At the end of the process, there might not have been more than 2 teams bidding for Carlos Beltran. Free agent 1B Carlos Delgado, however, seems to have 4 clubs competing for his signature, albiet for fewer years and lesser dollars per annum. The New York Daily News’ John Harper installs Baltimore as the new front-runner, the Orioles having offered $48 million over 4 years.
With that sort of proposal on the table, Delgado has to be intrigued. With the former Blue Jay hitting alongside Miguel Tejada, the middle of Baltimore’s batting order would match up well with that of the Yankees or Red Sox, and the Orioles would have a genuine chance at winning 75 games next season, many of them by scores of 11-10, 10-9, etc.
I can’t imagine that the Orioles are going to sign Delgado. It seems to me that they are only doing this to keep the fans from going absolutely bonkers for doing nothing all winter. Granted, I do like the bullpen signings that Flanagan and Beattie have recently made. While I don’t think they should have thrown ridiculous money at players like Millwood, their complete lack of addressing any issues is alarming. Angelos seems to be like the kid who gets pissed at his friends and is going to take the ball home with him. He is out to prove that his team can not compete because of Washington. Fans will come if the team is good, but they have done absolutely nothing since 1997.
Some of their young pitchers still might develop well, but fans need to see some improvement. Even 85 wins would excite many long suffering fans. Delgado would look great on that team, their bullpen is solid, and maybe their young pitchers will take a step forward this year. But, Sir Sidney as the staff anchor is pathetic.
And as much as I’ve been impressed with some of Flanagan’s/ Beattie’s moves (can’t get any worse than Syd Thrift), they have made a few very questionable ones. If the team is trying to rebuild, why would they trade Denny Bautista for Jason Grimsley last year? Unless, of course, they were intrigued by his ability to crawl through vents to change bats. Maybe to collect on Albert Belle’s final insurance payments, there was a clause that the team had to trade for Grimsley.