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...

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. - There's really no way to describe the Winter Meetings to someone who doesn't follow baseball and have it sound....sexy. Family or friends who aren't into sports hear what goes on and they generally react with the same half-hearted response. "Ohh, that's sounds, um, fun." I guess it's not totally their fault. Describing the logistics and setup of the Winter Meetings in a personal ad probably wouldn't sweep too many people off their feet. The idea of a...

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. - I passed along some quick-hit notes from Matt Williams' session with reporters earlier today, but now that our meeting with general manager Mike Rizzo is done and I've had a chance to settle in a bit, I can provide some more in-depth quotes from the Nationals' new skipper. Since being named Nats manager more than five weeks ago, Williams has tried to hit the ground running. He's met with a handful of Nationals players, integrated himself in organizational meetings...

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. - The latest analysis from Day 2 of the winter meetings at Disney's Dolphin and Swan Resort: * The biggest trade of the winter meetings took place Tuesday with Arizona, the Los Angeles Angels and Chicago White Sox pulling the trigger. The Angels get outfielder Mark Trumbo and his 30-plus home run power. The Angels get a young pitcher, Tyler Skaggs, 22, to help build the final three spots in the rotation behind Jered Weaver and C.J. Wilson, and the White Sox get rangy...

LAKE BUENVA VISTA, Fla. - At some point late next March, the Orioles will have a decision to make on Kevin Gausman, one of their top young pitching prospects. Will he begin the season pitching as part of the Orioles roster, or does he need to begin the year at Triple-A for more minor league seasoning? Mananger Buck Showalter, while confident in Gausman's ability to now get big league hitters out, also knows he is not a finished product yet. So how will he make that decision when the time...

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. - I'm emptying my notebook from today's 10-minute meeting with Orioles executive vice president Dan Duquette. "We made some progress," he said. "We met with a couple of teams and we also met with a couple of agents to move on a left-handed hitter. We worked on our Rule 5 draft today, so we're putting our list together for Thursday. There are a couple interesting candidates in that Rule 5 draft that we'll give some further consideration to and see if we can come...

LAKE BUENVA VISTA, Fla. - Through most of the first two days of the Winter Meetings, we have seen much less activity throughout baseball than we saw in the week or two leading up to this gathering. Why is that the case? One theory is with the price high for free agents, teams have turned more toward trade options and more trade partners makes that avenue difficult as well. There is some level of gridlock in that regard. This afternoon, during our daily video interview with Dan Duquette here...