Saturday Bird Droppings: Where there are many ways to get a starter

Hello, friends.

Thank you to all of the veterans for your service to this country.

There are now 137 days remaining until Orioles Opening Day 2018. Five more days remain before the nine free agents who were extended qualifying offers must choose whether to accept or reject those offers.

There’s still not much going on with the baseball offseason market, though things on the back burner are starting to simmer. Of interest today is the pending arrival of Japanese sensation Shohei Ohtani, as well as rumors about the Marlins being expected to trade Giancarlo Stanton. The Orioles won’t factor into these markets even a tiny bit, I figure. Hopefully a rival doesn’t get them.

What markets will the Orioles actually splash around in? That’s the big question, isn’t it? Are they going to go cheap? Are they going to go mid-range? We’ll find out eventually, although I still don’t think that we’re going to find out in the month of November. We’ll just find out who they DON’T sign by virtue of seeing who signs elsewhere.

Around the blogO’sphere

Predicting landing spot for Welington Castillo no easy task in winter catching market (Baltimore Sun)
Where will Beef be served next season? Probably not here! And it’s hard to know where just yet.

Orioles remain in market for left-handed relief (School of Roch)
I feel like this has been a theme of each of the last three offseasons, in addition to each of the last three trading deadlines.

Looking at more free agent starting pitchers (Steve Melewski)
Melewski is talking today about CC Sabathia, Jaime Garcia, and Jhoulys Chacin.

Want starting pitching? Orioles need to look at a potential contract swap with the Giants (Baltimore Baseball)
I’ve tried, and failed completely, to grapple with the premise of this article, that the Giants would be a bad contract swap destination for Mark Trumbo. Maybe I’m just not using my imagination enough.

Caleb Joseph is the favorite to start now, and that’s more than fine (Camden Depot)
Matt Kremnitzer of Camden Depot says it’s A-OK if Caleb ends up as the starter next season. He has numbers to back it up!

2017 MLB Offseason Preview: Baltimore Orioles (MLB Daily Dish)
Our friends over at SB Nation’s MLB Daily Dish offer their thoughts on the Orioles offseason. What do you think about what they think?

Orioles charge past Center Grove (The Flyer Group)
The Avon High School Orioles of Avon, Indiana are headed to the semistates for football. I don’t know what that means, but it sounds good. Good luck to them at the next level!

Birthdays and anniversaries

On this day in 1970, Boog Powell was named the American League MVP.

In 1982, Joe Altobelli was named as the Orioles manager to follow after the first (though they didn’t know it then) retirement of Earl Weaver. This worked out OK for the O’s.

And speaking of managers, in 2014, Buck Showalter was named the American League Manager of the Year.

There are two former Orioles with birthdays today. They are: 2007 part-timer J.R. House, and 1963 seven-gamer Ike Delock. It’s Delock’s 88th birthday today.

Is today your birthday? Happy birthday! Your birthday buddies for today include: Physician/father of toxicology Paracelsus (1493), novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821), baseball Hall of Famer Rabbit Maranville (1891), novelist Kurt Vonnegut (1922), actress Demi Moore (1962), and actor Leonardo DiCaprio (1974).

On this day in history...

In 1620, the pilgrims signed the Mayflower Compact in a harbor near Cape Cod.

In 1864, General Sherman began the burning of Atlanta in preparation for his march to the sea.

In 1918, combat in World War I (then just the Great War) ended with Germany signing an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car in Compiegne.

In 1940, during World War II, the British and Italian navies waged the Battle of Taranto, which was history’s first all-aircraft ship-to-ship combat.

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And that’s the way it is in Birdland on November 11 - or at least, unless something happens later, which I certainly don’t expect. Have a safe Saturday.