Maryland weather is Maryland weather-ing, Birdland. We’re all ready for baseball, and as I write this, it’s doing some sort of combination of snowing and sleeting outside my window, and several models are forecasting a dump of snow early next week.
Damn it.
At least we can watch some ball, I suppose. On Sunday, the O’s take on Detroit at 1:05 on MASN, and the WBC rolls on all weekend on MLB Network (Team USA plays their first game tonight at 6).
To the links!
Why I’m Playing for the Dominican Republic
Over at the Players’ Tribune, Manny Machado “wrote” a long piece explaining his choice to play for the DR in the WBC. If you can read him talking about his grandfather and still give him a hard time for not playing for the USA, I don’t know what to tell ya. Oh, and he was doing things like this for the DR last night:
Don’t test Manny. #WBC2017 pic.twitter.com/wEJwbDwucn
— WBC Baseball (@WBCBaseball) March 9, 2017
2017 Preview: Baltimore Orioles
Craig “STICK TO SPORTS!” Calcaterra over at Hardball Talk gets to the O’s in the latest installment of his 2017 previews. Summed up? Dongs and angst, of course. For more, click on over to HBT.
Are Orioles Fans Overly Optimistic for 2017?
Bobby Mueller of Call to the Pen looked at some research by a company named SportFacts did to find out how “optimistic” fans of every team are for this year. He compares those scores to projections (YAWN) and finds that O’s fans have the biggest discrepancy between optimism and projected win average. Well, you’ll excuse us for not buying into projections, which always sell Buck’s Birds short.
Projected Opening Day Payrolls
Stop complaining about Peter Angelos. The O’s are 9th in the league in Opening Day payroll this year.
The O’s are currently 12th in NumberFire’s power rankings. That’s good for third in the AL East. I don’t get all the Toronto love, but I didn’t get it last year either and I ended up wrong-ish.
