Evidently the Orioles must believe so. Otherwise, we could have gotten a nice draft pick instead of junior Lake.

We have now jettisoned eight of our 11 unrestricted free agents. That is not a co-incidence, it's a strategy.

We have three contractural commitments remaining, at a price of about $42 million in 2016 ( Jones, Hardy and Ubaldo.) Anyone believe her payroll will approach $118 million, the 2015 number? Put another way, we now have tens of millions of dollars to throw at Manny Machado and Jonathan Schoop. Anyone believe that will happen?

I do. I suspect Plan A is to secure Machado and Schoop for as long as possible. They may be thinking about throwing some money at Chris Davis as well (as he will only be 30 next year and they have no viable alternative at 1B) but they probably realize that they won't be able (or wouldn't be wise) to match the ridonkulous offer he's probably going to get elsewhere, so they'll hold some funds to make a good offer and spend them elsewhere when he ultimately doesn't return.

to me, jones, machado, and increasingly, schoop, look like the lineup guys to hold onto & build around. so if that's the plan, i can deal.

3 Mancini is murdering Eastern League pitching.

But so did Walker and Alvarez. But AAA has stymied them.

That's why he passed them on the depth chart.

O's would Not have made a qualifying offer to Hunter; he's a middle reliever

They s/move Mancini to triple-A and find out what they have in him. He and Walker can split DH and first base. To boot, he sports a .400 on-base avg.

Probably too late for that move to provide a definite answer. If you ever got out of bed, you'd notice it's approaching fall.

I could see a Davisless team inviting him to ST to take a shot at it.

I could also see them signing some washed up turd, with which to block him.

However, he represents the possibility of something possibly nearly ready in our system.