I would guess that the unnamed Orioles official would have to deny that the club was trying to send Ponson to the Jays for Lopez, as I'm sure that any such offer would be greeted by a chorus of guffaws.

Ponson's been worked hard and has had injury problems, and Lopez, despite his alleged attitude problems, is a rising young star. Even Gord Ash would not have gone for that trade.

I estimate that approximately 90% of the semi-serious Rotisserie players in North America could do a better job of talent evaluation than Peter Angelos. Heck, 75% of the Rotisserie owners' cats could do a better job of talent evaluation than Peter Angelos - for one thing, cats are finicky, and settle for nothing less than the best; any attempt to offer them David Segui or Marty Cordova would be met with a sniff of disdain.

The weird thing about the Orioles' search for an old, mediocre glove man at short is that they have a better shortstop sitting right under their noses... Melvin Mora.

I saw Mora at short a couple of times last year, and he looked fantastic in the field... alert, got a good jump, made some excellent plays. He makes quite a few errors, but even 30 errors (i.e. 30 singles) wouldn't bridge the gap between Ordonez and Mora offensively. Mora hits well for a shortstop (good enough that the Orioles have been trying to convert him to centerfield, presumably so that they can suck at all nine positions) and Reyrey's bat is legendarily bad.

Then the article talks about acquiring Deivi Cruz, who wasn't awful in the field for SD but wasn't very good, and also doesn't hit as well as Mora.

Strange. Anyway, if the Orioles want to shoot themselves in the foot again that's fine with me. I think they're running out of toes though.

By the way, ESPN.com's fielding statistics database in on the blink, all the 2000 stats at least are wrong... so don't use their data (naturally) if you're doing any work.

The Jays may be best served allowing Lopez most of this year at AAA to really solidify his game. Had he stayed down in 2002, he would probably be coveted along the same lines as a guy like pitcher Jesse Foppert of San Franscisco is. As it is, people see the .227 average and Lopez losing the shortstop job and assume trades like Ponson (a guy pitching with a partially torn labrum) is more than fair value.

What is truly surprising is that there are no rumours about the Orioles wanting Shawn Green from the Jays as Syd Thrift asked JP last season if he would be willing to trade him. This would have to be considered progress for the Orioles.

It was a matter of time before R Billie found us. Remember BB 76 where Jordan nicely summed up a lot of baseball boards with his "what culd we get for Delagdo" line? Last weekend, RB was over on the Sportsnet forum, correcting a deep thinker who calls himself "Brashear" and contends that Chan Ho Park is better than Roy Halladay. Billie's got more patience than I have!

The Thrift story, which was one of my favourites, originated with Bob Nightengale of USA Today's former Baseball Weekly, which used to be worth the two bucks (Can.) but is unreadable since it became a football publication, with baseball crammed into a dozen pages at the back. I was very disappointed to learn that it's not true, any more than Nightengale's recent exaggeration of an offhand remark by Mike Hampton's wife into "Hampton" offering CJ a million bucks to come to Denver. Who knew journalists did such things?

Sydiot's replacements, the not-very-illustrious Jim Beattie and the over-his-head Mike Flanagan, ensure that O's personnel decisions will continue to be laughable. Watch for Loaiza to show up in Baltimore, if not Milwaukee.

since when can tony bautista not play SS? he was fine with toronto, just not as good defensovely as Agon. i'd rather have a hole at 3B than at SS- the Os have several guys capbable of faking third.

In a Washington Post article, Dave Sheinin mentions "a rival executive" who used the unflattering nickname "Beatagan" for the O's new two-heads-are-better-than-none approach. The anonymous exec probably reads Primer, where I believe the tag originated, and now it's sure to stick.

A couple of unintentionally hilarious quotes: "Despite last season's horrid 4-32 finish, a half-decade's worth of fourth-place finishes and farm-system shambles, the Orioles believe they have enough marketable talent to pull off at least one big deal."

Rim shot. Take our stiffs... please.

"Despite a career record of 41-53 in five seasons and a recent history of shoulder trouble, Ponson remains one of the most marketable players on the team."

Broken-down, underachieving Sidney is one of their good guys. The O's are beat, again. How low can they go?

Credit Blue Jay Way columnist Matthew Elmslie for originating "Beat-agan," a moniker that will not go away with any more acquisitions like Deivi Cruz.

I'm not the problem any more -- here's Gammons' two cents.