While wondering whether Brett Favre texted pictures of his feet to Rex Ryan ...
I saw the mlbtraderumors.com post ranking each club according to its offseason spending and braced for the inevitable Orioles bashing. I knew it was coming, so I may as well address it.
(It also allows me to mention Adam LaRoche again, keeping my streak intact.)
The Orioles rank 23rd out of 30 teams at $5.58 million, which is broken down as $3 million for reliever Koji Uehara , $1.5 million for infielder Cesar Izturis and $1.08 million for reliever Jeremy Accardo .
Mlbtraderumors includes the following disclaimer: This is by no means a final look at offseason spending - the entire 2011 portion of the offseason lies ahead.
Good point.
I'll make a few others.
The Orioles also traded for Mark Reynolds , J.J. Hardy and Brendan Harris , who expect to get paid next season. They offered $48 million to Victor Martinez , which would have bumped their total to - I'll do the math here - $53.58 million, moving them up to eighth on the list. They have a substantial offer on the table for LaRoche, perhaps the highest one out there for him. They reportedly made a two-year offer for reliever Kevin Gregg that falls in the $8-10 million range.
The Nationals rank second at $128.5 million. That includes $126 million for Jayson Werth , a contract that no other team in baseball would touch.
The Rockies rank 10th at $40 million. That's $32 million for Jorge de la Rosa and $8 million for Ty Wigginton .
The Brewers rank 28th at $2.18 million, but they traded for Shawn Marcum and Zach Greinke - who also expect to get paid.
The Orioles aren't wild spenders. I keep pushing for them to open up the wallets and let the money fly. Buy the bats. Buy a frontline starting pitcher. But I'm not going to overreact to their ranking here, especially on Dec. 23.
I'll leave that to the others. I know it can be therapeutic. No sense carrying all that angst. It'll burn a hole in your stomach.
I'll be more disappointed if the Orioles settle for a free-agent first baseman who isn't LaRoche or Derrek Lee . That's one of the options with the LaRoche talks apparently stalled and Lee hoping to play on a contender.
The Orioles really don't want to put Luke Scott at first base - also an option. Signing someone like Russell Branyan or Troy Glaus would keep Scott at DH barring a trade.
I haven't heard any talk of moving Nolan Reimold to first base. Again, the Orioles are concerned about defense.
Reimold gained some experience at first while playing at Triple-A Norfolk, and he should be taking ground balls there in spring training. Lots and lots of them. But you don't pencil him into your lineup at that position. Not on Dec. 23.
You can't do it with, either, though he'll compete for a job in spring training - more likely a right-handed bat off the bench. Snyder and Josh Bell were supposed to man the corners on Opening Day, but that plan broke apart a long time ago. They'll handle those duties in Norfolk.
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