Orioles Claim Infielder Alexi Casilla off Waivers from the Twins

This card isn't in my collection, yet at least, but I "borrowed" it from COMC. It's an affordable, on-card auto and would fill a potential hole in my collection if I can't get Alexi's autograph at FanFest or Spring Training.

The Orioles made their first move this afternoon to bring in a player from outside the organization when they claimed infielder Alexi Casilla off of waivers from the Twins. He has played parts of the past seven seasons in Minnesota, mainly at second base, which is a position that the Orioles are non-coincidentally trying to fill.

Brian Roberts, Robert Andino, and Ryan Flaherty all remain in the fold for now, but Roberts has faced myriad injury issues in recent seasons, Andino profiles best into a super-utility role or could be non-tendered, and Flaherty is no longer hampered by his Rule 5 status and can be sent to the minors. And with Casilla owed $1.8 million for next season, I would say that it's logical the O's are going to give him a fair shot at the 2B job in spring training.

Alexi doesn't have much power to speak of, having hit just eleven in over 1,700 plate appearances (and seven of them were hit in 2008), but he does flash some speed, having stolen 71 bases while only being caught nine times in his career.

He also interestingly has connections with two former Orioles who played in Baltimore during the 2012 season. After originally signing with the Angels in 2003, he was traded to the Twins in December 2009 for relief pitcher J.C. Romero. And then when the Twins signed Jim Thome prior to the 2010 season, since Alexi had been wearing Big Jim's preferred #25 jersey, he changed his jersey number to 12 to accommodate the future Hall of Fame slugger.

Welcome to Baltimore, Alexi! I hope that things work out for you here.

L.J. Hoes- Oriole #942

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how the Orioles has selected the contract of one of their top prospects, L.J. Hoes. Well, after watching a few weeks of Orioles baseball from the bench, he finally made it into a game, but unfortunately, it might have been the lamest O's debut in recent memory. It wasn't that he did anything wrong, but his debut was one of those blink and you missed it kind of things.

You see, L.J. was inserted to the game as a pinch-runner in the bottom of the ninth inning with the Orioles down to their last out. Jim Thome has just drawn a walk to load the bases and he is a bit slow on the basepaths at this point in his career. So out came L.J. to run for him. Ryan Flaherty was the next batter up, but he swung at the first pitch and flied out to center to end the game. So poor L.J. has only accrued about 15 seconds of MLB playing time, but at least he made it into a game. 

L.J. had been honored as the Orioles Minor League Player of the Year prior to the game, so it was a good time for him to make his debut, I just wish that it had lasted a little longer than it did. 

And in an interesting side note, Dylan Bundy was also honored before the game as being the Orioles Minor League Pitcher of the Year, and he also appeared in the game, making his home pitching debut. It seems as though Buck Showalter might have wanted to get both these guys into the game that they had been presented their awards, assuming that it wouldn't have a negative outcome of the game. And it didn't but it was another ill-timed Orioles loss nonetheless. 

My National Experience

I attended the National Card Show at the Baltimore Convention Center on Saturday and pretty much spent the entire day at the show. I easily could have spent at least another half day at the show, but I had other things to do since I recently got back from my trip. I was able to cover the entire show, but not as well as I would have liked. I also ran into fellow Orioles collector and blogger Ryan, and got a preview of his haul from the show.

For someone like myself who has such a limited collection focus, I knew going in that it would be pretty unlikely for me to find any autographs I need for my Orioles collection, but a show like this at least gave me some hope. I went in to the show with the realistic goal of knocking out the three recently-debuted Orioles that I needed; Jim Thome, Omar Quintanilla, and Lew Ford.

After looking through a few certified autograph boxes in search of the trio, I came across an in-person autograph dealer about halfway through the show. Visually, his autographs meshed well with other examples I have seen of the autographs I needed, so I pulled the trigger. It also helped that he happened to have all three of the players I needed.

Of course, as I mentioned in Monday's post, I later came across this signed Ford Tides card at one of the last booths I stopped at, so that Twins card is now available for trade.

In addition to those three guys, I came across this autograph of short-time Orioles infielder Eider Torres. The price was next to nothing and I like it much better than the autograph that was in my collection, so I made the upgrade.

So this SP certified autograph of Torres is now up for trade. 

I also found a large number of cards that I needed for my various Topps, Topps Heritage, and subset collections, but I was unable to scratch off any of the other Orioles autographs needs on my list. While I wasn't really surprised, I was still somewhat disappointed. I guess my collection is at the point where, even at a show the size of the National, no one has what I'm looking for. However, one of the dealers mentioned that he had sold a signed 1964 Lou Jackson Orioles on Thursday, so I guess that I know there is at least one out there!

Oriole #929- Jim Thome

Photo from the Examiner website

Well, this was an unexpected move. It's been quite some time since the Orioles have been in any sort of a position to add players midway through the season in an effort to boost the team for a run at the play-offs, but that's exactly what they did on Saturday. They acquired long-time masher and likely future Hall-of-Famer Jim Thome from the Phillies in return for two prospects, hi-A Frederick Keys pitcher Kyle Simon, and low-A Delmarva Shorebirds catcher Gabriel Lino. I'm not a huge fan of giving up prospects for a short-term veteran rental when the team is still trying to build a strong foundation for years of success in the future, but I get that the Orioles are in the position to win now, or at least they were prior to the past two weeks. 


All told, I'm a fan of Thome and have always heard that he does things the right way and is a great clubhouse guy. It's also pretty unlikely that he could hit much worse than the players who have been getting time at 1B/DH, so this move should upgrade the club for the duration of the season. Thome is tied with former Oriole Sammy Sosa for 7th place on the all-time home run list with 609 jacks, so I hope that he can at least break that tie (or blow past it!) during his time in Baltimore as Sammy didn't exactly leave town on a high note.


As you might have guessed since I didn't picture an autograph at the top of this post, I do not have a Thome signature in my collection. I nearly was able to get him to sign my card at a Nationals-Dodgers game in DC a few years back during his tenure with LA but just missed out on him. Who knew that would come back to bite me? Oh well, hopefully Jim will be a good signer and I can get him soon enough.