Roch - Great info on the previous blog. Keep up the good work. Also wondering what your thoughts might be on a July call up of Reimold. As Alex stated earlier it does seem that Payton has a mission of self-destruction. As much as I despise him, Saturday's performance was brilliant, and then to turn around and be ejected early in the next game??! Just doesn't make sense!

Can't completely agree with the other Ray on this blog and your opinion on Texiera. Certainly seems that the team may be holding out hope that they can add him during the off-season.

The AL race is stupid. You look at the NL voting, and they are all different. There is no dominance of any team except Texas with Hamilton and Young. But that's just two players.

In the AL, there's like 5 Yankees and 4 Red Sox. It's just idiotic. What more can I say?

It's nice to see the Red Sox acknowledge that their fans also root for other Boston teams. It sure seems easy enough to move the games up an hour. Have the O's ever acknowleged that the Ravens won the Super Bowl?

Looks like the 'Red Sox nation' is stuffing ballot boxes all over America. Is there anything that the league can do if the entire starting team is made up of RedSox players or do we fans have to endure the AllStar team the way the 'fans' select it? Not that the All Star game is the attraction it once was the process is clearly flawed when so many undeserved players make it.

You cracked me up big-time with the Dan Ford joke. He had a couple decent years, but who knows how things might have been different for the O's if we had DeCinces at 3B and Cal at SS.

I got to meet DeCinces a couple times when I was covering the Shorebirds about 10 years ago and his son, Tim, was a catcher with Delmarva.

Both were class acts, and I see where Tim owns his own pit barbecue joint on the West Coast. Congrats.

As a pre-teen fan of the Orioles who closely followed the team in 1979 and 1983, Doug DeCinces was the one I really wished had gotten to be with the Birds in '83. It never really seemed right to see him with the Angels, but at least he got to play close to home.

the catching situation in the american league is ridiculous. There's not too much of an argument for Varitek over Mauer at the plate or behind the plate. Do we really have to watch the Red Sox battle the National League All-Stars?

Nice to see Doug's name again. Too bad he didn't get a chance to stay in Baltimore.

In re: ballot stuffing - it's hard for me to get all huffy about the Boston fans' enthusiasm for their players. Heck, I've been voting for marginal Orioles for years!

I like the idea of having the players themselves vote instead of the fans. it would make selection more meaningful.

Further fuel for the make a trade for Bill Hall argument...

After more than 60 games, Bynum, Cintron, Hernandez, Torres, and Fahey have a combined total of 7 RBIs and 3 steals in 217 at-bats.

Maybe more importantly, none of them plays anything like exceptional defense which would begin to justify the abysmal hitting.

I'm a big fan of the moves that have been made and the way that the team is playing, but I don't understand why we have to play the entire season without at bare minimum an above-average shortstop in the field... it wouldn't be possible to hit worse than the guys we've already tried in that position.
So, my feeling is, if Hall is cosidered to be too costly, let's get somebody else who can field the position. We definitely don't seem to have an internal solution for this year, and this team deserves better.

Ben,

Repeat after me.

The Orioles are rebuilding.
The Orioles are rebuilding.
The Orioles are rebuilding.

The reason they do not have "an above average shortstop in the field" is that Macphail has not found a player of the ability he seeks at a price he is willing to pay. Macphail will not settle for an improvement for the team if he has to overpay to get it. Rebuilding is frustrating. The flashes the Os have shown this season is a reflection of things to come if they stay with the program. They are not one or two players away from contending no matter what your heart tells you. If they continue on this course they will content but not for several more years.

Rickie Weeks problem No. 1:

He just returned to Milwaukee to get a checkup on his knee. I feel that Roberts hasn't been playing at 100% health this season, but do the O's want a guy with a bum knee? I doubt it.

I say wait till the end of the season to make any trades, because this year may end up being pretty interesting. Find out whether Texiera is a real possibility, then weigh trade offers. Roberts and others are starting to hit a little bit better, including Ramon, so I don't think they should be too quick to pull the trigger.

Also, signing Texiera WOULD be a good idea...he is traditionally a slow starter, and was probably hurt by starting in giant Turner field. He wouldn't start so slow in OPACY.

And Jason Varitek sucks this year. He doesn't deserve to be an All-Star with a .257 AVG. Give me Joe Mauer and somebody else.

I think Ben W. should look at the standings to realize that Texas is in the AL.

Well, how about everyone log onto mlb.com and vote for Brian 20x. We already know Roch has gotten upwards of 100,000 hits occassionally so taking into account obsessive refreshers we should be able to get BRob an additional 200,000 votes with a little initiative.
http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/events/all_star/y2008/index.jsp

Ben-- good points about our woeful SS situation. Not only does Bynum have miserable production on a team that has been surging offensively, but he really is not a superlative fielder. Better than Luis this year is not saying much. He missed a line drive that pretty much went through his glove on Sunday. Little league stuff all year from that position. I think Bill Hall would be a good addition (relatively speaking) but his K's are way up, OBP and avg. down (never that great). He seems to be swinging for the fences but at least he reaches them occassionally!

The other part of me says that we should just suck it up with a lame SS until we finish trading in July. Certainly no reason to give up much this year for a stop-gap in the middle infield. I am really curious what this deadline will look like!

btw, i think kelly quinn (the younger sister of brady is a soccer player from UVA which would make sense.

David - I was just wrapped up in my rant, and didn't notice Texas is in the AL. What can I say? This whole business has gotten me into thinking that Texas is in the AL and the Orioles have finally switched to the NL!

Yeah, I wish.

But my point, anyway, was that the NL is different because every leader in the voting is from different teams, and there is no major dominance of a team in the voting whereas it is extremely visible in the AL (Boston and NY).

hey-- any troof to the rumor the Ms are shopping bedard?

Ben - Bill Hall isnt a SS and he certainly isnt one on a rebuilding team. Why do we need more dead weight?

The Cincinatti fans once stuffed the ballot boxes and got all their players picked for the All Star team. I don't remember how it was finally resolved, but the commissioner had to step in and I believe he made some changes to the starting lineup.
By the way, who cares if Steve Traschel is "uncomfortable." He simply hasn't been able to cut the mustard. When you give up 37 earned runs in 39 innings, when you put 80 people on base in 39 innings, when you walk 27 people in 39 innings and only strike out 16, and when you carry an 8.39 ERA through the first third of the season, you shouldn't be in the major leagues. If he feels "uncomfortable" in his new relief role, think how "uncomfortable" he made the fans feel when we had to watch him blow games as a starter. He should have been waived long ago.

I just checked the O's stats on the Sunpaper website. I was shocked to see who the leading hitter on the team is.

Without looking who is HE?

hey, I didn't realize Julio Lugo was that good a shortstop. He's second in the allstar voting for AL shortstops. Can someone tell me what Cal's full name is. I never saw anything other than Cal but surely that is just a nickname.

So Weeks went on the DL in cheesetown. They need a second baseman. They have several high performing first base prospects playing in the minors. And seems that Fielder has worn out his welcome in that town. Between Fielder and the minor league players, it seems that a deal is begging to be made.

Alan in Va-Actually Bill E Hall was a starting SS and played quite well there three years or so ago,they moved him to the outfield for Rickie Weeks,or it that Weaks?Would be a major improvement over anybody we have.And I like Luke Scott's bat,but his outfield play is awful.Hopefully we can trade Huff and he can Dh,maybe see Reimhold in LF.And as far as the idiot who says he sees weight problems and declining number's for Tex-what have you been smoking?

EatMoreMeat, what's shocking about Markakis leading the team in batting?

King Eric.....Cal Ripken? Calvin Edwin Ripken Jr

To clarify my above position, though I would love if the orioles were able to acquire Bill Hall, I'm arguing that for the sake of our pitchers' development, we need a shortstop who plays better defense. It doesn't have to be Omar Vizquel in his prime, but somebody's got to have a AAA shortstop that's blocked... Joaquin Arias for the Rangers, blocked by Young, with Elvis Andrus a better prospect behind him (but MLB lists him as a second basemen this year, so forget him). Point is, there's got to be a John McDonald in somebody else's organization that we can lay our hands on, cheaply. I understand that we're rebuilding, but we've got some great sinkerball pitchers on this team, Cabrera, Albers, and Johnson among them, and their development would be aided by bringing in a decent defensive shortstop.

Seriously, O's fans need to represent for BRob in the All-Star voting! This could be our last chance to vote for him as an Oriole. If you somehow don't think he deserves to be an All-Star this year, you need to look again at his stats... and the stats of Mr. Dustin Pedroia and the other guys who are ahead of him in the voting not named Kinsler.

Unsung hero award for the last 3-4 weeks? Lance Cormier has been doing an entirely adequate job of eating up innings with quality work.

Face it, the O's are playing AAA at shortstop this year.
In the next 2 years they need: 1B, 3B, SS, probably LF and 2 relievers. If the starters keep developing that looks doable.

I'm looking forward to the return of Randor Bierd. Randor showed us a lot before he encountered arm problems. He has a good change up and sneaky fastball.

On a completely unrelated note, anytime I see a reference to Placido Polanco, I can't help but think about one of the Naked Gun movies when Leslie Nielsen steps in for Enriqo Polozzo to sing the national anthem.

Forgive me.

I voted for b-rob 20 times yesterday! I did my job!!!! WOO!

Roch:

Did anybody ask Trembley "why" he look Liz out while he was on a roll? Couldn't he have lasted 1 more inning?