It likely won't be that popular in Baltimore, where he once treated a phone rudely in the visitor's dugout at Camden Yards, but David Ortiz is a first-ballot Hall of Famer. He made it to Cooperstown last night, getting 77.9 percent of the vote. A player needs to get 75 percent of the vote from the Baseball Writers' Association of America for induction. On their 10th and final years on the BBWAA ballot, both Barry Bonds (66 percent) and Roger Clemens (65.2 percent) came up short. They could...

Baseball remains in lockout mode, but representatives for ownership and the union met on back-to-back days. Communication is better than complete silence. My hot take. Per reports, Major League Baseball increased its proposal to raise the minimum salary for players with up to one year of service time from $600,000 to $615,000. MLB also proposed a $10 million bonus pool for pre-arbitration-eligible players, while the union has sought $105 million. Lots of work to be done, but this is...

The lockout may have drained the life out of this winter, but it can't eliminate one of the most important days of the year on the baseball calendar: Hall of Fame election day. (Well, provided somebody actually does get elected today. More on that in a moment.) The time has come for the Class of 2022 to be revealed, for a ballot of 30 candidates with varying cases for selection to be whittled down to the precious few who receive at least 75 percent of the vote among 10-year members of the...

While I am a member of the Baseball Writers' Association of America, I have not yet been a member for 10 years, and that means I do not yet vote for the Hall of Fame. So I dodged that bullet, so to speak. As no more than an interested observer right now, I look at the writers that do have a vote and wonder how they possibly figure out a way to handle the steroids and/or performance-enhancing drug issue? I have heard voters who will not even consider anyone linked to PEDs and voters that have...

Before we can toss out ideas for an Orioles breakout player this season, we first need to rummage through the qualifications. Cedric Mullins made it easy in 2021. The April demotion in 2019 and inability to claw his way back to the majors. No assurances that he'd hold onto the center field job last spring. The first 30/30 season in franchise history, along with an All-Star berth, Silver Slugger Award and ninth-place finish in Most Valuable Player voting in the American League. And so on and...

There is no greater experience in sports than watching a great postseason game, a down-to-the-wire, back-and-forth affair that comes down to one final dramatic moment that instantly becomes part of the very fabric of each franchise's lore, good or bad. And there is no worse experience in sports than watching owners and players decide not to contest games because they're squabbling over money. Guess which North American professional sport just enjoyed the ultimate weekend of great theater and...

One of the club records set by the Orioles last year, the kind that typically is chased by non-contenders while other teams are in pennant races, was the 16 players making their major league debuts. The previous high was 15 in 2018, when the Orioles finally heard the window slam shut - it no longer could be muffled - and began dismantling. They're still rebuilding from it. A few prospects were introduced, the pitchers led by Zac Lowther, Mike Baumann and Alexander Wells. Many others were...

It usually comes down to more than this, oftentimes much more, but if the Orioles simply headed north for opening day 2022 with their five most talented pitchers in their rotation, no doubt right-hander Grayson Rodriguez would have a great chance to be one of those five. Could he be in the opening day rotation? He certainly could. Will he? That is a much more complicated question. There is lot to consider beyond whether he one of the best five. There is what the new collective bargaining...

Let's take a look back at a few stories that made news around here this week as we wait for the lockout to end. It's good news that another negotiating session is taking place tomorrow between Major League Baseball players and owners. It's now Jan. 23 and go time for these sides to get moving with spring training camps set to open in less than a month. The players are expected to make a proposal after the owners side did the same about a week ago. Let's see where it leads with fingers...

After a long, slow winter with precious little going on, the Nationals at last made news on multiple fronts last week. And wouldn't you know who happened to be on vacation as this all happened? Yep, it never fails. If you want news, all you've got to do is book me and my family on a flight out of town, then sit back and wait for the alerts to drop. Many thanks, as always, to Bobby Blanco and Pete Kerzel for handling the various items in my absence. But now that I'm back to work, I figured...