Thursday Bird Droppings: Where the Orioles starter chase goes on

Hello, friends.

There are now 132 days until Orioles Opening Day 2018. Today will cap baseball's award season, with the MVP award being handed out in both leagues tonight. I'm going to go out on a limb and take a guess that we will not have the first Orioles MVP since 1991. Hey, maybe somebody will give Jonathan Schoop a ninth place finish or something.

Shockingly, the Orioles did not factor in to last night's Cy Young award voting either. No, not even a token fifth place vote for anybody. Can you believe that? If there was an inverse Cy Young award given out, on the other hand, you could fill a ballot completely with Orioles starters.

Maybe next year's Orioles starters will be better! They are on the quest to try to improve themselves even now. A rumor from Wednesday is that they have shown interest in Tyler Chatwood, which is a decent thing for them to do. I mean, he might still not be any good for the O's, but he seems like a solid enough bet to try to make.

Today is the day where the nine qualifying offer free agents must officially announce whether they've accepted or rejected the offers from their former teams. All are expected to reject it. In another four days, teams must set their 40-man rosters to protect players from this year's Rule 5 draft.

Around the blogO'sphere

Orioles won't have helpful precedents for offseason reliever trades the way they did in July (Baltimore Sun)
There weren’t any helpful precedents for dealing Zach Britton in July, either, because of his injury status, which is not something you will read about in this article.

Some trade banter and other notes (Steve Melewski)
In which we’re supposed to bring ourselves to be excited about Anthony Santander batting .208 in the Arizona Fall League.

Orioles should deal Britton (Richard Justice - MLB.com)
Neither the first nor the last article suggesting the O’s should trade Britton.

Trey Mancini excelled in 2017 - can he avoid a sophomore slump next season? (Baltimore Baseball)
It seems like the wider baseball media is expecting that sophomore slump from Mancini this year. Hopefully he proves them wrong.

Cal and Eddie team up for unveiling of Ripken Foundation's Murray Field at BGE Park (Baltimore Sun)
There is a new baseball field next to an elementary school in West Baltimore. This is a great cause.

Springville Orioles 'want to cherish every moment' (The Cedar Rapids Gazette)
The girls basketballers of the Springville Orioles of Springville, Iowa have won their last two state championships and they’re going for a third straight as their season gets underway. Good luck to them!

Birthdays and anniversaries

A couple of former Orioles have birthdays today. They are: 2007-08 bullpen guy Fernando Cabrera, and 1963 seven-gamer Buster Narum.

Is today your birthday? Happy birthday! Your birthday buddies for today include: Fort McHenry namesake James McHenry (1753), novelist Chinua Achebe (1930), actress Lisa Bonet (1967), and actress Maggie Gyllenhaal (1977).

On this day in history...

In 1849, Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky was sentenced to death for anti-government activities, though this sentence was later commuted to hard labor.

In 1907, Oklahoma was admitted as the 46th state of the Union.

In 1938, the drug LSD was first synthesized by Albert Hofmann in Switzerland.

In 1974, the Arecibo message was broadcast from a radio telescope in Puerto Rico. This message was aimed at a star cluster about 25,000 light years away.

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And that's the way it is in Birdland on November 16 - or at least, unless something happens later. Hey, you never know. Have a safe Thursday.