Hello, friends.
There are now 144 days remaining until Orioles Opening Day 2026. That’s one gross of days. As of last night, with Game 7 of the World Series being settled, the 2025 season is officially
over. The Orioles and every other team can officially turn to the march towards the next season.
Now that the World Series is over, all players who are eligible to become free agents this winter are now free agents. For the Orioles, that means the following are now free agents: Zach Eflin, Tomoyuki Sugano, and Gary Sánchez. That’s it. They dealt all the other guys back in July who would have hit free agency here. Roster movement is also opened back up for trades.
Teams are not yet free to sign anyone, however. There’s a five-day grace period where players may only agree to contracts with their previous teams. At the end of that five days, teams must decide whether to extend qualifying offers to their players. The Orioles almost certainly will not do this. Once the QOs have gone out, any player is free to sign anywhere. This is also when teams will exercise 2026 contract options (or not) and players with opt-outs will decide whether to exercise them.
Other important dates: November 18 is the deadline for QO players to accept or decline the offers. That will fully set the conditions on the pool of free agents. This is also the day where teams must set their 40-man rosters to protect eligible minor leaguers from the Rule 5 Draft, which itself is set for December 10. Further, the tender deadline, where teams may decline to offer contracts to arbitration-eligible players, is November 21.
Orioles stuff you might have missed
Orioles hiring of Albernaz follows current major league trends (Baltimore Baseball)
Rich Dubroff notes that with the Orioles manager choice, they didn’t even do the most extreme version of a younger guy, as seen with the Nationals hiring someone nearly a decade younger than Albernaz.
Why was Jackson Holliday getting thrown out like that? (The Dishwasher)
Holliday really stunk on the bases this year. The Dishwasher tries to get at what was going wrong.
Birthdays and Orioles anniversaries
There are a number of former Orioles who were born on this day. They are: 2022 reliever Denyi Reyes, 2012-13 infielder Wilson Betemit, 1998-2005 pitcher Sidney Ponson, 1990-92 first baseman/DH Sam Horn, and 1980 pitcher Paul Hartzell. Today is Hartzell’s 72nd birthday, so an extra happy birthday to him.
Is today your birthday? Happy birthday to you! Your birthday buddies for today include: explorer Daniel Boone (1734), 11th president James K. Polk (1795), 29th president Warren G. Harding (1865), baseball Hall of Famer Travis Jackson (1903), actor Burt Lancaster (1913), and rapper Nelly (1974).
On this day in history…
In 1889, North Dakota and South Dakota were each admitted as states, the 39th and 40th states of the union.
In 1920, the first commercial radio station in the United States began broadcasting: Pittsburgh’s KDKA, which still broadcasts today. KDKA’s inaugural broadcast announced results of the 1920 presidential election. Harding, the birthday boy, won 37 states and 404 electoral votes.
In 1983, President Reagan signed the bill that created Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a federal holiday.
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And that’s the way it is in Birdland on November 2. Have a safe Sunday.
