On the night of June 10, 2020, Major League Baseball was not yet playing regular-season games, but was set to host its First-Year Player Draft. The draft would be limited to five rounds. That night the Orioles selected University of Arkansas outfielder Heston Kjerstad with the No. 2 overall pick in the first round.
That selection created some initial confusion, frustration and angst around Birdland.
They did not select Vanderbilt's Austin Martin, as many fans had read they would in pre-draft...
When it comes to the improved farm system for the Orioles - one ranked No. 1 in organizational rankings by MLBPipeline.com and No. 4 via Baseball America - it can seem the club leaves no stone unturned.
Whether it is data and analytics and the latest technology, the move to place five coaches with each affiliate, improved nutrition and even gains in areas like mental skills, the Orioles seem to be doing right by their young talent. They want to give them every chance to succeed.
Seeing the...
Orioles minor league players don't have wait around for the end of a season to get a promotion to the next level. Players such as infielders Jordan Westburg and Gunnar Henderson and outfielder Kyle Stowers played at three levels in 2021.
Westburg and Henderson began with low Single-A Delmarva and later moved onto high Single-A Aberdeen and to Double-A Bowie. They ended the season in the playoffs with the Baysox. Stowers started with Aberdeen, later moved to Bowie and then to Triple-A Norfolk...
With the understanding that no prospect - no matter how highly rated - is too good to be true, and no prospect is can't-miss, the Orioles' Adley Rutschman does come close.
FanGraphs.com, in ranking him the No. 1 Orioles prospect (and several outlets rank him No. 1 prospect in all of baseball), said of Rutschman: "Rutschman is a complete, franchise-altering prospect, and one of the most exciting young players in the entire sport. He's a switch-hitter with a hit/power combination that would...
Orioles pitching prospect Kyle Bradish is ranked among the club's top 10 prospects on lists from Baseball America and MLBPipeline.com. He is rated No. 8 by MLBPipeline.com and No. 9 via Baseball America.
This week, FanGraphs.com topped that, ranking the right-hander No. 7 when it released its list of the O's top 45 prospects. The outlet puts a 60 grade on his fastball, which tops in the 97 mph range, and a 55 on his curveball. As I have noted numerous times in this blog, FanGraphs also noted...
It was around Thanksgiving and it was a tweet that got a lot of attention around Birdland. ESPN's Buster Olney tweeted the Orioles were "dangling" lefty John Means in trade talks. Olney cited other teams, not the Orioles, as his source.
When a credible national reporter states such, it should get our attention. He does have great sources within the game. But I as wrote in this entry, I felt it was a matter more of the Orioles doing due diligence.
I pointed out that there must be numerous...
He is a talented young minor league manager on the rise. At just 35, Buck Britton is not too far away from his playing days on the Orioles farm. But coming up in the 2022 season, he will manage at Triple-A Norfolk as a first-time skipper at the game's highest minor league level.
In their 28-year history, the Double-A Bowie Baysox have played for a league championship three times. They did that twice in two seasons under Britton. His 2019 team had a terrible 7-23 start, but still played for the...
The topic of the Orioles signing more groundball pitchers came up in the comments section of the blog yesterday. It is a topic worthy of discussion. The basic thinking states that ground balls are generally easier to turn into outs than fly balls and we have yet to see a hitter drive a grounder over the outfield fence.
It's guaranteed to keep the ball in the ballpark.
The pitcher we discussed here yesterday, O's lefty John Means, is not a groundball pitcher. His 2021 groundball rate of 32.9...
As we speculate and try and make educated guesses on which pitchers could be helped the most by the Camden Yards fences being moved back in left and left-center fields, the club's best pitcher could be among those that most benefit.
In going 6-9 with a 3.62 ERA last year, lefty John Means allowed a career-high 30 homers. Among all Orioles pitchers with any significant number of innings, he was the only one to allow more homers than walks (26). He gave up 1.60 walks per every nine innings last...
He is one of the Orioles' top 10 prospects, and after he threw 86 2/3 innings at Triple-A Norfolk last year, he is also among their most major league-ready on that list.
Right-hander Kyle Bradish, acquired by the club on Dec. 2, 2019 with three other pitchers from the Los Angeles Angels for Dylan Bundy, is likely to make his big league debut during the 2022 season. In November, he was added to the Orioles' 40-man roster.
We've been looking at various 2022 rotation candidates over the last...
When I interviewed new Orioles co-hitting coach Matt Borgschulte recently, I asked him what stats are important to him in dealing with his hitters. When it comes to a question like this one, we have to keep in mind that the teams have so many more available stats and data than the media and general public. No one is going to give away any secrets here.
But he did provide a few examples and that is where we began to discuss strikeouts and how the coaches will try to help the hitters produce...
We gained another reason to admire Orioles center fielder Cedric Mullins this week. We learned that he produced a Most Valuable Oriole season, becoming the first player in club history with 30 or more homers and steals in one year, while battling the effects of Chron's disease.
This did not keep Mullins from continuing his impressive rise from player demoted back to Double-A in 2019 to American League All-Star and All-Star game starter in 2021. He also won a Silver Slugger in November - the...
For just the third time since Baseball America started releasing top 100 prospect lists in 1990, the Orioles had five players in the initial top 100 of the year when the newest list came out on Wednesday.
We say initial top 100 because now these lists are tweaked and changed often during the year. Some outlets, including Baseball America, move players in and out as they "graduate" and lose prospect and rookie eligibility. There was once a time when outlets released one list per year and a...
It's an assumption - but probably a pretty safe assumption - that right-hander Jordan Lyles is not only a rotation candidate for the 2022 Orioles, but he is very likely to be a key member of their rotation.
This is why the club agreed with the free agent pitcher on a one-year deal for $7 million right before the lockout, and the Orioles hold a team option on his 2023 contract.
Lyles went 10-13 with a 5.15 ERA for Texas last season. And that produced an ERA+ of 85 for last year or 15 percent...
A little over a month ago, I wrote in this space taking a look ahead at some of the projected roster for the 2022 low Single-A Delmarva Shorebirds and how they are expected to feature a club with a strong international flavor.
This is yet another big step for the Orioles in their emerging international program, which added 24 signees on Saturday and three more were reported by Baseball America on Monday for a class of 27 to this point.
Keep it coming, the fans might say.
With major league...
Both players advanced to Double-A Bowie last season and both produced a final OPS of .800 or better. They both showed some nice pop during their time on the field, which was limited by injury for one of these players.
When I spoke recently with the new Orioles co-hitting coach Ryan Fuller for this entry and also this one, we talked further about minor league first baseman Andrew Daschbach and shortstop Joey Ortiz. Ortiz had labrum surgery on his non-throwing left shoulder in July, but did take...
With a new academy coming in the Dominican Republic and their latest signing class announced yesterday, the Orioles' resurgent international program keeps growing and getting better.
The elite talent pipeline, international division, got better as a result.
On one Saturday afternoon, the Orioles announced the signings of 24 players and spent their entire pool allotment of over $6.2 million, according to Koby Perez, the club's senior director of international scouting.
Where the Orioles once...
A new international signing period arrived today in Major League Baseball and the Orioles have announced a class of 24 players. This includes 16-year-old outfielder Braylin Tavera from the Dominican Republic. The 6-foot-2, 175-lb. right-handed hitter agreed to a bonus of $1.7 million, according to MLB.com, and that is the largest ever given by the club to an international amateur.
Tavera, who profiles as a speedy center fielder, also features some power potential and gets scouting grades of 50...
While we expect Oriole Park at Camden Yards to yield fewer homers in 2022 with the deeper outfield fence coming in left and left-center, the new dimensions and angles of those outfield walls will create more ground to cover for the defenders.
Outfield defense in left and center just got more important for the Orioles.
The Orioles may now place more of a premium on that outfield defense than before. And an outfield of Austin Hays in left and Cedric Mullins in center with have more frequent...
Yes, the Orioles are quite aware that their pitching staffs in recent years have struggled. But the changes underway in left field and left-center field at Camden Yards are more about producing a park that plays more neutral and more toward norms in Major League Baseball. Right now, the club plays in a stadium that produces among the most home runs and runs in baseball - for all pitchers - and this will create a shift in that.
Orioles executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias said...
