When the sun went down on October 3, 2010, the 2010 season closed for the Baltimore Orioles, who lost to the Detroit Tigers 4-2. While the Orioles lost that day, they had just completed a portion of the 2010 season under Buck Showalter that saw them winning 60% of their games in the final two months. Thus began a long off season full of signings, trades, rumors, and potential. That long off season unofficially comes to a close tomorrow, which is the first workout for pitchers & catchers, and injured players. (Didn’t we just play the Super Bowl last week?!) Let’s be real here folks…the off season unofficially comes to a close with this workout. Nothing really matters until the bullets fly for real come April 1st. However the fact remains that pitchers and catchers reporting does signal the beginning of team activities for the new season. So whatever happens for the Orioles in 2011, it starts tomorrow.
The newest Oriole, Vladimir Guerrero, is expected to be in Sarasota last week to take his physical. Once he passes, the ink on his contract will be dry. With that said, I wouldn’t suspect that there would be too many camp battles this year. One thing that the Orioles learned in 2010 was that in this day and age in the AL East, you can’t totally grow all of your talent from the bottom up. While in the past the O’s did try to be active in free agency, it was generally to no avail. (If anything, the Mark Reynolds trade might have opened up the doors for the Orioles to sign some other free agents because it told people that they were in fact serious about improving themselves.) Having said that, I do foresee one battle in camp this year: backup catcher. Last year we saw a camp battle between Chad Moeller and Craig Tatum (ultimately Tatum won out). This season we might see a similar struggle between Tatum and Jake Fox. Obviously whoever performs better in spring training is ultimately going to be on the roster on Opening Day. However chew on this for awhile; Tatum threw out approximately 8% of base runners last season. Granted he wasn’t the everyday catcher, but that’s a pretty low number. Jake Fox is also a very versatile player in that he can play various positions in a pinch.
Everyone also questions how the rotation would shake down. Last week on MLB Network Ken Rosenthaul said that Guthrie, Duchscherer, Matusz, and Bergesen would probably be in the Orioles’ rotation, along with some combination of Jake Arrieta, Chris Tillman, and perhaps even Zach Britton. Ultimately, the starting rotation won’t be set until the end of spring training, but my personal opinion is that it’ll go as follows: Guthrie, Duchscherer, Matusz, Bergesen, and Arrieta (perhaps swapping Bergesen and Arrieta at the back end). There’s no doubt that Buck Showalter will try out a few different people as starters throughout spring training, however generally as you move into the last two weeks before Opening Day they’ll start trying to set guys in the rotation to correspond with the days that they want them to pitch in the regular season.
If baseball season is comparable to a day, it’s still nighttime. That’s the case today, and it will still be the case tomorrow. However pitchers and catchers reporting is still thought of as an important threshold to pass as we transition back into baseball season. We thought that 2010 would be the dawn of a new day for the Orioles. In retrospect, we were right. Let us not forget that the night is always darkest before the dawn. Now as we move into the 2011 season the Orioles have truly upgraded their lineup and have a legitimate shot at competing this year. So while it’s still in fact nighttime, I would invite Oriole fans to turn their attention towards the star-filled eastern edge of the horizon, where we’re starting to see small streaks of auburn, amber, and orange. They say that hope springs eternal for all teams this time of year. That’s most certainly the case for the new-look Baltimore Orioles in 2011. Now all we need is for that sun to hurry up and rise so we can get it on!
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