O's Matt Blood on new Triple-A skipper, Strowd to the 40-man and more

Under the Mike Elias regime, Matt Blood has played a prominent role for the Orioles. He was hired first as director of player development in September of 2019. On his watch, the O’s farm system became the first to be ranked No. 1 in five straight rankings by MLBPipeline.com. 

Blood was promoted to his current role, vice president, player development and domestic scouting in October of 2023.

He was involved in the recent hiring of Triple-A Norfolk manager Tim Federowicz, someone he knows since both were students and involved with the baseball team at the University of North Carolina.

When Buck Britton was hired to move to the O’s big league coaching staff, the club interviewed several candidates for their Triple-A opening before the recent hiring of Federowicz.

Federowicz had a 13-year pro career and played parts of eight season in the majors as a catcher with six teams. He retired in December of 2021.

The next season he managed Triple-A Tacoma to a 72-78 record. In 2023 he was on the Detroit Tigers big league staff as catching coach and last year was their manager at Triple-A Toledo, as the Mud Hens went 69-80.

“Buck Britton has been a major piece of our development process in the upper levels of the minor leagues between Double-A and Triple-A. To move him to the big leagues was great. We were very happy for him and proud of him to get that opportunity,” Blood said in a phone interview Monday.

“It did leave a hole of an experienced guy to lead our upper level players. We felt like we needed to go outside the organization to fill that hole. Fortunately for us, Federowicz is someone that has managed a couple of Triple-A teams. He’s been in the majors as a coach and played in the majors for parts of eight seasons.

“We have various connections to him – whether it’s with our major league coaching staff, with our farm director and even myself dating back to the University of North Carolina when we were there together.

“I’ve known Tim a long time. We feel like he’s going to bring experience and a perspective that will help our players. Especially a young (Samuel) Basallo having a manager that has caught in the major leagues should be a good thing for him.”

Federowicz (say it Fed-a-row-vitch) has ties to the Orioles beyond spending time in Chapel Hill with Blood. When he played 17 games for the Cubs in 2016, O’s skipper Brandon Hyde was on that Cubs coaching staff. When he played 10 games for the 2018 Houston Astros, Mike Elias was on that Houston staff.

What does Blood expect from his new Triple-A skipper?

“I think preparing those Triple-A players to have success when they go to the big leagues,” he said. “And when players come down from the big leagues, he can be someone that helps them rebound and be prepared to go back. Teaching them the last, final polishing touches to make sure when they go up, they are ready to compete and have success."

As for Britton on the big league staff, Blood expects his contribution to be vast for the Orioles in 2025. 

“He’s going to bring positive energy. He’ll have a tremendous work ethic. He will communicate and connect with all the players and he’s going to bring the staff together. He’ll have already an organic connection with our player development staff and front office. He’ll be a connector and energy and someone that helps do things better across the board," he said. 

I asked Blood yesterday about minor league right-hander Kade Strowd, 27, who was a bit of a surprise addition to the O’s 40-man roster. On Nov 19, minor league pitchers Strowd and Brandon Young were added to the O’s roster to keep them out of the Rule 5 draft.

While Strowd’s fastball can touch the mid 90s and get more at times and his slider can be a plus offering, his stats were not strong leading into his roster addition.

He went 6-3 with a 5.44 ERA last year between Double-A and Triple-A. After throwing 10 1/3 innings without allowing an earned run to begin last season at Bowie, he moved to Norfolk and had an ERA of 6.80 in 37 games.

For the season he recorded 71 strikeouts (and 28 walks) in 51 1/3 innings between the Baysox and Tides, for a mark of 12.4 strikeouts per nine innings.

“I think he’s a guy that has big league stuff,” Blood said of Strowd. “He’s been a guy that has steadily developed in our organization over the past handful of years. And through his hard work and his performance he’s earned it. And he can hopefully be a major league contributor this year and help us win games.”

So, while we can see his stats do not stand out, Blood said the quality of his pitches – especially the heater and slider – do.

“Yep. He has wipeout stuff. He has above average major league stuff,” he said.

On another topic, I asked Blood about the O’s having 13 international players on the current MLBPipeline.com top 30 Orioles prospects list. The highest-rated O’s intentional players are Basallo their No. 2 prospect (and No. 13 in the national top 100) along with right-handed pitcher Juan Nuñez at No. 8, lefty Luis De León at No. 9 and outfielder Stiven Martinez No. 10.

“This was why when Mike got here initially it was one of the things he immediately got going. For a team to compete year in and year out you need a viable, high-functioning international program. Now we are starting to see what they started come to fruition. Koby (Perez, vice president, international scouting and operations) has done a nice job finding players and I’d say we’ve put together a nice development process for them. We are starting to see them arrive to prospect status and maybe soon one of them makes the major leagues,” said Blood.

More with Matt: Coming soon in this space a bit more with Blood. He had some interesting comments about the O's 2024 season on the farm for the hitters. 

They said it: Orioles executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias talked to reporters Monday at the Winter Meetings. He stated he is confident about adding a quality starting pitcher or two.

“I’m very confident shopping in it (this market),” he said. “We have been and continue to be. But the competition is enormous. You know last year we were able to figure out a way to get a top-of-the-rotation starter. I don’t think that’s something that all 30 teams pull off every year. But we’re all trying. I’m going to do my best to figure it out and we’ll make sure we have a really good team at the end of this offseason.”

He added that he would not shy away from signing a starting pitcher that turned down a qualifying offer. Signing such a pitcher would cost the O’s a draft pick. There were reports that he is trying to stay away from such pitchers.

“No,” said Elias. “We’re in on everybody. We’re talking to everybody. When there are aspects of the rules that create wrinkles, you’ve got to weigh them. So, we do that. But there is no player that we’re not interested in or pursuing in some shape or fashion if we feel like the talent is additive to the current roster that we have.”

Orioles vice president of international scouting and operations, Koby Perez, was asked how the O’s next international class of talent is shaping up? The new signing period begins Jan. 15 and of course right now he can’t name anyone the club plans to sign.

“It is starting to shape up pretty good,” Perez told the media in Dallas. “You know when Jan. 15 comes along, we’re excited about the players. I feel like the way it’s going we’re going to spread it out a little more. We found a lot of good players that we feel that will be good players. I anticipate signing a dozen or so players and we’re excited about every single one of them.”

Anthony Villa, the club’s director of player development, expressed his happiness that the O’s were named the inaugural recipient of Minor League Baseball’s Sportsmanship Award on Monday, beating out other finalists in Arizona, Miami and Milwaukee.

“It was cool,” Villa said. “It’s certainly not like winning a World Series trophy or anything, but it’s an initiative that’s a reflection of our behavior and how we conduct ourselves. We said in spring training from the start, we can control our actions and let’s make sure we are focusing on player development and nothing that takes away from that. You know it’s a complement to our staff. They bought into exemplifying good behavior and making sure the focus is on the players. It was cool to see them embody that.”