Tuesday Bird Droppings: Where it’s ridiculous speculation season

Hello, friends.

There are now 120 days remaining until Orioles Opening Day 2018.

It is, apparently, officially into the season of ridiculous speculation that somehow turns into equally ridiculous rumors. There are ones that come along and they kind of make sense and then there are the ones that are obviously the product of people whose job it is to write having to write something but not having anything to write about.

Believe me, I understand that crunch. This entire month has been a whole lot of nothing happening. Chasing those clicks by presenting bonkers hypotheticals that get packaged with headlines that suck people in is all too tempting, as we will see with one or two things coming below.

Sooner or later, something that really matters will happen. It’ll probably just be some other teams signing the players who might actually help the Orioles, and then the Orioles signing inferior players for less money. But I don’t know when that will actually start happening. Hey, maybe today will be the day.

Around the blogO’sphere

Could Yankees land Orioles’ Manny Machado for Gleyber Torres? (NJ.com)
An idea-less Yankeeland columnist runs with a wild hypothetical scenario initially dreamed up by Jim Duquette. Gleyber Torres, incidentally, is the #1 prospect in baseball, so you’d have to think hard if this was at all possible.

For both Orioles and Adam Jones, transitional 2018 season looms (Baltimore Sun)
Reset the counter for “days since a beat writer reminded us of the coming apocalypse.”

Fister off board and a catching question (School of Roch)
Roch wants to know if you are, or the Orioles will be, satisfied rolling with a Chance Sisco-Caleb Joseph catching tandem.

Strong finish ends solid year as David Hess makes the 40-man (Steve Melewski)
If you haven’t ever thought about David Hess, one of the fresh 40-man additions, here’s a great introduction.

Which internal option - besides Gausman and Bundy - do you trust most for the 2018 Orioles’ rotation? (Baltimore Baseball)
The photo accompanying this article is Mike Wright. Yikes. It does not appear to be a trick question, though one might certainly view it that way.

Orioles sign lefty reliever Josh Edgin, former Met, to minor league deal (Baltimore Sun)
It’s news in the sense that it’s a thing that happened, but I don’t think there’s anyone who expects it to mean a whole lot.

Are the Orioles the best fit for J.D. Martinez? (ESPN)
No.

Birthdays and anniversaries

On this day in 1973, Al Bumbry won the American League Rookie of the Year award. And in 1978, the Orioles signed Steve Stone, who had been with the White Sox. Stone would go on to win the Cy Young in 1980 while pitching for the O’s - still the franchise’s most recent time having the winner of that award.

In the addition by not blowing money on the bullpen category, in 2005, the Blue Jays signed former O’s closer B.J. Ryan to a then-record for a reliever five year, $47 million contract. Ryan only pitched more than 30 innings in two of the five seasons and was never again an elite closer after the first year of the contract.

One lone former Oriole has a birthday today: 1973-74 reserve outfielder, Maryland-born Jim Fuller.

Is today your birthday? Happy birthday! Your birthday buddies for today include: Ming dynasty-era painter Wen Zhengming (1470), Romantic Age poet/painter William Blake (1757), Communist Manifesto co-author Friedrich Engels (1820), former Maryland congresswoman Helen Delich Bentley (1923), movie man Alfonso Cuaron (1961), longtime The Daily Show host Jon Stewart (1962), R&B’s Trey Songz (1984), and actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead (1984).

On this day in history...

In 1582, in Stratford-upon-Avon, William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway paid the bond of 40 pounds for their marriage license. They remained married until Shakespeare’s death in 1616.

In 1814, The Times of London became the first newspaper to be produced on a steam-powered printing press.

In 1895, the first American automobile race took place. Participants raced 54 miles from Jackson Park in Chicago to Evanston, Illinois. It took ten hours for the victor, Frank Duryea, to cross the finish line.

In 1964, the National Security Council recommended to President Johnson a plan that called for a two-stage escalation to bombing of North Vietnam.

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And that’s the way it is in Birdland on November 28 - or at least, unless something happens later. Hey, you never know... something’s bound to happen eventually. Have a safe Tuesday.