Showalter comments about addition of Guerrero

There has been a lot of discussion about the Orioles increasing their contract offer to get an agreement with Vladimir Guerrero. According to this report on ESPN.com, Buster Olney's sources say that $2 million of the $8 million is deferred. Meanwhile, while O's president Andy MacPhail will not comment on the deal until it is official, manager Buck Showalter did appear on ESPN's "SportsCenter." He pointed out that the deal is pending a physical, but he also made some comments on the agreement. "This stretches out our lineup where we can kind of pass the baton and it puts another guy in a spot with a track record that creates problems for the opposition," Showalter told ESPN. Asked how optimistic O's fans should now be, Showalter said: "It's certainly something they have coming. It's been a tough road for us and we have to work hard to regain the trust of our fans. I think by the offseason that Mr. Angelos allowed us to have we think we made some strides and we think we are more competitive and hopefully our fans are feeding off that some. We like some of the strides we've made and we are as curious as everybody is to see where we are compared to everybody else." It seems some of the national media has questioned the move, but many others have been favorable towards it. MLB Network analysts were mostly raving about the O's addition of Guerrero. "The Orioles are for real," former Oriole Harold Reynolds said. "I'm looking at the lineup and it's going to be exciting in Baltimore. They'll put people in the seats. You know what else is interesting, having played in that ballpark, it's a great park to hit. Mark Reynolds is going to hit home runs, it doesn't matter if he is in Yellowstone. Vladdy is a tremendous protector of guys in the lineup." Al Leiter was positive as well. "It's a right-handed dominated lineup. Look at the AL East: You have CC Sabathia, Jon Lester, David Price, Ricky Romero - all lefties. I look at that lineup, that is awesome. Wow, what a pickup for the Orioles," he said. "Think about what Buck Showalter did when he took over. The numbers were great, they won an awful lot of games. They are relevant. I'm not saying they are going to win it, but they are now going to be a thorn in the side of the big dogs in that division." Added Ken Rosenthal: "I do wonder about Reynolds and (Derrek) Lee coming over to the American League and how that is going to play out. But they are interesting again and they are relevant again. I don't know how good they are just yet, but at least now we look at the Orioles and say, 'That's an impressive-looking team.' The Orioles haven't been relevant in a long time. For their fans, at least now they can look at this and say 'OK, let's see what we have.' "