Thursday Bird Droppings: Where the Orioles will find a manager eventually

Hello, friends.

There are now 119 days remaining until the next Orioles game. If you want to count down to fake baseball games in spring training, that is a smaller number by close to a month. I don’t want to count down to fake games, so I’m not going to figure out exactly what that number is. Sorry.

Although some mild anxiety seems to have seeped into some of the more mainstream Orioles writers about the lack of a manager and the fate of the holdover coaching staff, I think that new GM Mike Elias has given plenty of reason for fans to be confident that he’ll hire a good candidate to be the manager and that there will be a good coaching staff too.

This does not mean the 2019 Orioles will be a good baseball team, though it should mean they will be a better one than they just were.

The reality is that the existing coaching staff should probably be swept away en masse. The Orioles just finished a 47-115 season. No one should expect to keep his job. They may not have been a problem, but they sure weren’t the solution. That’s all there is to it. Better luck in the next job.

Around the blogO’sphere

Mike Mussina’s Hall of Fame case (Fangraphs)
Mike Mussina is a Hall of Fame pitcher. The only question is when a sufficient percentage of the voting members of the BBWAA get their heads out of their butts and notice this truth.

Considering challenges of constructing a coaching staff (School of Roch)
One challenge is that a lot of the good candidates already have jobs, which is indeed a bit of a problem.

Orioles making moves for present, but 2019 draft clearly in focus for new GM Mike Elias (Baltimore Sun)
One thing that the Orioles are going to have is a lot of money to spend on talent in next year’s draft class. Being bad doesn’t have many perks, but that’s one of them.

Rajsich’s drafts produced major leaguers, but no stars for Orioles (Baltimore Baseball)
Scouting director Gary Rajsich is among those who won’t be returning. This all probably was not his fault.

Mike Elias starting off well as Orioles GM (MLB.com)
To be honest, it doesn’t take much for an MLB executive to impress MLB.com, but still... positive press!

Orioles sign right-hander Josh Lucas to minor league deal (Baltimore Sun)
Elias was heavily involved in Cardinals drafts when this guy got picked in 2010.

Birthdays and anniversaries

In 1975, two different Orioles received the last of many Gold Glove Awards. Brooks Robinson won for the 16th consecutive season, while Paul Blair won his seventh straight Gold Glove and eighth overall.

There are a few former Orioles with birthdays today. They are: 2017-18 outfielder Craig Gentry, 2008 catcher Guillermo Quiroz, 1989-90 pitcher Brian Holton, and 1990 reliever Joe Price.

Is today your birthday? Happy birthday! Your birthday buddies for today include: novelist Louisa May Alcott (1832), first woman elected governor Nellie Tayloe Ross (1876), novelist C.S. Lewis (1898), author Madeleine L’Engle (1918), baseball broadcasting legend Vin Scully (1927), Coen Brother Joel Coen (1954), actor Don Cheadle (1964), soon-to-be baseball Hall of Famer Mariano Rivera (1969), and rapper The Game (1979).

On this day in history...

In 1394, the King of Korea of that time, Yi Seong-gye, moved his capital from Kaesang to Hanyang. Today, Hanyang goes by another name, Seoul, and is still the capital of (South) Korea.

In 1807, Portugal’s King John VI fled from Napoleon’s advancing forces. He would eventually establish the Portuguese court in Brazil for the remainder of the Peninsular War.

In 1877, Thomas Edison made his first demonstration of the phonograph.

In 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson announced the formation of the Warren commission, which was tasked with investigation the assassination of President John F. Kennedy just six days previously.

In 1972, Atari released Pong, which is credited as the first commercially successful video game.

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And that’s the way it is in Birdland on November 29 - or at least, unless something happens later, which it might if the secret manager search reaches an unexpected conclusion. Have a safe Thursday.