Matthew Monday: Iron Man Bobble Head Doll

On June 28^th Matthew and I drove down to Baltimore (about a three hour drive) to watch an Orioles game.  I hope most of you remember that I am a Baltimore Orioles fan.  Matthew, unfortunately, is not, but he enthusiastically comes to all the games I go to.  I try to go one game a year down in Baltimore, and I specifically picked that 28^th day in June.  The reason was the give-a-way that game.  They were giving away a Cal RipkenJr.  bobble head doll but dressed up as Iron Man, the Marvell Comics superhero.

Cal Ripken is a famous, hall of fame Orioles, and one of the most popular.  But he has long retired (2001), but he is now part of the Orioles ownership and keeps in touch with the fans.  His popularity has not faded.  Cal was known as “the Iron Man” because he played in 2632 consecutive games over seventeen years.  Can you imagine, seventeen years without missing a game.  It is more than remarkable.  It is superhuman.

So the Orioles organization came up with a bobble head doll of Cal dressed as the super hero.  Now, truth be told, Iron Man was my favorite comic book hero as a kid.  The identity of Iron Man was a man named Tony Stark, who was an engineer and designed and invented the Iron Man get up.  You may know this from the Iron Man movies.  I can’t help but think that part of me went into engineering because I identified with Tony Stark. 

So when the Iron Man bobble head came out I just had to get it.

Here are some pictures of the bobble head. 

 

The detail in the Iron Man uniform is amazing.  This is one of the better bobble head dolls.

Oh about the game.  It was another of the 2025 games of a disastrous season.  Orioles lost 11-3 to the Tampa Bay Rays.  Not only that, it was a day game, and the sun and humidity were brutal.  I think it was in the 90s with high humidity.  It was a real penance to sit there. 

Here is a nice picture of me and Matthew though.

 

 

Personal Note: 2025 Baseball Season Begins

Tomorrow marks the beginning of the 2025 baseball season, and as you know I am a big baseball fan.  As you also should know, I am a huge Baltimore Orioles fan.  I have been an Orioles fan since I was eight years old in 1970.  That was their greatest year where they ran away with it all and won the World Series in five games.  How could I not be a fan for life at that point?

 

From 1970 to today is 54 seasons!  Gosh, where has life gone?  I have been intimate with the Orioles for all these years.  Through thick and thin I have been a devoted fan, and there were some very many thin years where suffering is putting it mildly.  However, they have built a great young team the last few years, and have made the playoffs the last two.  They are about to take the next step to possibly the World Series, but unfortunately they have been plagued with quite a few pitching injuries.  On the positive side, other teams have also succumbed to a number of pitching injuries.  (The long list of pitching injuries across the majors the last few years is very mysterious and disconcerting to say the least.)  Can the Orioles get back into the playoffs and take a World Series?  Here are my predictions for the season.

 

Maybe this is a good time for my prediction for the season. If you have been reading my comments, and if you remember, I had laid down a mark of 90 wins as a prediction. The offense is solid. I think this is an even better offense than last year where we averaged over 5 runs per game. I think the offense matches last year and possibly does better. The defense is just as solid. Infield defense is solid with the question mark of Holliday at second. Hopefully he's grown and I'll trust those who claim he's a potential superstar. I'll really believe it when I see it but I tend to believe it. The infield overall is above average. The outfield defense with the addition of O'Neill and Lauriano is even better than last year. This outfield could be defensively elite all around. And I think there is plenty of depth both in the outfield and infield. Catching between the two is at least average if not a shade above. I have no issues with our defense at any position.

 

All the question marks are in the pitching. With Grayson injured, this starting staff is pretty average. Without Grayson, there is no top of the rotation starter. Sugano is a complete unknown, and he looked great until he was crushed his last start. Morton is good but he's 41 and he was never an ace. Eflin is our best starter and while he had a great second half last year (that's what everyone remembers) he's never been a true ace and he's due for regression. The second half of last season is not his career norm. Povich is a rookie, one doesn't know how good Grayson will be when he comes back, nor how long he will last given his injury prone career. I think it was very smart to pick up Kyle Gibson, and that may prove what gets us into the playoffs. And this staff is old. Will it be crafty old or tired old? Your guess is as good as mine. All I know is that, given the ages, the clubhouse refrigerator is going to be stocked with prune juice.

 

The bullpen is an even bigger concern. Bautista will not be Bautista out of the starting gate. It will take time for him to recover. Kittridge's injury hurts. Cano handles lefties but is questionable against righties, and he lets an inordinate amount of inherited runners score. Cionel is inconsistent, so is Soto. His ERA over the last two years is around 4.50. He looks great at times and then gets hit. And what can we say about Seranthony. He just had what I call a California wildfire spring. He was torched worse this spring than the California forest fires. He came out of spring training with a 19.50 ERA! He had a 4.45 ERA last year, and slightly better than that the previous year. He gives up too many home runs. He will have to prove to me he is reliable. Akin is the only bright spot in the bullpen. I have total trust in Akin and I expect a great year.

 

So does the great offense and defense overcome the questionable pitching? We're lucky that the other teams in the division have their own question marks. I'm going to say we get to 90 wins and make the playoffs, but if the pitching collapses, look for a .500 season. If the pitching does better than I have projected, then we can beat 90 wins. I hope that is the case.

Go O’s!!!!

Matthew Monday: Adley Rutschman Bobblehead Day

This and a series of Matthew Monday posts will document the baseball games Matthew and I attended this year.  I already mentioned our Father’s Day game at the Staten Island FerryHawks, which is an Independent Minor League game.  Today I’ll mention our game down in Baltimore on July 28^th between my beloved Baltimore Orioles and the San Diego Padres.  We even got to see former Orioles Manny Machado who had come up as an Orioles and who was traded—traded because he was going to be a free agent and Orioles weren’t going to pay him that huge salary he wanted—in 2017.  He got a warm reception.

Here are some pictures from the game.  We were sitting in left field, not far from the foul pole and just a couple of rows behind the left field wall.

I always love a picture of the Warehouse, that great brick building that was built in Babe Ruth’s day and is situated right behind the right field stands.

And here’s a couple of pictures of father and son both wearing Orioles tee shirts. 

 

For the record, Matthew is not, to his father’s dissatisfaction, an Orioles fan.

The game was great.  We got to see the Orioles win 8-6 with a big six run inning.  Now it was Adley Rutschman Bobblehead Day, and we each got an Adley Bobblehead doll.  Now Adley is a switch hitter, so they had two sets of bobblehead dolls, one batting right handed, the other left handed.  We had hoped that between the two of us, we would come away with one of each kind.  Unfortunately we did.  We both got a right handed batting Adley.  Now, where we were sitting, there was a man who had a whole bunch of boxes with Adley Bobblehead dolls.  At least six, if not more.  And I have no idea how and where he got them, and I was afraid to ask.  He asked if we wanted to trade one for the left handed batting Adely and we did!  So we got an Adley Bobblehead batting from each side of the plate.

Here’s a picture of both Adley dolls.

The black jersey is Adley left handed and the Orange is right handed.  We'll add these to our collection on baseball bobblehead dolls/

A fun time was had!  You can get the detailed box score of this game here.  

Thoughts on the Baltimore Orioles as They Go to the Playoffs

I. The Six Man Rotation

The Orioles switched to a six man starting rotation in August to reduce the innings on their young starter’s arms going into the home stretch for the playoffs.  My gut feel was that the pitchers pitched worse with the extra day of rest, and so I did an analysis to convince myself. Bottom line up front: I don’t think the six man rotation had a negative effect on the starters.  Some of the pitchers had slightly better results with the six man rotation and some slightly poorer results, but nothing enough for a correlation with the exception of Jack Flaherty which I’ll get to. 

So here’s what I did.  I collected the stats game by game for each pitcher from August 12^th when Irvin was first inserted into the rotation as the six starter up until September 6^th, the last of the games with a six man rotation.  That amounted to four starts for each pitcher except for Flaherty who was skipped over one start because he couldn’t recuperate from a previous start.  Then I went backward from August 12^th to where I collected data for four starts prior to the six man rotation.  That stretched back to July 21^st.  Now everyone in that time had four starts except Flaherty who had joined the team on August 1^st, and so had only two starts.  Irvin obviously was not in the rotation and had none, and Tyler Wells had two starts in that span before he was sent down.  I’m not going to include his numbers.  So here is a pitcher by pitcher summary.

Bradish:

5-Man Rot: 4 starts, 24.1 inns, 20 hits, 10 earned runs, 9 BBs, 20 K’s, 3.73 ERA

6-Man Rot: 4 starts, 24.0 inns, 17 hits, 6 e.r., 3 BBs, 27 K’s, 2.25 ERA

Kremer:

5-Man Rot: 4 starts, 23.1 inns, 18 hits, 8 e.r., 10 BBs, 19 K’s, 2.25 ERA

6-Man Rot: 4 starts, 22.2 inns, 20 hits, 4 e.r., 5 BBs, 19 K’s, 1.62 ERA

 

Grayson:

5-Man Rot: 4 starts, 23.2 inns, 14 hits, 7 e.r., 8 BBs, 20 K’s, 2.72 ERA

6-Man Rot: 4 starts, 25.0 inns, 19 hits, 6 e.r., 6 BBs, 24 K’s, 2.16 ERA

 

Gibson:

5-Man Rot: 4 starts, 24.1 inns, 24 hits, 15 e.r., 5 BBs, 23 K’s, 5.60 ERA

6-Man Rot: 4 starts, 23.1 inns, 30 hits, 17 e.r., 3 BBs, 19 K’s, 6.62 ERA

 

Flaherty:

5-Man Rot: 2 starts, 11.0 inns, 10 hits, 4 e.r., 4 BBs, 16 K’s, 3.27 ERA

6-Man Rot: 3 starts, 13.1 inns, 17 hits, 14 e.r., 6 BBs, 13 K’s, 9.62 ERA

 

Irvin:

6-Man Rot: 4 starts, 21.2 inns, 20 hits, 9 e.r., 6 BBs, 24 K’s, 3.82 ERA

I provided Irvin’s six man rotation stats because he did a decent job.  What to make of it all?  You could make an argument that Bradish’s and Grayson’s stats were improved when in a six man rotation.  Kremer’s are a little deceptive because he recently had a four inning start where he did not give up any runs but actually did not pitch well.  Kremer is about no difference between the five and six man rotation performance.  Gibson was just bad in both rotations, but perhaps slightly worse with the six man.  Flaherty’s two starts in the five man was actually respectable, but he totally bombed in the six man.  Given Flaherty’s history this year prior to the Orioles, I don’t know if you can attribute that dramatic a fall off to the extra day rest. 

One could make the argument that the young pitchers had no problem with the six man, and may have even improved, while the veterans regressed from the six man.  The numbers are too close to make such a definitive statement.  So when you totaled it all up, the five man staff had an ERA of 3.71 while the six man staff had an ERA of 3.88.  Flaherty’s ERA elevated the six man. 

Overall I would conclude there was no difference between the five man and six man rotations.  If saving a start for each pitcher made a difference in their wear and tear, then it was worth it.  One caveat, the competition during the six man rotation was slightly weaker than during the five man.  That didn’t get factored in but I doubt it had that much of an effect.

One other interesting observation.  During the month and a half and 44 games I analyzed, I didn’t notice a single unearned run on any starter.  All the runs were earned, which tells you what a good defense we have behind the pitchers.

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II. The Orioles Pitching Staff for the Playoffs 

Who will the Orioles select for their playoff pitching staff?  I’m going to assume they will designate four starters, and then it’s a question whether the entire staff will be twelve or thirteen pitchers.  Typically during the season they carry thirteen but they could decide that in a short series where you can reconfigure your pitching roster for the next series they will go with twelve and carry an extra position player.  For the purposes of this exercise I will assume they go with thirteen.

One other caveat, how the pitchers matchup against the opponent, who is unknown at the moment, can and probably will influence the selections.  I can’t factor that in now.

So for the starting four I have Kyle Bradish, Grayson Rodriguez, Dean Kremer, and John Means.  I guess it could be Gibson instead of Means, but Gibson has not been pitching well of late and Means has been acceptable.  I think they’ll go with Means over Gibson.  If they don’t then Means will make the bullpen as a long man replacing Gibson.

There are four relief pitchers that are absolute given to be on the playoff roster: Yennier Cano, Cionel Perez, Danny Coulumbe, and Jacob Webb.  After these four, the decisions get more difficult.  If the playoff staff will be thirteen, then you need five more with these nine possibilities:

Mike Baumann

Kyle Gibson

Jack Flaherty

Cole Irvin

Shintaro Fujinami

D.L. Hall

Nick Vespi

Bryan Baker

Joey Krehbiel

I think Baumann is likely and I think Gibson is probable.  He’s the veteran and would serve as the long man.  The staff probably needs one more left hander and no more, and that means it would be between Irvin, Hall, and Vespi.  Between those three I think it will be Hall, but Irvin would not be out of the question.  Vespi is very unlikely. 

That leaves two right handers to choose between Flaherty, Fuji, Baker, and Krehbiel.  It’s highly unlikely it will be Krehbiel.  Given that Baker is in the minors right now, the odds are the Orioles will select Flaherty and Fuji.  But I don’t know.  None of the three have been consistent.  I’m sure the rest of the regular season games will have a good deal of input to the decision.  If they go with a twelve man staff and can only could pick one of the three, who would you pick?  As it stands right now I would probably pick Baker, but there are ten regular season games still to play.

Here are the likely thirteen: Bradish, Rodriguez, Kremer, Means, Cano, Perez, Coulumbe, Webb, Baumann, Gibson, Hall, Fuji, Flaherty.  I’m sure I will be surprised.  My wild card unexpected pick that will replace one of the two last names there is Bryan Baker.

Note: Since I wrote the above, Tyler Wells has returned from the minors and is in the pitching mix.  He just pitched well, and I’m going to assume he will also be in the mix of the thirteen pitchers.  My guess is he will replace Flaherty in the thirteen I selected.

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III. Assessing the Orioles Offensive Consistency

A number of people have complained the orioles offense is inconsistent, scoring double digit runs one game, held to one or two the next night.  I brainstormed a week-to-week OPS assessment and its standard deviation as a means of trying to figure out if they are consistent or not.  I knew it wouldn’t be easy for me to get week-to-week OPS statistics but Baseball Reference does provide monthly OPS.  Now week-to-week might be a finer measure but monthly would provide a decent understanding of offensive consistency.  So here is the Orioles monthly OPS.

April   .761

May   .734

June   .730

July    .716

Aug    .781

Sept   .781

This works out to an average OPS of .751 with a monthly standard deviation of .028.

Not knowing how that compares across the league I did the same for some of our competitors.  I’m not going to provide their monthly numbers (you can find them in their batting splits) but it’s in my spreadsheet.  Here are the results for four other teams.

Rays: average OPS, .766, monthly S.D., .071

Blue Jays: ave OPS, .742, monthly S.D., .020

Astros: ave OPS, .772, S.D., .062

Braves: ave OPS, .844, S.D., .061

Rays, Astros, and Braves all have a higher OPS than the Orioles but more than double a standard deviation.  On a monthly basis, those teams’ offenses fluctuated more than twice the Orioles.  Side note on the Braves, though they fluctuated more than the Orioles, every month showed higher production than the Orioles.  They are a beast of a team.  Blue Jays had a lower OPS than the Orioles but slightly more consistent month to month.

I found this interesting.  As I said, such an analysis by week-to-week would be more applicable but even so I don’t think the Orioles have an inconsistent offense.

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Finally, the Orioles with just over a week to go in the season have clinched a playoff spot as a wildcard, but they are still fighting to hold on to the top spot in American League East Division.  This really wonderful video was put together to commemorate making the playoffs after four or five of the worst years any team has had to suffer through.  Enjoy it.

 

I am such an Orioles fan, since I was eight years old in 1970.  This video brings tears to my eyes.  Yes, it’s possible we could win the World Series this year.  Stay tuned.

Matthew Monday: The 40th Anniversary of the 1983 World Series Champions

On August 5^th, Matthew and I traveled down to Baltimore to an Orioles game.  I specifically wanted to go on this day for two reasons. 

First, it was famed Orioles player and inductee of the Baseball Hall of Fame, Eddie Murray’s bobble head doll night.  I wanted one!  After Brooks Robinson, Eddie Murray is my all-time favorite Orioles.  I remember him as a rookie in 1977, when he won American League Rookie of the Year award, and he went on to have an incredible career.  He was the backbone of the team from that 1977 season to their World Series win in 1983 to his ultimately being traded in 1988.  Steady Eddie, quiet Eddie Murray, he was humble, hardworking and unassuming.  Besides his great baseball statistics, it was his quiet strength that always appealed to me the most.

The second reason for going to that particular game was because it was a commemoration for the 40^th anniversary of the Orioles last World Series win in 1983.  That was the last of a great series of years for the Orioles that spanned my youth.  I became an Orioles fan as an seven year old in 1970.  In 1983 I was 21 during the baseball season, and it was the most glorious of Orioles seasons.  After 1983, the team fell apart, management was horrible, and except for a couple of notable years where they made the playoffs, the Orioles were mostly not a competitive team.  (Until this year, but that is for the future to work out still.)  With the culmination of the World Series win in 1983, baseball for me would never quite be the same. 

So on August 5^th, with every living player who was announced at the anniversary, tears would quell in my eyes until they actually streamed down.  I loved those players.  They were like family. 

Here’s a news clip from CBS News, Baltimore.

 

In that 1983 World Series, in the final game, Eddie hit two homers, and here are clips of them.

 

Here are some pictures I took from the 40^th anniversary ceremony.  I’ve got pictures of everyone, but I’ll spare you to just a couple.  Eddie Murray being introduced.

Rick Dempsey, the team’s catcher, the MVP of that World Series, and team clown here leading the fans in the Orioles chant from that year, a bodily representation of each letter of O-R-I-O-L-E-S.  I think he is spelling “R” here.

And here is the entire team.

A picture of Matthew and me with the beautiful Camden Yards ballpark in the background.

And finally a picture of the Eddie Murray bobble head doll.

Personal Essay: 2023 Baltimore Orioles Season

Today—this afternoon, actually—begins the 2023 baseball season, and the Orioles will play their first game at Boston against the Red Sox.  There is much excitement in Orioles fans this year, and I’m no different!  Last year I mentioned how they had a miraculous season, their first winning season in six years, and three of those years with some of the worst winning percentage in the history of the game.  All those losing seasons gave us some great draft picks, and new General Manager, Mike Elias, really knows how to draft.  So last year we went 83-79 and just missed the playoffs.  This year we expect to make the playoffs, even though the predictions from the “experts” has us with a losing record again. 

But hope springs eternal in the human breast, especially in the breast of baseball fans!

Here’s what I’m predicting for the 2023 season.

I am predicting 90 wins, and that is going with the optimistic end of my range. The key in my thinking is the starting pitching. There is enough offense there (though that Franchy Cordero bat from spring training performance could really help) to contend, and the defense is superb. I think the position players are solid. The bullpen is good to excellent. I don’t know if they will repeat from last year’s performance, but definitely I think above average.

The starting pitching is the unknown. Gibson and Irvin, if they have expected years, are around .500 percentage pitchers who can give you innings. You don’t know what you’re going to get from Kremer, Bradish, and Wells. To make the playoffs I think two have to average to a .500 percentage while one has to leap to a TOR performance. We need one of these guys to break out. I think one will. We have backup in the event of injuries or complete failure to the staff: Grayson, Hall, and John Means will all at some point give the team a shot in the arm. If this happens, we can get 90 wins and make the playoffs.

Now if Gibson and Irvin don’t pitch to expectations, if the young starters don’t leap forward or regress - these are all within their probabilities - or if a lot of injuries to the staff occur, then it could get ugly. My pessimistic range was 70 wins.

The reality will be in between, and I want to be optimistic. But I think it all depends on the starting pitching.

Side note: I used to think it was Bradish who would be the breakout starting pitcher, but I’ve switched over to Tyler Wells. He knows how to pitch. Hope they all breakout.

Here’s the opening day roster.

Starting Position Players

C – Adley Rutschman

1B – Ryan Mountcastle

2B – Adam Frazier

SS – Jorge Mateo

3B – Gunnar Henderson

LF – Austin Hays

CF – Cedric Mullins

RF – Kyle Stowers

DH – Anthony Santander

 

On the Bench

C – James McCann

IF – Ramon Urías

OF – Ryan McKenna

UF – Terrin Vavra

 

Starting Pitchers

Kyle Gibbson

Dean Kremer

Cole Irvin

Kyle Bradish

Tyler Wells

Bullpen

Keegan Akin

Bryan Baker

Mike Baumann

Félix Bautista

Danny Coulombe

Joey Krehbiel

Cionel Pérez

Austin Voth

 

Mychal Givens and Dillon Tate, both relief pitchers, will start the season on the Injured Reserve list.  It will be interesting to see who actually gets cut from the bullpen when they come back.

Which players will have great years?  Anthony Santander, Ryan Mountcastle, Adley Rutschman, and Gunnar Henderson.  Gunnar is a rookie, but he’s been labeled as the best prospect in baseball, and it is anticipated he will be Rookie of the Year.  Santander, Mountcastle, and Rutschman could all be potential league Most Valuable Players.

Am I a hopeful fanatic?  You betcha!

Personal Essay: To a Superb 2022 Season for the Baltimore Orioles

If you haven’t noticed, my blogging had been reduced the last few months.  It was baseball season!  I just don’t have the free time to do both in a constructive manner.  This year I had resolved to keep up with the blog at all costs but my favorite team made this season so enjoyable that the resolution went down the drain.  For those that may remember, I happen to be a Baltimore Orioles fan.  A very long suffering Baltimore Orioles fan.  Sure they had their glory years from 1966 to 1983 when I was a kid and got hooked on the team, but since then it’s been way more losing seasons than winning.  And the last three of four years they lost over 100 games each year, having the worst record in all of baseball all three of those years.  The only exception was 2020, which was Covid shortened.  But they would have lost 100 games then too.

So it’s been tough.  But this year they became the first team in history to have a winning record after losing over 100 games the previous season.  In fact they nearly made the playoffs, just falling short by three games.  They started that first month just like the previous years, pathetically losing, but after April they started to have winning month after winning month.  They didn’t have any star pitchers.  Their ace (John Means) was actually injured from April on and out for the season.  They really didn’t have any superstar hitters either.  A couple of their young prospects (Adley Rutschman especially) were promoted to the majors and that turned it around.  They won with really good defense and an exceptional bullpen and a lot of hustle.  The starting pitchers would hold the opposition in the early innings; the defense would pull out plays to save the game; the bullpen would shut the opposition down in the late innings; and the team would amazingly pull out quite a number of late inning victories.  What a joy!

You can get a summary of the Orioles' 2022 season here.

They ended the season with a record of 83-79.  But they also played in the toughest division in baseball, the American League East.  Sometimes referred to as the American League Beast.  Three of the five teams made the playoffs.  If the Orioles played in any other division I think they would have made the playoffs.  Was it a disappointment they didn’t?  Sure, but there were too many thrills that in the end it didn’t matter.  There were too many thrills.  What a thoroughly enjoyable season. Last year I complained the development was taking too long. This year they caught up. There was no stepping stone from 100 losses to .500, but so be it. This is where the development plan should be. In fairness, I think Covid did set everything back about a year. In the end, this became one of the most memorable of seasons. To go from a 100+ loss team to above .500 is great. Yes, I know there is always criticism, but nothing is perfect, except in heaven. Overall from the very top to the lowest ball boy, this team needs to be commended. Thank you 2022 Orioles.  Next year we’ll make the playoffs!

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Some random thoughts on next year and the off season.

As to the off season acquisitions, I'm not sure this team needs that much. We're going to have Gunnar Henderson and Adley for a full year and more mature. Hopefully Ryan Mountcastle shakes the sophomore blues and hits his potential. Jordan Westburg at second base should be a plus. Austin Hays gets better and platoons with Kyle Stowers, who will be more mature. Grayson Rodriguez comes up and John Means returns. Tyler Wells, Kyle Bradish, and Dean Kremer improve. This looks like a very solid team.

I guess you could use a big bat at DH behind Mountcastle. A Trey Mancini type but the Trey of several years ago who hit 35 homers. Otherwise I don't think there is a lot to change.

We could use a backup first baseman.  If Westburg could play first base, that would solve a lot of problems. I wonder why Terrin Vavra hasn't tried backing up first base. That would put it over the top for him.

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Thinking this over for next year, most teams will field 13 pitchers and 13 fielders. So other than the starting nine hitters, there are four backups.

Here's an assumption for the starting nine: Gunnar (3B), Jorge Mateo (SS), Ramon Urias (2B), Mountcastle (1B), Hays (LF), Cedric Mullins (CF), Stowers (RF), Anthony Santander (DH), Adley ©.

You need a backup catcher, Robinson Charinos or whoever they pick up.

A fifth outfielder, Ryan McKenna.

A back up infielder who can play first base.

A utility player, perhaps Vavra.

Out of the starting nine, I would think Urias may be the weakest argument for starting but he might be a better choice for utility player over Vavra. Maybe. I think the rest of the eight are definite unless they get traded.

McKenna is probably not guaranteed. We have a few outfielders waiting in AAA.

Rougned Odor is probably not picked up, especially if Westburg is ready for the majors. But, and I may be in a very small minority on this, if it comes down to picking two between Vavra, Odor, and Urias, I would pick Odor and Urias.  Remember Odor drove in over 50 RBIs. It's not how high you hit but what you do with the hits you get.  Plus Odor was the heart and soul of the team this year.

I have to say, the bullpen is really solid.  I hope they all come back, but you can never have too much pitching.  Hopefully we can pick up another top relief pitcher.

We'll see where General Manager Michael Elias goes. I can see Elias trading one of our outfielders, but remember no one is going to want your weakest outfielder. If they are going to trade value, they will want value back.

Here are some of the great highlights of a remarkable year.

Now can you blame me for being glued to the Orioles the past few months?

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It will be an interesting off-season, but I really can’t wait until next seasons starts!