirt. Someone should send one to Jason Berken.

Tides 9, Chiefs 1

silverstadium — Wed, 13 May 2009 12:59:04 -0000

Things I learned at the Tides-Chiefs game last night:

1. Ex-Cubs like to sign autographs.

2. Chris Tillman has absolutely filthy stuff. His fastball was routinely hitting 94-95. His curveball froze batters. He struck out 10 and walked 2 in 6 scoreless innings.

3. Nolan Reimold can't do much more to deserve a call-up. 3 for 5 and every one of his hits were rifle blasts...2 doubles and a HR. His line on the season is now .396/.484/.755.

4. Matt Wieters is human. 0 for 5 including 2 GIDP. He was DHing, but I hope to see him catch Thursday night.

5. Joey Gathright was trying to impress in his first game with the organization. He got a basehit leading off the night, but then got caught stealing. He didn't get much of a jump at all and was thrown out easily. He then redeemed himself with a beautiful catch in center, jumping high into the wall to rob the Chiefs of a double in the first inning, which was their only real chance of putting a dent in Tillman. Joey finished 2 for 5. He was playing without his name on his jersey since he "just got here" as he told a guy who was needling him in the autograph line. I don't know how he fits in with the organization, but maybe we can package him in some kind of deal.

6. Minor league baseball is where it's at for O's fans this year. Why pay big bucks to see Mark Hendrickson and Adam Eaton when you can sit in the front row for $10 and watch guys who (hopefully) will be a good chunk of our future? Of course, living in Syracuse, I have little choice.

Split Personality

silverstadium — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 14:49:52 -0000

Split Personality

Towards the bottom is a blurb on Baez using his split-finger again. He thinks that's what killed his arm, but now his arm "feels fine." If your career is on the way out anyway, I suppose you might as well beat up your arm trying to stay in the league.

Oriole Obamicons

silverstadium — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 16:17:24 -0000

via http://obamiconme.pastemagazine.com/entries/466214-bird.html

I needed a break from the beginning of the semester rush, so I created some Obamicons for ya'll. Follow the links below each one to rate them. Enjoy and get to work on your own! I'm sure others can make better ones.

Note: I tried to center all these images to make it look nicer but couldn't figure it out. Anyone who wants to jump in and help is welcome to do so.

via http://obamiconme.pastemagazine.com/entries/466051-cal.html

via http://obamiconme.pastemagazine.com/entries/466091-zaun.html

via http://obamiconme.pastemagazine.com/entries/466148-hope.html

Pads GM Towers: Peavy-Olson-Pie-et al is up to Cubs now

silverstadium — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 18:28:50 -0000

Kevin Towers says in the Union-Tribune this morning that a deal is in place. It's up to the Cubs to sign off on it.

We've been around the room with this one already. I think it comes down to what we value more. A young unproven starting pitcher? Or a young unproven outfielder?

Now, the question to me, is can the Cubs pull off this deal considering how much they'd have to pay Peavy, their status on the selling block, Tribune's bankruptcy, and perhaps new legal troubles of the Tribune owner.

Setting aside all this, would the Cubs want to make the deal? Towers doesn't outline the whole package, but I think from a baseball perspective they need to do it. They have one of their best core of players in awhile, but they need someone like Peavy to put them over the top.

Trade for Prince?

silverstadium — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 19:35:54 -0000

The word is that the Brewers might put Prince on the market this offseason. We're mentioned as possible suitors at mlbtraderumors.

What are your thoughts?

I say "pass." The Brewers would be trading him for a reason. With his size, he's not going to have a long, epic career in the bigs. He would make sense for a team that would definitely be competing in the next three years, but I'm not so sure that's us.

If we trade Roberts, it has to be for a Jones/Tillman type deal, some guys who will help us for the next decade, not the next few years. Otherwise, we should re-sign him for what he brings to the team or let him go next year and reap the draft pick compensation.

How would the O's do outside the AL East?

silverstadium — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 17:34:21 -0000

Yeah, whining about the strength of our division is a perennial pasttime and an unsolvable quandry. I couldn't help but notice, though, the O's record in this article at Salon.

In the article, the author examines "if every team had had the same winning percentage within its own division as it had against nondivision foes." It's probably not the most scientific way to come up with a division-neutral record, but it gives us some interesting results. Namely, that the O's would still have finished last in the East, but we would have improved by 15 games, for a record of 83-79. Our record is impacted more (in either direction) than any other team in MLB by our performance in the division.

What do we learn?

(1) This really isn't that bad a team, though it's still not playoff worthy. Maybe it's better this way so we can get better draft choices and not delude the management into thinking we're just a free agent away from winning because

(2) The AL East is really tough. Duh. With all the progress we've made at rebuilding, seeing the strength of our division and the obvious big bucks of the YankSox is the biggest downer in thinking about future October baseball in Birdland.

On the Bright Side

silverstadium — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 19:37:52 -0000

Hey everyone...

Am I wrong or have we sealed up the #5 pick in the draft? It was a crummy season and the 2009 O's will definitely not be the 2008 Rays, but I'd rather finish in the bottom 5 and keep getting top draft picks before exploding into 1st like the Rays then spend several years in the middle of the pack.

Anyone here have subscriber access to Baseball America and can give us a quick synopsis of who our choices are? They have the prospects ranked, but are behind a wall.

We have to look forward to something, no?