Monday Bird Droppings: Where the Orioles manager search continues

Hello, friends.

There are now 114 days remaining until the next Orioles game. Add another week to that to get the next Orioles game that will be held at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Maybe there will be better quality public Internet access inside the stadium by then.

Something that will hopefully be settled much sooner is the question of who will be the next Orioles manager. If you missed it over the weekend, a few names of people who are expected to interview for the open job dribbled out into the public sphere.

The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reported that at least two current MLB bench coaches are on the list: Nationals bench coach Chip Hale and Cubs bench coach Brandon Hyde. A third name reported by Rosenthal is Royals coach Pedro Grifol, whose title is “catching/quality control coach.” That’s a new one by me.

Hale has two seasons of experience as a manager, which Rosenthal believes the Orioles prefer, but aren’t making a requirement. He added that there are expected to be at least six in-person interviews.

Also, Peter Gammons tabbed current Diamondbacks director of player development Mike Bell as a candidate. Bell is the son of former manager Buddy Bell, and his brother, David Bell, was hired to be the Reds manager just this offseason.

At his own introductory press conference, new GM Mike Elias said all of the serious managerial candidates now would be aware of and able to incorporate today’s analytics information into their decisionmaking, so if he’s correct in that belief, the O’s will have an analytics-friendly manager no matter what happens. Finding someone whose specific strengths line up with what the O’s need right now will be the challenge.

Do you think the O’s will find their manager within a week, when the winter meetings begin? If not, do you think they’ll have their manager within two weeks, when the Opening Day countdown gets down to double digits?

Around the blogO’sphere

More on Joseph’s non-tender and his letter to fans (School of Roch)
Caleb Joseph referenced “testicular explosion” and the time he pooped in his pants in his MLB debut in a thank you letter to Orioles fans for supporting him, which goes a long way to explaining why we liked him so much.

Orioles dismiss longtime farm director Brian Graham (Baltimore Baseball)
Not unlike scouting director Gary Rajsich, I say about Graham that I don’t know if he was part of the problem, but he sure wasn’t part of the solution.

Former Orioles second baseman Jonathan Schoop nontendered by Brewers, becomes free agent (Baltimore Sun)
This one made me sad when it happened because I want success for Schoop. Unfortunately for him, he just wasn’t good this year.

Do the Orioles go catcher with the no. 1 pick? (Steve Melewski)
Right now it seems there are Bobby Witt people and there are Adley Rutschman people. All I can say is that one is easier to spell.

Sunday Notes: Life in the minors with Austin Wynns (Fangraphs)
Among the usual Fangraphs Sunday notes is an item about Austin Wynns’s days where he was both a professional baseball player and a Costco liquor stocker. Pay minor league players more.

When President George H.W. Bush and Queen Elizabeth took in an Orioles game at Memorial Stadium (Baltimore Sun)
Always be on the lookout for the local angle.

Birthdays and anniversaries

There are a pair of former Orioles with birthdays today. They are: 1969-72 reserve Chico Salmon, and 1969-71 backup catcher Clay Dalrymple. Today is Dalrymple’s 82nd birthday, so an extra happy birthday for him.

Is today your birthday? Happy birthday to you as well! Your birthday buddies for today include: $1 bill portrait painter Gilbert Stuart (1755), Pillsbury Company founder Charles Alfred Pillsbury (1842), Black Sabbath vocalist Ozzy Osbourne (1948), actress Julianne Moore (1960), nerdcore rapper MC Frontalot (1973), actress Jenna Dewan (1980), and actress Amanda Seyfried (1985).

On this day in history...

In 1800, the Electoral College vote for president between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr ended up in a tie. Elsewhere in the world, the French beat the Austrians in the Battle of Hohenlinden. This led to an end to the War of the Second Coalition, with the monarchies of Europe unsuccessful in restoring the French monarchy. The Third, Fourth, and Fifth Coalitions would also go on to be beaten by Napoleon’s France over the next decade before the Sixth Coalition finally had his number.

In 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt delivered a State of the Union address in which he called upon Congress to bust the power of trusts, one of the signature issues for which he’s known in your history class.

In 1960, Camelot had its debut on Broadway.

In 1976, still-unknown gunmen broke into Bob Marley’s house in Jamaica two days before a free concert that aimed to ease political tensions. Though he had minor wounds to both his chest and arm, he still performed in the concert.

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And that’s the way it is in Birdland on December 3 - or at least, unless something happens later. Have a safe Monday.