Matt Wieters isn't hitting for much power anymore

The TJ surgery ruined his offense

Part of that could be because he played so much because Baltimore had no production at catcher behind him....Same can be said for Martin in Toronto.... Basically a split in time makes sense to me, Martin versus lefties and Wieters versus righties and if one happens to have good splits versus a certain starter, throw him in at DH, shift Morales to 1B instead of DH or simply give him a day off...

And a good locker room guy

Wieters isn't an upgrade offensively and he isn't likely to help fill any gaps left by Encarnacion or Bautista. He and Martin were about the same player last year overall.

They'd be better off waiting for Bautista and EE's market o crater.

The Orioles signed Tomo Ohka to a minor league deal.

40 years old throws a knuckle ball now and hasn't pitched in The US since 2009.

Dan Duquette signed him back in 1998 from Japan and he got his first win vs the Orioles in 1999.

https://frinkiac.com/gif/S14E15/1104...VhbCBFeHBvcy4=

Orioles with a hot stove for the ages

Anyone who's played for the Expos probably has no chance to make a dent in the bigs anymore (minus Big Sexy)

Delino Desheilds still plays. He's a 24 year old outfielder for the Rangers now. :shifty:

John Wettland could probably still throw a solid BP session to Tim Tebow.

Anybody is an upgrade offensively over Josh Thole. And I mean anybody.

Giants sign Jimmy Rollins to a minor league deal.

If he can still go, more power to him.

BoSox just sent Clay Buchholz to Philly for minor leaguer Josh Tobias.

Oh Tobias, you blowhard.

:eek: Someone was dumb enough to trade for Buchholz.

Low risk for the Phillies that could pay off if can avoid another bad injury bug since that was a big problem for him the past few years. Combo of that and being way too streaky in quality basically killed any real value he had for trades.

The fact that the Red Sox are paying him for 2017 to play for Philly is what blows my mind. More teams should have been interested

Only about 20% of the ballots have been made public so far, but the early returns are looking very favorable for Bagwell and Raines to make their overdue trips to Cooperstown. Both are polling at around 90%, which is way higher than they were at this point in the voting last year.

Those seem to be the only two clear projectable inductees right now. Pudge, Vlad, and Hoffman are all hovering right around the 75% threshold but there's plenty of time for that to drop.

I have nothing against Hoffman, but that he's very likely to go in soon while Wagner may not even get the 5% needed to stay on the ballot another year feels like an egregious mistake. I don't know how you could vote for one and not the other unless you're blindly following the saves stat, which is just punishing Wagner for deciding to not extend his career into his 40s when he was great in his last year and clearly could've kept going if he wanted to. I don't know if Aroldis Chapman has desensitized voters to how ridiculous Wagner was but when he was around it was unheard of to have a dude coming out of the bullpen throwing 98 with his left arm. At his best he was practically unhittable. He might be the second best reliever of all time behind Rivera.

Bonds and Clemens have also seen a huge surge from where they've been in recent years. It's likely not going to be enough to get them in this year but it's now a very real possibility that they are going to make it before their ten years on the ballot are up. Several voters have gone on record of saying they decided that Selig being put into the HOF now makes it impossible for them to overlook Bonds and Clemens any more.

Manny is still probably never going to make it and A-Rod might have trouble too once he's eligible. Voters are now drawing a line between using steroids before there was testing and willfully cheating after testing was implemented.

Schilling has taken the biggest fall so far, losing at least a dozen voters who had voted for him last year. With voters limited to ten selections and there clearly being more than ten deserving players, it does appear Schilling's hateful comments are what has put him on the chopping block.

People will blindly follow the save stat. Got into an argument with another Padres fan via Facebook when he tried to say Hoffman was snubbed. Wagner was absolutely dominant, much more than Hoffman.

Hoffman, despite having a narrative that says otherwise, was never on Mo's level at any point.

Glad to hear about Raines and Bagwell though

Huh? I thought Phillies would have to pay. He didn't pitch yet.

Great trade for Phillies in my eyes. You get a guy whose been great (at times) in the past for essentially nothing, played on winning teams and will probably help sell some jerseys.... If he gets off to a hot first few months, trade him away to help fill some holes and bank more prospects for next year....

Indians signed Edwin Encarnacion to a 3 year, $60 million deal

ffs

Happy to see him out of the Division at least

yeah fucking eh to that

I like Shapiro and Atkins but the next few years of dumpster diving is going to be tough to swallow.

Nobody dumpster dives like Dan Duquette

I feel like it will be Cleveland and Chicago again next year in the World Series.

Replace Indians with Orioles and maybe you are right

Uuuugggghhhhhh Cleveland

in know scenario can i ever see that happen.

LOL

Replacing Cleveland with Baltimore is a lot like replacing Ubaldo with Zach Britton in the AL Wild card game. It's not happening.

Good luck EE, you will be missed :wavesad:

I feel like at minimum the Cubs are locks for over 100 wins and they could even threaten the single season wins record.

Postseason is a different beast though. Cubs will be favored as well they should but who knows.

Willing to bet that even after the Tribe signed EE the Orioles will fnish with a better record than the Indians..

but they still won't be in the world series

Neither will the injuns but with a better record the Orioles will have a better chance

I have no idea how Indians auto corrected to Injuns

I'm willing to make a bet like this. I'm not sure what we are betting but hell i'll take the Indians all day!

Indians infield is every nearly as good as the Cubs now. Cubs have a slight advantage, but Indians have the best infield in the American League now

Lol the Orioles' infield is better

Manny > J. ramirez
Lindor > Hardy
Schoop > Kipnis
Davis and the EE/Santana platoon will be a push
I can't judge Castillo vs Perez properly but Castillo is better offensively