It sounds much easier than it is, but most players have two basic goals in mind each year - stay healthy and stay productive. Can't do the second without the first part.
After dealing with injuries earlier in his career and missing a month last year plus getting off to a slow start - he went 3-for-30 to start the year - outfielder Austin Hays is very aware that the 2021 season will be big for him. He has shown his tools and skills. Now he has to stay on the field over six months of the regular...
Manager Brandon Hyde has spent some time talking about the Orioles continuing move toward more use of data, technology and analytics since the start of spring training. New pitching coach Chris Holt led a big move toward data and tech to the Baltimore farm in 2019 and it's matriculated to the big league pitchers as well. It was cited by veteran righty Matt Harvey as one reason he signed with the Orioles.
But where does that leave the big league hitters? Do they have the same opportunities to...
Did Orioles third baseman Rio Ruiz hit in some tough luck last year during the shortened 2020 season?
A case could be made that he did. He batted .222/.286/.427 with 11 doubles, nine homers, 32 RBIs (tied for the team lead) and an OPS of .713 in 54 games. His OPS+ was 93, 7 percent short of league average.
But Ruiz led the Orioles with 54 hard-hit balls, according to Statcast. Those are balls put in play at 95 mph or more. However, he ranked just 14th on the team in batting average on balls in...
The Orioles are looking to stretch out some of their bullpen pitchers this season to ensure enough innings to cover the long 162-game season. Manager Brandon Hyde recently said that could mean one inning plus for some relievers and could mean going two or even three innings for others.
Lefty Tanner Scott, who had easily his best season in the truncated 2020 season, said he is surely up for pitching more if needed. But it has not been something he's been asked to do a lot in his career. He...
The Orioles are not exactly featuring an abundance of bullpen left-handers. Even on a spring roster with 73 players that includes 37 pitchers. They do return Paul Fry and Tanner Scott from the left side in the 'pen. Who, if anyone, joins them this year is to be determined.
Fernando Abad, who signed a minor league deal, may have a good shot. Zach Muckenhirn from the O's farm is another 'pen lefty. Josh Rogers has returned after two surgeries and Bruce Zimmermann made one bullpen appearance...
Give a cerebral, young pitcher some time on his hands during quarantine baseball, with no games to play or spring training complex to report to, and he can do some unique and ultimately very productive things.
For Orioles right-hander Dean Kremer, starting last March, that meant taking his slider, which had always been a work in progress, and morphing it into more of a cut fastball. They are similar pitches, but the cutter is often thrown a bit harder and has the nice sharp and late break...
Orioles coach Chris Holt is on his third title in his third year in the organization. It just points to his growing importance to the club and how it has expanded each season. For two years, he was entrusted with overseeing pitching on the farm. Now he joins the major league staff for the first time in 2021.
Holt was hired for the 2019 season as minor league pitching coordinator. That was the last full season before the pandemic, and of the Orioles' top six farm teams, four clubs led their...
As he gets set to begin his third season in the Orioles organization, but first as the major league pitching coach, 41-year-old Chris Holt faces challenges everywhere he looks. How to continue to improve a staff that finished with a 4.51 ERA last year, up from 5.59 in 2019. How to continue to introduce more young pitching to the staff.
And how to manage pitcher workloads in a 162-game season that followed a 60-game year. How do pitchers go from throwing 40 or 50 innings to getting back to, for...
Orioles manager Brandon Hyde, his pitching coaches Chris Holt and Darren Holmes and the club's front office, among others, have to ponder something important about pitchers for the coming season: How do they get from here to there?
In this case, the here is the innings load that pitchers were given in a shortened 60-game 2020 season, and the there is how it will work out now with 162 games facing the club. Last year Alex Cobb led O's pitchers with 52 1/3 innings and John Means was second with...
He will turn 28 in April and is a veteran of just 202 big league innings. But in leading an Orioles rotation that could feature two rookies at the start - and more joining the fun late - left-hander John Means is likely to add leadership to his roles during the 2021 season.
"It's crazy, the fact that I have two years of service time and I'm stepping into a leadership role," he said during a Zoom interview this afternoon. "But that's the way this team works and that's the way it needs to...
When you look at the list of 73 players the Orioles have heading to spring training this week, there are 37 pitchers among that group of players. Of that group of 37, there are 15-20 that might have at least a remote shot at breaking north in the season-opening starting rotation. Realistically, the number is less, but still large.
Let's take a look at groupings of pitchers that we could see in the rotation come April.
TOP TIER
This group includes lefty John Means, the likely opening day...
It happened last season at the Orioles' alternate camp at Bowie. He made a joke that was not 100 percent a joke. When there was not a catcher available during a drill, infielder Rylan Bannon said they could put him back there. It didn't happen that day, but during instructional league a few weeks later, it did.
Bannon, who turns 25 in April, went behind the plate. That was a first for him. In his minor league career, he had made 85 starts at second base and 172 at third base.
But at...
As major league debuts go, this was a really good one. Outstanding, actually. Orioles right-hander Dean Kremer faced the New York Yankees on Sunday, Sept. 6 at Camden Yards. In a 5-1 win as Baltimore took three of four in that series, Kremer allowed one run and one hit over six innings.
Yankees batters went 1-for-19 against him. He walked three and fanned seven, throwing 47 of 88 pitches for strikes. His career was off and running.
That afternoon Kremer became the fourth pitcher in Orioles...
All you have to do is remember that catcher Jake Fox once looked like an All-Star during spring training. Some fans were clamoring for him to play over Matt Wieters. Yep, that did happen.
Every year, we see players crush the ball in spring training but struggle when the season starts. And the reverse is often true.
Every year, we wonder how much stock, if any, to put into spring training stats. It's all we have throughout February and March. I've always felt we certainly can't just dismiss...
Among a few adjustments Orioles fans have to get used to with minor league baseball in 2021 is seeing Aberdeen play as their high Single-A full-season affiliate and no longer as a short-season club. As of yesterday we also have to get used to new and very generic league names for these farm clubs.
In many cases their league will be similar to where they have been in terms of the teams they will play, but no longer will those clubs play in the International, Eastern, Carolina or South Atlantic...
After watching a record 6.776 homers leave ballparks during the 2019 season, Major League Baseball officials are taking an action that could produce fewer longballs this year. According to sources cited by several outlets, MLB will slightly deaden the baseballs for the 2021 season.
According to an Associated Press report, MLB anticipates the changes will be subtle, and a memo to teams last week cites an independent lab that found the new balls will fly one to two feet shorter on balls hit over...
The Orioles farm system got some further positive recognition yesterday when it was ranked No. 7 by Baseball America in organizational rankings. That is up from No. 12 last year. In MLBPipeline.com's latest organizational rankings, released in the fall, the O's moved up from No. 13 to No. 8.
It should be pointed out that not every outlet sees the O's farm as top 10 or even top 15. The Athletic rated the O's No. 18 when it released ratings for every MLB club yesterday.
Baseball America noted...
We now know some of the rules that will govern the 2021 Major League Baseball season. MLB and the MLB Players Association announced the health and safety protocols that will be in place starting when spring training begins next week.
By the way, as a reminder, O's pitchers and catchers report Tuesday, Feb. 16 with the first workout set for the next day. The first full-squad workout in Sarasota is Feb. 22.
Some things that were agreed on include:
* Doubleheaders will feature two seven-inning...
Neither player is currently on the Orioles' 40-man roster. Of the two, one has played in the majors, while the other has yet to play a single inning of pro ball. Both could play in Baltimore at some point in the 2021 season.
In this recent entry, I got the take and opinions from a National League scout on the O's possible double play combo of Freddy Galvis and Yolmer Sánchez. Today, the scout takes a look at Chris Shaw and Garrett Stallings.
Shaw is a 27-year-old lefty-hitting...
He got a taste of big league camp with the Orioles in Sarasota last season. Now as a new season is about to begin, Zac Lowther is ready to leave his home near Cleveland and head south. He's a bit leaner than last year, and after a 2020 season spent trying to get better without games, looks forward to putting his best forward soon at Ed Smith Stadium.
The 24-year-old lefty has quite the minor league resume. An All-Star with short-season Single-A Aberdeen in 2017, the O's co-Minor League...