LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. - The Orioles are in the market for a closer and, as of last night, they were pursuing free agent Grant Balfour and it sounds like they are clearly making progress on that front. In an interview this morning with MASNSports.com, former Orioles executive Jim Duquette of Sirius XM Radio said the club was the front-runner last night to get Balfour, although a deal was not yet quite at the finish line. "The guy that I keep hearing his name mentioned over in the closer...

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. - The Nationals have four of their starting pitchers set and locked in for 2014, but they're going to go into spring training still unsure of who will be that fifth guy. That's the way general manager Mike Rizzo wants it, even if left-hander Ross Detwiler - an experienced option who has claimed the No. 5 spot in the rotation the last two seasons - is totally healthy after missing much of the 2013 season on the disabled list. "He's going to come to spring training as...

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. - New Orioles pitching coach Dave Wallace is going to have his hands full running the major league staff with the Orioles, but he also would be expected to have some input with the minor league pitching coaches and pitchers as well. Yesterday, Wallace said he already has talked to O's director of pitching development Rick Peterson and Triple-A Norfolk pitching coach Mike Griffin. "The way we have to do things is (by doing what is) the right way for each guy," Wallace...

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. - Orioles manager Buck Showalter will be made available to the media today at 2:30 p.m. The local beat crew will have to share him with the rest of the Winter Meeting's world. Reliever Ryan Webb will take his physical in Baltimore this morning, and the announcement of his two-year, $4.50 million deal could be announced later in the day. Webb will leave the Orioles with 38 players on the 40-man roster. Still plenty of room for that Rule 5 pick on Thursday. Heck, the...

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla - Though the door supposedly is open for second baseman Brian Roberts to return to the Orioles in 2014, it doesn't appear that the team has reached out to him since the season ended. The Yankees need a second baseman, in case you missed that little piece of news, and apparently have spoken to Roberts' agent, though there's no indication that it's anything serious. For now, Ryan Flaherty appears to be the leading in-house candidate to start at second base for the...

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. - Let's take a look at the news, notes, analysis and conversations that are going on in the hallways of the Walt Disney Dolphin Resort on the first day of baseball's Winter Meetings: * Nationals owner Mark Lerner is walking the hallways, eager to find out what his general manager Mike Rizzo will do to add a lefty to his bullpen. Lerner says he's confident in Matt Williams' ability to lead the Nationals back into the postseason. Lerner said that Williams aced his...

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. - Orioles executive vice president Dan Duquette touched on a variety of topics during his daily session with the media. The board behind him that contains the names of specific trade and free-agent targets was turned around to prevent reporters from reading it. We offered to take up a collection as a bribe, but it didn't work. Here's a sampling of Duquette's quotes: (On what he accomplished so far today): "We met with several agents and a couple of teams on the...

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. - A bit ago, a tweet from Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports came across my laptop saying that the Nationals are currently shopping infielder Danny Espinosa. The timing of this report was a bit ironic, given that Nats general manager Mike Rizzo had just finished his session with local reporters, during which he talked up Espinosa and his ability to serve as a quality backup at multiple infield positions, including third base. This much is clear: the Nationals still hold...

LAKE BUEVA VISTA, Fla. - If the Orioles new pitching coach, Dave Wallace and new bullpen coach Dom Chiti can get more out of some of the club's young pitchers in 2014, they will have proven to be great additions to the O's coaching staff. Any O's fan can recite a long list of former pitching prospects that never lived up to the hype, or had just a brief amount of major league success. The O's need more young pitchers to turn the corner like Chris Tillman, and Wallace and Chiti hope to...

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. - The acquisition of Doug Fister and an impending spring training competition for the fifth starter's spot in the Nationals rotation has created a crunch for the young starting pitchers vying for a spot on the 25-man roster out of spring training. While it wouldn't be surprising to see right-handers Taylor Jordan, Tanner Roark or Nate Karns forming the bulk of the rotation at Triple-A Syracuse should they not make the major league club out of spring training, there's...