Our little BaseballBigMouth family keeps getting bigger. Today, we welcome Orioles’ fan Robert Mang to our site. Today, he brings us all up to date on the happenings of the birds of Baltimore. Have at it, Robert! Welcome aboard! - The Heckler 

After Dan Synder bought the Redskins and took the team to the playoffs for the first time in six years there was a flash animation on the team’s website which read something to the effect of “What an offseason…wait for the regular season!!!” You see, in addition to the team’s on the field success in 1999 the team also had the 2nd and 3rd picks in the NFL Draft fall into their laps thanks to earlier trades. The team had also signed an assortment of stars including Bruce Smith, Deion Sanders, Jeff George, Mark Carrier and Larry Centers.

Once again, a beltway area team had an offseason that will be remembered. And quite possibly, this offseason could be remembered with glee by Orioles fans as the winter months that finally righted the Orioles’ ship. But right now, things are more bleak.

Gone is Erik Bedard. A player that the Orioles drafted and developed themselves into a star – a true ace. Bedard had the potential to be one of the five best Oriole hurlers in franchise history. Now it is another’s potential that the Orioles fans must look towards: Adam “please don’t be pacman” Jones. There is something to look at here. Jones, who was 21 at the time and five months older than this writer (born 8/1/85), had a monster season at Triple-A. He hit .314/.382/.586/.968/25 HR/85 RBI which is great by any measure even if it came from the hitter friendly Pacific Coast League.

There is no doubt adding Jones to the fold will greatly benefit the Orioles. The question is: was Jones worth Bedard. It is impossible to say. Time will have to tell. There is nothing wrong with wishing Bedard well,but all the same let us hope he is not the next Curt Schilling.

Regardless of what happens with the trade, Orioles Chief Operating Office Andy MacPhail has to be given credit for acting proactively to deal with Bedard’s refusal to sign a contract extension. At least the Orioles got something in return, unlike with the Mike Mussina situation.

Bedard is not the only prominent Orioles player gone. Former MVP star shortstop Miguel Tejada was also traded – hours before he was named in the Mitchell report. The haul for him was a little weak. But the situation was different with Tejada than with Bedard. Tejada’s power has declined, his range is said to be decreasing and he was entering into the back loaded years of a back-loaded contract.

The main player acquired in the deal was outfielder Luke Scott. Scott, who turns 30 on June 25th, is a bit old but has preformed well in limited at-bats over the past two season hitting .336/.426/.621 in 214 at-bats during the 2006 season and .255/.351/.504 in a 369 at-bat 2007 season. He will play LF and is an improvement over incumbent players Jay Gibbons and Jay Payton.

This offseason has cost the Orioles their biggest star on each side of the ball. The benefit of those losses are a replenished minor league system and, with the help of incumbent budding fan favorite Nick Markakis, the team’s best outfield in a decade.

It just would have been nice if they could have signed a free agent, or two.

- Robert Mang

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This entry was posted on Thursday, February 21st, 2008 at 8:25 am and is filed under Baseball preview, Baseball Hotstove, Baseball News and Views, Baseball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.