Find MASN on your cable or satellite provider.

Sigh. I doubt I'll make Fanfest this year. Had to let our season tickets go. Apparently kids cost money. On the upside, I do see many Dugout club games in our future.

And I think plenty of people get old SNL references. Reruns are an amazing thing. Bassomatic, anyone?

And I know it's late, but I thought Buck was great fun on the games, and very nice and accomodating when we met him at Fanfest (SIGH) a couple of years ago. Don't get the bashing at all. Good luck to him, I say.

- Chris

PS - Sigh.

Hey roch don't you find it strange that Kevin Millwood hasn't been to town for his press confeence. Why isn't anybody mentioning this. He is probably having second thoughts as to the teams he put on the list to be traded to.

Am I the only one that finds it strange the official team store isn't in MD?

YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING WHO IS GONNA BE THERE THE BIRD? THE TEAM ISN,T EVEN
MADE UP YET. DON,T THEY HAVE FAN FEST AFTER THE 25 MAN ROSTER IS SET?

roch reggie bush or pierrie thomas as my rb this weekend in my afc title game? Dont screw this up man my life is in your hands. My other back is new york football's thomas jones. Make it happen for me man!!!

Just thought you should know...
On ESPN's Cy Yuks:
Ponson, Daniel Cabrera, and Mark Hendrickson were all on the top 10 (ponson being 1 of course)
Do you see a commonality there?

A few thoughts...
To all those who call out Roch any chance they get,STOP!This is a baseball blog and Roch does a great job bringing Orioles news to us. If you want to rant and rave about someone else's opinions or ridicule their jokes go find a chat room or post a thread in a member ran blog.
To all of you who want to lynch the FO and AM for not signing any "premium free agents or trading for a premium player.STOP. Baseball is a business and there are qualified individuals in the organization being paid well to make these decisions. This is not NY or BOS. If you want it to be sell your Glenn Davis and A.Belle jerseys and get a Texiera Burnett or Dice K jersey.(see what I did there).
And finally to everyone else,thanks for making this blog so enjoyable to read and providing your insights and thoughts in a mature, respectful manner. Happy Holidays and GO O'S!!!

They might get a bigger attendance if proceeds did go towards signing a 1B.... and if there was one to sign.

Ok, well maybe but doubtful that I make that event.

On another note, hmmmmmmm, Joe Crede.?

Good defense, can he stay healthy? I think he'd hit better a OPACY. I'm not in love with any of the 3rd base options. I really don't think we want Uggla there. On the team? Yes, first base or DH and I don't know if he can handle 1st base.

Chris in Hawaii said:

Maybe a better trade to look for (from the O's perspective) might be trying to pry Justin Smoak away from the Rangers. You'd have to give up an Arrietta plus a lower level guy to get him, but that might be worth it.

Not a bad thought Chris......Something sure needs to be done to get an impact bat on this team long term....He may be it

Finally a winter fanfest again.

I guess rent on the convention centre dropped or something.

Will Opening day tix be on sale also?

Brummie_Oriole said:
"I guess we'll get Dempsey or some other corporate robot who just tows the company line and praises Andy to the heavens."

Make a wish by the Southern Cross, Bangers! Have safe travel when you get to return home. You may have missed my post on the subject, but I think I a lot of us don't/didn't know how independent a thinker Rick Dempsey is. Not saying he's my first choice...

Cereal Blogger said:
"Seattle is a similar market to Baltimore but they have made a major splash this offseason. Are the O’s afraid or too cheap to take risks?"

While being in the AL East inures us to many things, like knowing we'll never be the only player in our division, your point about Seattle got me thinking (and this will certainly come up more, so why not now?). The markets are certainly comparable. It really is different (per Roch's Xmas wish) being in a different division and a different team. For example, Seattle. They already have a great pitcher and impact player (King Felix, Ichiro), and the Lee deal (Bedard notwithstanding) doesn't seem that stupid -- for them. The Angels look to be down, having already lost their #1, and Seattle helped by prying away Figgins (and adding Figgins to Ichiro gets a lot of men on base and moving quickly around them). Then consider Texas, who got close last year but can't really rely upon their #1, none of their players have been there before, Hamilton no longer appears the beast he was, and I'm still awaiting whether people for decades had a point about pitch counts mattering while Nolan Ryan asks each of his pitchers to try to be Nolan Ryan (I expect pitching injuries for them). Long story short (too late?), Seattle believes (not unreasonably) it can win their division, and with Felix and Lee, compete in any short series with 35 days off between series.

The O's DON'T have a player and/or pitcher the caliber of Felix or Ichiro (just yet), they play in a division in which a down year for the top two teams often means a wild-card berth, and they have just begun to accumulate real talent depth. I'm NOT saying we ought not sniff around these deals, but I find Seattle MUCH closer to a potential playoff run just based on Felix and Ichiro and their division's status alone, then you add Lee and Figgins (pitching and manufactured runs go far in the playoffs, though Figgins needs to call up Kate Hudson) and they have a shot at the gold.

Would McPhail make the same move? Perhaps not. But he is also not in the same circumstance, where a one-year rental for [Lee] and overpaying for [Figgins] could mean a World Series ring. No way renting Lee (or Gonzalez, for that matter) puts us in the same conversation. JPA will gently point out, and I fully agree, that it will ALMOST CERTAINLY (like 90% plus) be necessary at some point to make this kind of move. But I don't see the "big splash" (even an impact bat for many years extended) doing much for exclusively 2010 but exhausting future chips or players. MAYBE two big splashes, but we certainly aren't in a position for two.

So, I submit that the O's aren't too cheap, cause a big part of the problem is nobody is willing to take our money for an extension, and that you COULD call them "too scared", but the likely rewards are nowhere near the known risks compared to Seattle. Not too cheap, not too scared, but in a very different position, and in my view, prudent. But we may not be too far away from the "big splash" working for us, especially if we don't waste our primary resource (young, touted prospects) when it won't really matter (before a likely postseason run).

Let's try to understand that if we trade a lot of the people being discussed, the O's are worse off short term and in the future. There isn't much out there that excites me at the positions of need, so let's not go nuts over what is or isn't happening. We don't know what goes on behind closed doors in the Warehouse, nor should we. We definitely shouldn't sell the farm for one player either.

I did a quick look at Tampa Bay's 2008 World Series team. How many 40 Home Run players did they have? Answer: Zero. Pena hit 31, Longoria 27, and Hinske 20. Only four other players hit 10 or above for a total of 180 for the team in one season.

Pitching, timely hitting and luck win games so let's try and stay positive fellow students. I'm not cashing in my paycheck to buy O's World Series tickets in 2010, but the Orioles have several candidates to hit 20 or more home runs this year in Markakis, Jones, Reimold, Scott, and Wieters. That's not even mentioning any veterans picked up to play 1b, 3b or DH, a few of whom have accomplished that several times in their careers. Maybe more players hitting 15-25 HRs each, who can also work the count, earn walks, have some speed and play the game correctly (hopefully a renewed commitment to good baserunning) will balance out not having a 40 HR bat?

Sure, I'd love to see Markakis and Jones hitting in front of Fielder, Cabrera, or Gonzalez, but I can handle good baseball without the Sportscenter HR highlights every night with the pitching staff hopefully preventing teams from circling the basepaths nonstop like the last few years. There's still work to be done and I'm as frustrated as anyone about the O's not winning, but neither Rome, the School of Roch nor World Series winners were built in a day.

P.S. I get the prospects vs. established players debate, but Tillman and Matusz look pretty good to me so far and I don't think we've seen them come close to peaking yet. One or both will have to go to get one of these bats we're talking about. I'd rather keep both, continue to improve as a team and see what happens as we go. (Check the Redskins out as far as offseason winners turning into real championships go. Ok, so the Yankees did it this year. Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn every once in awhile).

Sir Sidney is in the news again:

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=crasnick_jerry&id=4747694

Ok Roch,

"Just when I think I'm out, they pull me back in."

How many fictional mafia dons do you think you've offended with that quip?

On a random note: ESPN's Rob Neyer posted his top 100 players of the decade.

Melvin Mora came in at #61! Which I think he definitely deserved for the whole body of work - not his final hurrah.

If we claim Tejada which I'm not really sure we can as our own - he landed at 30. Mussina is a stretch to claim as well, but he landed at 35. After that the cupboard is bare for O's.

I have a feeling this list updated for the next decade will have quite a few of the young O's on it if we can sign them to extensions when the time is right.

Rest of the list is here: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?id=4740695

All proceeds will go toward Peters wallet!
It surely isn't going toward improving the team?

Saw a post recently on MLBTR. It says
White Sox finished with their winter shopping.

I had to laugh! They are finished their off season shopping and we havent even begun to improve this team....
AMAZING

And as a supplement to the top 100 players of the decade ESPN announced the worst pitcher.

And that one is all us: Sydney Ponson

Article is here: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=crasnick_jerry&id=4747694

They did debate making Cabrera that worst pitcher though. So we could have the top two in that category.

Future can only be brighter when that's the past!

brummie where are you at? We are going to sign mike gonzalez? Let me guess..not good enough, right? Well, he is a type A free agent...ok, your turn..act the fool

Roch,

The Sun is reporting that we are close to a deal with Gonzalez from the Braves. Can you confirm?

I went to last year's Fanfest and had a good time, but that was at Camden Yards. Can anyone tell me how Fanfest is at the Convention Center?

With the amount of money the Red Sox and Yankees have do you really ever see the Orioles successfully competing with them for a divisional title? Unless the Orioles are willing to increase the budget substantially AND get very lucky with their draft picks (i.e., most of them end up being very productive) I don't think they can do so. No matter what the "plan" is, I can't imagine any plan bringing success on the field w/o both big money and luck.

Much earlier this year...

Is there a reason why they moved it back to the Convention Center instead of having it at Camden Yards again?

The other Gonzalez - Mike, would be a great pickup, even if it costs us a 2nd round pick.

Fanfest was moved because the team is training in SARASOTA and opening day is in TAMPA (about an hour away).

Doesn't make sense to come to MARYLAND play the Nationals, have Fanfest and then fly back to FLORIDA.

Because you asked (FAN EDITION)....

Fanfest was moved because the team is training in SARASOTA and opening day is in TAMPA (about an hour away).

Doesn't make sense to come to MARYLAND play the Nationals, have Fanfest and then fly back to FLORIDA.