These mornings roll around much too fast in my household. The Thanksgiving holiday can't come soon enough. School's are closed for the entire week. I shall rejoice.
Reports keep surfacing that the Orioles are actively pursuing Rockies left-hander Jorge de la Rosa. Troy Renck uses the word "aggressive" in his tweet.
I'm aggressively trying to avoid using the word "tweet," but it's unavoidable.
As so often happens, I'm left to ponder how De la Rosa would fit on this club. Is he the top-of-the-rotation starter that the Orioles figured to pursue, though not as their No. 1 priority this winter? Does he slot lower, and would this mean that Jeremy Guthrie starts on Opening Day?
He's a Type-A free agent, but the Orioles' pick, the fourth overall, is protected. They'd have to surrender their second-rounder, as they did last year after signing Michael Gonzalez.
De la Rosa is 49-47 with a 5.02 ERA in parts of seven seasons with Milwaukee, Kansas City and Colorado. But he went 34-24 in three years with the Rockies, and he wasn't working in a pitching friendly environment.
De la Rosa has pitched in the Mexican League. He's been part of trades involving Curt Schilling, Richie Sexson and Tony Graffanino. He gets around...like a record (Office Space).
Judging by reports, the Orioles have also shown an intense interest in third baseman Adrian Beltre.
The question is, how intense?
Oakland reportedly is offering a five-year deal. I can't imagine the Orioles going there.
Beltre hasn't come close to his 48-homer, 121-RBI season with the Dodgers in 2004, before Seattle signed him for five years and $64 million. SI.com's Jon Heyman tweets that Beltre's camp is looking for something in the neighborhood of $90 million.
That's Torii Hunter's neighborhood.
The security gate is usually closed to the Orioles.
Would you shell out that kind of money for Beltre?
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