Friday Bird Droppings: Where it's time to find the free agent deals

Hello, friends.

There are now 124 days remaining until Orioles Opening Day 2018. That is still quite a lot of days, but don't worry, because eventually things will start happening to give us some real baseball news to talk about.

The day after Thanksgiving is, of course, the deal-driven Black Friday for retailers, and perhaps it will start to be so for baseball as well. The Shohei Ohtani saga is underway, though he won't be officially posted until December 1, so I guess it's still possible that action on the starting pitching market is a week away.

Dan Duquette loves a deal, so you'd think Black Friday would be great for him. Where this connection falls apart is that it's only towards the end of the baseball offseason where one gets the deals, rather than at the beginning of the shopping season, like with Christmas. He is more like the guy who does all of his shopping on Christmas Eve.

Maybe this year things will go differently. The Orioles need them to, because the idea of going into 2018 with a rotation only added to by dumpster diving is not an appealing one.

Around the blogO'sphere

Calls for Orioles to tear down lose sight of fact that assets could prove irreplaceable (Baltimore Sun)
The Sun’s Jon Meoli argues, essentially, that the players with one year remaining before free agency, including Manny Machado, would bring so little back in trades that there’s no point to trading them.

Wynns on 40-man spot: "It means everything" (School of Roch)
When a minor league grinder gets a little recognition, that’s always a good story.

Pondering a few baseball questions before the feast (Steve Melewski)
Among the questions: Will Hunter Harvey pitch for the Orioles this season? I am flabbergasted that this is enough of a possibility to make it a question.

Birthdays and anniversaries

On this day in 1982, Cal Ripken Jr. was named the American League Rookie of the Year. At this point, The Streak stood only at 118 games.

There are a few former Orioles with birthdays today. They are: 2003 pitcher Damian Moss, 1989 #1 overall pick Ben McDonald, 1968-70 seven-gamer Fred Beene, and 1974-75 outfielder Jim Northup.

Is today your birthday? Happy birthday! Your birthday buddies for today include: famed Russian field marshal Alexander Suvorov (1729), President Zachary Taylor (1784), ragtime composer Scott Joplin (1867), museum enthusiast Paul Tagliabue (1940), actor Colin Hanks (1977), and actress Katherine Heigl (1978).

On this day in history...

In 1850, Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species.

In 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald, who the previous day assassinated President Kennedy, was killed while in police custody by nightclub operator Jack Ruby.

In 1971, the infamous hijacker D.B. Cooper parachuted out of a plane with $200,000 of ransom money in Washington during a severe thunderstorm. Cooper was never found.

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And that's the way it is in Birdland on November 24 - or at least, unless something happens later, which it probably won't unless Duquette surprises us with some Black Friday deal-seeking. Have a safe Friday.