What was the most exciting offseason move to you?

[atomic]

I would say the year we signed Tejeda and Javy Lopez.  We were so bad the year before and it seemed the other owners were colluding that year or something and we got two top free agents for reasonable salaries.  Plus we were so bad the year before.

I don't think I was excited about any of the guys we got when I was a kid. It generally meant losing players I liked.  

[interloper]

Not offseason, but I remember being insanely psyched about signing Wieters after we drafted him. Roch finally broke the news a few minutes after the deadline. 

In related news, I hope we do not draft a catcher #1 this year.  

[atomic]

11 minutes ago, interloper said:

Not offseason, but I remember being insanely psyched about signing Wieters after we drafted him. Roch finally broke the news a few minutes after the deadline. 

 In related news, I hope we do not draft a catcher #1 this year.  

We lucked out that Boras was representing him as other teams a head of us didn't want to pay what Boras was asking for Wieters.   

[wildbillhiccup]

36 minutes ago, Grt 2BA FL Gator said:

The Erik Bedard trade. Most of the exciting off season acquisitions occurred before I was really a fan. I remember the Vlad Guerrero and Derrek Lee off season with MacPhail, lol. 

And to be honest, I was excited about Alex Cobb at the time and the chance to "get the band back together" for one more run. 

Me too. I remember this was the first time I really dug into another team's prospects and was absolutely thrilled to get Jones and Tillman. 

In terms of the Orioles' late season trades to try and bolster their roster they always seemed consistently underwhelming to me (i.e., Keith Moreland types). Andrew Miller's probably the rare exception, but we had to give up a solid pitcher to get him. 

[Matt]

The move that excited me the most was when we signed Andy Van Slyke in 1995. He was always my favorite player. It didn’t turn out how I’d hoped, but for a little while there, what I thought impossible had happened—my favorite player on my favorite team. It felt like a dream.

[Moose Milligan]

Raffy 1.0.  And then the Alomar acquisition.  

[LookinUp]

39 minutes ago, wildbillhiccup said:

Me too. I remember this was the first time I really dug into another team's prospects and was absolutely thrilled to get Jones and Tillman. 

In terms of the Orioles' late season trades to try and bolster their roster they always seemed consistently underwhelming to me (i.e., Keith Moreland types). Andrew Miller's probably the rare exception, but we had to give up a solid pitcher to get him. 

Yep, it was the Bedard offseason for me. The names being thrown around were epic. MacPhail was percolating. The "rumored" headliners included Jones/Tillman, Kershaw (lol), Josh Hamilton and Jay Bruce. MacPhail wanted 4-5 guys. I will always wonder if he might have been able to get Kershaw without a larger package. That's laughable in hindsight, but it was at least rumored at the time. 

[Moose Milligan]

2 minutes ago, LookinUp said:

Yep, it was the Bedard offseason for me. The names being thrown around were epic. MacPhail was percolating. The "rumored" headliners included Jones/Tillman, Kershaw (lol), Josh Hamilton and Jay Bruce. MacPhail wanted 4-5 guys. I will always wonder if he might have been able to get Kershaw without a larger package. That's laughable in hindsight, but it was at least rumored at the time. 

Don't worry about not getting Kershaw.  If Kershaw was an Oriole he'd have like a 5.00 ERA and a Tommy John surgery.

[Ohfan67]

47 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Don't worry about not getting Kershaw.  If Kershaw was an Oriole he'd have like a 5.00 ERA and a Tommy John surgery.

This would be the response from most posters in 2018: "Who was Kershaw?"

[Tx Oriole]

16 hours ago, Frobby said:

Of all the offseason player moves the O’s have made over the years, which one excited you the most at the time (no hindsight involved)?    

I wasn’t a fan yet when the O’s traded for Frank Robinson, so I can’t choose that one.   Of the ones since then, there’s no doubt in my mind that I was the most excited when we signed Miguel Tejada.    By that time, we’d been losing for 6 years, and had been saddled with several bad contracts that had pretty much kept the O’s out of the free agent market for several years.   There was a lot of noise that winter about now the O’s were one if the few teams with money to spend.   Not only was the Tejada signing seemingly great in its own right (and the terms were very good), it seemed to signal that there were more deals coming, especially a possible deal with Vlad.    Needless to say, that never happened, though we did sign Javy Lopez, Sidney Ponson and Rafael Palmeiro That winter. 

None of it quite turned out as planned, but the day we signed Miggy was electric.     I should add that the earlier Raffy and Alomar signings in the mid-90’s obviously were very big, but at the time, the one that excited me the most was Miggy, probably because it seemed like the team was emerging from the wilderness.    

Miguel was the one for me.

[Frobby]

2 hours ago, atomic said:

I hated the Glenn Davis trade the day it happened.  Was so angry they traded a young center fielder and two quality young pitchers for a First Baseman who only hit 22 home runs and .251 average the year before.  I thought that was terrible production for a first baseman and you should never trade quality pitchers and centerfielders for a first baseman. 

Fine to knock that trade, but let’s not forget that Davis had been injured for part of 1990, so his 22 homers came in 93 games.    Also, the Astrodome was well known to be a tough place to hit homers.    OPS+ was not a stat then, but Davis’ 143 OPS+ that year is pretty indicative of the kind of hitter he was in Houston.    It just didn’t work out in Baltimore.    

[atomic]

36 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Fine to knock that trade, but let’s not forget that Davis had been injured for part of 1990, so his 22 homers came in 93 games.    Also, the Astrodome was well known to be a tough place to hit homers.    OPS+ was not a stat then, but Davis’ 143 OPS+ that year is pretty indicative of the kind of hitter he was in Houston.    It just didn’t work out in Baltimore.    

I absolutely hated the trade  at the time.  I was absolutely livid.   I am not sure you can convince me in retrospect that it was a good trade. 

[atomic]

1 hour ago, LookinUp said:

Yep, it was the Bedard offseason for me. The names being thrown around were epic. MacPhail was percolating. The "rumored" headliners included Jones/Tillman, Kershaw (lol), Josh Hamilton and Jay Bruce. MacPhail wanted 4-5 guys. I will always wonder if he might have been able to get Kershaw without a larger package. That's laughable in hindsight, but it was at least rumored at the time. 

In the Sun at the time a rival GM anonymously was quoted as there being much better offers that were made than were accepted.  

[atomic]

2 hours ago, Matt said:

The move that excited me the most was when we signed Andy Van Slyke in 1995. He was always my favorite player. It didn’t turn out how I’d hoped, but for a little while there, what I thought impossible had happened—my favorite player on my favorite team. It felt like a dream.

I didn't even remember that Van Slyke was on the Orioles.  We got 2 out of 3 players from the Pirates vaunted outfield.  Too bad we didn't get the 3rd. 

[Frobby]

6 minutes ago, atomic said:

I absolutely hated the trade  at the time.  I was absolutely livid.   I am not sure you can convince me in retrospect that it was a good trade. 

I’m not going to make the argument that it was a good trade. But I do think that at the time Davis was a pretty elite player.    Basically, injuries took him down.   We didn’t get what we paid for, while the guys we traded maxed out.