For just the fourth time - and second time in four years - a class of four has been elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., by the Baseball Writers' Association of America
The class, announced tonight on a live broadcast on MLB Network, is headed up by third baseman Chipper Jones and first baseman/DH Jim Thome, both elected on their first ballots. They are joined by outfielder Vladimir Guerrero, who makes it in his second year of eligibility, and reliever Trevor...
As Major League Baseball seems set to implement a 20-second pitch clock for the 2018 season, at the higher levels of Minor League Baseball, they have had a clock in place for three seasons producing some of the desired results.
Overall, the clock has produced shorter game times while at the same time not many violations of the clock, according to one Orioles minor league skipper. Double-A Bowie's Gary Kendall has seen his Baysox and other Eastern League teams use the clock since the 2015...
Yesterday was a big day in prospect land, as Baseball America released its top 100 prospects list and ESPN's Keith Law released his second 50 (subscription required). His top 50 will be released today.
For the first time since 2014, the Orioles have three on the Baseball America top 100. Austin Hays was ranked No. 21, with Chance Sisco at No. 68 and Ryan Mountcastle at No. 71. The last three years, the Orioles had three combined, with two in 2015, none in 2016 and one last year with Sisco at...
As some national top 100 prospects lists are about to come out, another outlet has released a new listing of its top Orioles players. Baseball Prospectus released its list of the Orioles' top 10 prospects last week.
Here is the list, from top to bottom. I add my own comments and notes and also pose a question or questions about each player heading into next season.
1. Ryan Mountcastle, 3B: Mountcastle's bat looked special in the Carolina League last season. Over 88 games with Single-A...
So many questions, so little time. Actually, that is not right at all. We have just 10 questions for you to answer today, and take all the time you need. It's the getting-to-mid-winter edition of 10 questions.
These should provide some interesting answers, and I look forward to reading them all. So on to the questions.
1) Over the next five years, will the Yankees or Red Sox be the toughest team to overcome in the American League East?
2) Who will lead the 2018 Orioles in wins?
3) Who will...
The assumption seems to be that the Orioles may leave spring training with at least one in-house pitcher winning a job in their starting rotation come April. And yes, we all know they have just two starters set right now in Kevin Gausman and Dylan Bundy.
You know what that means, right? If they had to play today, they might need gloves (and I don't mean baseball gloves) first of all, but also they also would need three in-house starters in addition to Gausman and Bundy.
Let's take a look at a...
Some days, many of them actually, one of the best things about having this baseball blog is reading the interesting opinions of the readers here. Yesterday was clearly one of those days.
The topic was the Jeff Passan column about the economic system in Major League Baseball, whether it is broken and/or in need of a major overhaul. If you haven't read the column, it's long, but well done and worth your time. If you haven't read some of the 200 or so responses from readers yesterday, that is...
The column published Tuesday by Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports was interesting and thought-provoking. It was about the economic system in place in baseball due to the brutally slow-to-move free agent market right now in the game.
Click here to read the column. It is worth your time. I applaud the effort, research and time that went into this, but I will say that I don't see the system as broken or in need of a major overhaul.
To me, baseball seems rather financially healthy with revenues in the...
While the management of the Pittsburgh Pirates is not saying the club has gone into full rebuild mode, the Bucs have traded pitcher Gerrit Cole and the face of their franchise, outfielder Andrew McCutchen, in recent days.
The Pirates dealt Cole, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2011 draft, to the Houston Astros for four players on Saturday. They dealt McCutchen, a Pirate for nine years, to San Francisco for two players on Monday.
You have to wonder if the Pirates have not gone in the last few days...
It is not a secret that the Orioles need to get more innings out of their starting rotation than they have in recent years. Not only has their starting rotation ranked near the bottom of the league in ERA, but also in combined innings pitched.
But this has happened to the Orioles at a time when the entire American League has seen starters pitching fewer innings. The trend of teams pulling starters earlier and getting to their bullpens sooner was big in the 2017 postseason, when starting...
Over 10 seasons as an Oriole, center fielder Adam Jones has played in the All-Star Game five times, won four Gold Glove Awards, finished in the top 14 in the MVP vote three times and added a Silver Slugger Award, too.
It has been an impressive 10-year stretch, one that began with the Orioles mired in a long run of losing. But starting in 2012, the Orioles began a five-year stretch where they posted the best record in the American League.
Said simply, Jones has been a key player and a team...
In looking back at the last week of stories in this space, we had quite the variety. There was, of course, Manny Machado trade talk, also some free agent pitching discussion and a look at Chance Sisco's opportunity to make the 2018 Orioles.
There was a post on Arizona's top two pitching prospects with the D-backs a potential Machado trading partner. There was also a look at Miguel Castro as a starter candidate and the latest payroll math after Friday's arbitration agreements. It was an...
After the Orioles agreed with five players on 2018 contracts Friday, avoiding possible arbitration hearings, we can take another look at their current payroll.
According to Cot's Baseball Contracts, the salary for the Orioles' opening day roster was $147.7 million in 2016 and $164.3 million last season.
Before Friday, the Orioles had four guaranteed salaries on the books for 2018, with Chris Davis listed at $21.1 million, Adam Jones at $17.3 million, Mark Trumbo at $12.5 million and Darren...
The Diamondbacks have been mentioned as one of the teams that checked in on the availability of Orioles third baseman Manny Machado. While the D-backs have Jake Lamb, who hit 30 homers and drove in 105 at third base, perhaps they have shortstop in mind when thinking of Machado. Either way, they have been one of the teams reportedly showing significant interest.
According to this report last night in The Athletic (subscription required), the Diamondbacks are the "most persistent of the teams...
There was a time when you could find scouts who felt that Chance Sisco would never improve enough on defense to ever catch an inning in the major leagues. You don't hear that talk anymore - and he did, in fact, catch in the majors after a call-up last September.
Now the talk more centers on just how much has Sisco improved as a pro on defense, how well will he do throwing out runners and how ready he is for a big league opportunity.
In 2018, his chance could truly arrive, no pun intended.
The...
Orioles manager Buck Showalter added further confirmation Tuesday to what looked to be a pretty safe bet when last season ended. That is that right-hander Miguel Castro will get a look for a rotation spot in spring training.
And why not? He's a young guy with a good arm and the Orioles surely need starting pitchers right now. The Orioles' trade last April 7 for Castro from Colorado was an under-the-radar move that could pay off for years to come. That is if Castro continues to show the...
Over the weekend, the Orioles were once again linked to free agent right-hander Andrew Cashner. When the free agent period began, MLBTradeRumors.com ranked him as the No. 27 free agent on a list of all available players. They projected he would get a two-year deal for $20 million from the Oakland Athletics.
Here is what I have written previously about Cashner, when we looked at him here:
He signed a one-year $10 million deal for Texas last winter and it paid off for the Rangers. After pitching...
If it seems like trade talk about Manny Machado has been going on for a long time now, that is because it has. The speculation and rumor mill kicked into overdrive at the Winter Meetings, and while it has cooled considerably since then, it still seems to be hanging over the team as the new year begins.
It would seem that it is getting in the way a bit at this point, but maybe that is just due to the media focus. Perhaps team officials are much less focused on their All-Star third baseman who...
Let's take a look back at a few stories that appeared in this space in the last week. Feel free to revisit them and post some comments here today on any or all of them.
The new year began with this story from Monday expressing a wish for a quick resolution to the Manny Machado situation - essentially the hope for a trade to be completed soon. We are still waiting on that. It could be that the Orioles themselves are now less inclined to deal Machado. It could also be that they are just waiting...
In his fifth year of eligibility, is this the year for former Orioles and Yankees pitcher Mike Mussina to make the Hall of Fame? According to this Hall of Fame tracker, he is at 73.7 percent of the votes that are known and 75 percent is needed for election.
In his first year of eligibility in 2014, he got just 20.3 percent of the vote. But that has gone up to 24.6 in 2015, 43.0 in 2016 and to 51.8 percent last year. He keeps looking better to the voters, I guess, without throwing a single...