Orioles Minor Moves

So far this off-season, the Orioles have signed a handful of minor league free agents and had a few of their former minor leaguers sign with other teams. I use BaseballAmerica's amazing minor league free agent tracker to keep up on all the O's transactions. Here's a quick rundown of those moves so far. I'll start with the players that the O's have signed and/or re-signed.

They inked outfielder Scott Beerer to a deal on November 13. Scott has an interesting back story; he pitched in the Rockies farm system from 2000-06 before walking away from the game in 2007-08 and then returned to the Rox system as an outfielder in 2009. He split the 2011 season between AA and AAA and hit .372 over 41 games in the first AAA action of his career.

On November 22, they signed right-handed relief pitcher Miguel Socolovich, who has spent the past four seasons in the White Sox farm system and also split the 2011 season between AA and AAA.

That same day, the team also signed shortstop Steve Tolleson. He played in the Twins farm system from 2005-09 and has spent the past two seasons in the Padres and A's systems. He played 25 games for the A's in 2010 and hit .286 with 1 homer and 4 RBI over 49 at-bats.

The O's re-signed right-handed starter Brandon Erbe on December 5th. He is a local kid and was the team's third round draft pick in 2005. Prior to the 2010 season, the O's placed Erbe on the 40 man roster to protect him for the Rule 5 draft, but he proceeded to go 0-10 at AAA Norfolk in 2010 and has faced multiple injuries as well so his stock has majorly dropped. He was removed from the 40-man late in 2011 but I hope Brandon can get his career back on track in 2012.

Now for the subtractions from the team...

Jake Fox signed with the Pirates

 Chris Jakubauskas signed with the Diamondbacks (and I finally learned how to spell his name)

Felix Pie signed with the Indians

Steve Lerud signed with the Phillies

Chorye Spoone (another local guy) signed with the Red Sox

I'm not sure who all is interested in hearing about these updates but I will probably write another update or two about the O's minor league transactions throughout this off-season.

You Say Goodbye, I Say Hello

On Tuesday, the Orioles announced that righty reliever Jim Hoey was added to their 40 man roster, presumably to protect him from the Rule V draft. Jim pitched for the O's in parts of the 2006-07 seasons and has been fighting his way through various injuries since then. I would certainly expect that there will be more additions and subtractions to the O's 40 man over the coming weeks and my guess is that Matt Albers, Armando Gabino, Chorye Spoone, Pedro Viola, Pedro Florimon and Rhyne Hughes are the most likely to be removed, but time will tell. 

The O's also allowed a number of players to become Minor League free agents, including...

 Mike Hinckley

 Chris George

 Joel Guzman

 Scott Moore

and Dennis Sarfate.

Hinckley, George, and Guzman were all signed as Minor League free agents before the 2010 season and never made it to Baltimore.  

Moore and Sarfate both played for the Orioles at times over the past three seasons.  

None of these moves surprised me besides letting Sarfate go. The O's have a pretty deep bullpen and he didn't crack the 2010 Major League roster but he saved 20 games and had a 2.73 ERA for the AAA Tides. 

Adios Baysox

The Bowie Baysox, the AA O's affiliate located somewhat near my house, were unfortunately eliminated from the Eastern League playoff contention on Monday, the final day of their regular season.  They had battled for weeks with the Harrisburg Senators, the Nats AA affiliate, for the second (and last) spot in the Western Division standings, and could have forced a one game play-in game if they had one and the Senators had lost on Monday.  Neither of those things happened and the Senators clinched their playoff spot, so the Baysox season was over.  It's too bad because we only made it to one or two of their games over the past couple months and didn't one last night of fun in at Prince George's County Stadium. 

Well, as a proper send off to the team, here are some of the Baysox autographs I got over the season.  Caleb Joseph up top was my favorite player this season, so I took the time to separate his card. 

This is what their 2010 team set looks like; the Aberdeen Ironbirds set looks very similar.  I really like how many of the cards show the players in their orange uni's!  The Tucker card is an All-Star insert card from 2010 Topps Debut.  Waring led the E.L. with 179 K's, Henson was 2nd with 156.  None of these guys have very nice autographs... 

This is Tanaka & Johnson's first O's affiliate cards.  Car-los Ro-jas! McCrory pitched for the O's in 2008 & 09, but spent most of the season with the Baysox.  Chad's card isn't very flattering.  Cooney didn't like how his little pinkie is up on his '09 Shorebirds card.  Gamboa is a great guy, very friendly, another one of my favorites.  

Joel was one of the hardest autographs to get on the team.  I got all of these signed at one of the meet-the-team days, but did get his Baysox card signed at our last game of the season.  He led the Eastern League with 33 homers, 264 total bases, and was second with 98 RBI.  He's had stints with the Dodgers and Devil Rays in the Majors, but won't be coming to Baltimore this September.

Viola had awful numbers with the AAA Norfolk Tides at the start of the season but his numbers over 23 appearances with the Baysox were good enough for him to get a September call-up with the O's.  I think that Komminsk is probably sick of me getting his autograph, and since I don't have anything left for him to sign, I'll stop now.

Spring Training Successes: Minor League Members of the 40 Man Roster

Following up on the series of preview blogs I wrote about these players a few weeks back, here are all of the autographs I got from the Minor League guys on the O's 40 man.


Rhyne Hughes signed at both games I went to but I missed him on the first day. This is my first autograph from him, and I wanted to get at least 2 but I won't complain. I didn't immediately recognize him when we walked by on the first day and I think he looks quite different in person than he does on his cards.


These cards looks like they were designed to be signed. There's too much open space when they aren't autographed but once the signature is added it looks great. The Hughes card above is also from the Tristar Projections set but his wasn't cut off at the waist for some reason.

Brandon signed a trio of cards for me, but this is the most unique. As you can see, it's from the '07 Hawaii Winter Baseball set and that was the only year I bought one of these sets. It featured 5 or 6 other Orioles Minor Leaguers, including my boy, Matt Wieters, but I didn't buy the set for him or Snyder. I bought it because it includes the only card produced of Ryohei Tanaka, a RP who was on the Baysox in '09. I have not yet gotten Ryohei's autograph but this shows you how far I will go to obtain a card of a random Minor League player to get their autograph on a card.

This is a cool action shot for a Minor League team set. The Baysox did a nice job on their cards last season. The orange border is cool as well.


And why stop now? Here is the third Snyder card I got signed from the equally cool 2006 Ironbirds set.


Chorye kind of missed the card with his C when he was signing it. I think that he was trying to avoid the black jersey but I would've preferred that he kept his autograph totally on the card. Oh well. At least it's an Orioles card.


Since I seem to only have good things to say about the Minor League sets in today's post, I won't stop now. I like the rolling blue wave at the bottom of the Tides '09 set. The orange jersey and blue border clash a little bit but I like it anyway. Also, Troy has always seemed like a nice guy and a good signer to boot.

Minor League Members of the O's 40 Man Roster- Chorye Spoone

Chorye Spoone (Corey Spoon) was drafted by the Orioles in the 8th round of the 2005 draft. Like Brandon Erbe, he is a local guy, growing up in Pasadena, MD about 18 miles south of Baltimore.


Some scouts regarded him as having the best stuff of any of the Orioles prospects (at least until Brian Matusz came along) and he has flashed a mid-90s fastball and a great curveball. However he has had injury problems, including labrum issues, over the past two seasons and made only 19 starts combined over the 08-09 seasons. With all of the excellent pitching prospects throughout the O's system, Spoone's stock has dropped significantly.



2010 will be a very important year for Spoone as he needs to get back to the success he experienced in '06 & '07 at Delmarva and Frederick. I would expect him to start the year at Bowie, which is where he was pitching in '08 before his season was ended by the labrum injury. If he has any more injury problems or can't find a return to his early success, my guess is that this could be his last year with the O's, at least as a member of their 40-man roster.


I hope that Spoone can regain his "prospect" status. I don't believe that I have ever seen him pitch in a game, since my interest in the local Minor League teams started in 2008. I have seen him on the '08 Baysox and '09 Keys and hope that I finally get to see him flash his stuff on the mound in 2010.