Per Rosenthal: Balfour (FINALLY) to Orioles...

[Going Underground]

Welp, I'm already sick of this ----.

All that's left now, regardless of a resolution to the Balfour situation, are quotes from DD along the lines of "we had some productive conversations concerning trades and free agents, and we're going to continue those blah blah blah." Oh, and of course there'll also be DD's justifications for selecting a huge project in the Rule V.

What a circus.

This is DD after 2012 winter meetings.

"Things are happening every day for the Orioles," Duquette said, grinning. "We're working all the time. As far as some of our trade options, I don't know if they're going to come together. We did sign a number of players to minor league deals who will be in camp, and one player in particular that I like is Conor Jackson. He's got a .271 lifetime batting average in the big leagues and he's a right-handed hitter. He's got a lot of time. We think he'll bounce back and hit effectively with some power. It's a right-handed power bat that can help us at first base or the outfield. He's down in the Dominican playing and he's another option, I think, to help us. And this kid McFarland is pretty good."

Asked if he's made any progress in his attempts to find a power bat, Duquette replied, "We made progress in our trade discussions. Some of them develop and you can make a deal and others fall by the wayside. A couple of them have fallen by the wayside, so that's progress because now we know that's not an option and we can look someplace else.

http://www.masnsports.com/school_of_roch/2012/12/duquette-recaps-the-winter-meetings.html

[El Gordo]

We shall see. Balfour could turn into Kevin Gregg. Weeks can become an everyday minor leaguer. I don't mind they got rid of Johnson but they need more upgrades. Also Balfour is not on the team yet. Is any other of the relievers left better then Johnson?

Sounds to me like you wanted to keep JJ.

[Aglets]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p><a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23orioles&src=hash">#orioles</a> still talking to balfour. o's prefer 2 years. believed to be 1 other team in mix.</p>— Jon Heyman (@JonHeymanCBS) <a href="

">December 12, 2013</a></blockquote>

<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

I hope this mystery team isn't like the one in the Cano negotiations......

[MrOrange82]

This is Dd after 2012 winter meetings.

"Things are happening every day for the Orioles," Duquette said, grinning. "We're working all the time. As far as some of our trade options, I don't know if they're going to come together. We did sign a number of players to minor league deals who will be in camp, and one player in particular that I like is Conor Jackson. He's got a .271 lifetime batting average in the big leagues and he's a right-handed hitter. He's got a lot of time. We think he'll bounce back and hit effectively with some power. It's a right-handed power bat that can help us at first base or the outfield. He's down in the Dominican playing and he's another option, I think, to help us. And this kid McFarland is pretty good."

Asked if he's made any progress in his attempts to find a power bat, Duquette replied, "We made progress in our trade discussions. Some of them develop and you can make a deal and others fall by the wayside. A couple of them have fallen by the wayside, so that's progress because now we know that's not an option and we can look someplace else.

http://www.masnsports.com/school_of_roch/2012/12/duquette-recaps-the-winter-meetings.html

That sounds about right. In fact, that sounds more than right. I'm anticipating a virtually identical spiel this year.

[MrOrange82]

That sounds about right. In fact, that sounds more than right. I'm anticipating a virtually identical spiel this year.

And there you have it:

“The meetings have been helpful for us to staff our team,” Duquette said. “We’re going to come out of them with the addition of a pitcher [Webb], and these two players we added [Thursday], and then we’re going to continue to work on some of the groundwork we laid out on trades."

...

“Hopefully that will bear some fruit with players to bring back to Baltimore, and there are players we’ve started negotiations with that we hope we are able to sign,” Duquette said. “We were active in the Rule 5 draft. We wanted a player with good tools in Almanzar. We added Webb, who had a very good year last year, to our bullpen, and we’ll be able to add more players based on what we did here in the next week or so.“

http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/orioles/blog/bal-as-winter-meetings-wrap-up-orioles-still-without-a-major-move-20131212,0,2969293.story

[Aristotelian]

Balfour , Weeks , Weeb and the Player to be named later >>>>>>>Johnson.

I agree with this, and yet I don't know why we didn't just go after Mujica and beat Boston's bid. I'd rather do 2/10 or 3/14 for Mujica than 2/15 or 3/21 for Balfour. Then we would have had Mujica, Webb, PTBNL plus $2 million per year of additional payroll AND Mujica is younger. I am OK with Balfour but much prefer Mujica or Joe Smith.

[Guest]

And there you have it:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/orioles/blog/bal-as-winter-meetings-wrap-up-orioles-still-without-a-major-move-20131212,0,2969293.story

This just makes me sad.

[MrOrange82]

This just makes me sad.

On the bright side, DD's made me look like a wizard. Unfortunately, the same can be said for any number of people who: (1) have a pulse; and (2) follow the Orioles.

[CA-ORIOLE]

Well, we're not going to give Balfour 3 years at his age. This is the reason the A's preferred one yyear of Jim Johnson at 10 mil.

[Guest]

On the bright side, DD's made me look like a wizard. Unfortunately, the same can be said for any number of people who: (1) have a pulse; and (2) follow the Orioles.

Nothing will change until Peter goes. I still laugh at the people that think we can sign Davis.

[atomic]

If they could sign Balfour with the addition of him and Webb I think the Orioles would really have upgraded their bullpen. So that would leave a starting pitcher and outfielder to acquire by the time the season starts.

[terps19]

Well wasnt that fun. And to think I was considering making a twitter handle to follow all the ground breaking news the Orioles had planned for themselves. I feel like I have wasted a good portion of the week checking updates etc.

Questions we need suitable answers for:

1. Who is the PTBNL and how does he fit on this team?

2. Who is going to be the LH to platoon with Danny Valencia?

3. We saw subtractions from the Orioles starting pitchers last year; who will the additions be? Surely the Os learned they can not keep trotting out pitchers like Gharret Olson, Jake Arrieta, and over the hill projects?

4. Will we have anyone who will get on base above 33% of the time? If not, then have fun waiting for those three run homers with no one on base.

Looks like if the Orioles ant to improve their team outside of possibly Balfour it will have to come via trades.

[atomic]

Nothing will change until Peter goes. I still laugh at the people that think we can sign Davis.

Why can't we sign Davis. Have we ever lost a solid player due to not wanting to pay the bigs bucks under Angelos? I know we lost Mussina but he was a pitcher and we know how Angelos feels about giving pitchers long contracts. But he came to bat for Markakis, Jones, and Roberts.

[Guest]

Why can't we sign Davis. Have we ever lost a solid player due to not wanting to pay the bigs bucks under Angelos? I know we lost Mussina but he was a pitcher and we know how Angelos feels about giving pitchers long contracts. But he came to bat for Markakis, Jones, and Roberts.

Davis will be a 160m player. Good luck with this owner on that.

[Brooks The Great]

Davis will be a 160m player. Good luck with this owner on that.

The owner flushed lots of money down the toilet with Roberts and Markakis. He will spend lots of money to keep a legitimately great player. Angelos likes to keep his stars. See Adam Jones. He'll pony up for Davis. Good guy, fan favorite, stays healthy.