A look at the Orioles and the upcoming First-Year Player Draft

A week from today, the First-Year Player Draft will conclude with teams selecting players in rounds 11 through 40. Next Friday, they draft players in rounds 3 through 10. The draft begins Thursday, June 5, when the first two rounds are televised live on MLB Network.

But this year, the O's won't be involved that first night. Their first pick will come in round 3 with the No. 90 overall selection.

The Orioles gave up picks No. 17, 35 and 55 in the acquisitions of Ubaldo Jimenez, Bud Norris and Nelson Cruz.

Giving up those picks was likely the right move for an organization trying to win now. Also, since getting even high round picks all the way to the majors is a tricky and difficult proposition, there was no guarantee the players taken with those picks would ever make the big leagues.

This will be the third draft headed up by Orioles scouting director Gary Rajsich, who drafted Kevin Gausman with his initial O's first-round pick in 2012 and Hunter Harvey was taken in round 1 last June.

Major League Baseball now allots each club a certain amount of money to sign its picks in the top 10 rounds. Each individual pick is assigned a value. Because they don't select until round 3, the Orioles have the smallest allotment of any team this year at $2,204,400.

The allotted amount to sign the 90th pick is $594,200. The Orioles' second pick will be in the fourth round, No. 121 overall, and then the club will select every 30 picks after that through 40 rounds.

It is unlikely to draft a star player with the No. 90 pick. In fact, according to Baseball-Reference.com, only 13 of 49 players drafted with that selection ever made the majors. The two most well-known are Will Clark and Luis Gonzalez.

Last year, the Orioles signed 11 draft picks in the first 10 rounds and 15 picks over the first 14 rounds. They had an extra pick - a supplemental first-round pick - which they used to draft Josh Hart No. 37 overall, thus they had more picks than rounds.

According to this article from Baseball America, here are the allotted signing bonus amounts for each of the Orioles top 10 round picks.

Round 3, No. 90 - $594,200
Round 4, No. 121 - $428,100
Round 5, No. 151 - $320,500
Round 6, No. 181 - $240,000
Round 7, No. 211 - $179,900
Round 8, No. 241 - $157,300
Round 9, No. 271 - $146,800
Round 10, No. 301 - $137,600

Two losses in Houston: No doubt O's fans are feeling more frustration this morning. On Monday, the Orioles pulled off a stirring comeback win - it was probably their best win of the season - and they are 0-4 since.

The O's have been waiting for some good starting pitching and now the starters give up just three runs in two games and both end in losses. The Orioles have scored just two runs on 12 hits with no homers in two games at Houston.

The Orioles have become baseball's version of Groundhog Day. Pitch well, but don't score much. Pile up runs, but give up a bunch. They are now in a rut where they are 6-13 the last 19 games.

Where does it all end?

Today is a new day, a new game and a new chance. The O's will be exactly one-third into the season at the 54-game mark after today, which means plenty of time left to put it all together.

But it also means we've seen enough losses to wonder if that will be possible in 2014.