Hello, friends.
There are now 132 days remaining until Orioles Opening Day 2027. Or at least that’s what’s on the schedule. The owners are going to put the schedule in doubt in a few weeks when they initiate a lockout of the players.
In the news this week is a trickle of things coming out of the GM Meetings. Usually this event is a low-key affair with little media attention. However, with the looming lockout likely to wipe out next month’s winter meetings, many of the usual suspects in all areas of the game
are beefing up their presence at these meetings. That includes agent Scott Boras, who showed up yesterday and did his usual court session where he makes a lot of puns and brow-beats teams who act too cheap to sign good players.
Ordinary years see contacts during the GM Meetings credited later as having laid the groundwork for signings or trades that are made weeks or even months later. This year, there won’t be months later, so if anything started to come together because of the meetings, we’ll see that happening over the next three weeks. Or more specifically the next 20 days, because that’s when the lockout will hit.
Will the Orioles do anything major before then? We can’t know until it happens! That’s a source of anxiety in the fanbase, including myself. On one hand, Mike Elias has to know that he’s got work to do going into next year, and he should be well aware that he isn’t going to have a big opportunity to fix the problems after the lockout ends. On the other hand, he’s a weird guy who tries to do things that he thinks are because he’s so smart and they end up looking pretty stupid both as they are breaking news and in the way that they work out.
The MVP award winners will be announced tonight. Maybe Pete Alonso will get a couple of tenth place votes or something like that. He probably deserves a couple.
Orioles stuff you might have missed
We are into the time of the offseason where diligent daily readers of Bird Droppings may see repeated links. Sorry! It’s not going to get better in December.
How dry humor from David Rubenstein became an MLB lockout talking point (The Baltimore Banner)
Rubes’s deadpan comments from last month keep coming back around with the labor situation being what it is.
Boras thinks Orioles will stay aggressive in pursuing free agents (Baltimore Baseball)
Boras has said nice things about the Orioles even in years where they don’t end up signing any of his major clients. One particular name brought up among the Boras clients in this year’s class is outfielder Randy Arozarena.
More potential Orioles free agent targets (Steve on Baseball)
Subscription required to see the full list on this Substack. Steve Melewski is looking particularly at starting pitchers here.
Elias on trade buzz: Core players ‘very unlikely’ to be dealt (Orioles.com)
He can say whatever he wants about it, but after Adley Rutschman got traded, I don’t think anybody is too precious to be traded and really we never know when Elias might have an idea that he can sidegrade or improve the present while also stocking for the future.
Two under-the-radar Orioles pitching prospects to keep an eye on (Orioles On The Verge)
If getting excited about high draft picks is just too mundane for you, maybe you’re ready to dive in on an 11th round pick and an undrafted free agent from this year’s class.
Birthdays and Orioles anniversaries
Today in 1980, Orioles pitcher Steve Stone was named the AL Cy Young award winner after a season where he posted a 3.23 ERA while throwing 250.2 innings over 37 starts. The franchise’s most recent winner of the award likely benefited from leading the league with 25 wins, which gave him a slight edge in a less-thoughtful era of voting over Oakland’s Mike Norris, who pitched substantially better that season.
To no one’s surprise, no Orioles received any votes on this year’s Cy Young ballots. Former Oriole Bryan Baker received one fifth place vote, giving him an official placement of tied for eighth place.
For the first time this year, the BBWAA gave out Reliever of the Year awards in each league. No Orioles relievers got any votes for that either. Baker finished in third place in that balloting.
There are a few former Orioles who were born on this day. They are: 2025 pitcher Charlie Morton, 2005 outfielder Sammy Sosa, and 1955 pitcher Don Johnson.
Is today your birthday? Happy birthday to you! Your birthday buddies for today include: Revolutionary War naval ally Louis Antoine de Bougainville (1729), women’s rights activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815), Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-sen (1866), actress Grace Kelly (1929), actor Ryan Gosling (1980), and actress Anne Hathaway (1982).
On this day in history…
In 1918, following the previous day’s armistice, the empire of Austria-Hungary dissolved and Austria proclaimed itself a republic. The new government immediately was subject to an attempted coup by Communists in the country.
In 1954, the immigration processing station at Ellis Island, New York ended its service after bringing over 12 million immigrants into the Port of New York dating back to 1892.
In 1969, news of the My Lai Massacre by American forces in Vietnam – committed the previous March – broke in the United States after having been uncovered by journalist Seymour Hersh.
In 1980, Voyager I reached its closest point to Saturn and photographed the planet’s rings, the first images ever transmitted to Earth from Saturn. The farthest human-made object from Earth, Voyager I is projected to reach a distance of one light-day from Earth in six days.
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And that’s the way it is in Birdland on November 12. Have a safe Thursday.
