FanHouse RickKranitz

I've been an Orioles fan since birth. I watched them win a World Series when I was three. I collected Cal Ripken, Jr. and Eddie Murray cards from the back of boxes of macaroni and cheese. I put stickers of guys like Larry Sheets into sticker books even when they couldn't use the logos and everybody wore solid color hats. In the last few years I grew up, moved to Cleveland, and discovered that practically everybody who has ever been an Oriole snorted weed off of Jose Canseco's rippling abdominals and hates me.

Maybe it's just Peter Angelos. Maybe he knows some deep, dark secrets about the bubbling potential of Matt Albers that I don't know, but I don't think he does. I think he wanted to unload a guy who was mailing it in anyway. Yeah, that's fine. I'm glad we got 5 Houston Astros jobbers instead of Manny Ramirez and Matt Clement. We should've gone even farther and just gotten five players to be named later. Players that aren't even born yet. Let the Astros sit on it for a while, see how they like their All-Star shortstop for several seasons of divisional contention.

I like my Orioles like I like my Dugouts: with overwhelming apologies to Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely.

The Baltimore Orioles have a ton of strong, young pitchers. For whatever reason, Leo Mazzone wasn't able to nurture them into stable major leaguers. Mazzone's failure led to his firing with a year still remaining on his contract in Baltimore. That opened the door for Rick Kranitz, who apparently chose the O's over a couple of other teams that were interested.

Kranitz spent 22 years in the Cubs organization before taking on the role of pitching coach in Florida. He quickly made his mark, particularly working with young arms as The Baltimore Sun reports:

"What he brings to us is a level of expertise in mechanics, the ability to adapt to different styles of pitching and a real good communicator, which is something I think is going to be real important because I'd expect that we would basically have a very young pitching staff," Trembley said.

In 2006, Kranitz was named Baseball America's Major League Coach of the Year after four rookies on the Marlins' staff each won 10 games. Their rotation that year posted a 4.22 ERA, third-lowest in the National League. The 2007 bullpen had a 4.02 ERA that ranked as the third-best mark in team history.

So why leave? You tell me...

Kranitz resigned from the Marlins in September after rejecting a $5,000 raise. He was believed to be the lowest-paid pitching coach in the majors.

With the dust not yet settled from the 2007 season, Baltimore is already building for 2008, a good sign for the fans. They are still searching for a first base coach and a bench coach to round out Dave Trembley's staff.