One thing we have learned is that Duquette will not overpay.

[Matt P]

He has made a few comments saying he was shocked Gomes got a 2/10 deal and you can just imagine how hard he laughed when the Victorino deal was announced.

From Britt's latest article: http://brittghiroli.mlblogs.com/

*As some of the big fish in the free agent market circle around, some second-tier players are cashing in on deals that aren’t exactly team-friendly. Don’t expect the Orioles to get involved in that.

“Adding the pitching to our roster that we added, we put on Zach Clark, we put on [Mike] Belfiore, that was to protect the talent and add players we already had in the system that we thought could help the team,” Duquette said. “Adding Yamaico Navarro and keeping [outfielder] Steve Pearce after we claimed him, those are moves we made so we had those players on our roster so we had certainty that we had them and certainty of the cost.

Those are little things that we did to try to improve our team. Because I don’t really like the mid-level market. Teams pay a lot of money for mediocre talent and it’s not the market we want to be in.”

At this point I'm not expecting anything more than maybe a minor signing or two (McLouth or another OF) or maybe a small trade. He's right, these contracts that people have been getting are ridiculous.

[Old Sneakers]

Hard to say. Teams need pitching. Every team. Maybe not this week, but someone seems likely to make a pretty solid offer for one decent young arm. As for the next week or so, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Nate McLouth isn't resigned. Saunders getting signed would be so sweet, though I suspect he will sit back and let others come up with the best offer.