Oriole #972- David Lough

Disclaimer- I know that I'm skipping Oriole #971 right now. There is a reason, and I will hopefully write about 971 tomorrow. For now, I'm moving directly to #972.

As I had mentioned in Friday's post about Ubaldo's debut: "during last Wednesday's Orioles game, three players made their Orioles debuts simultaneously as all were on the field in the top of the first inning. This is something that happens almost every season, typically in the first game of the season, but not generally as much afterwards. Since no one else likely pays attention to this kind of thing, I have created a tie-breaker system to determine how to order these simultaneous debuts using the 1-9 position numbers assigned to each position on the baseball field, going from pitcher (1), to right field (9)." 

Well, Oriole #972, David Lough played left field (position 7) in that game, so that probably clues you in that #971 was some variety of infielder. (Can't you feel the suspension building?!? It's not that hard to figure out if you care, but I'm not saying anything else about it today.)

David went 0-4 in his Orioles debut, but his main skills are his defense and speed. He has already flashed the glove a few times this season, and his arm is certainly an upgrade from Nate McLouth's over the past few seasons, so that's a plus too.

It seems that Lough will largely sit against lefty starters, however his D in left field is significantly better than that of Nelson Cruz so I would suspect that he will start something like 130-140 games in left for the O's this year. 

However, his bat will need to heat up in order for him to stay on the field. Through Sunday's game, he has made four starts and is just two for sixteen at the plate. In his favor, one of those hits was a triple, he has stolen two bags and scored two runs, so his speed comes into play if he can get on base. 

You might recognize the top three autographs in this post; David signed them for me back at Orioles Fanfest. The bottom two autographs were signed on my Spring Training trip. The personalized Old Man Card up top heads for the collection but the rest are available for trade if anyone is interested. 

Rest of the FanFest Autographs

Wow, look at me go. It's my 5th post of the month (my most since last August), and I'm showing off the rest of my Orioles Fanfest autographs, within three weeks of obtaining them. I'm on a freaking roll here. Maybe I'll get this blog back up to full steam one of these days. But for now, I'm pretty pleased to just be moving along at a medium pace.

FYI- This is probably the most scans that I've ever had in a single post. At times in the past, I would have split this into a few different segments, but I'd rather just knock them all out at once. So that's how I'm gonna do it.

Also, my scanner got a little weird while scanning some of the postcards, but whatever. It has a mind of it's own.

This first group of cards are joining my collection. Mainly for the orange uniforms, but I was really happy to finish off the Davis/McLouth celebration card too. McLouth signed it for me during Spring Training last year, so it got carried around for quite some time before it got signed. And, I can't seem to bring myself to tradeaway any of my Wieters' autographs.

 

 

These cards are all extras that I got signed and are available for trade. If you see something you like, let me know and maybe we can work something out!

 

These postcards are available for trade too...

I got this group signed for some other collectors, so they are already spoken for, but I wanted to show them off anyway, if for no other reason than to prove that I got them signed. Or something like that. 

Finally, Liam Hendriks get his own grouping in the "we-hardly-knew-you category". Liam was DFA'ed to make room on the roster for the exciting free agent signing of Ubaldo Jimenez. But the Blue Jays selected him off of waivers from the O's, so the likelihood of his appearing in a game for the Orioles, at least in the near future, took a major hit, so these Orioles autographs become somewhat of an unneeded item. No complaints here though as Jimenez is certainly an upgrade.

FanFest Additions: New Orioles

One of my favorite things about Fanfest is having the opportunity to add some signatures from the players who are new to the Orioles organization before they even play in a game for the team. If I can get them at Fanfest, I never need to add them to my need list if/when they make their Orioles debut. 

Obviously this season didn't see too much Orioles action on the free agent market so there weren't any new big names, but I'd say that at least Ryan Webb and David Lough are near locks to make the O's Opening Day roster, with a couple other of these guys being fairly likely to appear in at least a few games over the course of the season. 

Since I specifically target the new players at FanFest, as I already have signed items from all the returning players for the most part, it leads me to make some interesting selections regarding which stations to buy. I don't intentionally go after the big names, but more often then not I end up with quite a few anyway, due to how the players are spread out. 

Here are the five stations that I purchased this year:

And I can quite confidently say that I am the only person who bought those stations for David Lough, Ryan Webb, Steve Clevenger, Liam Hendriks, Jemile Weeks, Larry Bigbie, Kelvin De La Cruz, and Brad Brach, and not for Dylan Bundy, Chris Davis, Matt Wieters, nor JJ Hardy. I know, I'm weird. And I'm obviously happy to add additional signatures of the stars to my collection, but I'd rather target the new guys. 

Johnny Monell was the only new player whose autograph I did not get, and I still need personalized upgrades of Calvin Maduro and Nate Snell, but I will take care of them at some point.

Without further ado, here are the new Orioles players, who all signed and personalized some awesome new Old Man Cards.

Webb is virtually a lock to make the O's Opening Day roster, and to date, is their most expensive off-season signing. And I've said it before but will say it again, I always enjoy getting other Ryans to personalize cards to me. Not sure why, I just do.

Lough is also pretty likely to start the season on the O's 25 man roster, and seems to be the front-runner for the every day LF position. But the O's have like 10 potential LFs in camp so you never know. 

I think Kelvin has a solid chance of playing for the O's at least at some point this season, mainly because he's signed to a big league deal.

Pure speculation, but I'm guessing Liam is a member of Norfolk's rotation but joins the club in a swing role or as as spot starter at some point. 

 Brad (who unfortunately spelled my name wrong, probably because I'm a mumbler) will likely be crowded out of the O's spring training bullpen group and start the season with the Tides. But I predict he will be a regular out of the Birds' 'pen later in the 2014 season.

Which brings us to Jemile Weeks, who I sadly predict will be this year's Matt Antonelli. Both seemed like nice guys but just couldn't crack the roster. Between Ryan Flaherty, Alexi Casilla, Alex Gonzalez, and Jonathan Schoop, I think there will just be too much competition for Jemile, who might even get slotted at AA Bowie for some playing time.