Baltimore Orioles

1. Boston Red Sox

The Red Sox were humbled last postseason after getting swept in the ALDS by the Angels, and now they're determined to take back the throne.

The Red Sox improved their already great pitching staff by signing John Lackey to a five year, $80 million contract.  

They now have Jon Lester, Josh Beckett, John Lackey, Daisuke Matsuzaka, and Clay Buchholz in their rotation. Tim Wakefield and Junichi Tazawa provide excellent depth and insurance.  

According to Peter Schmuck of The Baltimore Sun , Brain Roberts is being reported as having a “small” herniated disk in his lower back, something he has been dealing with for about a month.

During an appearance on the Scott Garceau show on MASN and 105.7 RM, the Fan, Yankees general manager Brian Cashman had some nice words to say for the usually pathetic division rivals the Baltimore Orioles and their GM Andy MacPhail.

“Andy is doing exactly what Andy does best,” Cashman said. “He is as sharp as they come. Patience is the biggest key. He made such an astute trade with Seattle and now he has a collection of talent. Getting Adam Jones to play with Markakis was remarkable. Now he has one of the bright young outfields.

With Spring Training starting and the 2010 baseball season only weeks away, it is the time of the year when fans of the Baltimore Orioles can start dreaming that maybe this is the year that our decade long nightmare ends.

The Orioles were not among the most aggressive or highest spending teams in the offseason, but they did make a number of lower-key moves designed to make the team better in 2010.

Considering that they went 64-98 (including a 20-39 record to end the season) in 2009, it shouldn’t take much to illustrate improvement.

With his days as shortstop behind him, Miguel Tejada is set to begin this season as the Orioles primary third baseman:

It's hard to believe, but the 2007 trade that sent Miguel Tejada to the Astros and brought Luke Scott, Mike Costanzo, Matt Albers to the Orioles, was mostly about Troy Patton.

The 24-year old lefthander was a footnote of the deal due to the fact that he was forced to end his 2007 season early because of a torn labrum.

In the summer of 2008, Decatur, GA product Xavier Avery found himself in a very precarious situation. The two-way star could have signed a letter of intent to play football at the University of Georgia, where he would have led a very talented backfield.

Ok so the title of my post maybe a bit deceiving, no this feature will not last 80 days, but I thought it would be a cool project to go around the league and connect with bloggers from the other 29 MLB teams and have them weigh in on their teams.

For my first stop of the tour, I check in with Daniel Moroz, founder of Camden Crazies, which is an excellent blog dedicated to the Baltimore Orioles.

Last year at this time, if you remember, I bought into the falsified Tex to Baltimore rumors hook, line, and sinker.