The Sports Note

Brooks Robinson makes Rawlings’ all-time Gold Glove Team. Sounds about right, guy did have 16 Gold Gloves after all.

Well the July 31st non-waiver trade deadline came and went and, because they hate me, the O’s did nothing. Jay Payton, Kevin Millar, Steve Trachsel? All still with us, for reasons that are beyond me. Yeah, I get it, no one was offering anything good but….that’s because these guys aren’t that good. Take a shot on some mid-level prospects and maybe give some young guys a shot but whatever.

Anyway, just because July 31st has passed doesnt mean people can’t still be traded. Now they just have to go through the waiver wire process first. Tim Dierkes at MLBTradeRumors.com helpful lays out the rules for us:

Any player can be put on waivers by his team, and the player does not need to be informed.

Other teams have the chance to make a claim on the player during a 47 hour window.

If the player is claimed, the team that placed him on waivers has the option of pulling him back. If the team pulls him back they can’t trade him for 30 days.

If his team decides not to pull him back:

Option 1: His team can work out a trade with the team that claimed him. Any player involved in the trade who is on a 40 man roster must go through waivers first.

Option 2: His team can just dump him and his salary on the team that claimed him, getting no player in return.

Option 3: No one claims him, and his team is free to trade him to any team.

If more than one team places a claim on a player, the winning claim is awarded based on worst record or the league the claiming team is in.

As you can see, trades are still possible, just more difficult to pull off, so the O’s might still make some moves. I would imagine Aubrey Huff, Jay Gibbons and Jay Payton will have no problems clearing waivers and Lord knows I’d like to see them moved on. More interesting though is the name Jerry Crasnick puts forth as the name most likely to garner the most speculation: shortstop Miguel Tejada. Now Crasnick admits that there’s probably only a 10% chance Tejada gets moved but I think there’s a serious chance he does. Some random thoughts that pop into my head when thinking of this:

- Tejada is owed $26 million over the next two years: fairly certain no one is going to claim him.
- The Angels failed to trade for Mark Teixiera and had serious interest in Tejada last year, maybe they can rekindle things.
- The O’s played well without Tejada, he isn’t the saviour everyone was hoping for and this team needs to grow around its younger stars (Bedard, Guthrie, Markakis) rather then an aging former All-Star.

So yeah. Maybe Tejada could go. Frankly, I don’t really see it. I think Andy MacPhail is going to take the rest of the season to look over what he’s got and make some moves this off season. I will say though that before I was very much opposed to parting with Miguel. Now, not so much.

For the record, by the way, Crasnick also mentions pitchers Danys Baez and Trachel and hitters Millar and Payton as possible August players on the move.

Ah well, looks like Maryland native Mark Teixiera won’t be coming to the O’s, at least not this year. Ken Rosenthal is reporting that he’s been traded to the Braves. Sigh. Teixeira would have looked really good playing first and batting fourth for us. Maybe we move on to Adam Dunn? One can only hope.

Ken Rosenthal (via MLB Trade Rumors) throws out a bit of Orioles trivia at the end of his column today:

And finally, thanks to FOX statistician Marty Aronoff for this gem: Only one Oriole has led the American League in strikeouts, a feat that left-hander Erik Bedard is trying to achieve this season. That pitcher was not Jim Palmer or Mike Mussina, but righty Bob Turley, who won the AL strikeout title in 1954, the team’s inaugural season. Bedard leads the AL with 167 strikeouts. The Twins’ Johan Santana is second with 140.

Jon Heyman says Daniel Cabrera is the Orioles most important second half player. Sounds about right.

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.

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).