Orioles left-hander John Means, who was a surprise as the club's best starting pitcher in 2019, tonight finished second for the Jackie Robinson American League Rookie of the Year Award in balloting by the Baseball Writers' Association of America.
Means, 26, received 53 points, getting 16 votes for second place and five for third place. Two writers from each AL city voted for their top three for the award.
The easy winner was Houston's Yordan Alvarez, who was unanimous and got all 30...
Today we continue a look at Orioles minor league pitching in 2019 through the eyes of director of pitching Chris Holt. We've published a couple of entries recently with Holt, and in this one, he'll take a closer at four of the club's top pitching prospects.
DL HALL
Hall was the Orioles No. 1 pick, taken No. 21 overall out of a Georgia high school in 2017. While his overall stats were not as strong in 2019, he pitched all year in the Single-A Carolina League at 20 and turned 21 on Sept....
The technology in baseball is moving fast. In this recent entry, O's minor league hitting coach Tom Eller gave us a bit of a primer on some of the technology that is in place as of 2019 on the Orioles farm.
For most of us, it was probably both educational and enlightening.
Eller was new to the O's organization in the 2019 season. He started it as hitting coach at Single-A Delmarva and later moved to join short-season Single-A Aberdeen when its season began last June.
Some fans that watch the...
The topic came up again during yesterday's Orioles Q&A session on this blog: How long will this rebuild take?
The fans want to know.
That is a very reasonable question, but it just doesn't have an answer. You can guess, but that's really all you will be doing. No one knows for sure, including general manager Mike Elias, who is heading up this rebuilding, how long it will take to work or even if it will work.
This is the American League East, home of two big spenders, one sharp cookie and...
Today, when we get to the comments section of this blog, the readers will be the stars. Here is the plan: Ask an O's question, whatever you've got, and I'll provide the best answer I can. Plus other readers can throw in their two cents.
It's time to open this up and get what is on your mind about the club front and center.
I've pointed out numerous times that the topic here is the Orioles - majors and minors. But often the comments relate only to what is written about in the blog entry...
In this entry recently, I interviewed Orioles director of pitching Chris Holt. He was promoted to that position on Oct. 11 after serving as director of minor league pitching for the 2019 season. We addressed several topics earlier with Holt, and today we get his take on a few minor league hurlers.
In 2019, four of the O's top six farm teams led their respective leagues in team ERA. The overall strikeout rate of the six teams increased from 8.18 in 2018 to 9.26 last season.
Today Holt provides...
No one is expecting the Orioles to be very active at the top end or even in the middle tier of the new free agent market. For the second year in a row, in MLBTradeRumors.com's projection of its top 50 free agents, none are predicted to head to Baltimore.
This is not surprising, of course, and was indeed expected.
Predicting where free agents will land might be harder than you think. Who had Manny Machado to San Diego? All O's fans heard and had to deal with for years were rumors that the...
He was new to the Orioles organization in 2019 and was one of the first minor league coaching hires by the new front office after Mike Elias was hired as executive vice president and general manager last November.
Tom Eller was already close by geographically. Eller had spent the previous 12 seasons as the head coach at Harford Community College in Churchville. In his tenure from 2007 to 2018 the Fighting Owls went 433-230-2, winning five Region XX championships, including back-to-back titles...
He played briefly in the majors in 2017 and 2018. But it was this season where the Orioles started to see Anthony Santander start to reach some of his vast potential.
Taken in the December 2016 Rule 5 draft from Cleveland in large part because of a potent bat, he showed it at the major league level in 2019. As the Orioles try to identify players who could be around when the team is winning again, he looks like he could be one.
In a late-season interview, teammate Trey Mancini threw major praise...
Several days ago, I posted this entry, gleaned from my interview with new Orioles director of player development Matt Blood. The 34-year-old comes to the Orioles from the Texas Rangers. He's also worked for USA Baseball and was a scout with the St. Louis Cardinals, working in the same front office where the Orioles' Mike Elias and Sig Mejdal once toiled.
We covered a lot of ground in that last entry and ended it with a promise to discuss where winning fits in amid all the new data, technology...
Let's take a look today at some issues the Orioles and their brass will have to deal with - some sooner, some later. We'll even rank them from least important to most.
No. 5 - How to continue to satisfy fans during the rebuild?: Yeah, good luck with that strategy because there is no miracle marketing plan or idea that solves this one.
I've said numerous times that I am impressed how many fans understand what the Orioles are going through and are showing patience. The percentage I hear or...
The Orioles had a pretty solid year on the farm in 2019. Orioles' affiliates finished with a .517 win percentage, to rank 10th among all 30 Major League Baseball organizations. They sent two teams to the playoffs, three really, but the Rookie-level Gulf Coast League postseason was cancelled due to Hurricane Dorian. Baseball America rated the Orioles ninth in organizational rankings.
But it was on the pitching side where some special progress was made. Of the Orioles' top six farm teams, four...
The 2019 Major League Baseball season is over. The Washington Nationals beat the Houston Astros 6-2 in Game 7 last night to take the Series, four wins to three. The visiting team won every game of the Series.
On their way to their first championship, the Nationals beat a 106-win Dodgers team and a 107-win Houston club. They played in five elimination games in the playoffs, trailed in each, and won all five.
The Nationals lost Bryce Harper via free agency to Philly. They were 19-31 after 50...
Reunions can be nice. In sports we see them often. Would the Orioles be interested in one with a player that once made the All-Star team and finished 12th in the American League MVP voting?
The player is second baseman Jonathan Schoop, originally signed by the team out of Curacao in August 2008. He played in 635 games over six seasons as an Oriole and played in the postseason with the Birds in both 2014 and 2016.
In 2017, Schoop had a breakout year and at the end of it was voted the Most...
As the Orioles look to build what executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias has called an "elite talent pipeline," the minor leagues and player development obviously will be critical.
On Sept. 16, the Orioles and Elias hired Matt Blood, 34, as their new director of player development. Last November, the Texas Rangers hired him as the club's director of player development. He moved to the role of director of baseball innovation in August. For three years before joining Texas, he...
For two straight years, right-hander Dylan Bundy has led all Orioles pitchers in starts, innings and strikeouts. He's been dependable. He takes the ball and gives you all he's got.
But Bundy is also 15-30 with an ERA of 5.13 and homer rate of 1.9 per every nine innings over those two seasons. We've certainly seen flashes of Bundy pitching well but there have also been some games when he gives a big number to the opponent.
In 2019, the 26-year-old went 7-14 with a 4.79 ERA over 161 2/3...
It is a statistic that has some importance. How much is debated and some discount it. It is the quality start statistic. A starting pitcher records one when he allows three earned runs or less in six innings or more.
One reason some don't see its importance is that three earned runs allowed in six innings results in an ERA of 4.50. That is not all that impressive. But of course that is the worst ERA outcome you can produce in a quality start. And a high number of outings produce a single-game...
As the Orioles look to put together a starting rotation for 2020, one question will be how soon will some of their homegrown prospects get their chance at the starting five.
When will some of the up and coming pitching prospects - homegrown or not - get their shot?
Based on how executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias and his staff ran the minors and promoted players in 2019, it is probably likely that they won't often have prospects skip levels or more as fast through the system as...
The Orioles affiliates from the Rookie-level team through the Triple-A International League squad will each have five coaches, counting the manager, during the 2020 season. Each club last year had a manager, pitching coach, hitting coach and one field/development coach.
New Orioles director of player development Matt Blood, hired by the organization Sept. 16, said that will change next season.
As previously reported on MASNsports.com by my colleague Roch Kubatko, the six men expected to manage...
This comes up a lot here when we talk about prospect rankings. Some fans say that "the rankings don't mean much." I can't agree with that. Although we can certainly find misses. But without a specific study or stat to prove my point, I took note of an article yesterday by Jim Callis on MLBPipeline.com.
In this story, he pointed out that 24 of the 50 players on the World Series rosters - 12 on each team - were once ranked on a top 100 list. That seems like a pretty high percentage to me,...
