Saturday Bird Droppings: Where Wade Miley is officially not an Oriole

Hello, friends.

There are now 144 days remaining until Orioles Opening Day 2018. This number of days can also be referred to as an Orioles rotation number of days. After all, one dozen dozen is a gross.

This particular day can be a cause for celebration if you’re so inclined, because Wade Miley is officially no longer an Oriole. The team made the formal decision not to pick up his 2018 option last night. That’s no surprise to anybody who watched Miley pitch after June or so, but it’s still a relief. There’s always the anxiety that they’ll bring him back later, but for now, he is gone and that is good.

As Miley joins the market, one name who had been expected to hit the market will not. Masahiro Tanaka chose not to opt out from the final three years of his contract with the Yankees. That won’t directly impact any of the Orioles plans, since obviously they were never going to sign Tanaka if he opted out, but it may ripple down to them if there are now more suitors for pitchers like Lance Lynn... who the Orioles maybe were never going to sign either.

No sense worrying about what might happen with all of that anyway, because plenty of people are going to sign before the Orioles wake up and start their offseason. Isn’t that always fun?

Around the blogO’sphere

Orioles organizational depth report: Outfield full of promise, led by Austin Hays (Baltimore Sun)
The last time the Orioles developed an outfielder was Nick Markakis, so it’s about time that they got this thing figured out. Let’s hope that the Hays emergence means they got it figured out.

Though Orioles tend to wait, November bargains exist for free agent starting pitchers (Baltimore Sun)
I hope that somebody makes sure that Dan Duquette reads this one.

Notes on Castillo, free agent predictions, and more (School of Roch)
Today is the day where Welington Castillo is expected to decline his player option and become a free agent.

Now a free agent, will O’s bring back Chris Tillman? (Steve Melewski)
It’s the ten million dollar question of the offseason!

1970 Orioles versus 2017 Astros in a battle of 100-win champs - here’s a guess at who’d win the fictional Series and how they’d do it (Baltimore Baseball)
Friend of the blog Paul Folkemer takes his stab at how the O’s of the past would have stacked up against the Astros of the present.

Birthdays and anniversaries

On this day in 1975, Jim Palmer won the second of his Cy Young awards, following a season in which he posted a 2.09 ERA over 323 innings. How is that even real?

There are a few former Orioles with birthdays today. They are: 2001-05 outfielder Larry Bigbie, 1987 bullpen guy Doug Corbett, and 1956-57 outfielder Tito Francona, who is the father of Terry Francona. It’s the elder Francona’s 84th birthday today, so an extra happy birthday to him.

Is today your birthday? Happy birthday! Your birthday buddies for today include: Baroque painter Guido Reni (1575), actor/political wit Will Rogers (1879), tractor inventor Harry Ferguson (1884), journalist Walter Cronkite (1916), Barbie creator Ruth Handler (1916), funny lady Kathy Griffin (1960), rapper Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs (1969), and actor Matthew McConaughey (1969).

On this day in history...

In 1847, Scottish physician Sir James Young Simpson discovered the anasthetic properties of chloroform.

In 1922, British archaeologist Howard Carter and his expedition located the entrance to King Tut’s tomb.

In 1924, Nellie Tayloe Ross was elected the governor of Wyoming, making her the first woman to be elected governor of one of the United States.

In 1962, the United States finished Operation Fishbowl, which marked its final above-ground nuclear weapons test - the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty took effect the next year.

In 1979, the Iran hostage crisis began as a mob of Iranians, mostly students, overran the US Embassy in Tehran. There were 90 hostages taken, 53 of whom were Americans.

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And that’s the way it is in Birdland on November 4 - or at least, until something happens later. Have a safe Saturday.