The Sports Note

In John Donovan’s midseason Power Rankings the Orioles are 25th. Donovan also names Brian Roberts as the O’s midseason MVP.

One of my favorite blogs is MLBTradeRumors.com, its a daily must-read for me. Today though there is a guest post up which includes the suggestion that the Orioles trade Eric Bedard to the Phillies (with the Pat Gillick connection being the main reason here). How to put this politely? Um, thats not going to happen. The Orioles arent about to trade Eric Bedard. The author of the post makes this point:

If the Orioles don’t feel they can retain Bedard long-term, they might be wise to listen to offers and begin another rebuilding.

Here’s the problem with that statement: The Orioles haven’t tried rebuilding in the first place. We’ve been losing for a lot of years now but we’ve never torn the whole thing down and tried to start over with youngsters. Thats why we signed Jay Payton and Aubrey Huff this off season, thats what the O’s front office thinks of as rebuilding. We didnt trade Tejada last year, when his value was high, why would we trade our ace pitcher now? Especially when he’s coming off a performance like his last start (first career shutout, career high 15 strikeouts). Not only do we not want prospects for our 28 year old ace but thats never been the team’s philosophy.

Look, I appreciate the fact that being 11 games under .500 at the halfway point means there’s going to be a rash of speculation about who the Orioles are going to be dumping, if anyone, but Bedard isn’t on that list. Kevin Millar, Jay Payton, Steve Trachsel, they are all on that list but Bedard isn’t. Sorry to disappoint Phillies fans.

Jon Heyman gives Jeremy Guthrie an honorable mention for AL Rookie of the Year, do mostly to lack of run support.

Jayson Stark gives two Orioles honorable mentions in his mid-season awards column: Jay Gibbons for AL Least Valuable Player and Jeremy Guthrie for AL Rookie of the Half-Year. Congrats to Jeremy and, uh, sucks to be you Jay.

I was always taught that when a pitch was coming inside that you were supposed to turn your front shoulder to protect yourself. The Tiger’s Craig Monroe was apparently told something else entirely. After watching this video (after the jump), I like my way a lot better.

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I feel considerably better about Nick Young (not that I felt bad) after watching him do a 360 BEHIND THE BACK DUNK! Dudes nasty. Video after the jump.

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Brian Roberts is the Orioles lone All-Star Representative and he deserves it too, he’s not one of those “well every team has to have a player, it might as well be him” picks. Lets look at the facts:

-his .327 batting average is second among AL second-baseman.
-he leads the AL in steals with 25.
-he leads the O’s in runs, triples and hits.

He’s more then deserving. I would have liked to see Jeremy Guthrie or Eric Bedard included on the team as well but the problem there is who would you have taken off to fit them in there? Here’s the list of the AL pitchers:
P Josh Beckett, BOS R/R
P Dan Haren, OAK R/R
P Bobby Jenks, CWS R/R
P John Lackey, LAA R/R
P Gil Meche, KC R/R
P Jon Papelbon, BOS R/R
P J.J. Putz, SEA R/R
P Francisco Rodriguez, LAA R/R
P C.C. Sabathia, CLE L/L
P Johan Santana, MIN L/L
P Justin Verlander, DET R/R

Who would you take off that list? I can’t really see anyone who stands out as being an obvious choice. Anyway congrats again to Brian on his second All-Star appearance (he started in 2005).

….in a column talking about this year’s free agent busts YOUR ENTIRE BULLPEN is listed. Sigh. From John Donovan:

The Orioles’ bullpen
Baltimore had the right idea in beefing up its bullpen. The Orioles just picked the wrong guys to pull it off, and paid them way too much money. The team shelled out around $42 million for Danys Baez (three years, $19 million), Chad Bradford (three years, $10.5 million), Jamie Walker (three years, $12 million) and Scott Williamson ($900,000 for ‘07). Baez was ineffective (6.52 ERA) in his 31 appearances and he’s currently sitting on the disabled list with a forearm injury. Williamson made a brief stop on the list, too. And the bullpen, as a whole, has a 5.16 ERA, 11th in the league. That’s a lot of dough to pay for below-average results.

Not much to argue with here. I might half-heartedly mention that Williamson hasn’t really been given that many opportunities, when he’s healthy but Baez has been beyond awful. In the end the O’s bullpen has 20 losses, which leads the majors. Its all very depressing.