Mick McDonald's Baltimore Orioles fan blog

So, yesterday, I mention how the Orioles get a rare well-pitched game from Radhames Liz, and I wrote up my recap on the AL East. Then, Chris Waters goes out and throws a complete game shut-out last night. So, that forces me to mention it, and to do the AL Central wrapup today. By my logic, that means Brian Bass should be lights out tonight. (Or, maybe what I do has nothing to do with how the Orioles play. We'll see.) Anyways, on to the AL Central.

AL Central 2008

Most Encouraging Team: Minnesota Twins

White Sox fans will want me drawn and quartered for this, but really, you can't pick against the Twins. The White Sox had a ton of money invested in this season and a lot of proven guys on their team. They had Dye, Konerko, Thome, Cabrera, Buehrle, Vasquez etc, etc coming into the season, and that was before guys like Carlos Quentin and Alexei Ramirez had big years, and Jon Danks and Gavin Floyd steadied the pitching staff. So, yes, the White Sox have had a great year, but they're only 2.5 games ahead of Minnesota as we speak. This is the same Twins team that people thought were throwing in the towel on 2008 when they traded Johan Santana to the Mets in the offseason. When you take into account Francisco Liriano started the year still recovering from his injury, there was nobody outside of the Twin Cities that thought this team had a shot at the playoffs. Now, thanks to solid work from young starters Scott Baker, Kevin Slowey, and Nick Blackburn, plus Liriano's stellar return late in the season, the Twins have kept their noses right in the thick of the AL Central race. They've got what you expected out of Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau, and have gotten good contributions from Denard Span, Carlos Gomez, Alexei Casilla and Delmon Young, who has really turned it on in the second half. Not to mention, they have the closer who has been the most dominant in the league. When you take into account all the young, cheap assests the Twins have, I think you have to look at them as the most encouraging team in the division.

Continue reading "It's AL Central Time"

The next couple weeks will wrap up the MLB regular season, so I'm going to take a look at each division around baseball, and give you my thoughts on them. And yes, I'm only doing this because I'm sick of watching the Orioles give up 10 runs a night and try to come up with something positive to say (although Radhames Liz did pitch well on Sunday.....but I digress.) I'll start with the best division in baseball, the AL East. 4 of the5 teams are over .500, and all of those 4 are probably among the 10 or so best teams in the majors. The one exception, well....that would be the O's. Anyways, here is a look at my take on the AL East from this past season.

2008 AL EAST 

Most Encouraging Team: Tampa Bay Rays

 This also falls under the category of "Easiest Selection of the Year." Tampa Bay, a team that has never had a winning record in it's existence, is tied for first place by percentage points as we speak. They have two more with the Red Sox at the Trop in the next two days, so it will be interesting to see if they can fend them off. I tend to think the Red Sox will win the division, but the Rays will still make the playoffs as a wild card. An incredible season for Joe Maddon and company, and their prize in the post-season will be a match-up with Maddon's former organization, the Angels (gulp!)

Continue reading "A Look Around the AL East"

Now that all of the minor league seasons have concluded, Baseball America has begun to come out with their top prospect lists. They are currently going through each minor league league, (starting with the Gulf Coast League, which is rookie ball, and working their way up to the Independent League, which is AAA.) and naming their top 20 prospects in each league. 

I'll try to keep you all updated on Orioles that have been named to the Top 20 lists for each league.

Today they started with the Gulf Coast League, and on Oriole made the list. That would be 2008 3rd Round pick L.J. Hoes, coming in at #15 on the list.

Hoes, who was drafted out of St. John's High School in the Baltimore/DC area, put up serious numbers in his 48 games in the GCL this season. He hit over .300 with an on-base percentage of .416. He also walked more often than he struck out, which is a very good sign. The only concern with Hoes' GCL numbers would be his lack of power. Hoes slugged only .390, hitting only 1 homer, 4 doubles, and 3 triples. However, as just an 18-year old right out of high school, scouts think that the power will come with age. Most think he only projects to be a 15-20 homer guy at best, but if he can hit 30 or so doubles and leg out double digit triples, he could be an offensive force. He plays seccond base, and while most scouts see him sticking there, they don't feel he is exceptional with the glove. He may have to move to the outfield eventually, but that wouldn't be until he is much closer to the majors.

Continue reading "The Prospect Fun Continues"

Ok, it's not like I needed Baseball America to confirm that for me.... but they did anyways. 

Player of the Year. That's a pretty high honor, considering I would guess most people thought David Price would walk away with the award. Price, the stud left-hander in the Tampa organization, will still probably be the #1 prospect for BA before next season starts, but my bet is Wieters will be a close number 2.

As much as I couldn't wait to see Nick Markakis come up before the '06 season, I'm even more excited about Wieters. Not just because he destroyed pitching at both High-A and AA, but also because he throws out a very high percentage of runners and by all accounts calls a great ballgame behind the plate.

Wieters is the first Oriole to ever win the award, and since this award only goese back to 1981 I guess that's not a huge surprise. Ben McDonald was a very highly rated prospect in the early 90's, and Markakis was rated pretty high recently, but neither put together a season like the one Wieters did this year.

Continue reading "Matt Wieters is the Man!"

It's a question asked in all sports: Once your team has no shot at the post-season, is it better long-term for the team to lose games at the end of the season, thus improving their draft status? Now, nobody is saying teams should tank games. However, from a fans perspective, is it better for the long-term success of the franchise to lose games down the stretch and improve your draft position, or to win meaningless (as far as this season goes) games and perhaps help build confidence for next year in the clubhouse?

The immediate reaction by many fans about baseball is that "the draft is such a crapshoot, it doesn't even matter." Well, that's partially true. The MLB draft is largely a crapshoot. It takes players longer to reach the big leagues and has a higher attrition rate than the NBA or NFL. However, it is far from meaningless. While it is always easy to look back 3 or 4 years and see players your team could have selected, as they say, hindsight is 20-20. There have been a few cases, though, where winning games at the end of a season cost the Orioles the exact player they were targeting in the draft.

Continue reading "The Non-Contender's September Conundrum"

Adam Jones is back!

Hopefully this means Jay Payton sightings will be much less frequent for the last month of the season. In fact, Payton and Kevin Millar, both of whom will be free agents at season's end, should spend a good amount of September on the bench.

With as well as Luis Montanez has played since being recalled, he needs to continue to be in the line-up. With that in mind, the following should be pretty much the every-day lineup throughout September:

Brian Roberts 2B

Adam Jones CF

Nick Markakis RF

Aubrey Huff 1B

Melvin Mora 3B

Luke Scott DH

Lou Montanez LF

Ramon Hernandez C

Who really cares SS

It will be Juan Castro, because he is solid defensively at shortstop, but it really is a bit pathetic the shortstops the Orioles have run out this year. One of Andy MacPhail's top goals this off-season needs to be acquiring a shortstop with some talent.

Continue reading "Jones' return should solidify September line-up"

Found this today. The Arizona Fall League will certainly be of interest to Orioles fans. Although we don't know which pitchers will be there yet, I'm sure we will know that sooner rather than later. When it comes to the position players, I have a few thoughts. Matt Wieters, Nolan Reimold, Blake Davis and Brandon Snyder will certainly be worth watching this fall and first off, the good news is that the Orioles guys have the benefit of the doubt when it comes to playing time because Norfolk Tides Manager Gary Allenson will manage the team that features the Orioles players. So the guys should all get a chance to play.

For the most well-known name on the list, I'm not sure that's really a good thing. Matt Wieters has dominated the minors this season. He will most likely be the highest rated positional prospect in the game, and has a shot at being the number one overall prospect in baseball (although that destinction is likely to go to Tampa's LHP David Price.) Anyways, it really makes no sense to me to send Wieters to the AFL. There really should have been two options for Wieters after the minor league season (and hopefully an Eastern League Championship at Bowie) come to an end.

Continue reading "Arizona Fall League Rosters Announced....sort of"

Since we last talked:

- The Orioles signed Brian Matusz, giving him a bonus of around 3.2 million and a major league contract. He probably won't pitch in the minors this year, but I'd expect him to pitch in the Arizona Fall League later in the year. I still think he will start at Frederick next season, with a promotion to Bowie happening sometime during the season.

- Dennis Sarfate and Garret Olson were moved out of the starting rotation. Sarfate was a no brainer, as he had actually been pretty effective out of the bullpen. I still think he is a guy that can help out from the pen. Olson was a bit of a surprised to me. Yes, he hasn't looked good his last few times out and his control has been awful, but I thought the Orioles would let him finish out the season in the rotation. Olson is now at AAA, but I'd expect him to be back up when the rosters expand in September. Radhames Liz was called up in his place and will start Friday night against the Yankees. We'll see if Liz' short stint back down at AAA did anything to fix his control issues he had while in Baltimore earlier in the season.

Continue reading "While I Was Gone..."

After the non-waiver trade deadline of July 31st, the next big date in baseball is August 15th. That's the day teams have to have all their amatuer draft picks signed. The Orioles have signed 9 of their Top 10 picks, the only one missing being 1st rounder and 4th overall pick Brian Matusz. Matusz, a left-handed pitcher from the University of San Diego, was thought to be an easy sign when the Orioles drafted him in June. Negotiations stalled, and he remains unsigned. Matusz, a Junior at USD, could return to school in the fall if not signed and re-enter next year's draft.

However, according to the Baltimore Sun, Matusz is in Baltimore today for a physical and is expected to sign well before tomorrow night's midnight deadline. Most scouts predict Matusz as a top of the rotation pitcher, but he doesn't have an overpowering fastball. He sits in the low 90's, but he has outstanding control and very good breaking pitches, according to most scouts. It will be interesting to see what Matusz signs for, as the Orioles went well over slot-price to draft Matt Wieters last year. However, Wieters was the consensus top position player in the draft, one of the most highly rated players in years, and only fell to the Birds at #5 due to signability concerns. This year, the Orioles figured they wouldn't have to go much over the slight price of somewhere around 2.5 or 2.75 million dollars guranteed (They gave Wieters around 6 last year). However, with the talks being dragged out so long, there is some question as to what Matusz will sign for. 

Continue reading "Another Deadline Approaching..."

After back to back starts where the starter got through only 4 innings, it's time for the Orioles to make some changes to their rotation/bullpen. While the offense keeps clicking along, the pitching continues to be an issue with this club. Here are the internal options that I would go to to try and help out the staff the rest of the season.

1. Dennis Sarfate back to the bullpen.

It's time to end the Dennis-as-a-starter experiment. He's had 3 shots at it, and while I think he has had some rough luck with bad defense, he simply can't throw enough strikes (or enough good pitches, for that matter). Even though he had a rough July in the pen, he has been solid overall there this season. He should be in a long-relief role for this team.

2- Call up Hayden Penn, DFA Lance Cormier.

Continue reading "Let's See Some Changes"