good job Pete! A+ blogging. Why dont you just shutdown or quit now.

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Pete's reply: Not a chance. I love irritating you gutless types who are too wimpy to put your name behind your criticisms. Man up or go away.

Pete why dont you show some guts and not delete my posts.

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Pete's reply: You're funny. Why don't you look over your shoulder. Your boss even wants to know why your wimpily cheap shotting me from under your desk.

Trial balloon from Nike shot down with Pete's help.
It only took one blog post.

Since you seem to have strong influence, why don't you blog that you sadly and solemny conclude, after deep deliberation, that the only way the Orioles will ever succeed is for Peter Angelos to sell the team.

Double dare you.

Pete - just wanna say I read your blog daily and always enjoy it and your columns!! Orioles are obviously in another season's end freefall and gonna hit with a thud like dropping a watermellon off a roof like the used to do on David Letterman. Nothing new just no fun to a real lifelong fan. There sure is promise for a better future with all the decent+ possibly good++ young talent. But if we don't or can't sign/aquire some veteran outside talent it won't likely be enough yet. I'd like to see us get Crawford from the Rays as a free agent and put him in left. Riemhold do the Luke Scott thing - 1st and DH. Imagine him leading off and Brian batting 2nd with his doubles and Crawford's steals! Adam Jones could go either way - he may come back and become a monster hitter or do what he did entire 2nd half - hit like .220. He really needs some plate disipline! He was trying to kill all the worms around home plate most of his at bats and everybody - esp the pitchers knew it and kept throwing the ball down and away and he kept swinging hard at it. He's either gotta quit or will be a bust. All for now.

Peter, my good man, some of your detractors brings to mind a bit of advice my grandmother once gave me -- Never mud wrestle with a pig. You both get filthy, and eventually you realize that the pig is enjoying it.

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Pete's reply: You're grandmother is right, but what would a blog be without a little mud wrestling.

Anonymous. You are annoying as heck! Its a free world. If you don't like the man, then stop reading his articles and stop contributing your nonsense in response.

Pete, I am really torn about this team for next year. There are so many bright spots., that it actually seams that if Andy finds a few pieces to fit here and there. They just might be a decent team.

On the other hand, we have been there before in the past 13 seasons. I am so dang tired of losing.

I hate Angelos as much as the next guy. But, he appears to be letting Andy make the baseball decisions. He is actually spending money in Florida and building a real minor league training facility. Their minor league teams have improved talent wise.

So Pete, is the glass half empty or half full for next year?

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Pete's reply: Wow, that's a loaded question at this point. If I thought MacPhail could find a sure-thing bat for the cleanup spot who plays a corner infield position, and was willing to make a real play for a quality free agent starter, I'd say half-full, but I don't really like the odds of those two things happening. The free agent market is thin and the O's would have to give up a great prospect or two to trade for that bat. I'm guessing Andy concentrates on fixing the bullpen and coming up with a decent (but not marquis) run-producer. If that's all that happens, I can't see the O's making a run at .500 next year.

Mr. Schmuck. My last comment was a question for you.

Is next year's team, glass half-empty or half-full?

Hey Peter, keep the other topics coming! It's too depressing to just talk about the O's, especially since there hasn't been too many positives for the month of Sept.
On the subject of the O's however, I have to say that at this point, I don't really care one way or the other if Trembley comes back or not. Given the current situation, MacPhail should seriously consider making some sort of public assessment of where he thinks the Orioles are at in terms of the rebuild.
As a loyal fan, I'd like to know what he plans to focus on in the off-season and when he feels the O's can realistically start showing some progress in terms of wins/timetable towards even reaching .500.

Vick sucks. I'm glad Nike didn't sign him. If you read around the web, it was Vick's agent saying something dumb trying to help Vick's image.

If Nike does re-sign Michael Vick , I envision a shoe commercial that goes " If your dogs are barking , do we have a shoe for you !"

If Nike does re-sign Michael Vick , I envision a shoe commercial that goes " If your dogs are barking , do we have a shoe for you !"

Alright. The Padres are probably not going to give away Gonzalez for anything that the O's would be willing to part with. They haven't looked too shabby the second half and believe they're on their way to contention next year. The only way the Brewers are giving away Prince Fielder is if they can get some real starting pitchers, which is what we need the most, so he's out of the question. Everyone thinks there isn't a chance we'll get Lackey, and while we won't know until we try, this likely is the case. The same could be said for Pettitte, who is 38 and probably wouldn't see a point in spending a year or two with a club that doesn't have a sure bet at the postseason. Either way, we need to go after these guys because they're probably the best available in this FA class. With that said, we need a contingency plan:

** Go for Randy Wolf. He's the best free agent starter we have a chance at getting. He has a 1.08 WHIP and he's 11-8 right now, which isn't bad, but he looks a lot better knowing his bullpen's blown nine saves for him. He's also 33 which means he isn't old but he's pitched almost 3x the innings as Guthrie which should earn him some respect in the clubhouse. Trading for a quality starter will involve giving away a pitching prospect or two. I'm not saying we shouldn't do that, but if we aren't willing to seal the deal, Andy McPhail should be looking hard at Randy Wolf. And look at it this way - say we're contending going into the trade deadline next season, how good would a Guthrie, Hernandez, Pie, and 2 prospies for a Halladay look??

** What do people think we'd have to give up for Mark Reynolds? I like this guy. "So what" if he strikes out 1 in 3 times he comes to the plate - his OBP is higher than Scott, Markakis, Jones and Wieters. Who else wants to see this right-handed clean-up guy jack 480' shots to sec. 382 on college night spilling beer all over co-eds, along with opposite field shots, tattooing his name all over Eutaw St.? If he's hitting 44+ homers out of Chase Field this year (right in the middle at 15th in park factor), imagine him silencing Sox fans as he owns the Green Monster each of the 9 times we play them at Fenway. Imagine him teeing off Joba at homer-happy Yankee Stadium (1st in park factor) pumping his fist as he circles the bases. We play them 9 times there too. And imagine what he'd do at Oriole Park (5th in park factor) in 82 games... He also has 24 stolen bases which places him easily at 2nd on the O's, and at 26 he's only going to improve.

** We have to solidify our rotation before we do anything else. Once that's accomplished, a guy like Mark Reynolds becomes a great option to stabilize the lineup. After that's said and done, and only when that is said and done, should we begin to look at the bullpen. While I think that a good rotation helps out the bullpen and that we don't need a total $40 mil. overhaul, we could use a dependable lefty. Castillo is a minor league pitcher - the only reason we're seeing some success now is that he comes on late in games and is facing some minor league batters - he won't do the job. The best two free agents I could find were Joe Beimel of the Rockies and John Grabow of the Cubs. Beimel would be my choice - he's been a bit better the past couple years, doesn't walk as many batters and he's actually played some in the AL, but Grabow isn't bad either. I think we could get either of them for quite a bit less than we gave Baez, Bradford or Walker. I say, throw a 2 year $6 mil. deal between them and see who's left standing.

Who knows if we'll actually be able to pull all of that off. Maybe I'm wrong and we'll do better - get Luckey or find a Prince - but I doubt it. But if we did end up with the guys mentioned above, I think O's fans would have something to look forward to.

I liked Fort Lauderdale, but I've already got myself excited about seeing these guys join our young team at Ed Smith Stadium. It really is a step up and is one of those immeasurable improvements that will benefit us long term. Looking at what we got - our savior, Matthew Richard Wieters, will only improve. As should Chris Tillman, and I fully expect Brian Matusz to come out of Spring Training like a left-handed slightly slow but very agile bat out of hell. If Reimold, Bergesen and Jones (and Pie, God love him) fully recover and Jones and Markakis (no one's betting on Scott) are a bit more consistent with some protection from Reynolds, we're playing .500 ball, if not competing in the AL East. Here's what we look like April 6th:

Roberts, 2b
Jones, cf
Markakis, rf
Reynolds, 3b
Wieters, c
Reimold, dh/lf
Pie, lf
Aubrey, 1b (assuming Scott and/or Wigginton's traded)
Izturis, ss

Bench: Wigginton, Andino, Moeller

Wolf
Guthrie
Bergesen
Matusz
Tillman

Pen: Uehara, Johnson, Mickolio, Ray, Meredith, Sarfate, Hendrickson, Beimel

That's not exactly a $208,097,414 group of guys, but it will win us some ball games. And if Trembley can't do anything with these guys, we should feel free to let him go at any point during his option year. He is not the man we need once we start getting to the postseason - he cannot lead the team, he doesn't really hold players accountable and he is the major's worst small-ball manager. But he needs to start the 2010 season as the O's manager. Trembley probably didn't negatively affect the outcome of more than 8 or 10 games and he did quite a good job introducing our best prospects to the majors, he may have even coddled them a bit much. Not bringing him back is asking for a change, which is fine if you have a direction. Change for change's sake is aimless and irrational and we shouldn't feel like someone is to be blamed. If McPhail has gotten no bites from legitimate managers by next week, I think he'll take Trembley's option. I've said before that it could be interesting to pursue Mike Piazza, and maybe that's something to look into, but I digress. Most all of us bought into "the Plan", and we shouldn't have expected more out of this season. The only real administrative flaw we made was trading Sherrill. Other than that move, we've been able to free up some money and we've realized the holes that we need to fill for next year. Again, with all of these things in mind, should the front office be aggressive in filling these holes, these fans should have something to look forward to next Spring.

Thoughts and opinions? Please only comment if you have something intelligent to say and aren't trying to prove yourself to the rest of us.

But Pete, how'd you miss the breaking news that Purina is signing Vick as a spokesman?

Pete, why don't you man up and just take the anonymous abuse, huh?

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Pete's reply: I man up every day, friend, by putting my name behind everything I write while you cower in your mother's basement.

Hey, Annoying-mouse (how ever many of you are out there using this clever nom-de-plume) Shut it! Do something productive! Go back to your drudge report...