Are O's ready for a Joseph-Sisco catching tandem?

The Orioles must be prepared to lose catcher Welington Castillo via free agency. He has a player option for $7 million for next year and seems likely to decline that and see what is out there via free agency.

Then the question is: Will the Orioles pursue another catcher or are they satisfied with a Caleb Joseph-Chance Sisco catching combo?

Castillo did a solid job for the Orioles, batting .282/.323/.490 and set a career high with 20 homers. As expected, he raked versus lefty pitchers, batting .344 with an OPS of .937. Castillo threw out 44.4 percent, also a career best and well above his career mark of 29.4 percent.

For those that put stock in catcher ERA, Joseph's mark of 4.23 was much better than Sisco's small sample of 5.40 and Castillo's 5.60.

But Castillo certainly had a much better year than former O's catcher Matt Wieters. Wieters hit just .225/.288/.344 for Washington. Wieters hit just 10 homers - his fewest ever in a full season - and his .632 OPS was a career worst.

Both Castillo and Wieters have player options for 2018. While Castillo is likely to decline his, Wieters is almost certainly going to be back with the Nationals for the 2018 season. In February, he signed a one-year deal with the Nats for $10.5 million with a $10.5 million player option for 2018, with $5 million deferred until 2021.

If Castillo signs elsewhere, what is your take on a Joseph-Sisco tandem for 2018?

World Series beats the NFL: The ratings are in for Sunday night and World Series Game 5 was a ratings winner over the NFL's Pittsburgh-Detroit game.

The Dodgers-Astros game had a 12.8 overnight rating on Fox per this story from sportsmediawatch.com. The football game on NBC produced a 9.4 rating. The 36 percent margin of Major League Baseball over the NFL is actually bigger than last year, when the Indians-Cubs (15.3) beat the NFL's Eagles-Cowboys (11.6) by 31 percent.

According to that story, this was baseball's biggest ratings win over "Sunday Night Football" since 2008, when Game 7 of the Red Sox-Rays American League Championship Series - on cable - beat a Seahawks-Buccaneers game by 39 percent (10 to 7.2).

The baseball game averaged a 12.8 rating both before and after midnight Eastern time, which is impressive and means fans were willing to stay up after 1 a.m. to see the ending in the East Coast time zone.

All those homers: In just five games, the Dodgers and Astros have set a World Series record for homers with a combined 22. They combined for seven in Sunday's wild Game 5 with Houston winning 13-12 in 10 innings. The Astros became the first team to ever hit three game-tying homers in the World Series. There have been 101 postseason homers this October, also a major league record.

So much for the theory, seen here often as it relates to the Orioles, that homers won't play in the postseason.

But are the baseballs juiced? And if they are, with all the drama we've seen via the longball the last few weeks, that may never change.

Major League Baseball is standing by this statement on World Series baseballs. pic.twitter.com/zFF2muP29f

-- Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) October 30, 2017