We’re less than a month away from pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training. So now’s as good a time as any to take a look back at the Orioles’ winter roster maneuvering…albeit from a slightly off-kilter perspective. It’s the Passed Ball Report: Offseason Edition, bringing you the sort of irrelevant trivialities that you never knew you cared about. Enjoy!

· Based on his offseason additions, one would think Andy MacPhail worked for the Toronto Blue Jays before joining the Orioles. After all, a whopping five of his winter acquisitions have played for the Jays since the start of the decade.

Cesar Izturis was a Blue Jay in 2001.

Ryan Freel was a Blue Jay in 2001.

Mark Hendrickson was a Blue Jay from 2002-2003.

Chris Gomez was a Blue Jay in 2004.

And Gregg Zaun was a Blue Jay from 2004-2008.

Assuming all five of these players crack the Opening Day club (all but Gomez seem to be a lock), one-fifth of the Birds’ roster would consist of ex-Jays. The 2008 Orioles never had five former members of any one team, even though 46 different players appeared on the roster at some point.

Since I know you’re curious, the ‘08 O’s had:

Four ex-Mets, ex-Athletics, ex-Astros, and ex-Cubs;

Three ex-Red Sox, ex-White Sox, ex-Mariners, and ex-Diamondbacks;

Two ex-Blue Jays, ex-Devil Rays, ex-Indians, ex-Royals, ex-Twins, ex-Tigers, ex-Rangers, ex-Brewers, and ex-Padres;

One ex-Brave, ex-Marlin, ex-Red, ex-Dodger, and ex-Rockie;

Zero ex-Yankees, ex-Angels, ex-Phillies, ex-Expos/Nationals, ex-Cardinals, ex-Pirates, and ex-Giants;

And 20 players who have only played for the Orioles.

· How about some alphabetical trivia? Three offseasons ago, I constructed my Orioles All-Alphabet team (Part 1 and Part 2). It consisted of 25 players from O’s history, each of whom had a last name beginning with a different letter.

I noticed while making the team that the O’s had only player in franchise history whose last name began with the letter I-- Pete Incaviglia-- and also only one U, Tom Underwood. Well, apparently MacPhail has made it his offseason mission to beef up those underrepresented letters. He has brought in both Cesar Izturis and Koji Uehara to become the second members of their respective letter groups. Well done, Andy-- now maybe the All-Alphabet team can undergo some renovations.

· Do you want to know just how drastically the O’s have turned over their roster since MacPhail arrived? Well, try this on for size…

Recently, I was looking at the Orioles’ 2005 roster-- don’t ask, I’m not sure why-- and I noticed something a bit galling. Of the 46 players who appeared for the Birds that season, only three were still playing for the Orioles in 2008 (Brian Roberts, Melvin Mora, and Daniel Cabrera). That’s only 7% of the team that remained, just three years later! Two others-- Chris Ray and Hayden Penn-- are still in the O’s organization but didn’t pitch in the majors in ’08.

More alarmingly, only 17 of those ’05 O’s were still active anywhere in the majors last year (37%). That’s the fewest in the majors.

So what happened to everybody from that ‘05 team? Well, some have retired (Javy Lopez, B.J. Surhoff, etc.), some were scandalized out of the majors (Rafael Palmeiro, Larry Bigbie), some were too ineffective to find jobs (Sammy Sosa, Jay Gibbons, Bruce Chen, Luis Matos, etc.), and the rest were just organizational filler who never got more than a cup of coffee in the big leagues (remember Alejandro Freire, Ramon Nivar, Bernie Castro, Napoleon Calzado, and Aaron Rakers? Neither do I.).

It’s hard to believe the O’s were in first place for much of that 2005 season with a roster full of guys who washed out so quickly.

· The trade for Felix Pie, naturally, got me thinking about all the Orioles in history with food-related last names (and yes, I know Felix’s surname is actually pronounced pe-AY, but that’s beside the point). I only wish the Mets hadn’t plucked Rocky Cherry from the O’s this winter, ruining the Birds’ chances of a Cherry/Pie duo.

In any case, there’s a surprising number of food-related Orioles, from Johnny Oates to Neil Berry to Jim “Cakes” Palmer and Frank “Noodles” Zupo. Consider…

You arrive at a restaurant. “Welcome,” says the waiter. “You’re in for a fine (Sam) Mele. Allow me to pour your (Chris) Waters. Can I get you anything else to drink? Maybe some (Ivanon) Coffie? I’ve brought a basket of (Bill) Wight bread for you-- fresh from the (Frank) Baker!”

“Would you care to start out with a Cesar (Devarez) salad? We’ve also got a hearty Stu (Miller). It’s the (J.R.) House specialty.

“Or we can skip the appetizers and go straight to the (John) Maine course. We’ve got a variety of fish on the menu-- you have your choice between (Chico) Salmon, (Kevin or Brian) Bass, and (Dizzy) Trout. We’ll (Mike) Cook it to your specifications. And each one comes with a (Fred) Beene and (Del) Rice side dish.

“Of course, if you don’t like this kind of food, you could always just go to (Ben) McDonald’s…”

Questions? Comments? Criticisms? Send me an E-mail or talk about it here.