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The O's running out of pitchers was simply brilliant. At least it wasn't as dumb as trading one of the top pitching prospects in all of baseball for a mediocre right-handed reliever. :plain 721331[/snapback] What trade are you talking about? 721393[/snapback] Denny Bautista for Jason Grimsley :plain 721397[/snapback] Yeah, but the Marlins traded away Bautista too...and that was before it came out that he was two years older than he claimed, and before he had another minor league season where he couldn't find the strike zone.

I don't want someone who won't stand for the National Anthem. It was God Bless America, but point taken. 658893[/snapback] Would either of you stand for the Isreali national anthem if you heard it? Dude makes American money, it doesn't make him american. The next time you hear the Afghan national anthem or whatever national pride song they use I hope you are standing there hand over heart, tear streaming down your cheeks. 658895[/snapback] Actually, Delgado is American. He was born in Puerto Rico. In my opinion, that gives him even more of a right to not stand for GBA.

Man am I glad we got Javy for 3/$21.5M. Have fun Pudge. Congrats Tigers fans, it's a step in the right direction.

Webb is SUCH a b***h. I've never seen that quote before. I predict a much bigger dropoff for Webb than Willis. Willis had much better minor league numbers at a much younger age.

For the sake of debate: Vlad is NOT going to be the SB champ! He's not even fast! Vlad not fast? He's finished in the top 4 in SB twice (with 37 in 2001, 40 in 2002). Now he didn't run much last year, and he probably won't run more with his bad back and in the AL, but he's certainly very fast.

Unfortunately, there's almost no way the O's are going to go to the playoffs in '04. If a lot of things go wrong with the Jays, and a lot of things go right with the O's, they could eke out 3rd. But the posters here who say the O's will finish 4th are probably right. Too bad they aren't in the AL Central. Oh, and Lowe, Wakefield and Kim (Boston's 3/4/5) are overrated and nothing special. But Pedro and Schill alone are enough to give them the 2nd best pitching in the division.

Rolen over Lowell?Why? Lowell is nice, and he may be underrated, but Rolen (and Chavez) are clearly better. In every single season Lowell has played, both Rolen and Chavez have posted an equal or higher OPS+ than Lowell. Lowell is battling it out for 3rd best 3B with Corey Koskie, Bill Mueller, and Hank Blalock.

Baltimore-Boston? WTF? Bums! Can't blame them, when ESPN did the scheduling this was supposed to be Vlad vs. ARod. Actually, the scheduling was done well after the ARod deal was dead (It was announced January 9th), but before Vlad was signed. They were probably assuming Vlad would be an Oriole. Also, the O's haven't been on ESPN Sunday Night since 1999, so the whole "same damn teams" argument doesn't really hold water for this game.

O's rotation will be: Ponson Ainsworth Eric DuBose Matt Riley Rodrigo Lopez or Omar Daal Ponson is pretty decent, and is still improving. The three middle guys are all young and unproven, but all three of them have the stuff to be #1/#2 starters in the future. It's likely one or two will fail miserably, but 2004 is the final step in rebuiliding for the O's; they find out what they have, and make additions next offseason to go for the playoffs from 2005-09. Rodrigo or Daal just suck up innings as the #5. Not a big name rotation, but it has the potential to be pretty solid. In the AL East, they're a .500 team for this season. But watch out for them in 2005. The O's have a good young core of talent, and Angelos will spend big again next offseason.

OPS+ is a better stat since it corrects for park differences. Using OPS+: 1. Posada 269 2. Piazza 264 3. Javy 250 4. Pudge 247 5. Lieberthal 235 6. Pierzynski 220 7. Varitek 214 7. Greg Myers 214 9. Santiago 203 10. Kendall 198 11. Ramon Hernandez 182 12. Jason LaRue 177 13. CJ 168 14. Ben Molina 160 I left off Moeller since he hasn't had enough ABs in my opinion. This still isn't a very good list, but it's much better than OPS.

The O's also had the highest payroll in 1997 and were wire-to-wire AL East champions. I don't think anyone believes the O's will compete next year, but adding Vlad and Ponson will put them on their way to compete in 2005. Their rotation would be Ponson, Ainsworth, Matt Riley, Eric DuBose, and the best of Rodrigo Lopez and Omar Daal. Ainsworth, Riley and DuBose all show a lot of promise, and I expect at least one of them to succeed. The O's will still have plenty of cash to sign a front-line starter or two nexty offseason, and take advantage of the aging Yanks and Sox. I expect the AL East to be a two team race from 2005-2009, the Jays and the Orioles. The Yanks and Red Sox have just about NOBODY in their minor leagues, while the Jays have a great system, and the O's have a decent and improving system.

Is there something I am missing? No. First of all, directly comparing the away OPS of Nomar and Jeter is unfair because the away OPS of Jeter includes 37 ABs at Fenway where he had a .928 OPS. So the non-fenway OPS of Jeter is .835, which is a fairer comparison to Nomar's non-fenway OPS of .687 More importantly, you can't take split stats from one season and judge the relative worth of the players. In their careers: Jeter's Home/Away OPS: .851/.851 Nomar's Home/Away OPS: .960/.889 So Nomar clearly benefits from Fenway, but over his career, he's still a better hitter than Jeter at any park. Add in Jeter's questionable defensive range, and i think Nomar is clearly the better player. This argument isn't that important however, since the Yankees are still clearly a better team on paper than the Red Sox.

Thanks for the props from some of you. they're 2 expensive 4th place teams. True, the O's will have a tough time finishing third or higher in their division, but that doesn't mean the O's are a bad team, they just happen to be in the strongest division in baseball. The AL East has arguably 3 of the 5 best teams in all of baseball. Playing 40% of their games against the Yankees, Red Sox, and Blue Jays is tough, but they wouldn't be any better off if they signed Millwood and Colon instead of Tejada and co. I don't think what place a team finishes is a perfect indicator of how good a team is. Who's better: the second place Marlins, or the first place Cubs? Why are they nontendering moss?? They are probably non-tendering moss because he'll cost a lot in arbitration because of his very good performance in 2002. He was awful last year, and since he's a control pitcher, he doesn't have overpowering stuff to fall back on. He was really just a throw-in when the Orioles traded Ponson for Ainsworth. Ainsworth was the jewel of the deal. Plus the O's may sign Ponson back. So your trying to tell me a team with R Lopez as their ace has good pitching? If lopez joined the marlins he mite have been a 3rd or 4th starter at best, ok pitching yes, but good pitching no. R. Lopez won't be the ace, he might make the starting rotation as the 4th or 5th starter. And all im saying is, its been proven that teams can win with pitching and no hitting, never does a team do it the other way around. That's ridiculous. Take last year.: Good-hitting, bad pitching teams like the Red Sox, Blue Jays, and Cardinals all fared as well or better than the ultimate good-pitching, no-hitting team: the Dodgers.

Somebody made a post stating this a while ago. It's true. If the Orioles sign pudge and Vlad, nothings still going to happen in Baltimore. The rangers had a better pudge, the best player in the league A-rod(who is better than Tejada) and id take jaun gon and palmiero over vlad and so would anyone. So with even less Offesne than the Rangers had, what makes them think there going to do anything with out the P word. They should of gone after some pitching instead of 3 overpriced MVP caliber batters. If they dont get good pitching fast, dont be surprised if the rays have a better season in 2004. Well you got at least one thing right. With all of these great hitters, the Texas Rangers' record for 2003 was a pretty pathetic 71-91. So there's clearly something wrong there. Here's something you probably don't know: the Orioles record for 2003 was also 71-91. This says several things: First, if the Orioles sign Pudge and Vlad (to go along with Tejada), they will be a much better team than the Rangers have ever been since they signed ARod. I don't see how you can expect them to be as bad as the Rangers after signing all these guys if they are already as good as the rangers. Second, this clearly shows that the Orioles have much better pitching than the Rangers have had. The Orioles were able to win as many games as the Rangers despite having a lineup full of guys you've never heard of. The Orioles expect to re-sign Ponson, and they have such confidence in very talented young starters like Kurt Ainsworth and Matt Riley that they are expected to nontender decent starters like Jason Johnson and Damien Moss. They also have 6-8 high-cieling pitchers that will enter the rotation over the next few seasons. You may have heard of Denny Bautista and Don Levinski. There's also Erik Bedard, Adam Loewen, John Maine, and a couple other I'm forgetting. Third, the Orioles lineup is full of young, improving players, while the Rangers have been bogged down by injury-prone veterans (until recent success with Blalock and Teixeira). If they sign Pudge, only two regulars on the Orioles will be over 30. Fourth, the Orioles are signing players in a down market, and won't be crippled by huge contracts like ARod's. Vlad is expected to sign for around $15 million, so they are getting Vlad and Pudge for around the price of ARod. Finally, the Orioles are a high Revenue team, and the Rangers are not. The Orioles had the highest payroll in baseball in 1996 and 1997, and have drawn 3 million fans 9 times since moving to Camden Yards. The Rangers have never drawn 3 million. The Orioles will have the flexibility in upcoming offseasons to retain their own free agents, as well as signing new free agents to fill in rotation holes. Even after signing Vlad, Tejada, Pudge, and Ponson, the O's could spend another $25 million next offseason due to expiring contracts and expanded revenue. The O's owner, Peter Angelos, has shown a willingness to invest in his team when they start winning. So, as you can see, I don't think it's a very intelligent comparison. Great site you have here. I like seeing what other teams fans are thinking.