Since I know a few O's fan's, this one is for them. You poor sick freaks, enjoy forever in 4th place. I'll give you this one first. Jeffrey Maier went undrafted last year and is working odd baseball jobs. No, he's not dead. God still hates you for being the franchise that sent a 3'7" midget with the number 1/8 on his jersey up to bat.

Baltimore Orioles 2006 Season:
After being turned down by every free agent who didn't suck during the previous offseason the O's turned their attention to some guy who has a crazy stripper wife, oh yeah and Jeff Conine and self proclaimed "Idiot" Kevin Millar. With these amazing changes of course they finished 4th place for the 9th year in a row.

RF Nick Markakis had a really good rookie season, LHP Eric Bedard was the only consistent hope on the pitching staff. RHP Daniel Cabrera continued his bi-polar pitching, and RHP Rodrigo Lopez was fired directly into the sun after the season. Or Coors field, for pitchers there's little difference. 3B Mora didn't manage to Tom Brady any more Children, and suffered a slight regression, 2B Roberts seemed to take some time power wise recovering from surgery. We all know what Tejada did, so the lesson here is to leave Oakland A's players alone, you jerks. For all the O's fans demanding that they trade him, just remember this, he lead your team in, Batting Average, On-base Percentage, Slugging Percentage, OPS, Games, At Bats, Plate Appearances, Runs, Hits, Total Bases, Doubles, Home runs, RBIs, Singles, Adjusted OPS+, Runs Created, X-tra base hits, Times on base, and Intentional Walks. Not that any of those stats matter or anything. Closer Chris Ray showed that could handle the job, while the rest of the bullpen was actually Tee-Ball hitting Tees. Fans at the end of the season managed a walk out protest of management, Angelos responded by having the mail staff executed and turned into cheap dirt for the infield.

Off season:
Since the bullpen decided to let more people score than a drunken co-ed being date raped on the bathroom floor during spring break, the Orioles spend 42 million dollars on the bullpen. RHP Danys Báez will go into the set up role, and the rest of the bullpen is filled with relief pitchers that could possibly explode at any second. I recommend keeping them away from roofies and drunken frat boys. Starter-wise Mr. Anna Benson partially tore his rotator cuff, and it looks like he will be done for the season, so RHP Steve Trachsel was signed to, well I have no idea. Maybe they want to field a team of no longer needed Mets pitchers. This means they'll sign Pedro in about 2015. On offense, LF/CF Jay Payton was signed to patrol Left Field, and I guess sub for CF Corey Patterson whenever a lefty is pitching. OF/3B/1B Aubrey Huff found out that nobody wanted to pay him after his horrid second half on the Astros, and settled for the O's, mucking up the Payton signing. Payton previously had issues with being on the bench before he was traded to Oakland, so look for this to get hilarious.

Now:
The rotation of the outfield and first base is up in question, with who between Huff, Millar, and Payton will get the majority of the left field and first base time. Possibly going into a Payton rotates everywhere thing. Gibbons should be solidly stuck at DH with Millar and Huff both craptastic defenders. The bullpen should settle down after the unlawful carnal knowledge inflicted upon them. Lastly, Leo Mazzone gets to play Russian Roulette with the underwhelming control of his staff. Cabrera pitched much better when he wore glasses, 3RD WILD THING REFERENCE, and had lasers and shit fix his eyes in the off season. Wright had his best year under Mazzone with the Braves, which is how he got his stupid contract which the Yankees are mostly paying anyways. Bedard is the clear cut ace, and Penn/Lowen probably should get eye surgery also. I feel terrible for anyone in the stands near their pitching window, which is about the size of the non-existent Ozone layer hole that Fox News keeps telling me doesn't exist. Speaking of which, has anyone watched Fox News' retort to the Daily Show? THIS ugh, my brain. FAIR AND BALANCED!

Projected Line Up:
2B Brian Roberts
3B Melvin Mora
RF Nick Markakis
SS Miguel Tejada
1B Aubrey Huff/Kevin Millar
C Ramon Hernandez
DH Jay Gibbons
LF Jay Payton/Huff
CF Corey Patterson/Jay Payton

Bench:

OF Adam Stern
OF/2B Freddie Bynum
MI Chris Gómez
OF/IF Brandon Fahey
OF/1B Kevin Millar
C Paul Bako


Starting Rotation:
LHP Eric Bedard (WARNING: CANADIAN, LEFTY)
RHP Daniel Cabrera
LHP Adam Loewen (WARNING: CANADIAN, LEFTY)
RHP Jaret Wright
RHP Steve Trachsel/RHP Hayden Penn

Bullpen:
CL RHP Chris Ray
SU RHP Danys Báez
RHP Chad Bradford
LHP Jamie Walker
LHP Josh Parrish
RHP Todd Williams
RHP Scott Williamson

Help in the Minors:
Hayden Penn or Garrett Olson will probably start in the minors, and then be recalled when one of the pitcher's control goes away and they start launching baseballs into low earth orbit.

Adam Donachie C, was their Rule 5 draft pick, and the O's love rotating 5 thousand catchers for some reason. We'll see after spring training if they will try and carry him all year.

So now, clean Alomar's spit from your face, inject yourself with some horse steroids (Palmero), do some Viagra commercials (Raffy again), let a 13 year old steal deep fly balls, have some of the gay sex with Brady "STEROIDS" Anderson, pose for underwear ads (Palmer), let the manager of the year quit (Johnson), and go hunt down children with your SUV (Belle). It's 4th place time.

Projection:
Sammy Sosa can't magically shrink again, right? Oh, yeah Rangers now. I'm going to say that Bedard and Cabrera will have good seasons, but Lowen/Penn will crap out near the end and hit the rookie wall for pitchers. Enough improvement to stay in front of the Devil Rays unless Kashmir goes buckwild and throws 35 no hitters. Which, would be a slight breaking of Vandermeer's record. Anyways, 4th place, 10th losing season, and lets go with like 73 wins. The pitching staff, Markakis improving more this year, and hope for your lower level prospects to develop. Also, please for the love of God, trade the old people to sucker teams. If this fails, midgets are still banned, that won't work you tools.

I leave you now superfriends with a quote from John Wayne Gacy.

"You can kiss my ass." to the prison guard right before he was given tasty potassium chloride for being a naughty clown.

Toodles
~Mike

Labels: 4th place in the AL East, Baltimore Orioles