Notes on Joey Rickard, Tim Berry and big free agent contracts

Outfielder Joey Rickard, taken by the Orioles in the Rule 5 draft, is having a solid season in the Dominican Winter League. Over 50 games and 191 at-bats, he has hit .277/.344/.450 with 13 doubles, one triple, six homers and 32 RBIs.

A 24-year-old who is a right-handed batter and lefty thrower, Rickard has hit .362 with runners in scoring position for Leones del Escogido. He has batted mostly first and third. In 100 leadoff at-bats, he has hit .290/.373/.540. Against left-handed pitchers, he has hit .256 with an OPS of .921, while those numbers are .283 and .761 versus right-handed pitching respectively.

When the O's selected Rickard, a ninth-round pick of Tampa Bay out of the University of Arizona in 2012, executive vice president Dan Duquette said, "We recognized Joey Rickard's improvement. You look at how he is trending and he's trending up."

Rickard played at three levels of the minor leagues in 2015. Each time he moved up, his stats got better.

He began the year at high Single-A Charlotte and hit .268 with an OBP of .436 in 23 games. Then, with Double-A Montgomery, those numbers were .322/.420 in 65 games. Then, in his first promotion to Triple-A Durham, he hit .360 with a .437 OBP. Rickard has a career .283 batting average with a .390 OBP.

Right before Christmas, the Orioles lost left-handed pitching prospect Tim Berry when Miami picked him up on a waiver claim. The O's chance to remove him from the 40-man roster but keep him was not successful.

The 24-year-old lefty was ranked as the O's No. 6 prospect after the 2013 season and was No. 7 after 2014. Even though he struggled at Double-A Bowie in 2015, there are several in the organization that felt he was still among the club's top 20-25 prospects.

Berry went 2-7 with a 7.32 ERA for Bowie last season after pitching to a 3.51 ERA the year before. The O's moved him to the bullpen in July and just when he was having success, he got hurt. He underwent surgery to repair a meniscus tear in his left knee in early August to end his season.

In the very small sample size of eight bullpen innings, Berry pitched to an ERA of 3.38 and fanned 10. The O's liked what they saw, and he was expected to continue to pitch out of the bullpen in 2016. Nothing wrong with a lefty that could pitch multiple innings in relief.

One theory suggested to me for Berry's 2015 struggles was that he was throwing his changeup too much. It was a solid secondary pitch for him, but became inconsistent last year and may have impacted his fastball.

But Berry is considered a player with great makeup and should begin next year healthy with a solid chance to bounce back and have another solid season.

The $100 million club: Will Chris Davis become the next free agent player to sign a contract with a total value of over $100 million? So far, five players have signed such deals:

* $217 million over seven years by pitcher David Price with Boston
* $206.5 million over six years by pitcher Zach Greinke with Arizona
* $184 million over eight years by outfielder Jason Heyward with the Chicago Cubs
* $130 million over six years by pitcher Johnny Cueto with San Francisco
* $110 million over five years by pitcher Jordan Zimmermann with Detroit