This is one of a series of posts in which we grade each team’s wily hot stove maneuvers and tragic offseason blunders.

The Orioles are going to be terrible in 2008. They’re going to be worse than they were in 2007, when they finished 69-93. And they’re not going to get any better any time soon.

Baltimore just completed its club-record ninth consecutive losing season, all of them under the leadership of owner Peter Angelos, who gained control of the franchise in 1993.

Last season, a group of fans led by a local radio personality staged a walkout to protest Angelos’ rudderless leadership of the team. Here’s what one participant had to say about the O’s under Angelos:

“We are here to show our dissatisfaction with his role, and some of the stupid decisions he has made,” said 43-year-old fan Eric Hunter. “We want someone in there who will spend the money to do the things that will bring the fans back.”

Now, there’s no doubt that Angelos has been an awful owner and that he’s made terrible, terrible decisions. But I think this comment misses the point. The problem isn’t that Angelos isn’t spending enough money. It’s that he spends his money the wrong way. He hands out big contracts to the wrong players, like Albert Belle and Miguel Tejada, all the while ignoring the farm system. The truth is he will never be able to outspend the Red Sox and Yankees, so the Orioles need a strong group of cost effective young players in order to be effetive.

That’s why this offseason was such a revelation for the Orioles. Baltimore started this offseason on the right foot trading Miguel Tejada to the Astros for OF Luke Scott, pitchers Matt Albers, Troy Patton and Dennis Sarfate, and third-base prospect Michael Costanzo. This was an awesome trade for the following reasons:

1. Miguel Tejada was named in the Mitchell Report, told a congressional panel that he never used steroids and now faces the possibility that he could be convicted of perjury and deported.
2. Costanzo is probably just as good a 3B right now as Tejada is (even though Tejada is going to try to play SS this year, he doesn’t belong there anymore)Last season in AA Reading, Costanzo put up an OBP of .368 and a SLG of .490. He hit 27 HR and drove in 86 runs to go along with that.
3. All of the players Baltimore acquired combined make a fraction of what Tejada is paid.

The Orioles followed up the Tejada trade by trading ace pitcher Erik Bedard to Seattle. This one had to sting a little, since Bedard was home grown and still has many good (and two cheap) years ahead of him. But as we mentioned earlier, the Orioles aren’t going to be competative this year or next year, so there was no point in hanging on to Bedard. Moreover, in exchange for Bedard the O’s got top flight OF prospect Adam Jones, plus LHPs Georgeg Sherrill and Tony Butler and RHPs Chris Tillman and Kam “The Great” Mickolio (what a fantastic nickname!). Tillman, who was Seattle’s No. 3 overall prospect, struck out 184 in 166 innings but has just 20 starts at the high Class A level; Butler (No. 12) has yet to reach high Class A ball.In between blockbusters, the O’s have also made some smaller moves, like signing veteran SP Steve Trachsel to a minor league deal, just to fill out the roster.

It’s what the Orioles do next that will determine whether this was a great offseason or just a very good offseason. The team is reportedly considering trading all-star 2B Brian Roberts to the Cubs, but the deal is maybe (probably) being held up by meddling owner Peter Angelos. This trade needs to happen. Roberts is 30. He’s peaked. And he was just named in the Mitchell Report, so his PR value isn’t even what it used to be.

As of this moment, Roberts is still an Orioles. So here’s what Baltimore’s team will look like on opening day:

2B Brian Roberts .377 OBP
3B Melvin Mora .341 OBP
CF Adam Jones (rookie)
RF Nick Markakis 112 RBI
1B Kevin Millar .365 OBP
LF Luke Scott .351 OBP
DH Aubrey Huff 15 HR
C Ramon Hernandez 9 HR
SS Luis Hernandez .300 OBP

SP Jeremy Guthrie 3.70 ERA
SP Adam Loewen 3.56 ERA
SP Daniel Cabrera 5.55 ERA
SP Troy Patton / Garrett Olson
SP Steve Trachsel

Set-up Jamie Walker 3.23 ERA
CL Danys Baez / George Sherrill

Grade: B+ (will be an ‘A’ if GM Andy McPhail team trades Roberts).

The Orioles have some young players to build around. Markakis and Jones could anchor the outfield for years to come. Both Jeremy Guthrie and Adam Loewen have potential to be regulars in the O’s rotation, as do Tillman and Butler. Baltimore needs to continue to focus on youth, and only time will tell if Angelos has the patience for that kind of full-scale rebuilding. But this offseason was a step in the right direction.

- Hot Offseason Action Index -

Yankees - end the love affair with Miguel Cairo. Oh, and also, a first baseman

It has been a thinly veiled secret for many years that Yankees manager Joe Torre has a prediliction for keeping an aging, light-hitting Latin American utility infielder around upon whom he can lavish excessive praise and undue playing time.

For many many years, this role was filled by Luis Sojo, but now that Sojo has finally retired, it has clearly fallen to Miguel Cairo.

With Yankee first base options Doug Mientkiewicz and Jason Giambi out indefinitely with wrist and foot injuries, Torre played Miguel Cairo at first base a ridiculous five games in a row this past week.

The Yankees need to start playing Josh Phelps at first base full time, at least for now. Even more, they need to go out and acquire a first baseman who can mash - it shouldn’t be too hard. There is always a surfiet of Matt Stairs types floating around in Triple-A.

But most of all, they need to stage an intervention with Joe Torre and make him stop playing a guy with an on-base percentage of .282 and a slugging percentage of .250 at the premier hitting position on the diamond.

Blue Jays - find a way to appease the swamp hag that has put a hex on all their players

The Blue Jays need to bring in professional help to reverse the curse that has befallen all of their players. They need to stop walking under ladders and should start shooting black cats on sight if they try to cross their path. They need to do something - anything! - to get rid of bad luck that has put virtually their entire team on the DL this season.

Other than Vernon Wells, Alex Rios, Aaron Hill, and A.J. Burnett, the Blue Jays’ entire starting lineup, rotation, and most of the bullpen has been on the DL already. As of this writing, Toronto has 6 different pitchers and 3 starting-lineup hitters on the DL.

Even a mistake-prone yakuza could count on his left hand the number of teams that could win ballgames while losing quality players like Troy Glaus, Lyle Overbay, Greg Zaun, Reed Johnson, Roy Halladay, Gustavo Chacin, and B.J. Ryan all at once. He might not have any fingers left on that hand, but he wouldn’t need them, because there is no such team.

The Jays need to figure out what that hag wants out of them. Fast.

Devil Rays - 2 or 3 replacement-level starting pitchers

Although they have flown under the radar because, well, they’re the Devil Rays after all, Tampa Bay’s lineup is actually loaded with dangerous young hitters who can mash with the best of ‘em. In fact, Tampa Bay is 7th in the league in team OPS behind only the Tigers, Indians, Red Sox, Yankees, Mariners, and Angels. Read that list again - those are some pretty awesome hitting teams!

But where the D-Rays have truly been undone is in their starting rotation, or more specifically, in their odd willingness to stick with starting pitchers who obviously had no business starting major league games.

Amazingly, despite having a starting rotation ERA that ranked at the very bottom of all of baseball, the Rays stuck with the same five guys for two months without even one of them missing a start! Jamie Shields and Scott Kazmir have been good to great at the front end, but the abominable trio of Jae Seo, Casey Fossum, and Edwin Jackson were somehow allowed to start 31 games and toss 158 innings while posting a combined ERA of 7.75 between them.

At long last, just this past week, the D-Rays front office finally decided it had seen enough, shipping Fossum to the bullpen, cutting Seo, and bringing up their two best pitching prospects from Durham. It remains to be seen whether J.P. Howell and Andy Sonnanstine can do much better, and Jackson is still getting run out there every fifth day, but you have to think that anything at all would be better than what the Rays were going with the first two months of the season.

If the Rays had had even replacement-level starters instead of Seo, Fossum, and Jackson - guys who could go 5 or 6 with an ERA around 5.00 instead of around 8.00 - you’d have to believe that with their lineup, the D-Rays easily could have won 5 to 10 more games than they have.

Orioles - some kind of long term plan

The Orioles really need to develop some kind of organizational philosophy and start working toward some sort of long-term goal. Signing whatever scrap-heap “experienced veterans” there are to be had each offseason while ignoring scouting, statistical analyis, and player development is no kind of plan at all.

Guys like Miguel Tejada, Nick Markakis, Brian Roberts, Ramon Hernandez, Eric Bedard, and pitching coach Leo Mazzone represent a talented core around which a championship squad could theoretically be built if money was wisely invested in player development and useful role players.

But surrounding the few good players year after year with expensive, overrated big-name retreads like Jay Payton, Aubrey Huff, Kevin Millar, Kris Benson, Corey Patterson, Steve Trachsel, and Javy Lopez is no way to win anything.

Of course, owner Peter Angelos’s veto of a ridiculously good trade offer the Angels made last summer for Tejada illustrated, no sort of long term planning will be possible until somebody stands up to Angelos and tells him to let his baseball people do their jobs.

Just like the Yankees blossomed once Steinbrenner finally let his front office make decisions (although it did take a felony conviction and a 3-year ban from the game), the Orioles, with their payroll and fanbase, have a chance to be great again if Angelos backs off, but until such time, they are going to keep looking and playing just as awfully as those late 80s Yankees squads.

Boston - a more versatile fourth outfielder

What do you get for the girl who has everything? What could the team with the best record in baseball possibly need?

A fourth outfielder who can play centerfield and bring speed to the basepaths is what.

As long as the Red Sox are going to be one of these crazy AL teams that only carries 3 bench players (I’m not counting Doug Mirabelli, who is pretty useless for anything besides catching knuckleballs), they need to make sure those 3 players can fill all the needs they would have coming off the bench.

Alex Cora is a useful, slick-fielding middle infielder who can deliver the occasional pinch hit. Eric Hinske can play the corners and has some pop. So far so good.

Which brings us to Wily Mo Pena. Pena is a good player who deserves a starting job and could probably outhit half the everyday leftfielders in baseball if given a chance. But he is no kind of bench player. Strikeout-prone, defensively challenged, and slow of foot, he can’t really perform any of the roles that you would want out of a fourth outfielder, such as coming in as a defensive replacement, being counted on to have a good at bat as a pinch-hitter, or coming in as a pinch runner.

More than anything, the Red Sox need a bench player who can play centerfield, run the bases, and make contact as a pinch hitter. Not only because they need those things off the bench from time to time and don’t have them, but because their worst everyday player - the guy you would most want to spell in the lineup from time to time - is Coco Crisp.

Fox Sports is reporting that Cal Ripken has had a few discussions with current O’s manager Peter Angelos about buying the team.

According to Fox, a deal is a long way from getting done. But just the prospect of Ripken taking control of the organization fills a Baltimore fan with hope. And O’s fans haven’t had much cause for hope in a long, long time.

From Fox:

Ripken and Angelos met shortly before Thanksgiving, and could meet again before the Christmas holiday, the source said.

The plan under discussion would be modeled after an approach used by the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens after former owner Art Modell agreed to sell the franchise to Steve Bisciotti.

A slow transfer of power might appeal to Angelos, who would gain immediate credibility with the addition of Ripken yet retain, for a specified period of time, a measure of control.

A lengthy period of transition also could work to Ripken’s benefit, giving him time to learn the business of Major League Baseball.

Ripken doesn’t have near enough money to buy the O’s. He’d have to recruit some other investors. The O’s are predicted to sell for close to $800 million. But that might not be too hard.

The real obstacle will be convincing Angelos to sell. After all, even as the team has struggled, the organization’s finances have improved. He’s seen the value of the franchise increase steadily since he bought it for $173 million in 1993.

Then again, maybe Angelos is tired of being the most hated man in Baltimore. The O’s have been bad for a while now. They’ve had nine straight losing seasons. And the reason for all the losing is clear: Angelos is the worst kind of owner. He insists on playing a prominent role in personnel decisions, but he doesn’t know anything about talent evaluation. He’ll spend money, but he’ll spend it on all the wrong players (see: Albert Bell, Sammy Sosa, Sidney Ponson, Kris Benson, Miguel Tejada).

On a personal note, I was born in Baltimore. My parents grew up in Baltimore. Most of my extended family still lives in Baltimore. Watching the Orioles deteriorate into an also-ran in the AL East has been sad, to say the least. And the team’s decline has come at the worst time for the city, which has also fell on hard times of late. If you haven’t been keeping up with the state of affairs in Baltimore, watch HBO’s “The Wire,” which ESPN’s The Sports Guy has dubbed “my favorite TV show of all-time.”

I was driving through my parents’ old neighborhood a few weeks ago and noticed that the streets are now bathed in a flashing blue light. The cause: the Baltimore Police Department has put cameras at the top of the lamp posts and the lights are there to make sure criminals know that they’re being watched. The security measure is a good and necessary one, but the flashing light makes one feel like they’ve stumbled into a post-apocalypse scene from some futuristic sci-fi movie.

Baltimore needs the Orioles now more than ever. And the Orioles need Cal Ripken.