Dan Duquette provides the backstory on O's acquisition of Joey Rickard

In the Camden Yards warehouse, the Orioles' stats analysts could see that outfielder Joey Rickard made big improvements last year during a season where he played at three different minor league levels in the Tampa Bay organization. Later, in the dugouts in the Dominican Winter League in Oct., Nov. and Dec., an O's staff member got an up-close and first-hand look at Rickard.

It turned out he looked good both on paper and on the field, and the Orioles liked it all. It led them to take a chance on a player who had hit just .243 in Double-A in 2014. Last Dec. 10 at the Winter Meetings in Nashville, the Orioles selected Rickard in the Rule 5 draft. Seven players were taken ahead of him.

Rickard led off yesterday's game with a double off Boston's David Price. Through the O's 6-0 start, he is batting .409 (9-for-22). He's already hit his first big league homer and gotten his first big league curtain call.

You can just look at the stat sheet to see how well Rickard played on the farm last year at Single-A, Double-A and Triple-A. Then over the winter, he played for Leones del Escogido in the Dominican Winter League. Over 50 games there, his manager was a member of the Orioles staff from the Dominican.

Orioles executive vice president Dan Duquette provided more of the Rickard backstory when he was my guest Sunday on "Orioles Baseball Tonight" on 105.7 The Fan.

"Joey Rickard had a great year last year with Tampa and I think he really learned how to play," Duquette said in the interview. "The year before in the winter, he went over to Australia to play in the Australian Winter League. Now anyone that goes all that way to play baseball in the winter, that shows me they have a lot of desire to be a ballplayer.

"It is not like our scouts really identified him, I think our analytics (staff) identified him during the season. And then, he played in the Dominican Winter League and Felipe Alou Jr. (director of the O's academy in the Dominican Republic) was managing the team where Joey played in that league, and he was one of the better players down there. Felipe said this guy is ready for a shot at the big leagues and we drafted him.

"Felipe runs our Dominican program and he is a terrific talent evaluator. Of course, his father was a great talent evaluator. That is what made him such a great manager during the time I worked with Felipe Alou Sr. in Montreal.

"In this case, having Felipe in the same dugout with Rickard gave us a lot of confidence. I remember asking Kent Qualls, our director of minor league operations, to check with Felipe about Rickard. I knew our analytics people really liked him and Felipe came back with an excellent recommendation."

At three levels in the minors last year, the 24-year-old Rickard hit .321/.427/.447 in 117 games. Those numbers got the attention of the O's analytics department.

"What they liked about him last year, I think his on-base percentage was over .420," Duquette said. "Joey was a ninth-round pick out of the University of Arizona. So teams had seen him in college, but his pro career, up until last year, was really nondescript."

Then Rickard followed that up by playing well in the Dominican where he hit .277/.344/.450. He showed more pop in the Dominican, hitting six homers in 191 at-bats after hitting just two in the minors over 396 at-bats in 2015.

And on the fields of the Dominican Republic is where Alou Jr. got to really know Rickard well, seeing him play every day.

"Exactly and there is great comfort when you have a manager recommend a player that he has spent time with in the dugout," Duquette said. "You get to know the players when you work that closely with them and Felipe didn't hesitate in terms of recommending the kid.

"To Joey Rickard's credit, I think over the last 20 months, he's really learned how to play. I've heard some of our veteran scouts like Lee Thomas and Bruce Kison say, 'This guy is a baseball player.'

"What do you mean by that? Well, he likes to play. He's out there, he's gritty, he's running and diving and likes to get the uniform dirty. He's stealing bases, he slides in head first. He likes to play.

"That kind of enthusiasm I think is recognized by our fans. They are attracted to that type of work ethic and workmanlike ballplayer. That is really what this ballclub is about, it's a lunch pail carrying team under Buck Showalter and it represents the city. This is a working class town."