Brady Anderson on winter workouts; young O's meet the media at FanFest

When it comes to leading a group of Orioles in winter workouts, club vice president of baseball operations Brady Anderson is ready to help. He's already joined pitcher Miguel Gonzalez for some of his workouts on the West Coast, and that group will later include Mike Wright, Jason Garcia and minor league lefty Tim Berry.

"Garcia and Wright will spend some extensive time right before spring training," Anderson said. "They'll probably be there the last six weeks. Dariel Alvarez will come in. Jonathan Schoop usually shows up."

Anderson likes the fact that several young players are joining in the workouts and said it might be a time for a changing of the guard of sorts in the workouts.

"Our offseason work started four or five years ago and, as it turned out, I had the pitchers," said Anderson. "It was Tommy Hunter, Gonzalez, Zach Britton, (Chris) Tillman, (Brian) Matusz and (Wei-Yin) Chen. Those guys trained together and we got big results. Now that they've established themselves as major leaguers, we need to start over and get a new crop of guys doing that program that they did for four straight years."

During FanFest some of the club's minor league players were interviewed by reporters:

* Alex Murphy, out of Calvert Hall in Baltimore, said he was recognized more at FanFest for his connection to Calvert Hall than the Orioles. But the 21-year-old Murphy got off to a great start last year with Single-A Delmarva before his season was derailed a bit by sports hernia surgery. He hit .258 with two homers and 28 RBIs in 32 games for the Shorebirds.

With his high school background as a player in the area, Murphy is trying to become an Oriole with a hometown-kid-makes-good kind of story.

"It means the world," said Murphy. "Growing up as a kid, coming to FanFest, going to Orioles games. There is no better experience than being a hometown kid playing for the team you grew up watching."

Drafted in the sixth round in 2013 as a catcher, Murphy will also see some time at first base this season.

"Any way to get to the big leagues is the way I look at that," he said.

* Trey Mancini gives Anderson some credit for his big 2015 season when he hit a combined .341/.375/.563 with 43 doubles, six triples, 21 home runs and 89 RBIs in 136 games between Double-A Bowie and Single-A Frederick. He was named the Orioles minor league Player of the Year. Mancini said Anderson urged him last spring training to make some significant adjustments with his stance and swing. It got him more upright and better balanced in the batter's box.

Did Mancini have some concerns in making some big changes heading into the 2015 season?

"There were concerns," Mancini said. "Any time you make that big of an adjustment, it is going to take a while. It took spring training and a little bit into the season to really get used to it I think. But I didn't want to go away from it just because I wasn't seeing immediate success. He obviously knows what he is talking about. It finally started to feel comfortable."

* Outfielder Mike Yastrzemski was at his first FanFest on Saturday. He signed some autographs and took part in a fan forum featuring some minor league players. Last year, Yaz hit .406 in the postseason as Bowie won the Eastern League championship. He said he has heard some criticism of the O's farm system.

Do young O's players get upset when their own farm system is criticized in national publications?

"Maybe some guys take it personally," Yastrzemski said. "But I think you can look at it as room to grow. We have opportunity and we saw guys move up this year and help the big league club. You have to take small steps and understand the big picture. It doesn't matter what outside sources think. It is all about what we do on the interior, how we perform and how we grow. I think guys understand that pretty well."