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. 

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

Some Recent Orioles Autographs

Since I've been behind with almost all my collecting related activities for this entire baseball season, I haven't been able to scan or show off my current Orioles autographs as I've been getting them at games. So I am going to dump them all into this one post. Sounds like a plan to me. So here we go!




My new thing is trying to get these O's postcards signed, specifically by players who don't have any Orioles cards, like Ohman and Castillo (who has been sent to AAA Norfolk since he signed this for me). Berken's only Orioles card is from the 2010 Topps When They Were Young insert set, so I only give that card half credit as an O's card since the picture of him as a kid dominates the card.

And speaking of guys who are no longer with/on the team...

I intended to have this card scanned for my "Goodbye Dave" post. That obviously didn't happen, but here it is now. I wonder what Dave is up to these days?

Tillman is currently biding his time with the Tides. I was happy to get him to sign this card for my orange uniform collection.

Jeff Datz, the O's bench coach, signed for me for the first time all season. I don't think he's a tough signer, but he is just always in the dugout. I have a few more copies of this card, which is his one and only MLB card, and hope to get another signed since this J turned out very dry.

I got my first in-person C-Pat autograph too. I've seen him sign one or two other times but was in the wrong place to get him then.

Ty signed for me for only the third time since he's been with the O's. He's a tough autograph to get most of the time, and in retrospect, I don't really know what I chose this card to get him to sign. It's pretty blah. Oh well.




It's possible that any of these three guys are sent to Norfolk (or released in Albers' case) to make room for the starting pitcher needed for this Saturday's game. Garrett Atkins would be the most logical guy to get rid of in my opinion, but what do I know?

Luke was the man once again. I know that this is an 08 Heritage short print, and that I probably should have just kept it with my set and all, but look at all that orange! It needed to be signed. And now it's going with my orange uniform autograph collection. I know he's not wearing an orange uni, but it's orange enough for me. It's my collection so I get to make the rules.

Both Cesar and Julio Lugo signed at the same spot the day I got this card autographed. Since this is my 5th Cesar and I still need Lugo on my Orioles postcard, I would gladly have switched up which autograph I got, but that's not how it works. I hope to get Julio sometime soon though.

Guthrie continues to be a good signer. Again not sure why I chose this boring card to get signed, but I did. Can't do anything about it now.



I continue to get lucky with Jonesy. I've heard others say that they've had trouble getting him to sign but I seem to get him 4-5 times a season. I like how he looped his #10 in with his signature on the top card. Oh, and Kalina, I put Jones at the bottom of the post just for you. Let's just say that Kalina doesn't appreciate his "attitude", "hustle" or constant focus on chewing gum/blowing bubbles.

Oriole #879-Frank Mata

Frank made his MLB debut during Wednesday night's game against the A's. He was called up prior to Tuesday's game to replace either Alfredo Simon or Koji Uehara in the bullpen. He already appears to be an upgrade over Koji since he was able to pitch on a very hot night without immediately fatiguing or becoming injured. Good for you Frank! All told, he pitched 1.1 innings giving up one hit and one walk. Kakes saved him a few earned runs by making a great diving catch to end the 7th inning after Frank had been replaced by Matt "Fat" Albers.

I was lucky enough to get Frank's autograph in Spring Training so I am able to add him to the O's all-time player list and list of players whose autograph that I have. The Orioles signed Frank as a Minor League free agent this past offseason after he spent the first 6 years of his professional career in the Minor League ranks in the Twins' farm system, never reaching the AAA level over that time. This season, Frank has been the AAA Tides closer and had 8 saves with a 1.86 ERA so he certainly earned his promotion.

In-Person Autographs from O's First Week

I finally had time last night to scan some of the autographs that I got over the O's first homestand. Without further delay...


This is the first Ohman autograph in my collection, so it was the highlight of the series for me. He seems like a cool guy, and does a great Harry Caray impersonation. He added Colossians 3:17, which says "And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him."


I have a few Matusz autographs in my collection, but this is his first Orioles card. Hey 2010 Upper Deck, I knew you had to be good for something!


This is also Cla's first Orioles card. It's from the 2010 Topps Orioles team set; he doesn't have a card in the regular Topps release so his inclusion in the team set was a nice surprise.


The Topps team set also included Gonzo's first "Orioles" card. It's just a Photoshop job of his Braves card in the regular set, but is an upgrade to my collection.


Bergy has a number of O's cards from the fall Update set releases, and I chose this one to get since he's rocking the Orange Uni. I missed getting Brad's autograph in Spring Training so this is the first signed O's card of his in my collection. And I have to add that he did something very nice for a little kid at Monday's game. He signed the kid's ball and then took it into the dugout to get the rest of the team to sign it. I think he must've gotten 20 signatures for the kid. Brad's a great guy, he just needs to regain his 2009 form on the mound.


I got my first in-person Tejada autograph at Sunday's game. I was the last person that he signed for before running back to the dugout right before the game started, so I figured that I got the rush job on his autograph.


But no, that appears to be his normal signature. I got this one at Monday's game and it might be marginally better but still looks like an exaggerated MT. You can do better than that Miggy!


Even though he was already in my collection, I was happy to add an in-person upgrade of Jose Bautista from the Jays' weekend swing in Birdland.


And these two guys have made multiple appearances on the blog but are popping up again since I was able to add autographs of them wearing the glorious orange uniforms.


David is looking good so far this year...



And Hey Hey Hey, not so much. He better "shape up" soon or he will be heading to Norfolk.

The Real Opening Day is Here! And the Unveiling of My New Mini Collection

Now that all of the other MLB teams have had their Opening Day fun, it is time for the country to focus on the final two teams to start the 2010 MLB season, the Orioles and Rays. It's almost like the anti Yankees/Red Sox matchup that aired Sunday on ESPN. I'm not really sure why they scheduled the O's and Rays to start a day later than everyone else, but it doesn't meant that I'm any less excited about the start of a new season. The schedule makes even less sense for the O's since they will now have to play 17 consecutive days before their first off day of the season on April 22. I don't know when the Rays first off day is; this is an O's blog and you will need to check a Rays blog if you want that kind of information. It does suck to not be able to make my yearly, "we're tied for first place joke", but at least the Yankees and Jays are already 0-1.

There is plenty of optimism in Birdland this year as we get our first full season of former top prospects Matt Wieters, Brian Matusz, and Nolan Reimold. We also have some veteran free agent/trade acquisitions like Kevin Millwood, Mike Gonzalez, Miguel Tejada, and Garrett Atkins to bolster the outstanding young core of guys like Nick Markakis and Adam Jones. There are plenty of question marks as there seems to be every season, but I think this is the year that things start to turn around for the O's. I'm obviously a die-hard fan which probably leads to unreasonable optimism at times, but I predict that the Orioles will be 77-85 this year. I highly doubt that we will be fighting for a playoff spot just yet, but to get 13 games closer to a .500 record than last season will be a significant improvement and real progress for the young club. If they could get 13 games better again in 2011, they would be 90-72 and definitely in the wild card hunt. If the O's can go 77-85, they should also be able to creep out of the AL East cellar, passing at least the Blue Jays in the Division standings. How's that for optimistic?



With the start of the Orioles season, I am also going to officially launch a new mini collection on the blog that I have hinted about a few times over the past couple of weeks. I am now officially collecting Orioles autographs that picture the player wearing an orange uniform. I'm calling it the Orioles Orange Uni Auto Mafia, or OOUAM for short.

Any orange uniform will do, whether it's a Minor League affiliate card like the Tillman above...

Although Orioles orange unis are preferred...

They can be found on current players...

Players from the recent past also wore them...

So did players in the 90's...


And the 80's...


And the very early 80's.


In recent years, the Norfolk Tides have represented the Orange very well.




And the Orioles have mainly worn them in Spring Training.

I have more OOUAM pictures that I will share from time to time, and I will also add my "have list" to the site, but if you have any orange uni autographs sitting around, please send them my way!
This is the major difference from my other collection: I will not pay for orange uni autos unless I still need them for my overall collection. This will be all in-person autographs or cards that I can get in a trade .

Now that the new mini-collection has launched and I've said my piece, I just hope that the Orioles can pull off a win tonight.

Let's Go O's!