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It's easy to say spring training means nothing, that clubs know their rosters, and action from the Cactus or Grapefruit Leagues is just a time-filling cash cow that's about three weeks too long. But there are elective decisions to be made, and as muc...

The number of reasons to doubt the 2013 Orioles is as long now as it was last year -- the one-run games, the extra-inning wins, the improbable performances, there are all sorts of reasons to wonder how they could repeat any of it. But the rotation is...

Say you're a team that has a problem, like losing an everyday player to free agency. Market solutions tend to be expensive, whether in cash spent or prospects dealt. But some teams already have potential solutions for their seeming offseason needs on...

It was the managers' turn Tuesday in Major League Baseball's awards week, and you can understand why this might be greeted by a collective yawn by the performance-analysis community. The throwaway comment is that it's the award for whichever guy in t...

OK, we know: This year's free-agent market is not like last year's. It isn't like the market will yield many or any easy choices for who to throw a six- or 10-year contract at. You can probably set this winter's over-under on nine-figure free-agent d...

A's versus O's in September, and there's something major at stake? Gritty starting pitching, a stack of well-turned double plays and the winner winds up being whoever homered with somebody on base -- what is this, a "That '70s Show" rerun? Perhaps no...

The Orioles are the team that won't go away. For months now, they've been predicted to, expected to, and they have no end of excuses for why they're supposed to be long since out of the expanded wild-card picture already. Injuries, run differential, ...

The Baltimore Orioles' walk-off win over the Detroit Tigers in the 13th inning Saturday makes for an interesting moment, and not just for the O's. You don't expect to win a game in extras on your new backup catcher's first hit of the year -- but the ...

Jim Thome's right back where he needs to be, and if you're an Orioles fan, you might think the trade that moves him down I-95 has come not a moment too soon. The Orioles really needed to do something to shore up their offense, and perhaps more than a...

Suffice to say that these days, Orioles starter Jason Hammel is making room for himself. Having shut down the Braves with a one-hit shutout Saturday, Hammel is redefining his career. The win was his first shutout, the first nine-inning complete game ...

You might have been one of those children who grew up with parents who, every Saturday, turned your radio's dial to "A Prairie Home Companion," where among other features you could reliably look forward to the segment in which Garrison Keillor welcom...

What do we know? Let's face it, six weeks ago, if you'd said that Brian Matusz would outpitch the Rays' Matt Moore for an Orioles win, you might chalk it up to one of those things, lightning in a bottle, a random outcome, the baseball gods acting in ...

The Society for American Baseball Research recently cranked out a history of the 1970 Baltimore Orioles, appropriately titled, Pitching, Defense, and Three-Run Homers, reflecting the three things that their skipper, Earl Weaver, always preached as th...

First base: That's where Allen Craig was playing for the Cardinals on Tuesday night, not just giving the Birds back the ninth bat they've missed, but more importantly giving them an immediate substitute for the still-injured Lance Berkman. Much like ...

With little more than two weeks' worth of games under our belts, you might not have expected really big moves to have been made, but injuries have driven a few major changes, creating a busy week as far as significant roster moves. The deal sendin...

On Tuesday I ran through Freddie Freeman's projections and reasons to feel good and bad about his 2012, but there's a larger point to make about young first basemen these days, starting with this: Freeman's one of the success stories. Look around ...