Thursday, October 15, 2009

Orioles Autograph Year in Review: Inconclusive players

So I've been thinking about how I should go about my project regarding the '09 Orioles players signing habits. I am going to start by addressing the players who played less than 20 games for the O's and who I didn't get a good feel for their signing habits. So this post will mainly focus on bench players, injured types, and players who weren't cut out to wear the orange and black.

I will start with a few guys who played in less than 10 games for the O's due to injury or poor play.



Alfredo's 09 season lasted all of 2 starts. Well, that's not even very accurate. His season lasted 1 bad start and a second start in which he was pulled in the second inning due to injury. I think it was a shoulder injury that he was initially to have been able to rehab from, but that never happened.

His season ended (and the starting rotation began to fall apart) on April 14. I have seen that some people have had success with him signing TTM with items sent to the Orioles offices. He is one of only 2 players on the '09 roster that I don't have an autograph of, but this is the card I want signed.


I got this card signed at the last game of the season. I tried to call Chris over to sign at a few other games but he never seemed too excited about signing. In a way, he seemed shocked that anyone knew who he was when I called out his name. He only appeared in 4 games in the mop-up role, so he didn't factor into the season very much.

Chris did manage to rack up some decent strike out numbers during his appearances and was the bullpen rookie backpack bearer for the last month of the season.




I got these card's signed by Bob at the Tides game I went to earlier this season. He seemed pretty good at signing there but I don't believe I saw him sign once in Baltimore.

Bob's time with the Orioles organization is likely over. He has appeared in 15 games over the past two seasons and has a 16.46 ERA. He has NOT allowed a run in only 5 of those games, and four of them were last season. Not good.



Adam signed this card for me after shagging fly balls during O's batting practice.
Most of you are probably aware that his time in Baltimore didn't go that well (2-5 record, 8.56 ERA) but he seemed like a decent signer. The O's released him on May 22 and the Rockies picked him up on June 6, and eventually released him on September 9.

After he was released by the Orioles, Allen & Ginter released a card of him in an O's uniform that I really want to get signed.




Radhames only appeared in 2 games for the O's this season and I don't recall seeing him sign during his brief stint with the Birds. I was able to get him to sign in Norfolk and Bowie this season, but he did seem to have a "big-league" attitude while with the Baysox. By that I mean he seemed like he was a little above signing for the Bowie fans.



I didn't really enjoy Freel's time with the Orioles. I wasn't a big fan of his attitude or his view of what his playing time should be. Apparently neither did the Cubs, Royals or Rangers who all designated him for assignment during the '09 season after his time with the O's.

A friend (shout out to Meghan!) got this signed for me at FanFest. I don't think he signed much outside of that time.

2 comments:

Collective Troll said...

Ryan Freel is a weird guy, straight up. He isn't very good either, it amazes me how how many sets he has been in, how many cards he has. I remember the three game seris the Royals played against the Rays here. He started each game and was awful in the field and at the plate. He was designated the next day. I felt bad, but boy was he bad. I think the Rays got three triples to left field (where he was playing) that series. He is a nice guy, that makes it worse.

Orioles Magic said...

Troll-I completely agree about his number of cards. Pretty amazing for a 4th OF type of player.

He didn't do well in Baltimore and complained more than he performed.