Thursday, December 15, 2011

Orioles Minor Moves

So far this off-season, the Orioles have signed a handful of minor league free agents and had a few of their former minor leaguers sign with other teams. I use BaseballAmerica's amazing minor league free agent tracker to keep up on all the O's transactions. Here's a quick rundown of those moves so far. I'll start with the players that the O's have signed and/or re-signed.

They inked outfielder Scott Beerer to a deal on November 13. Scott has an interesting back story; he pitched in the Rockies farm system from 2000-06 before walking away from the game in 2007-08 and then returned to the Rox system as an outfielder in 2009. He split the 2011 season between AA and AAA and hit .372 over 41 games in the first AAA action of his career.

On November 22, they signed right-handed relief pitcher Miguel Socolovich, who has spent the past four seasons in the White Sox farm system and also split the 2011 season between AA and AAA.

That same day, the team also signed shortstop Steve Tolleson. He played in the Twins farm system from 2005-09 and has spent the past two seasons in the Padres and A's systems. He played 25 games for the A's in 2010 and hit .286 with 1 homer and 4 RBI over 49 at-bats.

The O's re-signed right-handed starter Brandon Erbe on December 5th. He is a local kid and was the team's third round draft pick in 2005. Prior to the 2010 season, the O's placed Erbe on the 40 man roster to protect him for the Rule 5 draft, but he proceeded to go 0-10 at AAA Norfolk in 2010 and has faced multiple injuries as well so his stock has majorly dropped. He was removed from the 40-man late in 2011 but I hope Brandon can get his career back on track in 2012.



Now for the subtractions from the team...

Jake Fox signed with the Pirates



 Chris Jakubauskas signed with the Diamondbacks (and I finally learned how to spell his name)



Felix Pie signed with the Indians



Steve Lerud signed with the Phillies



Chorye Spoone (another local guy) signed with the Red Sox



I'm not sure who all is interested in hearing about these updates but I will probably write another update or two about the O's minor league transactions throughout this off-season.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'll admit that the transactions themselves aren't news to me, but I enjoy the card images, many of which I haven't seen before. Even if the transactions are just an excuse for the card images, I'd say it's a worthwhile endeavor.

Orioles Magic said...

Thanks, I appreciate it. I know at least one other person will read the future versions of these posts!

Anonymous said...

Hey - just wondering, does anyone know of any local stores or online websites that sell 20th anniversary camden yards rawlings baseballs? Thanks!

Cory said...

I've got over 300 card blogs on my blogroll and I read all of them daily. You don't have to worry about if anybody is reading your posts. I am glad there are so many blogs to read!

Orioles Magic said...

Thanks Cory! It's always nice to know that my posts are being read!