It was, no doubt, a very good 2021 season for some Orioles hitters on the farm. In the new Baseball America top 10 prospects list that was released this week, seven of the 10 players listed were hitters.
The Orioles have been drafting hitters at the top of the draft since executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias took over here after the 2018 season, and those picks are now getting closer to the majors and drawing notice in lists like those from Baseball America.
One of those high...
After ending the 2020 season looking like he could be a key member of the 2021 Orioles rotation, lefty Keegan Akin was not even on the opening day roster this season.
But he would eventually get to Baltimore. And partially because the minor league season didn't start until May, he wound up throwing just one game and two innings at Triple-A this year and pitching in 24 games and throwing 95 innings in the majors for the Orioles. After May 10, he never went back to the farm.
Akin was one of just...
Baseball America released a new top 10 Orioles prospects list this week, and it's a strong list. There are more hitters than pitchers, with seven batters and three hurlers. The list is solid and further proof that the Orioles organization being ranked No. 1 by MLBPipeline.com and No. 2 by Baseball America seems legit.
The club can and has gotten some deserved criticism for all the losses at the major league level, but the quest to build that elite talent pipeline seems very much on track. The...
We didn't know it at the time, but we saw it with our own eyes this year. A player that batted .094 in 2019 and ended the season in Double-A two years ago was one of the best players in baseball.
It was an incredible 2021 season for Orioles center fielder Cedric Mullins by just about any standard, as he became the first Oriole ever with 30 or more homers and stolen bases in one season.
It was a year where he started in the All-Star Game, was unanimously voted Most Valuable Oriole, was named a...
Today in this space, we look at a few more free agent starting pitchers. Recently, MLBTradeRumors.com sized up the field and last week we took this look at a few pitchers from the category of older veterans/back-of-the-rotation options.
We started in alphabetical order of the 13 pitchers in this grouping and that meant we sized up Brett Anderson, Tyler Anderson and Alex Cobb.
Today a look at three more pitchers, two of which we've seen in the American League East and another who spend a lot...
Former Orioles manager Buck Showalter used to say you grind all year to win in Major League Baseball to have the chance to "roll the dice" in October. He essentially meant the best or winningest teams don't always earn the trophy in October. In a short series, anything can happen.
This season is another example of that.
The Tampa Bay Rays won 100 games to lead all American League teams. They won an AL East that featured four teams with 91 or more wins. But they didn't even make the AL...
It has been true in baseball probably for as long as there has been baseball: Players learn as much from their struggles - and maybe more - than they do from their successes. And it has been said that baseball is a game of failure. A good pitcher with an ERA of 3.00 still gives up three earned runs for every nine innings. A .300 hitter still makes an out seven times out of 10.
In my coverage of the Orioles minors this year, it stood out that several players I interviewed cited overcoming...
If we are going to consider and discuss the Orioles' 2021 pitching performance, you know the club will rank at or near the bottom of the American League in many team categories. For instance, they were last in team ERA at 5.84, which was just over a full run per game worse than Minnesota, next at 4.83.
But we're not here today to hammer away at some rough pitching stats.
Today, I wanted to take a look at the Orioles' 2021 pitch mix. This can be interesting to look at and size up how they...
In 2019, left-hander John Means emerged as a surprising staff ace for the Orioles. No, he was not an ace, meaning a No. 1 pitcher, to rival the very best in the game, but he sure was the Orioles' ace.
In 2021, were there still any doubters, Means proved he is still that.
Outside of his own won-loss record, Means' stats in 2021 look a lot like his numbers in 2019 with a few improvements.
You could look at his year broken into about three different seasons - there was a sizzling hot start to...
The Orioles have three finalists for the Major League Baseball Players Association's Players Choice Awards, which were announced today. Cedric Mullins and Trey Mancini are finalists, along with Mitch Haniger of Seattle, for the American League Comeback Player Award. Ryan Mountcastle joins Randy Arozarena of Tampa Bay and Adolis GarcÃa of Texas as finalists for the MLBPA's Outstanding Rookie Award.
A year after missing the entire 2020 season after treatment and chemotherapy for cancer,...
There are 10 teams that have played at least one postseason game this month in the majors. Of those 10, only four have used their starting pitchers more than their bullpen. Only those four - through Tuesday's games - have more innings coming from their starting pitchers.
This should no longer be a surprise.
The building up of bullpens has been an arms race for years now - the race to get multiple flame-throwers in the mid-to-late innings who blow fastballs by hitters. And when they can't do...
Well, it is almost that time of the year. The time when baseball free agents are able to sign with any team and the hot stove season truly starts to heat up. We are not quite there yet, and most winters, things start slowly and this year should be no different. Especially with the uncertainly over the collective bargaining agreement.
MLBTradeRumors.com listed several categories of free agent starting pitchers this week. And, while we don't expect the Orioles to be diving into the deep end of...
When it comes to team fielding percentage, the 2021 Orioles ranked among the American League leaders.
In fact, at .9869, the Orioles recorded the third-best fielding percentage in the AL and were sixth-best in the majors. This is among a host of stats and notes in the team's 2021 season summary produced by the Orioles public relations department that the media recently received.
Houston rated first in the AL in fielding percentage and Oakland was second. In some other numbers, the Orioles were...
If the Orioles want to make big improvement next year, maybe they need right-hander Chris Ellis to make every start he possibly can.
Acquired by the club on Aug. 20 on waivers from Tampa Bay, Ellis went 0-0, but posted a 2.49 ERA for the Orioles in six games. Over 25 1/3 innings, he yielded 18 hits, including three homers, with 13 walks and 16 strikeouts. He recorded a WHIP of 1.224, allowing 6.4 hits per nine, with 4.6 walks and 5.7 strikeouts.
He made six starts for the club and the Orioles...
The playoffs are now well underway, but the hot stove season has not yet begun. The work to get a new collective bargaining agreement is a cloud over the sport right now with a lot of us hoping against any work stoppage. The rancor of the players and owners as they negotiated how to play the shortened 2020 season was terrible for the sport.
But let's not spend time worrying about that today and instead invest some time for you to answer a few questions. My 10 questions format is changing to...
It can be easy to look at some of the Orioles' young pitchers and their stats in the 2021 season and feel the odds are long against them helping the club much in the future.
This would represent a rush to judgment, however. And the team's front office has likely not made such judgments, and their opinions count the most.
Pitchers like lefty Keegan Akin and right-hander Dean Kremer ended 2020 looking decent and maybe ready for the majors. This past season was a very different story.
Let's...
The process of identifying players the Orioles could acquire for the 2022 season has begun. Orioles executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias discussed that and much more recently on the "Inside the Yard" O's podcast with hosts Geoff Arnold and Brett Hollander.
Elias and all executives throughout Major League Baseball are awaiting the results of the collective bargaining talks between the sports' players and owners. A new collective bargaining agreement could be in place...
It could not have been easy to do, but in 2021, on the way to a breakout season, Orioles outfield prospect Robert Neustrom made some in-season swing adjustments. Adjustments that took his offense to a higher level as he ended the year among the top hitters on the O's farm.
But at the end of May while with Double-A Bowie, he had an OPS of .608 with one homer. It was then that he and Baysox hitting coach Ryan Fuller went to work. He was a power hitter putting the ball on the ground way too much....
Maybe it is a real thing about baseball fans, particularly Orioles fans. Can there be rebuilding fatigue?
Can the losses mount so much that fans just get worn out by rebuilding? And while they may understand it is needed and could very well lead to better days, the patience to get to those better days starts to wear thin?
It is probably only natural.
But Orioles fans are a pretty loyal group. We see that in so many coming to this website day after day after day. Fans still watching and...
"Stowers Power" was indeed a thing on the Orioles farm in 2021.
Lefty-hitting Kyle Stowers led all O's minor league players in homers and RBIs, and was third among full-season players in OPS. It was a breakout year for the corner outfielder who turns 24 in January. Tomorrow, he will join seven other O's players on the Mesa Solar Sox when the Arizona Fall League season begins.
Stowers and Adley Rutschman were co-winners of the Brooks Robinson Award as the Orioles' Minor League Player of the...