The Orioles were getting ready to play their 17th exhibition game on March 8. Four days before the team bus pulled out of the complex and circled back, confirmation that baseball was shutting down due to COVID-19. Four days before outfielder Trey Mancini would undergo surgery to remove a malignant tumor from his colon.
Alex Cobb can close his eyes and see it all.
He remembers the local media gathering to ask about Mancini's departure from camp. How he described the situation as...
An offseason exercise that doesn't require a home gym, but makes me sweat as if competing in a triathlon, is creating an Orioles lineup in December. Taking the players on the current 40-man roster and the likely invites to spring training and filling every position.
Go nuts and, if you dare, also craft a bench, rotation and bullpen. But only if you've stretched prior to attempting it.
A national publication seeks my assistance every winter, with a deadline prior to the Christmas holiday. The...
Alex Cobb has arrived back at a point in his career that looks the same in some aspects and completely foreign in others. The final year of his contract. Shuffled priorities as he stands on the deck and peers out again at free agency.
Been there, but doing it differently.
Cobb isn't in the hunt for another four-year deal, which the Orioles gave him at a cost of $57 million before the 2018 season to mark the largest for a pitcher in franchise history. He turned 33 in October, is entering a new...
Conducting the usual search for veteran relievers during the offseason, the Orioles are on the verge of signing left-hander Fernando Abad to a minor league contract per multiple sources.
Final details are being worked out, but the sides are in agreement.
Abad will receive an invitation to spring training, which for the Orioles is supposed to begin with pitchers and catchers reporting to the Ed Smith Stadium complex on Feb. 16.
The Orioles also held interest in Abad last winter and made an offer...
Tyler Wells won't be able to truly demonstrate what he offers the Orioles as a pitcher until reporting to spring training and getting on a mound. Until he faces hitters in live batting practice sessions and in exhibition games.
What he's done so far is prove that he's going to be one of the more thoughtful, open and articulate members of the organization.
Wells was credited with a quality Zoom yesterday afternoon in his first media session after the Orioles chose him in Thursday's Rule 5...
Sometimes you get leftovers for breakfast, sometimes you get the crumbs at the bottom of the toaster.
It's a good way to manage your carbs.
The Brandon Hyde virtual Winter Meetings video conference call last Monday morning - or "Zoom" to save keystrokes - covered a wide range of topics. A few of them also interested the national media that joined in, including how the Orioles handled COVID-19 conditions and whether Hyde is confident in the implementation of a full spring training and season...
Orioles manager Brandon Hyde has his scrubbed and sanitized hands full with his own club and a growing set of responsibilities. However, when another manager makes a decision in the World Series that backfires with such force that it shakes the entire industry, Hyde is bound to be asked about it.
Especially on a Zoom conference call yesterday as part of the virtual Winter Meetings that don't have the usual four-day deadline.
Rays skipper Kevin Cash took the ball from Blake Snell in Game 6, the...
Zach Pop received a phone call from his agent Thursday after the Diamondbacks selected the right-handed reliever with the sixth pick in the Rule 5 draft. Pop should expect to hear from someone in the organization. Just be ready for it and congratulations.
And then it got weird.
Pop never spoke to anyone with the Diamondbacks and began to wonder what happened. He was warned instead on a follow-up call about rumors of a trade.
"I was like, 'What? I just got picked,' " he said yesterday.
The...
Infielder Richie Martin's fractured right wrist must have healed. He's playing winter ball.
Confirmation that doesn't require industry sources. Just access to a roster and statistics.
Martin is in Puerto Rico with Criollos de Caguas. In his first four games, the former Rule 5 pick was 3-for-15 with two doubles, an RBI, a walk and three runs scored.
He was 2-for-6 in his first two games and 2-for-11 after three. The third must have been rough.
Martin should be full-go in spring training based...
The Orioles took a deliberate approach to filling their 40-man roster, but the deed is done. It's stuffed like a holiday turkey.
Just don't assume that it's staying that way.
Anyone who signs a major league contract is going to bump a player off the roster, and the Orioles are at least willing to consider it.
In the meantime, it's impossible to make an exact prediction about the roster when you wake up in the morning and find pitchers Ashton Goudeau, Mac Sceroler and Tyler Wells on...
Ben McDonald and his nephew chatted last weekend in Louisiana about two of their favorite topics, the hunting and baseball seasons intertwined.
McDonald, the first-overall selection in the 1989 amateur draft who spent nine years in the majors. Mac Sceroler, a former fifth-round selection of the Reds out of Southeastern Louisiana who was the fifth player chosen Thursday morning in the Rule 5 draft.
A former high-profile Orioles pitcher and current MASN analyst, and a close relative who will...
The normal Winter Meetings would have wrapped up yesterday following the Rule 5 draft. The virtual version, however, keeps rolling along.
No checkout times, stops at the front desk or luggage to be dragged through the lobby and toward the exits, where fresh air is breathed for the first time in four days.
What I miss most is my annual lap around the lobby after filing my Rule 5 story. The sense of calm as media and executives race to the airport. The thought in my head that whispers, "Well,...
The Orioles again made two selections in today's Rule 5 draft and they again focused on pitching.
The fifth overall pick turned into right-hander Mac Sceroler, the nephew of former Orioles pitcher Ben McDonald. The Orioles took right-hander Tyler Wells in the second round to fill out their 40-man roster.
Sceroler, 25, came from the Reds organization, where he posted a 3.69 ERA and a 1.111 WHIP in 26 games (20 starts) at high Single-A Daytona in 2019 and averaged 9.8 strikeouts per nine...
The Rule 5 draft begins at noon today and the Orioles, as usual, are going to participate. It's what they do. It should be named after them.
Executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias appeared on "MASN All Access" on Monday afternoon and offered confirmation.
"I would expect some activity in the first round of the Rule 5 draft," he said.
That's good enough for me. But he doubled down in a Zoom conference call with the media.
"If there are only four players that we feel are worth...
Today's virtual Winter Meetings activity for the Orioles on its third day impacts the scouting department, the kind of behind-the-scenes move that's common during the traditional in-person gatherings.
According to an industry source, the Orioles are hiring Quincy Boyd as an area scout.
Boyd has served as a national scouting supervisor with the Red Sox since February 2018. He was promoted to regional crosschecker in December 2012 after working as an area scout for North Carolina and South...
The absence of in-person Winter Meetings leaves us with one more burning question during hot stove season:
Does agent Scott Boras make house calls?
It still wouldn't replicate the circus atmosphere that unfolds in hotel lobbies. Or, in one instance, a hallway with Boras pressed against a gift shop glass window while a nervous security employee attempted to herd the group to a less-congested area.
Good luck with that.
The scene resembled the one that closed "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," with...
The virtual Winter Meetings are making Orioles executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias yearn for the standard setup, which couldn't exist in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Elias couldn't meet with beat writers in his hotel suite this afternoon, instead dispersing the usual nuggets of information via a Zoom conference call.
"It's not the same," Elias said. "I think all of us take the Winter Meetings for granted and we groan about some of the repetition of it, but I think...
