Before I even get into what I am talking about and let you in on my recommendation, let’s first consider some numbers from the American League in 2009. In today’s game, most teams would be happy with a starter that gives them 180 innings in a particular year. No team had four starters give them that in 09.

Teams with 3 starters logging 180 IP - NYY, CHI, TB
Teams with 2 starters logging 180IP - BOS, MIN, LAA, DET, TEX
Teams with 1 starters logging 180IP - BAL, TOR, KC, SEA
Teams with 0 starters logging 180IP - CLE, OAK

The point is that no matter what you think you can count on before the season, things are likely to change. So when you look at the O’s top three of Millwood, Guthrie and Bergesen, and think that they are locks…think again. Also, notice that winning teams will typically have 2 or 3 starters reach the 180 mark.

The next thing we will look at is how many starts each team gets from players other than their top 5 starters according to games started. Ready to pencil in a guy for 30 starts? Don’t be so sure. Last year each team needed an average of 38.86 starts from starters other than those that would be in their top 5 for starts. Naturally this is due to a number of factors such as ineffectiveness, trades and injury. Below is the list for each team.

NYY 23 MIN 40 LAA 35
BOS 37 DET 31 TEX 42
TB 24 CHI 32 SEA 64
TOR 35 CLE 50 OAK 44
BAL 54 KC 33

As for the O’s, what should we expect from those that are already here?

Millwood is a nice addition, but don’t be so quick to give him the “work horse” label after he has failed to reach the 180 IP mark in 3 of the last 6 years. For the most part his track record says he will stay healthy, but ineffectiveness (ERA of over 5.00 in 2007 & 2008) does not always allow him to go deep into games. This does not bode well for a questionable bullpen and means we need to get pitchers that work deep into games in our 2-5 spots…

Guthrie, who topped the league in losses last year with 17, appears to be the most reliable to get to the 180 IP plateau after reaching that mark for the past two years and just missing out in 2007 by 5 innings while he was left out of the rotation early in the year. A solid starter who struggled at times last year, we have to hope that 2009 was an aberration.

Bergesen gets a lock in the rotation after an impressive rookie season that was cut short by a line drive off of his leg. I like what Bergesen showed last year but keep in mind he only has 19 ML starts under his belt and has never been stretched out over a full season. In his minor league career Bergesen has pitched to totals of 165 IP in 2008 and 150 IP in 2007, both on par for a decent minor league season but the next season he pitches 180 innings will be his first.

Now we get to the big question marks with Matusz, Tillman, Hernandez and Berken as this group will take the last two spots with the other two probably eating up those “other starts” which are 39 on average or 54 if you were last years Birds.

Out of this group Brian Matusz clearly showed the most in his 2009 opportunities. It was his first season in professional baseball and when he came to the majors he showed why he was worthy of being a number 1 pick. Good control and the ability to strike guys out give hope that Matusz will soon be a top of the rotation hurler, but how hard will the organization push the 22 year olds arm? Don’t get me wrong, I really like Matusz, and think he has a good chance to get close to 30 starts, but that is still a lot to count on from someone who has 8 ML starts.

Chris Tillman. Yes, I know he has good stuff, but he is 21 and needs to learn to command all of his pitches. In his 79 minor league starts he has averaged 4.9 IP per game. I understand that this may not be Tillman’s fault since he has likely been on pitch counts, but we can assume one of two things. Either he throws too many pitches to get guys out or he has been on an extremely low pitch limit. Either way, relying on Tillman to fill a rotation spot for an entire season seems like a bad bet.

Jason Berken. Not ready. Posting a 6.54 ERA and a 1.74 WHIP in 24 starts tells you all you need to know.

Lastly, David Hernandez was rushed to the majors after only 57 IP at the AAA level and it showed. Although he has the pitches to be successful in the majors the location is not yet there. A good chuck of the season for Hernandez should be spent at AAA where he can continue to develop.

The O’s have chose to enter a season with questionable depth in the rotation before and yet people wonder why the team is a wreck in August and September. The only way to address this and give players ample time to develop is to bring in someone that can give you innings and keep you in ball games. The free agent pool is starting to thin but there is still one option to solidify our starting five.

Jon Garland is the fit for 2010 and maybe even a few years after. This season Garland with be 30 years old and he has pitched 190 innings in each of the last 8 years. Is he dominant? No. In fact he is quite average with his 117-102 record and 4.42 ERA (all in the AL except for 2009). It will take a multi year deal to get him to come to Baltimore but is that so bad when you are looking at 2011 with Millwood being a free agent (or dealt before then) and a pitcher like Jeremy Guthrie who could be a non-tender or trade candidate when his arbitration figure could be around $5 million next year.

The Orioles have made improvements this off season, but they will not sniff 81 wins without more help and consistency out of the rotation. Jon Garland is the only option at this point that can help get the team to a respectable level in 2010. They have the cash. The question is, do the O’s see their own vulnerability and will they address it properly?

Conversely the stupidity is not limited to writers who refuse to vote for certain players, it also includes the writers who vote for players who are obviously not HOF worthy. This year it was David Segui, Kevin Appier, and Pat Hentgen receiving undeserved single votes, where Ellis Burks and Eric Karros each received two votes.

David Segui can’t even make the Orioles HOF!

Writers who exclude those that are obviously deserving or include players who are undeserving should not be allowed to take part in what should be considered an honor and a responsibility to the game of baseball.

My easy fix…

If a player makes it into the HOF and is on at least 95% of the ballots and you did not vote for that player, then you are stripped of your voting credentials. Also, if you vote for a player who has less than 5% of the overall vote you are stripped of your voting credentials.

If writers still wanted to vote in future years they would be scared into voting for players that truly deserve to be there. No more of this stuff where players get in on the 13th try.

Baseball has enough problems; can’t it at least make a simple fix to bring a little more integrity to the HOF voting?

I dug into my personal archives for this one after Nestor posted a few classic Earl Weaver videos last week.

We all know the story of the 1982 season. With Earl Weaver’s retirement looming, the Orioles played the final game of the season versus the Milwaukee Brewers to determine the AL East Champion.

The O’s lost, but the scene that followed was one to be remembered.

It was only fitting that on the national telecast Howard Cosell was there to make the call. Enjoy the emotion from Weaver and the Baltimore fans, as well as the amazing ability of Cosell to write a priceless script on the fly.

Either deal him for prospects or offer him arbitration with the thought that he will sign elsewhere at which point we would receive draft picks as compensation. Most likely Huff would be a Type A free agent which would mean we would get two picks before the second round.

The decision may not be that easy. Over the past couple years, teams have been reluctant to sign some lesser valued Type-A free agents, because of losing their 1^st round pick (see Juan Cruz) in the following Amateur Draft. This fear of being in “no man’s land” could lead to Huff accepting arbitration at which point we could have him back at one year for $10 million +.

In years past, no player would ever think of taking this type of arbitration, but with the economic downturn in baseball it may prove to be a viable option in the winter of 2009. Therefore, it may be in the Orioles’ best interest to take what they can get for Huff at this point.

Recent developments also suggest the Orioles are ready to jettison Huff. Last week, the O’s promoted top hitting prospect Brandon Snyder after only 201 AB’s at the AA level. At first glance, it seemed a little out of character with the current front office; bumping a hitter up so fast, but it makes sense if Huff is on the move. Plain and simple, they probably want to see if Snyder could be an option at 1^st next year.  So, they need to get him 250 AAA AB’s to gauge his overall development.

Then you have yesterday’s acquisition of Michael Aubrey. Aubrey is a left handed hitting 1^st baseman who came out of the same draft as Nick Markakis, and many felt that he was a better pure hitter after batting .420 his senior year in college. As a pro, Aubrey has been dogged by injuries but has still managed to hit .295 over his minor league career while showing below average power for a 1^st baseman.

Is Michael Aubrey the future? No, but he could be part of an adequate platoon with Ty Wigginton or Oscar Salazar for the remainder of the season.

There are 5 weeks until the July 31^st deadline and from the look of things Aubrey Huff may be in the playoff hunt, but with a different team.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I know that Frank Robinson was the only player to hit a Home Run completely out of Memorial Stadium, but when I was a kid I someone come within inches of being the second player to do it.

April 25^th, 1985 – Eddie Murray digs in against Indians righty Jose Roman and blasts the ball up over the right field foul pole. It was so high that it went over the small corner of the upper deck which came out just past the foul pole. As the ball carried it kept hooking and hooking as it came down toward the back of the bleachers.

At the top of the bleachers there was a metal railing which consisted of posts every 5 feet or so, and two metal bars, one at the top and one in the middle. The space between the bars was open.

I was sitting behind the Orioles dugout but I followed that ball the whole way as it went soaring into the night and watched it hit the middle bar at the back of the bleachers. If Murray had hit the ball 4 inches further it would have cleared the bar or if he would have hit it 4 inches shorter it would have went below the bar and out of the stadium all together.

I have never been able to speak to anyone in order to get confirmation of what I saw. After all I was only 11 and this memory is now 24 years old. Also, Eddie Murray is by far my favorite player of all-time so could my memory be clouded…?

Well, after all of these years I was able to find the footage from that memorable night. The night that Eddie Murray may have hit the 2^nd longest Home Run in Memorial Stadium that no one talks about.

Did anyone else see it or can you think of one that went farther?

Enjoy.

NEVER make the first or third out at third base.

The part that kills me is that he was out by about 20 feet.

It’s ridiculous and it happens week after week. Mora may have the lowest baseball IQ I have ever seen in watching 30+ years of baseball.

Can anyone name someone worse?

I thought I had seen Mora’s worst a few years ago when he was thrown out at home as the last out in the 9th inning trying to score on a sac fly in a 3-1 game, but he just keeps me amazed with what he will do next.

Hopefully this is the last year I have to see this since his contract involves a club buyout next year. If not, my blood pressure may not be able to handle it.

Now that I am older, I understand that a raucous beer drinking section was not the spot for a young kid.

Anyway, there was another character running around Memorial Stadium who I seemed to have missed. Pat “The Bugler” Walker was apparently a fixture at the park as is shown in the clip above of an episode of Baltimore’s Evening Magazine TV show.

Pat would go throughout the stadium playing his bugle on a daily basis as he “entertained the fans” with his various calls.

All I can say is watch the video and you will get a smile one way or the other. And make sure you watch it all the way through to see the reaction from “Wild Bill” when Pat shows up in section 34.

Enjoy and be sure to listen to Rex Snider and myself on the Sunday Morning Blitz from 10am-12 noon.

As expected I was very excited to be able to watch this years draft on TV on the MLB Channel as opposed to the MLB.com feed as it was shown last year.

For all of my anticipation, I was very disappointed. The commentary was fine, but after every pick they would show only about 5 seconds of each player in action.

With the internet age don’t you think they could have given me a little bit more? I know MLB has the footage since they will soon be posting links of many players who go in the first 20 rounds on their website as they did last year.

Baseball nerds want to see footage of these guys and I doubt that anyone who sat through two hours of the coverage tonight is not a baseball nerd.

For a first try at showing their draft, MLB came up a little short. Then again when Bud Selig is leading the way with the enthusiasm of a mortician what do you expect?

Of course I will still watch next year…

I plan on sitting next to one of my least coordinated friends so it can hit off of his hands and land in my lap without busting up my own hands.

Once I have the ball what should I do? I am assuming an usher would come over and take me somewhere to make a deal to give the ball up. Meanwhile, some idiot will be offering me $50 for the ball as I leave my seat.

At first, I thought that I would just give the ball to Wieters as a nice gesture. But then again, why shouldn’t I handle things the “Oriole Way.” The Orioles would drag on negotiations for weeks and try to make every dollar they could. Maybe they would even back out of the deal once it was agreed to.

The way the O’s handle business can’t be held against Wieters right? Of course not, but what if Scott Boras was advising me in what to do with this ball? He would get ever last penny for it. Boras would never represent me since he is not what I stand for, but Matt Wieters has no problem being associated with the guy. So why not treat Wieters the way his representative treats people?

So what should my demands be?

I have a 7 month old and I would think that $25K would be a nice start to his college fund.

Or how about something that would be so easy and painless for Wieters, but something he would be restricted from doing. Something that would be pretty embarrassing for the Orioles…

That’s right, once I catch the ball on Friday night, all that Matt Wieters will need to do is call in to the Sunday Morning Blitz on Sunday from 10a-12p for an exclusive interview.

With that kind of a threat he would likely fork over the $25K.

His name is Stephen Strasburg of the San Diego State Aztecs and he is flat out nasty. At 6’4” 220 lbs. this powerful right hander will throw a fastball that will frequently hit 100 mph and has been clocked at 103 mph. Oh, and here is the other part, that fastball has movement and he is able to command it (issued two walks or fewer in 21 of his 22 career starts.) Add in a tight slider that is in the mid-80’s and a change up that he is developing and you have a guy who many believe is MLB rotation ready right now. Search around on YouTube and you will find the game from last year when he struck out 23 batters in one game.

His numbers from this year are equally as staggering. http://goaztecs.cstv.com/sports/m-basebl/strasburg09.html   He is 8-0 with a 1.28 ERA and 121 K’s in 63 1/3 innings which translates into 17.2 K’s per 9 innings.

But…there is one more catch. Strasburg is represented by Scott Boras and when taken in this year’s June draft he is expected to ask for a MLB deal in the ballpark of 6 years – 50 million.

With the Washington Nationals picking #1 it is quite possible that they could pass on Boras’ demands. Next after Washington would be Seattle, San Diego (shedding payroll), Pittsburgh and then your Baltimore Orioles at #5.

Could Strasburg fall to the O’s and would they be willing to pay the money for a player that could trump all of our existing pitching prospects in no time?

We are still a way from finding out, but it’s worth a look to watch a pitcher that is already being tabbed by some as the best pitcher to ever come out of college baseball.