This, that and Luke Scott

The American League's Most Valuable Player will be announced later today. Will it be Jacoby Ellsbury, Jose Bautista, Curtis Granderson, Robinson Cano, Miguel Cabrera, Justin Verlander or someone else? I didn't have a vote. I picked Tampa Bay's Joe Maddon for AL Manager of the Year, so my work here is done. The Phillies acquired former Oriole Ty Wigginton from the Rockies yesterday for a PTBNL or cash. Wigginton played third base, first base, left field and right field for the Rockies last season. He can do the same for the Phillies, which makes me wonder whether they're no longer interested in free agent Michael Cuddyer, and whether the Orioles' chances of signing him have significantly improved. I wrote a few weeks ago about the Orioles signing minor league free agent Scott Beerer, a former second-round pick of the Rockies, and how he worked with Brady Anderson on his swing back in 2007 while converting from pitcher to outfielder. Turns out, Anderson also worked with Beerer last winter, so I'm assuming that he passed along a recommendation to the Orioles. During a recent interview on Boston radio station WEEI, executive vice president Dan Duquette was asked whether he could use "a 36-year-old left handed DH," an obvious reference to free agent David Ortiz. You decide whether he sounds prepared to make an offer. "I could use a lot of things on my ballclub. It's just a question of affordability and value now. I don't know, that seems to be a luxury item right now given all the other work we need to do in other areas of the team," Duquette said. "We did have Vlad Guerrero last year. I'd much rather sign those Dominicans to contracts when they're coming out of the amateur market rather than pay them a lot of money in the big leagues. We have to sign a few more of those before we look to a high-priced DH, I think." Luke Scott received an encouraging report from Dr. James Andrews last Monday after having his surgically repaired right shoulder examined. Scott referred to it as his "final checkup." "Things are good," he said. "Dr. Andrews said it's stronger than ever. It's healed up real nice. I'm on a program to strengthen my rotator cuff and shoulder, and I can start hitting off a tee in a week and a half. He gave me a program to follow. I can take some dry swings. And there's no pain. My range of motion is superb in one area and a little tight in another area because I had the injury for a while and my body was overcompensating. But the area where it's tight just needs some stretching. He said it'll get loose in about a week. "He said everything else is way ahead of schedule, but he also said there's no need to push anything. He said I could hit off a tee now, but I'll wait. He said I'll be just fine, that my shoulder is strong. It healed up perfectly." It had a lot of healing to do. Andrews used two anchors to repair a SLAP tear and five to repair a posterior tear that wasn't evident in an MRI. "The posterior is what was affecting my swing," Scott said. "It was causing the bat head to go down and slow down. I still had power because I was strong with my top hand, but as far as being accurate, because of my lead hand, which is more important, I wasn't able to crush the ball. I was popping up and I couldn't figure out why. There was no stability. "He told me that I'm not going to have any trouble getting ready for spring training. No troubles at all. He said I'll be just fine. In a previous meeting, he told me I've probably been playing with this for a while and didn't even know it. I did something to make it a lot worse for me to notice. But he said now I'll be stronger than ever."