O's add Hoffman and Uvila in Rule 5, plus other notes

The Orioles added two pitchers Wednesday in the Triple-A phase of the Rule 5 draft. This phase is very different than the major league Rule 5, which was postponed for now during the lockout. These players do not need to be placed on the 40-man roster and they are, essentially, now Orioles. No need to send either of them back to the team from which each was claimed. They can also play on any affiliate the Orioles send them to in 2022.

Since these players were neither on any club's 40-man roster or their protected Triple-A list of players, which could have numbered as high as 38, you are not likely to find future All-Stars here. But the Orioles hope they, at a minimum, found some arms to provide minor league depth, and maybe they can develop into more than that.

Their first pick, which was the first overall pick in the draft, was 24-year-old right-handed reliever Nolan Hoffman from the Seattle organization. He went a combined 1-2 with a 3.53 ERA over 37 games pitching at low Single-A and high Single-A in the Mariners system last season. In 51 innings, he allowed 40 hits and just two homers with 14 walks, 55 strikeouts, a 1.06 WHIP and .211 batting average against. Hoffman recorded an ERA of 2.16 in 2018 in 21 games and 1.08 a year later in nine games.

He was selected by the Mariners in round five (No. 148 overall) in the 2018 draft out of Texas A and M.

The Baseball America scouting report on him labeled Hoffman a sidearming pitcher with a low 90s fastball. He has elite groundball rates of 65 percent with heavy sink.

Said Orioles director of pro scouting Mike Snyder: "We're excited to welcome Nolan to our organization. After his 2019 season was cut short due to Tommy John surgery, we were encouraged with the progress he made in 2021. He has a history of limiting walks and is a groundball artist with a knack for inducing weak contact, really an outlier in this respect across the league. He presents a very difficult look, especially for right-handed hitters, and is a competitor who shows some personality on the mound."

The Orioles also selected 27-year-old right-handed reliever Cole Uvila from the Texas Rangers organization. He was a 40th-round draft pick in 2018 from Georgia Gwinnett College. At Double-A and Triple-A in 2021 he went 2-2 with a 5.37 ERA. In 53 2/3 innings he allowed 58 hits with 30 walks, 64 strikeouts, a 1.64 WHIP and .278 batting average against.

In 96 career games, all in relief, Uvila has gone 10-5 with a 3.18 ERA and 1.23 WHIP. Over 150 innings he has yielded 105 hits and just seven home runs, with 79 walks and 203 strikeouts. He has allowed a career .617 OPS with a 4.74 walk rate and 12.18 strikeout rate.

He is said to have a high-spin-rate, 12-to-6 curveball. Uvila pitched for Surprise in the Arizona Fall League after the 2019 season. He went 2-0 with a 2.53 ERA and 16 strikeouts in 10 2/3 innings.

Said Snyder: "We've been attracted to Cole Uvila for three or four years now, envisioning him as a multi-pitch reliever. He's a late bloomer, the rare 24-year-old draftee who had bounced around a number of amateur programs and had overcome elbow surgery before really taking off in his pro debut in 2018. He shows a real feel for pitch design, overhauling his repertoire in a number of ways the last several years. He has a penchant for generating movement on all his secondaries and he's knowledgeable about what he wants to achieve on the mound. We're hopeful that we can help him harness the bat-missing ability to help achieve sustainable success. We know he has the ability, we know he puts the work in and we know we have the right infrastructure in our player development group to support him."

Last night, the Orioles added another pitcher that was taken in yesterday's draft. They acquired right-hander Tommy Wilson from Seattle for cash considerations. Seattle had selected Wilson from the Mets earlier Wednesday in the draft.

The 25-year-old Wilson had a 2.35 ERA and 0.98 WHIP in 10 relief appearances this summer at Double-A Binghamton, where he fanned 18 batters in 15 1/3 innings and opponents batted .182 against him.

Looking ahead: Here are the early December odds to win the 2022 World Series from BetOnline.ag.

13/2 - Los Angeles Dodgers
9/1 - Houston Astros, New York Mets
19/2 - Atlanta Braves
12/1 - New York Yankees
14/1 - Tampa Bay Rays, San Diego Padres

They may have added Corey Seager, Marcus Semien, Jon Gray and Kole Calhoun, but the Texas Rangers are still a longshot to win the World Series at 40/1. That is up from 125/1 before the signings.

The Toronto Blue Jays are listed at 16/1 and the Boston Red Sox at 18/1. The Orioles join Arizona and Pittsburgh as the longest shots on the board at 250/1 to win the 2022 World Series.

Kurkjian gets honored: Congratulations are in order for former Baltimore Sun O's beat writer and current ESPN baseball writer and analyst Tim Kurkjian. He's headed to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., and not just to cover a player getting in the Hall.

Kurkjian is the 2022 winner of the Baseball Writers' Association of America Career Excellence Award, getting honored with an award previously known as the Spink Award. He will be honored with the award that is presented annually to a sportswriter "for meritorious contributions to baseball writing" during the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum's induction weekend July 22-25 in Cooperstown.

A graduate of Walter Johnson High school in his native Bethesda, Md., and the University of Maryland, Kurkjian began his career in 1979 for the Washington Star. That was where a much younger me first met him, while he was covering the Alexandria Dukes minor league team. I was a part-timer at the Star while attending Towson University. Kurkjian would later cover the Orioles for four years.

Tim has managed to be brilliant at his job while being among the nicest people in our business. That is harder to do than you may think. Cal Ripken Jr. knows him not only as a great reporter but as someone he invited to play basketball at his house and could hold his own with the pro athletes on the floor.