LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. - The Nationals will leave the Winter Meetings having accomplished their lone remaining major goal - acquiring a left-handed reliever. For the sixth time in the last two years, the Nats and Athletics have combined on a trade, with the A's sending Jerry Blevins to the Nationals for minor league outfielder Billy Burns. Blevins, 30, had a 3.15 ERA and 1.067 WHIP in 60 innings in 2013, and had a 3.06 strikeout-to-walk ratio. He had reverse splits last season, as...

The Washington Nationals today acquired left-handed reliever Jerry Blevins from the Oakland Athletics in exchange for minor league outfielder Billy Burns. Nationals President of Baseball Operations and General Manager Mike Rizzo made the announcement. Blevins, 30, has spent parts of the last seven seasons in the Athletics' bullpen, where he's worked to a career 3.30 ERA while averaging 8.1 strikeouts per nine innings. Working against both left-handed batters and right-handers, Blevins has...

Orioles and American Heart Association to co-host a Healthy Lifestyle Youth Clinic on Friday, December 13 Continuing their partnership, the Baltimore Orioles and American Heart Association will co-host a Healthy Living/ Active Lifestyle themed clinic for 400 Baltimore City Recreation Center youth on Friday, December 13 from 2:00 p.m. to 4:45 p.m. The clinic will take place at the William Myers Recreation Center. The event will feature Orioles staff including Orioles Strength and Conditioning...

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. - The Nationals are making progress in their search for a left-handed reliever, a source confirmed, and it appears possible that they could leave the Winter Meetings with their one remaining major offseason need filled. That said, the source cautioned a bit ago that there is "nothing imminent" at this point. There are a host of left-handers available both via the free agent and trade markets, and the Nationals have been linked to quite a few of them over the last few...

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. - If you want to talk about prospects and a club's minor league system, who better to seek out than Jim Callis? During our now annual Winter Meetings video interview, Jim took some time to talk about the O's organization. By the way after many years with Baseball America, you can now catch Callis' reports and analysis at MLB.com and MLBPipeline.com. I asked Callis where the Orioles farm system ranks right now in baseball. "Probably middle of the pack," he said....

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. - The local media and Orioles PR representatives will gather today for the annual managers luncheon. We eat, we chat, we keep our notepads in our back pockets. Tape recorders are turned off. Reporters also are instructed to power down their cell phones, a request that largely goes ignored. Conversations are off the record, but nuggets of news can be stored away or used as background information at a later date. Outfielder Nate McLouth reached agreement on a one-year, $2...

LAKE BUEVA VISTA, Fla. - Will the Orioles pursuit of starting pitching lead them back toward Bartolo Colon? At times during this offseason, they have been linked with the Oakland pitcher, who went 18-6 with a 2.65 ERA last year. He had a WHIP of 1.166 and walked just 1.4 batters per nine innings. He was second in the American League in wins and ERA. He looks real good on the stat sheet. Yes, Colon will be 41 in May, but how would his 2013 season have played for the Orioles? Easy answer, he...

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. - Asked yesterday where specifically he wants to see the Nationals improve in 2014, we got a glimpse into where Matt Williams is placing his priorities. The first area that he mentioned was team defense. There's a lot that goes into that, of course. The error total obviously needs to drop; the Nationals finished with 107 errors in 2013, tied for the seventh-most in Major League Baseball. The Nats threw out just 17.4 percent of attempted basestealers, last in the...

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. - Here we are, three days into the Winter Meetings, and the Orioles have outrighted infielder Cord Phelps to Triple-A Norfolk and officially signed reliever Ryan Webb to a two-year, $4.50 million contract after he passed a physical yesterday in Baltimore. Executive vice president Dan Duquette has met with several agents and executives. He's gotten a firmer grip on the market for pitching. The groundwork has been laid to acquire players. So ... Rumors will continue to...

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. - Yup, another entry on left-handed relievers. This is what happens when the team you cover has addressed pretty much every other area of its roster. You write entry after entry about the search for a left-handed reliever. One of the Nationals' top targets when it came to left-handed relief, Eric O'Flaherty, could be close to coming off the market. And it certainly appears that he won't be landing with the Nats. Multiple outlets have reported that there's a good...