Upgrading the Collection Thanks to Old Man Cards

As many of you probably already know, my dad has been making "Old Man Cards" for me to try to get signed for the past few years. They typically feature Oriole players who were never pictured on any other cards in an O's uniform, effectively making them the only cards of many of them as a member of the Orioles. Oh, and they're awesome and I really appreciate his contributions to my collection. As always, thanks dad!

Here are some recent additions to my collection thanks to Old Man Cards. Since I don't have as much time on my hands as I used to, most of my posts moving forward will likely be more heavy on pictures than words. But after all, this is an Orioles autograph blog, and most of the visitors to my site are here to see autographs, not read my rambling posts. So without further ado...

Yes, that says Bryan. Yes, I still will consider it "personalized". Close enough.

As I get many of these cards signed by fellow SCN members on consignment, the personalizations don't always get done, but I'm still happy to have Orioles cards signed by the Dana Evelands of the world.

Unfortunately, Dan signed this card on the black part of his uniform, but it is signed and personalized. There aren't many picture options when a guy only plays in three games as an Oriole.

Francisco never made it to Baltimore from Norfolk last season, but I'm prepared in case he ever does!

I think this was my third attempt at getting this card signed and personalized, but Clay finally cooperated!

Who else do you do you know that has a signed Orioles Miguel Socolovich card? Who else do you even know that remembers that Miguel Socolovich was an Oriole?

I should have figured it out from my difficulty in getting him to sign anything while he was in Baltimore, but it sounds like Danny is a pretty tough signature to get. He apparently refused to personalize this card for me.

Filling Some Holes

There have already been twelve players who have made their Orioles debuts so far this year, and I did not have autographs of six of those guys; each of whom knocked me further and further away from the 100% of total signatures from the Orioles all-time roster I had achieved in the off-season. And that made me mad(ish). So I took action and knocked off certified signatures from four of the six I needed. (As far as I can tell, there are no certified Josh Stinson autographs out there, and I have yet to acquire one of Alex Burnett.) 

While I have custom Old Man Cards ready to be signed of all four of these guys, I figured that I would rather go ahead and knock them off my list for now, since my autograph time has been drastically reduced, at least to this point in the season. Hopefully these four will end up on my trade list one day, but if not, at least I'm covered. Oh, and they were all to be had on the cheap, which works out perfectly for me!

Chris Snyder #948

Freddy Garcia #949

Yamaico Navarro #951

Danny Valencia #953

 I have trades and/or consignments out for Stinson and Burnett, so hopefully I can knock them off my need list in the near future to get back to my cherished 100%. Now if only the Orioles would cooperate and slow it down with the debuts already. How is a collector to keep up?!?

Orioles #951-954, Navarro, Jurrjens, Valencia, & Gausman

Hello there. You remember me? I'm the guy who used to blog almost daily about Orioles autographs. Nowadays, it's like a once a month thing, but hopefully I will get better. I won't promise to get back to my nearly daily posting level, but I can do better than once a month. And man, 2013 is taking my collection backwards so far.

Luckily, I had autographs of two of this group of four new O's, but I'm still slowly slipping away from the 100% of Orioles autographs that I achieved in the offseason. I have a few things in motion to add a couple other of these guys to my collection too, so hopefully I can keep 100% within striking distance.


Yamaico Navarro #951, Debuted May 17 against Rays

Yamaico had been recalled to the team earlier in the year to fill a roster spot for a day but did not appear in a game until he was brought back to the team for a second time in mid-May. At the time of his debut, he took over the everyday 2B duties from Ryan Flaherty, who was sent to AAA to straighten some things out. He was the second baseman for a majority of the team's games between his debut and May 28th. He hit .286 over eight games, which isn't spectacular but was impressive when stacked up to the O's other 2B this season, but his defense was spotty, and he was sent back to AAA to make room for Flaherty's return to the club.

Jair Jurrjens #952, Debuted May 18 against Rays

Jurrjens was one of the Orioles bigger off-season signings, but some lingering injury issues changed his deal from a major league to a minor league contract and he began the season at AAA Norfolk. He had a mid-June opt-out date in his contract, but as I understand it, since he was called up, albeit briefly, that opt-out is no longer in play.

He was called up to start against the Rays on Saturday, May 18th, and he pitched five innings, gave up six hits, four earned runs, and struck out five. He did not get a decision in the game, but I don't think that Buck Showalter liked how Jurrjens let the Rays claw their way back into the game after the O's gave him a four run lead in the first inning. Thus far, that was Jair's only action for the O's, although I fairly well expect to see him again at some point this summer.

Jair kindly signed and personalized my card for me on my Spring Training trip, and from what I saw, it seems like he is a good signer. He has quite an interesting signature, that I would describe as somewhat looking like a dollar sign.

Danny Valencia #953, Debuted May 19 against Rays

Danny marked the Orioles third debut in their three game series against the Rays. Thankfully, they won't sustain that rate, otherwise, I'd be chasing 162 new autographs each year, and I think that would drive me away from this crazy collection.

Valencia has been one of the more pleasant surprises so far this season for the O's, and has hit 3 home runs through just 9 games, appearing solely as a DH or pinch-hitter.

Kevin Gausman, Oriole #954, Debuted May 23 @ Toronto

Gausman made his highly anticipated MLB debut against the Blue Jays, and I don't think it was a coincidence that his first two career starts were both on the road to somewhat lower the excitement level that the hometown fans would have brought to the Yard. He has had some ups and downs over his first three starts, and currently has an 0-2 record with a 7.20 ERA, but his most recent start, and first at home, against the high-octane Tigers offense was his most successful thus far, and he gave up just one earned run over six strong innings. He even earned a few nods of approval during at-bats from the reigning A.L. MVP and Triple Crown winner, Miguel Cabrera. And that's got to say something.

Kevin will likely stay in the starting rotation if he can continue to show improvement, and many people think that he could be the Orioles best starter by the end of the season.


So at least I had autographs of two out of these four new Orioles, but it still leaves two more names to add to my need list. And I would say that out of all the players who were with the O's during Spring Training, Navarro and Valencia were two of maybe four or five (out of 50ish) players whose autographs I did not get at all. And it figures that both of them would make the big league club, and early in the season at that.

Hopefully, it won't be another month until my next post, but time will tell!

Who Will be the Next New Oriole?

As the baseball season approaches, my "baseball nerd" mind begins it's yearly process of trying to figure out some Orioles-centric questions that likely only matter to me and a handful of others. Or maybe just me, it's honestly hard to say. But since it matters to me and this is my blog, you know that I'm gonna write about it.

In Monday's post, I wrote about (and reminded myself) that prospect L.J. Hoes was the final new Oriole to make his debut last season; he became the 942nd player to appear in a game in Orioles history when he debuted on September 25 in Baltimore against the Blue Jays. Hoes grew up in Maryland, had been with the team for nearly a month before his debut, and has a fun last name, so the fans were rather excited for his debut.

Anyhow, my wheels have begun to spin in regards to whom might be the first new player to appear in a game for the Orioles in 2013. It's a difficult, nearly impossible, thing to predict over a month before Opening Day, but I'm going to look at a few candidates today, and possibly make a prediction.

To make things easier for myself, I'm going to break the possible candidates into a few possible categories, in descending order of the likelihood that Oriole #943 will come from that group.

First off, let's look at the players currently on the 40-man roster who have never appeared in a game for the Orioles. Since a roster move wouldn't have to be made for them to break camp with the O's, it's most likely that the newest O will be amongst these guys: LHP Mike Belfiore, IF Russ Canzler, IF Alexi Casilla, RHP Zach Clark, LHP T.J. McFarland, IF Yamaico Navarro, RHP Todd Redmond, IF Jonathan Schoop, IF Danny Valencia, and LHP Tsuyoshi Wada all fit the bill here.

Again, it's nearly impossible to eliminate anyone at this point, but Wada is the easiest cut as he is still recovering from Tommy John surgery that was performed last May and his MLB ready date is expected to be somewhere in late May, so it's highly unlikely the he could become the first new Oriole of the season.

The next three easiest cuts for me are Navarro, Redmond, and Schoop. I just rank too many of the other similar players ahead of Navarro and Redmond, so they have an extremely uphill battle to break camp with the O's, but an excellent March could obviously change that. And Schoop is the O's #3 prospect,  still just 21 years old. He spent 2012 at AA Bowie, and is spending part of Spring Training with the team from the Netherlands to play in the World Baseball Classic, so I just don't see anyway he comes north with the team.

The group that I have an extremely hard time of creating some separation with includes three pitchers; Belfiore, Clark, and McFarland. The one advantage that McFarland holds over the other two is that he is a Rule 5 draft pick and would have to be offered back to the Indians if the Orioles don't keep him on their 25 man roster all season. Which is extremely unlikely, although they did it with Ryan Flaherty last year. But the other two guys have pitched better than McFarland through the first week of games, so that doesn't establish much. Both Belfiore and Clark were added to the 40-man over the winter, and none of the three have any MLB experience to date.

Zach Clark has been in the Orioles farm system for a number of years, and has steadily moved through the ranks, but put himself firmly on the team's radar after a 2012 late season promotion to AAA Norfolk where he went 5-2 with a 1.75 ERA over seven starts. Like Hoes, he is another (relatively) local guy from Wilmington, DE who went to college in Baltimore at UMBC. I like Zach' chances because Buck Showalter keeps calling him a "baseball player" which is a very high compliment in Buck's vernacular.

Mike Belfiore was acquired from the Diamondbacks last season in return for one-time prospect, Josh Bell. The O's added him to the roster prior to the Rule 5 draft to protect him from other teams, so that tells you that they obviously think that he possibly has something to offer the team. And he has pitched well so far this spring in a few appearances.


So as far as the 40-man roster guys go, that leaves us with three infielders, Russ Canzler, Alexi Casilla, and Danny Valencia, and in my opinion, Oriole #943 is likely going to be one of these three. Although it could also be that not a one of them ever plays for Baltimore. Currently, all of them are playing multiple positions during Spring Training to prove their value to their new organization and they will also have to hit at least a little bit too to prove that they belong. On top of that, they are competing with a glut of non-roster invitees to fill very similar roles and if any of those non-roster guys outplays this trio, they could easily swipe their spot on the 40-man without much of a hassle.

My gut says that probably two of these three guys break camp with the O's, and that Casilla is the most likely to become Oriole 943, mainly due to his glove skills, and that he would specifically be providing depth at 2B behind the recently oft-injured Brian Roberts.


In addition to all of these players, any of the non-roster invitees could stand out and break camp with the big league squad. This group includes pitchers Zach Braddock, Kevin Gausman, Mark Hendrickson, Jair Jurrjens, Daniel McCutchen, Eduardo Rodriguez, Adam Russell, Daniel Schlereth, and Mike Wright, catchers Allen de san Miguel, Jose Gil, Luis Martinez, and Chris Robinson, infielders Travis Ishikawa, Steve Pearce, and Niuman Romero, and outfielders Chris Dickerson, Lew Ford, Conor Jackson, Jason Pridie, and Trayvon Robinson.

My short list of those guys who are more likely than the others to make it to Baltimore in April are Jurrjens, Ishikawa, Pearce, Dickerson, Jackson, and/or Trayvon, although guessing about something like this on March 1st is like pulling names out of a hat. If I had to narrow my list down to just two of this group, I would take Jurrjens and Ishikawa.

And on top of all of those options for the next Oriole debut remains the distinct possibility that the O's swing a trade between now and Opening Day. Baltimore's surplus a of starting pitching is well documented, and the team really could use another power bat. If they make a trade like that, that type of player would likely be someone who would be in the Opening Day lineup. So absolutely everything that I've just written could go out the window.

Finally, to wrap things up if anyone has actually made it to the finale of this novel-length post, as of today, my guess for the next player to make his Orioles debut will be utility infielder Alexi Casilla. But I will likely revisit this topic again closer to Opening Day, when the overall picture might be a bit more clear.

O's Acquire Valencia, Mahoney Designated

Today, in a bit of a head-scratching move, the Orioles acquired third baseman Danny Valencia from the Red Sox in a cash transaction. To make room for Valencia on the 40-man roster, the Orioles had to designate first baseman, Joe Mahoney for assignment.

Now, I'm not particularly a believer that Mahoney was going to be an everyday Major League starter at first base, but with the impending decision on the future of Mark Reynolds with the O's also coming this week (and it's sounding like the two sides might not work out a deal), it's possible that the team won't have a legitimate first baseman on their team by the weekend. I know that Chris Davis, Wilson Betemit, and (it sounds like) Valencia can all play first base, but at least in regards to Davis & Betemit, I can say with some certainty that the team would prefer to not have them play there.

So with the impending possibility that the O's are cutting ties with their 2012 starting first baseman, they have released the only other true 1B on the roster, and added another guy who can man the hot corner. Is anyone else confused by the move?

Ultimately though, I know the team probably has feelers out on corresponding moves, or maybe they do intend to bring back Mark Reynolds, which would really limit this to a discussion about possible bench players for the 2013 campaign. After last season, it's hard to not trust what's going on with the team right now.