Friday, June 8, 2018

Oriole #1034- Miguel Castro

Well, hey there. Remember me? I'm the guy who used to regularly blog about Orioles autographs.

This site will never be what it once was, but I'm reinvesting myself to it in an attempt to at least post about all of the Orioles debuts that have occurred to this point and into the future. The way the 2018 season is going, I wouldn't be surprised if there end up being about 50 debuts this season alone.

To get back into things, I'm going to start where I left off last year. As far as I can tell, Miguel Castro's mid-May 2017 debut was the first one that I didn't post about at that point. So here we go, let's see if I remember how to do this...



Miguel Castro made his Orioles debut on May 17, 2017 and has been a relatively important middle reliever for the team over most of the past year. He was a nice surprise for the team through most of last season before fading in September but still ended the year with a 3-3 record covering 66.1 innings over 39 games. He's been similarly effective in 2018, and has a 1-2 record with 3.00 ERA over 36 innings in 23 games. Frankly, it's amazing that any pitcher for the 2018 Orioles has a respectable ERA considering the way the season has gone so far.

One thing that really surprises me about Miguel is that he's still only 23 years old; it feels like he's been around for such a long time. He made his MLB debut with a short stint as the Blue Jays closer  in 2015. Later that summer he was sent to the Rockies as part of the (at the time) mega-trade sending Jose Reyes to Colorado with Troy Tulowitzki heading to Toronto.

Miguel struggled in Colorado over the 2015-16 seasons and the Orioles acquired him via a trade with the Rockies in April 2017. They acquired him for virtually nothing since the minor leaguer they sent to Colorado in the trade retired from baseball. The O's got Brad Brach from the Padres in similar fashion, so it's good to know they can make some good moves to combat some horrible big money contracts. (cough Chris Davis cough)

I always like to throw in a big thank you to my dad for creating this Old Man Card (OMC) for Miguel to sign. Miguel graciously signed for me during a stint with Bowie last season, and he still seems to be a good signer even during his time in Baltimore.

It's good to write a post after such a long hiatus and hopefully this won't be the last one!

4 comments:

Rob said...

Welcome back!

zman40 said...

I hope it is not the last one, too. Good to see you back!

adiddle said...

I thought you left us. Kept checking but started to get worried
Welcome back and look forward for lots more posts.
You are right about players as I have added all who played so far and think I am up to 1045 on players
Plus contracts are hurting us like you said. I think we are in for a long couple of seasons.

Orioles Magic said...

Hoping to stay semi-active, good to see that some people are still checking the site!