Oriole #1016- Jayson Aquino

(Once again, I'm going to skip writing about a debut since I don't yet have an autograph of the player who debuted. Hopefully, I will rectify that soon, but this one won't be quite as easy as Brian Duensing was a few weeks ago.)

Many times over the years in my experience with autographs, I seem to end with a lot of signatures of players who never rise the minor league ladder and make it to Baltimore. Other times, there are players who have played for the Orioles but it's quite frustrating to add their autographs to my collection, and a lot of time and effort can go into it. But then, every now and then, things seem to just work out well. That was the case of Jayson Aquino for me.

My dad made these OMC custom cards of Aquino and gave them to me on Saturday June 18th. The following day was Father's Day and the AA Bowie Baysox were having a meet the team and catch on the field event, so my wife and I decided to take our son to the game. So about 24 hours after I had these cards in hand, Jayson had signed both of them. And about two weeks later, he had made his Orioles debut and one of them was heading to my collection. Sometimes, it's just that easy!

To add some backstory, not long before that Father's Day weekend, I was checking the Orioles 40 man roster, and I noticed a few names that had slipped past me on their way into the organization. Based on past experiences, the Orioles, and most other teams I assume, prefer to make roster moves with players who are already on the 40 man, as opposed to designating someone and possibly losing them to another team.

Jayson Aquino had been acquired by the Orioles from the Cardinals back on April 7th, and since he had been on the Cardinals 40 man roster, rules stipulated that he had to be added to the O's 40 man. So he was, and then added to AA Bowie's roster. Since Bowie is significantly closer to Baltimore than AAA Norfolk, the fact that a player is playing there doesn't mean the Orioles don't like them. In fact, in recent years, at least Mychal Givens and Manny Machado have joined the O's directly from Bowie.

Aquino had a 4-7 record over 14 games, including 13 starts, with the Baysox but had a 3.25 ERA, so he was pitching well. As we all know, the Orioles pitching has been kind of a mess this year, so they are pretty much trying out all available arms at this point, and Jayson was recalled on Monday. He went on to make his MLB debut with the Orioles in the eighth inning of that night's game, and didn't allow any baserunners over two thirds of an inning.

Jayson was sent back to Bowie after yesterday's game against the Dodgers, so I might try to add a few more of his autographs to my collection at some point, as I still have one more of these Orioles customs to be signed in addition to his 2016 Baysox team set card. Maybe I should have gone through his line at the meet the team event one more time, but I'm just happy to already have his autograph to slide into my collection.

Thanks for your help with the cards Old Man, and good luck when you make it back to Baltimore Jayson!

Oriole # 1001- Jorge Rondon

It's kind of funny to me that it took over a month between Orioles #999, Mychal Givens, who debuted on June 24th, and #1000, Gerardo Parra, who made his momentous debut on August 1st. And then all of sudden, Oriole #1001, Jorge Rondon, made his O's debut the day after Parra. Granted that Rondon's debut did occur because of an injury to Mike Wright, who had just been recalled on July 31st, but still debuts seem to follow a feast or famine type of pattern. And I would certainly expect another handful of debuts to come in the following two months of the season. 

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Jorge's Orioles debut was quite a successful one, as he pitched 3.1 innings against the Tigers on Sunday, and gave up just three hits while he struck out one in a scoreless appearance. I do not have an autograph of his, and he has very few cards out there, so I hope to get an OMC signed at some point in the near future. He was optioned back to Norfolk after his appearance, but it was due to the roster crunch not his performance.

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He has also pitched in the Majors for the Cardinals in 2014 ( 1 game-1 IP, 1 BB) as well as the Rockies earlier this year (2 disastrous games- 1 IP, 8 H, 10 ER, 3 BB, 1 K, 90.00 ERA). He is 27 years old so is past the "prospect" years, but he has 10 years of minor league pitching experience and has absolutely dominated at AAA Norfolk this season to the tune of a 1.93 ERA over 25 appearances out of the bullpen to go along with 37 strikeouts over 42 innings. Also he has an all-important spot on the 40 man roster, so I would certainly expect him to be back in Baltimore at some point this season.

Oriole #999- Mychal Givens

Wow, I hope that none of you read my post from last week speculating about who the one thousandth Oriole might be, seeing as how I listed ten potential candidates to make their Orioles debut, and not a single one of them was Oriole #999 Mychal Givens. Partially, this is because I chose to focus on the potential debuts of players at the AAA level to somewhat limit the pool of candidates (outside of Bowie Baysox pitcher Tim Berry, who was on the 40 man roster). Additionally, Givens hadn't been invited to the Orioles big league Spring Training, generally an indicator at the time about a player's general standing in the organization. HOWEVER, Givens is a name that Buck Showalter has mentioned multiple times this year in assorted interviews and once Buck has an eye on you, it generally means positive things about your future.

Givens has a pretty interesting history in the O's farm system, as he was drafted in the 2nd round of the 2009 draft, and the Orioles decided to have him play shortstop. Apparently, coming out of high school, many other teams like his arm better as a pitcher and thought he had a brighter future on the mound than at short, but the O's thought otherwise.

After three relatively unremarkable seasons in the field and at the plate, the Orioles finally conceded that Givens might do better as a pitcher and moved him to the mound in 2013. Success didn't come right away, but apparently once someone changed his mechanics to throw from a three quarters arm slot, his velocity and results improved.

This past Saturday, the Orioles selected Mychal's contract from AA Bowie and added him to the 25 & 40 man rosters. After watching three games from the bullpen, he got to make his Orioles & MLB debut in last night's game against the Red Sox in Boston. He needed only 11 pitches (8 of which were strikes) to retire the "heart" of the Sawx batting order, including two ground-outs and a four pitch strike out of Mike Napoli.

Mychal was optioned back to AA Bowie prior to today's game to make space of the roster for Miguel Gonzalez, but he sure showed some promise in his debut. Especially since he is now on the 40 man roster, I wouldn't be surprised to see him back in Baltimore sometime soon.

And for the record, I'm pretty sure that I have a personalized autograph of his Bowman Orioles card at the top of this post. I'm pretty sure he signed and personalized both a copy of that card and the Shorebirds card for me at the same time, but all of my stuff is pretty unorganized these days. Regardless, congrats on your debut Mychal!

Minor League Members of the O's 40 Man Roster- Pedro Florimon

Pedro Florimon, or PedFlo as we lovingly call him, came out of almost nowhere to become one of the organizations' top prospects, especially at the SS position. He had a breakout year in 2009 as a member of the Frederick Keys, and possibly has passed Blake Davis on the O's SS prospect depth chart.


He has always had decent speed and could steal bases, forming the main part of his offensive game. But to give you an idea of how unexpected his power was in '09, he hit 9 homers in 115 games for the Keys while he had hit only 5 in 251 previous ABs for Delmarva, Aberdeen & Bluefield. He also upped his average by about 40 points from 2008. Note: (I am not including the disappointing 7 game stretch he spent with Bowie at the end of the season. He was just over-matched at AA.)


I'm not sure how his career will progress but I don't expect to see Pedro playing for the Birds in 2010. He is still only 23 and would have to perform over-the-top in Spring Training to surpass the likes of Robert Andino, Justin Turner, Scott Moore, or Davis. Depending on the development of '09 second-round draft pick Mychal Givens at the low levels of the O's system, PedFlo could be a replacement for Cesar Izturis in 2011. He will need to prove that he can hit and field at the higher levels of the Minors but I hope that his 2009 wasn't a fluke.