Who, who, Julio? (DePaula)

Wow, did the Orioles ever pull one over on me yesterday. For the first time in the past six or seven years, the team called up a player whose name I didn't recognize and had no knowledge that he was even in their farm system. Among my friends I'm the go-to Orioles guy, and when a buddy called to ask me about Julio DePaula, I had nothing. It was a unique surprise to be caught so off-guard by a player on my team.

Well, for starters, here's a fairly recent picture of Julio that I found online, and it somewhat encapsulates why I hadn't heard of him or known he was in the O's system. The Orioles just signed Julio on June 26th, and he had been a member of the Atlantic League's York Revolution. Former O's pitcher Mark Hendrickson is also a member of that team and recommended DePaula to the Orioles recently. Apparently they liked what they saw, but I simply missed the note about the minor league transaction. And I certainly had no reason to think that Julio would have his contract selected just 11 days later.

DePaula does have a little MLB experience as he appeared in 16 games for the Twins in 2007, and the results weren't great. He had an 8.55 ERA and an 0-1 record over his time in Minnesota. From the 2010 season until signing with the Orioles he had pitched exclusively outside of the US professional leagues, bouncing from Korea to the American Association to the Mexican League and eventually the Atlantic League.

Julio's addition to the Orioles was more a matter of circumstance than his being the best player they could bring up. They needed a bullpen arm, and the AA Bowie Baysox, with whom he had been pitching, were playing in Harrisburg, PA, which is definitely closer to DC than Norfolk. So Julio got the call. He had appeared in just three games for the Baysox so far, with 6.1 IP, 3 hits, 3 BB, and 8 K, along with a save. So he's been good, but it's still a surprising move.

Julio didn't appear in last night's game, and in all likelihood will be sent back to Bowie today to make room for Bud Norris, but man is it hard to keep up with these things. And since he was added to the O's 40 man roster, I wouldn't be surprised to see him back at some point in the near future. So I better work on getting his autograph in the meantime!

Orioles Autograph Year in Review- The Best Signers

This will wrap up my review of the 2010 O's signing habits, which I started just about two weeks ago. Last year I included 8 players in this best signers group; this year it's down to 7, but it's still about 15% of the players who played for the O's this year which isn't bad. 

Luke is once again the player who signed the most over the course of the season. I'm pretty much at the point where I try to let other fans get his autograph since I've got his signature so many times. He always seems like a nice guy and talks to the fans while he's signing. I listed Luke in this category last season too, but he really deserves his own category. 


The following three relief pitchers signed almost every Sunday during the season (Sunday's are the day pitchers can warm up on the field since there's no batting practice).

Albers has been inconsistent on the mound over his time in Baltimore, but he's typically been a good signer at least.

I put Hendrickson in the good signers category last year, but this year he took his signing to the next level.

Ohman was sent to the Marlins at the trade deadline, but he signed very frequently before being sent to Miami. I think he signed every card I had of him before the trade, so I was fine with it.

I've heard that some other people had trouble getting Cesar's autograph this year, but not me. He was always the first player to come back to the dugout after B.P. and would normally sign early on. Cesar really upped his signing game this season; I listed him in the kinda-good category last year.      

 

Dino only spent the last month of the season in Baltimore, but he signed enough over that time to get listed here. He was in this category last year too, making him the second back-to-back best signer.  

 

Bergy was the rare Orioles starting pitcher who signed regularly this season. He would sign on some Sundays and in between his starts too.  

I hope that everyone enjoyed the review and I will now get back to my regular blogging schedule, whatever that might be. 

2010 Orioles Topps Team Set

For the past few years, I have looked forward to purchasing the Orioles Topps team set, you know the ones that are prepackaged and aren't part of the actual Topps master set. The Orioles cards are number BAL1-14 (or 15) and typically feature a recently acquired player or two photoshopped into an Orioles uniform; this is generally their first Orioles card, so it makes me happy. 

This year's set included the first (and to-date, only) Orioles cards of Mike Gonzalez and Cla Meredith. 

 

The 2010 Topps set has this exact picture showing Mike in a Braves uniform, but they worked a little photoshop magic to show him in an "Orioles" uniform. The hat is fine but his jersey looks more like a Giants uni than an Orioles. I'm cool with it since it's his only Orioles card.  

I got two of these signed and this one actually has the "better" signature of the two. Mike's a pretty good signer at the Yard but I'm not really sure what's going on with his 'graph. I see M____  maybe a G and then I really don't know. 

This card's inclusion surprised me since Cla was/is a middle reliever who didn't do anything to specifically stand out from the rest of the O's relief core during the '09 season. By my count, there were five other Orioles relievers (Jim Johnson (64), Danys Baez (59), Matt Albers (56), Mark Hendrickson (53) & Brian Bass (48)) who pitched in more games than Cla (29) and were on the Orioles for the entire season too. Cla's ERA was lower than those other guys but Jim Johnson was the Orioles (awful) CLOSER for the last two months of the season and he didn't get any love. Baez and Bass were out of Baltimore following the season but the other three pitchers could have a beef with being passed by so Topps could include Cla. 

Anyway, I'm happy to have his only Orioles signed card to include in my collection but I'm skeptical that he is actually wearing that O's uniform.  I think this is another photoshop job from Cla's time with the Padres.  His '08 Topps card used a similar picture and the jersey just doesn't look right.  Was Topps not able to get a photographer out to an Orioles game after mid-July?  I like that he was included but find it hard to believe that they didn't have a decent O's pic of him. 

Sunday Pictures

A couple of days ago in my post about Rick Vanden Hurk's Oriole debut, I posted some pictures I had taken while getting autographs on Sunday.  Well here are a few more...

Mark Hendrickson was the first player out on the field and the first guy signing autographs

This is a pretty cool shot of Guthrie warming up with bullpen catcher Ronnie Deck.   Gut avoided all the autograph seekers after his session though...boo!

Mike Gonzalez signed for some fans.  I'm not sure what's going on with the girl's yellow hair in front of me.

Here's Armando Gabino making some sort of slapping/smacking motion while talking to Vanden Hurk and Matt Albers.

And here's Armando signing for the fans

Autographs from Orioles-Rays series

As I continue to play catch up, here are some more autographs I got at the O's-Rays series in mid-April.

Cesar is one Oriole who has been playing pretty well and I feel he should bat lead-off until someone else can step it up.


Berky has been pitching pretty well too, but for some reason Trembley doesn't bring him in very much. This card was really made to be signed, wasn't it? Look at all that empty space.

Mark Hendrickson has done alright too but I feel like he lets too many inherited runners score.

Our sometime closer JJ, now he hasn't been very good. Can someone please find the 2008 version of him and bring him back to Baltimore? Please?


The Rays were pretty good about signing. I saw Longoria sign for a few people and I could've gotten Carlos Pena's autograph again if I had remembered to put another one of his cards in my Rays team set after he signed for me in Spring Training. I really feel like I should do better with those things by now.

2009 breakout star, Ben Zobrist signed. I've gotten his autograph before so if anyone is interested (ahem Troll) just let me know.

I figured that a good use of my team card would be to get the Rays' President/GM, Andrew Friedman to sign. And this was before I knew that Carlos Pena was going to sign; that would've been a better use of this card but eh. Oh well.

Orioles Autograph Year in Review: The Good Signers

I noticed all of these players sign frequently throughout their time with the O's.


George was consistently a good signer over his time with the O's. I know that I have mentioned that the relief pitchers all stay in the dugout and then walk out to the bullpen together prior to games but the closer typically does his own thing. So if he's a cool guy like George, you have a good shot at an autograph.

I know one loyal reader who will be excited to see George in a post. We just pulled his Dodgers card from the 09 Topps U&H set and it was kind of bittersweet. We miss you George!



The Cla was another reliever who seemed to sign pretty well. He was only on the O's for half of the season but I got his autograph at least twice. Cla was fairly reliable out of the 'pen and I hope he's on the team again next season. You can never have enough submarine style pitchers. That's according to my theory on maximizing the number of submarining players on the team. I tried to convert Melmo to try throwing submarine style on plays at third but he wanted no part of that. (Kidding)



Berky was a great signer. I was at his MLB debut game and he was actually signing before he warmed up. That's amazing! I had never even seen a starter do that in the minors, let alone at the Major League level. He seems like a nice guy, but I hope that he has more success on the mound going forward.



This was the first Orioles card that I got of Hendrickson, so I was pumped when he signed it for me. He signed a little more frequently when he was a starter as opposed to a reliever but he was pretty good about it either way. I should try to find a basketball card for him to sign if he's on the team again next year.



Another one of Kalina's favorite players was a good signer when he wasn't hurt. I just read that he is pitching in the Mexican Winter League to get some more innings since he was out for such a long time this season. But every time I found another Sarfate card, it would be signed soon enough.



I hope that Chris can revert to his 2005-07 form soon. A 7.27 ERA in 40+ games isn't pretty. But at least he's a good signer! He went down the entire right field line at the last Sunday game of the year and honestly must have signed around 500-700 autographs. Nice work Chris.

A Great Sunday at The Yard

With so few homes games during the month of July (only 9, 2 of which are undesirable Red Sox games), I had to make it out to one of the Blue Jays games this past weekend and I saw a good one. It didn't feature the excitement of Melmo's walk-off HR on Saturday but was a marked improvement over Friday's shut out loss. And with Brad Bergesen on the mound, I knew the O's had a chance to win or at least stay in the game. Also, two consecutive wins going into the All-Star break would be a great way to end the first half of the season. And the team pulled it off, way to go O's!

It didn't hurt my overall enjoyment that I had my best autograph day ever at the Yard. 10 different autographs!

The key to getting autographs inside the park on Sunday games is to get there as early as possible to catch all of the bullpen guys after they work out on the field.

Danys Baez 2007-

Today was great for me as I was finally able to get Danys Baez's autograph! I was the second person he signed for (I just happened to be in the right place) but he did go on to sign for another 50-100 fans. Somehow I never got his autograph prior to Sunday and he has a really cool looking autograph.

David Dellucci 1997

David was definitely my second favorite autograph of the day. He was recently called up to the Blue Jays after he was released by the Indians earlier this season.
"Delluch" came up through the Orioles farm system and played a few games for the O's in 1997 before being drafted by the Diamondbacks in the '98 expansion draft. I heard he signed TTM so I sent my Orioles card to the Blue Jays AAA team, the Las Vegas 51s, a few weeks ago. So I got him to sign this Indians card by the Jays dugout, but at least I got an autograph!

Rich Hill signed again, look at that crazy wind-up of his...

Kam Mickolio signed too. It's really crazy to stand next to such a tall guy. That's not a kids' head in front of me; that's an adult woman standing up. I got Kam to sign one of my team cards since the only cards I had of his were the cards from the 08 Bowie set I already have signed.

This is the first time I got Albers in person. The other auto I have from him, on this same 08 Topps card, is now available for trade and was given to me by friends from this year's O's Fan Fest.


I got Berken to sign for me a few times at Bowie last year but this is the first time I got him at O's Park this season. I really like these '06 Ironbirds cards that I picked up a few weeks ago at the game in Aberdeen.


Hendrickson signed again; he is really a reliable signer at games. I think I need more of his cards at this point.


Sarfate is still on the DL, but is back in the area on his rehab assignment, so I luckily had my 09 UD card with me. He pitched in Bowie on Saturday and is scheduled to be in Frederick tomorrow. It's nice to have Dennis back as he always seems to be a lot of fun and likes to clown around with the fans.



I was also able to get Lyle Overbay and Scott Rolen (pictured above). For Rolen, I used my patented "get close a player that is talking to a friend or family member and stand near them without being overbearing but make sure you are between the player and his exit" maneuver. It almost always works, just make sure you don't get pushy or too close the conversation. This move has worked for me at least three times this year with Kris Benson, Jarrod Washburn and now Rolen. Trust me, it's an effective move. One last note about these two: it just worked out that I have seen the Jays play in Spring Training both in '08 and '09 and I had never seen these two sign for anyone. In fact, the Overbay card had been with my Jays team set for years, so what is the likelihood I would get both their autographs in Baltimore? But I'm not complaining!


And finally, here is a picture of the happy O's after their Sunday win. Have a great break guys!

Autos from O's-Braves series

This was a pretty successful series for me. I got my first George Sherill autograph on a card, my first Mark Hendrickson on an O's card, and my first in-person Alberto Castillo. I narrowly missed out on Koji too, I swear I will get him one of these days!

Sherrill was nice enough to also sign a card for Kalina, who missed the game due to illness

I went to Friday's game so I got to see Tommy Hanson pitch, even though the Orioles continued to suck, but I also made it to Sunday's shellacking that featured the O's best offensive explosion of 2009. 1-1, especially with the rare Sunday win made for a nice weekend. And I think the O's turned it up a notch on Sunday since they knew my parents came to the game with me.

Nick wearing an inappropriate shirt (click on picture for larger view)

Derek Lowe preparing to get rocked!

The Braves seemed to be a pretty good signing team too. I was able to get Gregor Blanco, Jeff Francouer and Mike Gonzalez to sign. Their fans were also very cool about passing along my cards up to the guys to get them to sign, this isn't something I normally see, so nice form Braves fans! I saw Gonzalez signing on Friday & Sunday but only had the one card of his. An added bonus were that these 3 were on '09 Heritage cards, which are awesome for autos.

I also saw Chipper Jones, Brian McCann, Nate McClouth and Terry Pendleton signing but wasn't able to get to them.