How does the MLB draft work? How does free agency affect it? And, most importantly, where will the Orioles be picking?

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Pete's reply: If you're talking about the amateur draft, the teams pick in inverse order of won-loss record. I think the O's will pick fifth, which isn't bad, but is small consolation for a bad season.

Ridiculous list; With salaries being what they are there will be a new team added to this list every year. Can anyone say 2008 New York Yankees?

Peter, I think I read over the weekend (Dan C.?) that the major-league record for most consecutive losses to end a season is 12 - shared by the 1899 Cleveland Spiders and the 2002 Orioles. (That is, of course, what Saturday's win prevented the O's from equaling.) But didn't a team you might have been familiar with - the 1988 Angels - also lose their last 12, after Moose Stubing replaced Cookie Rojas as manager? That streak sticks in my mind since '88 also was the year the O's opened 0-21 - meaning that season had both the longest [or tying] season-beginning AND season-ending losing streaks. (I apologize if you already brought this up in any other post.)

P.S. I know you don't follow hockey (except to participate in media open houses), but the most prominent professional team Baltimore ever had, the 1962-76 AHL Clippers, ended their final season - and thus their existence - by losing their last 13 !

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Pete's reply: You have a heck of a memory. I did cover the 1988 Angels team that finished with 12 straight losses. Moose Stubing, who shows up to scout O's at spring training ever year, still is major league baseball's only winless manager (not counting single-game fill-ins). He lost the last six of those games and remains 0-6 for his career.

whats the correlation between the O's losses and your blood pressure, bc dude, you dont look to good. you're in a town you dont want to be in, and the town is not fond of you which you know is the one of the many reasons you're an alcoholic. how long will you drown in misery here hoping to bring down others with you? get some help or else...

Pete -

This has nothing to do with the topic of this post, but I just wanted to get it out there.

With all the fan talk about the O's bringing Mark Teixeira back home, which would probably take something like an eight year, $130 million contract, why hasn't anyone mentioned Adam Dunn?

Sure, Dunn strikes out a ton, but he also walks a ton, which puts his career obp at .381, a few points higher than Teixeira's .378 mark. Also, Dunn doesn't hit for much average, but he's (almost) on a streak of five consecutive 40 homer / 100 rbi seasons (the almost comes from his 92 rbi mark in '06).

On the "signability" (is that a word?) side of things, Dunn's only six months older than Teixeira and there's no way he's going to command as big of a contract as Tex this winter. A five year contract would have him in an O's uniform through the 2013 season, when he would be 33 and the O's would (hopefully) be competing for a playoff spot.

How does five years, $55 million sound?

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Pete's reply: I think your projection on Teixeira is more along the lines of Dunn's likely contract. Tex is going to get eight years at about $150 million.

The Orioles don't have enough money to sign Dunn OR Teixeira at MARKET prices, much less the millions extra it would take to convince someone to play in Baltimore. The Orioles are truly pathetic. Who, in their right mind, would want to play for a team that won 68 games and finished off by mailing it in for the entire month of Septmber (again)? They have a clueless manager, who (evidently) was trying to get into the Guness Book of Records for both stupidity and stubborness, because he kept sending Jamie Walker in to give up tape-measure home runs to lefty hitters because he read somewhere that lefthanders (theoretically) can get out lefthanded hitters. He obviously doesn't know the difference between theory and reality because batters hitting off a tee couldn't have done better than they did against Walker (13 HRs). Amazing! I know EEO laws dictate any organization hire the handicapped, but I thought that was PHYSICALLY handicapped. The O's should hire some mentally challenged persons for the front office rather than as manager (oops, I guess they already have more than their quota in the warehouse, starting with the owner).

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Pete's reply: Are you always so upbeat?

After 09 this team will be out from under Huff's, Mora's, Walker's, Baez's, Hernandez's and Gibbon's contracts. Uncle Petey will be saving a bunch of that confederate $. It is possible that DCAb, BRob will be adiosing as well--then some of us could probably afford this franchise with pocket change

TerryP -

So, after 1 season, (and 1 off - season) you are ready to declare the rebuilding process "offtrack"? Are you serious! Did you really think based on 1 off season, this thing was going to start to turn the corner? If so, what did you base your thinking on. And don't throw MacPhail under the bus on this, because he never even intimated that 2008 we would be well on our way with the rebuilding process.

Right from the start, I felt MacPhail was pretty honest with his assessment of this franchise, and what it would take to turn it around. You don't fix all the years of basically ignoring the farm system in a couple off seasons. Let's all be honest with one another. Starting with last year, Andy had to begin addressing the state of the farm system. He did that through managerial changes in the minors and placing more emphasis on scouting and player development. He began to address the woeful state of Latin player scouting along with the Pacific Rim.

After reorganizing the farm system, the next business in order was to assess which build to build around and which of his few bargaining chips to explore trade options with. Andy did quite well with both the Tejada & Bedard deals. And the only injured player he took a chance on, was Troy Patton. He figured that if the kid needed surgery and could bounce back well then it was a risk worth taking. As for the remaining veterans on the team, well if Oriole fans weren't thrilled to have these under achieving vets, then please tell me which team would be dumb enough to trade you prospects for them? You might want to pass that info on to Andy as well. And then McPhail even convinced Angelos to eat the Gibbons contract. How many of us thought that would happen?

So, MacPhail has made some modest gains in the rebuilding process. He has improved the organization's pitching depth in the minors, secured a starting CF with ALL Star potential, found a reliable LH reliever, and got a decent return on players like Luke Scott and Dennis Sarfate. The jury is still out on Albers. The demise of the current pitching staff is not really his fault. No one knew that Lowen was done. And if nothing else, during a season which meant little in wins or losses, we pretty much learned that D-Cab has no future here.

So all in all, I'm very satisfied with MacPhail's performance, and expect continued changes in the structuring of the big league club, and fine tuning of the farm system. Most of us agreed that the rebuild was the way to go, and that it would take several years to just get competitive. Well, we at least have square one in place and behind us. Still room for lot's of improvement, and I look to Andy to make a couple of key pitching acquisitions through both FA and trades, and attempt to locate our SS of the future. I'm still on board!!!!

Mr. Angelos. Please sell the team to Cal Ripken!

TX O's fan. I'd say we are 'off-track' if we go into the off-season with only one proven starter, who is likely a number 2 or 3 in most rotations. It's not MacPhail's fault that we had all those injuries but the fact remains that our pitching staff is in shambles and far worse than anyone expected. I could go on and on about other areas we need to shore up but I really hope the team doesn't make the mistake of bringing in a bunch of mediocre starters from the bargain bin.
We need to hope that the injured pitchers that are half-decent and young recover over the off-season and/or suffer through the growing pains of Liz/Olson,etc.
The patch-work approach in the past of signing the Ortiz's, Drabeck and Trachsels failed miserably and I hope the O's mgt. learned something there.
While I realize that these things take time, I am hoping that the '09 shows more improvement. The off-season will tell a lot and I am already looking forward to next year as the stench of that 7-30 finish has worn off!