During a season that ended with 110 losses, there were still some things that were positives and/or just plain fun about the 2021 season. And it's not that starting next year that we won't still look back. We will. But today, on the final day of the 2021 calendar, we take another look back at the Orioles season.
Here are some of the best things we saw, wrote about and talked about this year.
No. 1 - Trey Mancini played in 147 games: After dealing with cancer and chemotherapy treatments, Trey...
Right-hander Mike Baumann, still one of the Orioles' top pitching prospects, had a cameo in the big leagues last September. There were two outings without an earned run allowed and two where he gave it up. But there was not much to judge or analyze off a 10-inning small sample.
But Baumann ended 2021 making it to the big leagues. And that was a success since his season began amid lingering injury concerns and a two-inning outing on May 15 at low Single-A Delmarva. His early numbers were not...
This time of year is usually pretty slow in baseball. And with the lockout on top of that, it's been real slow. And things may not speed up for a while, but hopefully it won't be too far into the new year when we get some better news on that front.
Today I want to wish every reader and your family a merry Christmas and happy holidays! I appreciate this community today and every day.
Just a short entry today to look back at a few recent items of news and feel free to leave any comments. But...
When Christmas Eve comes along every year, I always think back to where I was on Dec. 24, 1977, and how sports kind of ruined Christmas for the high school junior me that year.
I was at Baltimore's Memorial Stadium with about 60,000 other fans hoping to cheer on the Colts to a playoff win over coach John Madden's Oakland Raiders. The winner of that game would move on to the AFC Championship. Looking back now, so many years later, there was a ton of talent on the field that day and the game...
It was a bit of a surprise when the Orioles reached an agreement with free agent right-hander Jordan Lyles on a deal that will pay him $7 million for the 2022 season. They agreed to sign Lyles before the lockout began, but the signing will not become official until after it ends.
But when it does end, will Lyles' deal be just the first the Orioles add with free agent pitchers? Will they sign another pitcher to a similar deal, and if so, who could it be?
After the experience of last season,...
Sometimes in this space, we take a look at the Orioles at a micro level, checking on the present and future for a player like Tyler Wells, as we did here on Monday. Sometimes we take a bigger-picture view, discussing how the rebuild is going, as we did here yesterday.
The 30,000-foot view can often be more fun to discuss - and more complicated, too. Yesterday's blog produced many interesting comments. Some predictable, some not. As always, some see what the Orioles are doing - the rebuilding -...
The rebuilding of a baseball team - in this case, the Orioles - can be extremely hard to judge along the way. In the end, probably years from now, it will be easier to look back and see if executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias and his staff made more right moves along the way.
The rebuild's success or ultimate failure will be easier to judge in a long view looking backward.
Did they win enough to produce a contending team, one built to contend over many years, not just one or...
Considering that there are often situations where teams selecting pitchers in the Rule 5 draft try to spend all season hiding such a player and using him sparingly, right-hander Tyler Wells worked out much better than that for the 2021 Orioles.
In looking back at the Rule 5 from Dec. 10, 2020, there were 18 players selected in the major league phase. With the 5th pick, the Orioles took right-hander Mac Sceroler from the Cincinnati Reds, and with the 17th pick, they selected Wells from the...
It's been a while so it's about time for me to ask my readers once again about their opinions. Time for our latest edition of "A Few Questions for O's fans."
With a lockout ongoing the news has come more slowly, but there have still been some things happening, such as the announcement this week of the 2022 big league coaching staff.
So on to today's questions.
* Trey Mancini, after missing the entire 2020 season, returned last year to produce a stat line of .255/.326/.432 and played in...
One is not officially signed yet and one is, but the Orioles have contract agreements in place with infielder Rougned Odor and right-handed pitcher Jordan Lyles. The Odor deal was announced and Lyles' pact will become official after the lockout ends.
The term placeholder - not a favorite of mine - comes to mind here. They were not added to be key players of the club's core moving forward. They were added to help now, eat innings, hit a few homers, hold down a position while the club waits for...
Over the years, in both the minors and major leagues, Orioles outfielder Austin Hays has flashed his vast potential and multi-tool talent. He showed more of that during a 2021 season where he was able to stay on the field for 131 games and 529 plate appearances. He ranked fourth on the team in both categories, behind only Cedric Mullins, Trey Mancini and Ryan Mountcastle. With young outfielders like Kyle Stowers and Robert Neustrom getting closer to the majors, and Yusniel Diaz still trying...
The Orioles added two pitchers Wednesday in the Triple-A phase of the Rule 5 draft. This phase is very different than the major league Rule 5, which was postponed for now during the lockout. These players do not need to be placed on the 40-man roster and they are, essentially, now Orioles. No need to send either of them back to the team from which each was claimed. They can also play on any affiliate the Orioles send them to in 2022.
Since these players were neither on any club's 40-man roster...
I recently talked with Jim Callis of MLBPipeline.com about some of the players the Orioles selected in the 2021 First-Year Player Draft. But we also, for a separate Zoom interview, discussed some players that had big years this past season on the O's farm. Players who did not yet need to be added to the 40-man roster but players who, in the case of three of them, are closing in on a shot with the Orioles.
We discussed outfielder Kyle Stowers, who played at three levels in 2021, ending the year...
They were the last Orioles affiliate to win a league championship. They had to rally from being down two games to one in a best-of-five finals to win, but did, and an epic postgame celebration followed when the 2015 Double-A Bowie Baysox claimed their one and only Eastern League championship.
That Bowie team included Trey Mancini, Chance Sisco, Mike Yastrzemski and Corban Joseph, plus some minor league vets that came up big, like Quincy Latimore, Brandon Snyder, Terry Doyle and Garabez...
Recently, in this entry, I interviewed Orioles pitching coach/director of pitching Chris Holt and we discussed offseason velocity gains for pitchers. Can they make them, should they try to do so and how do they go about it? Holt and the organization are in favor of pitchers looking to improve their game, but they also have a strong interest in how a player intends to do this and what help and resources are available.
During our discussion about velocity, I also asked Holt about the bigger...
They are still a long way from the major leaguers, but seeing a host of players from the 2021 Orioles draft class end the year playing so well at low Single-A Delmarva was a real plus for the organization.
After drafting players they are high on in the first two drafts under Mike Elias - like Adley Rutschman, Kyle Stowers, Gunnar Henderson, Jordan Westburg, Coby Mayo and Heston Kjerstad - the class of '21 was raking late in the year with the Shorebirds after starting their pro careers this...
Even though injuries limited to him to just 48 games last season and he has only 40 games under his belt at the Double-A level, infielder Terrin Vavra made it to the Orioles' 40-man roster late last month .
Drafted in round three (No. 96 overall) in 2018 by the Colorado Rockies out of the University of Minnesota, Vavra came to the O's organization in a trade for reliever Mychal Givens on Aug. 30, 2020. Givens went to the Rockies and the Orioles acquired Vavra and Tyler Nevin, along with a...
The year was 2011. Two teenaged Orioles prospects were about to play their first full seasons of professional baseball. One was an international signee, the other a No. 3 overall draft pick.
They would soon become close friends and would play together in Baltimore. But that year, Jonathan Schoop and Manny Machado began the season as teammates at low Single-A Delmarva and ended the year leading high Single-A Frederick to the Carolina League championship.
The last two O's farm teams to win...
As the Orioles continue to work to improve their international program, some players signed and/or acquired by the club since Mike Elias took over as executive vice president and general manager, will make their way to full-season ball on the farm in 2022.
The Orioles' two teams in the Rookie-level Florida Complex League had a strong international flavor last season and some of the top players are expected to compete for spots on the low Single-A Delmarva Shorebirds roster for the '22...
He is the lefty reliever with the power arm, but inconsistent control and command. We've seen him look like the best reliever in the league and also one that had no idea where the ball is going.
But while he put together some really strong numbers during the shortened 2020 season, southpaw Tanner Scott struggled late in the 2021 season. There may have been an easy explanation for that, but until we see more of him in 2022, we just don't know for sure.
In 2020 - and, yes, it was over just 20...