Wednesday Bird Droppings: Where Ryan Flaherty is still a free agent

Happy Wednesday, Camden Chatters! I hope you’re all being safe on those icy roads this morning.

We are now just 50 days from Opening Day, a nice round number. The uniform number 50 has been worn by 16 different Orioles over the years. It is currently being worn by possible 2018 rotation member Miguel Castro. It was most fondly worn by former Oriole who could have contributed positively to the 2017 rotation, Miguel Gonzalez.

Getting closer and closer is the report day for pitchers and catchers at spring training. Just six days to go! It’s nice to think about sitting outside in the sunshine and watching baseball on a day like today that is cold and icky. No matter how bad the Orioles end up this year, sitting in the sunshine and watching baseball will always be lovely.

Let’s hit the links.

For Which Teams Is Matt Kemp Worth It? - Fan Rag Sports
This dude's reasoning for why it makes sense for the Orioles to go after Matt Kemp is that nothing they do makes sense so why not?

Re-signing Ryan Flaherty isn't horrendous - Birds Watcher
Sure it's not, but it's also not something I can bring myself to care either way about. People talk about Ryan Flaherty a lot more than I expected.

If Orioles want to take advantage of free-agent freeze, the time is now - Baltimore Sun
Peter Schmuck thinks it's time for Dan Duquette to step out of his comfort zone and swoop in on some free agents.

Schoop agrees to $8.5 million deal for 2018; Gausman is only arb-eligible Oriole without an agreement - BaltimoreBaseball.com
This is good news. Now get that man an extension while you're at it.

A look at a few lefty-batting free agent outfielders - Steve Melewski
Some of the same names we've heard bandied about are now being discussed by Melewski. It's hard for me to care about a lefty outfielder with the state of the rotation.

In Praise of Shadows: Or Living to Learn with Uncertainty - Camden Depot
In which Jon Shepherd gets philosophical.

Is today your birthday? Happy birthday! Your Orioles birthday buddies today are as plentiful as they are unremarkable. First up is Mr. Al Smith, an outfielder who played one year of his 12-season career with the Orioles in 1963. Benny Ayala spent 1979-84 as a backup player for Birds. Dave Borkowski pitched to an impressive 5.14 ERA for the team in 2004.

Endy Chavez played for our team in 2012 and was even worse with the bat than we expected. Jon Leicester is also a guy. And finally, Scott Feldman was traded to the Orioles for Jake Arrieta as they tried to make the playoffs. They didn’t.

On this day in 2012 the Orioles were banned from South Korea.