Graphing at Minor League Camp is Hard Without a Roster

One of the first mornings on my Spring Training trip was spent at the Orioles Minor League Spring Training complex at Twin Lakes Park in Sarasota. I spent a vast majority of the morning watching large groups of players walk past me, without asking hardly any to stop and sign. Why is that, might you ask? Well, there was a clue in the title of the post. 

You see, I didn't have a minor league roster as it hadn't been released yet, and I was left looking at players with only number of their backs pass by me. There were a select few that I could recognize, but not nearly as many as in past years when I had the time to attend more minor league games to get an idea of what the guys looked like. 

Luckily, I was able to pick out most of the coaches and instructors that were around, so was able to get some autographs out of the experience. 

Long time MLB infielder Dave Anderson returned to the Orioles organization this year after a one year absence. As far as I can recall, he is once again serving as the Orioles minor league infield coordinator.

Brian Graham has been the Orioles Director of Player Development for the past four seasons and is an ever present site around Twin Lakes.

Former MLB catcher Don Werner has been the Orioles minor league catching instructor for most of the past decade. He recently battled cancer and came out on top so it's great to see him looking strong once again.

 Another long-time MLB player, Dave Schmidt pitched in the major leagues for 12 years. He has been the O's minor league pitching coordinator for as long as I can recall and is always a good signer.

Ryan Minor is the nicest guy you will come across, and seems to always have time for the fans, signing autographs, asking how they are doing, or just generally being and all around good guy. 

 

Luckily, I read something before my trip about Hee Seop Choi being around the Orioles minor league camp as part of some sort of Korean baseball coaching exchange program. I don't really know any details about it, but Hee Seop was there, and kindly signed my cards.


As I mentioned at the top, there were a few players that I recognized in addition to the coaches. So at least I got some active player autographs as well.

Michael has been in and out of the Orioles organization over the past 2-3 seasons so he was a familiar face.

Josh Hart was another guy who I have seen play enough to have picked him out of the crowd.

Cory Jones was actually the only guy who I "allowed" my dad to ask who he was since he was walking alone and not in much of a hurry. Honestly, I probably could have gotten another 10-15 autographs by asking players who they were, but it's not my thing. I take pride in my facial recognition skills!

Quincy was a big part of the 2015 Baysox Championship team so I picked him out too.

Adrian was a third round pick a couple years back so I have seen enough cards of him to pick him out.

I got lucky with Tucker and just happened to be flipping past his card as he walked past me. 

D.J. is a very distinctive looking guy. I had never seen him play but I described his look to another fan as being built like a bull. He's listed at 6 feet tall, 230 pounds. I heard some horror stories between him and the fans in the past, but he was nice enough to me.

Another Look at Oriole #1000 Candidates

NORFOLK TIDES ROSTER

Pitchers (click column headers to sort)

#	Name	Pos	Bat	Thw	Ht	Wt	DOB	Status	MLB 40-man
36	Pedro Beato	P	R	R	6' 6"	230	10-27-1986	Active	No
25	Michael Bowden	P	R	R	6' 3"	215	09-09-1986	Active	No
38	Cesar Cabral	P	L	L	6' 3"	250	02-11-1989	Active	No
15	Zach Davies	P	R	R	6' 0"	150	02-07-1993	Active	No
	Dane De La Rosa	P	R	R	6' 7"	245	02-01-1983	7-day DL	No
59	Oliver Drake	P	R	R	6' 4"	215	01-13-1987	Active	Yes
37	Eddie Gamboa	P	R	R	6' 1"	215	12-21-1984	Active	Yes
40	Steve Johnson	P	R	R	6' 1"	220	08-31-1987	Active	No
43	Chris Jones	P	L	L	6' 2"	205	09-19-1988	Active	No
46	Pat McCoy	P	L	L	6' 3"	220	08-03-1988	Active	No
66	T.J. McFarland	P	L	L	6' 3"	219	06-08-1989	Active	Yes
30	Hector Daniel Rodriguez	P	L	L	5' 11"	195	12-11-1984	7-day DL	No
33	Chaz Roe	P	R	R	6' 5"	190	10-09-1986	Active	No
34	Tyler Wilson	P	R	R	6' 2"	185	09-25-1989	Active	Yes
28	Mike Wright	P	R	R	6' 6"	215	01-03-1990	Active	Yes

52	Zach Booker	C	R	R	6' 0"	220	04-24-1985	7-day DL	No
45	Steve Clevenger	C	L	R	5' 10"	210	04-05-1986	Active	Yes
24	Audry Perez	C	R	R	5' 10"	220	12-23-1988	Active	No

13	Michael Almanzar	3B	R	R	6' 3"	190	12-02-1990	Active	No
11	Paul Janish	SS	R	R	6' 2"	200	10-12-1982	Active	No
2	Rey Navarro	SS	S	R	5' 10"	185	12-22-1989	7-day DL	Yes
12	Jayson Nix	2B	R	R	5' 11"	195	08-26-1982	Active	No
41	Chris Parmelee	IF	L	L	6' 1"	220	02-24-1988	Active	No
1	Garabez Rosa	SS	R	R	6' 2"	166	10-12-1989	Active	No
22	Christian Walker	1B	R	R	6' 0"	220	03-28-1991	Active	Yes

10	Dariel Alvarez	RF	R	R	6' 2"	180	11-07-1988	Active	No
5	Julio Borbon	CF	L	L	6' 0"	195	02-20-1986	Active	No
14	Nolan Reimold	RF	R	R	6' 4"	205	10-12-1983	Active	No
51	Henry Urrutia	LF	L	R	6' 3"	200	02-13-1987	Active	Yes

There's the current 2015 roster of the Orioles' AAA affiliate Norfolk Tides. It's a relatively safe assumption to make that these are the most likely candidates to make the jump up to the big league team in the near future, thus being the most likely to be Oriole #1000. Obviously, the Orioles could always make a trade and that special debut could be a player that isn't currently in the organization, and/or the O's have occasionally called up a player directly from the AA Bowie Baysox since they are located closer to Baltimore and certainly have some talent on their roster as well. 

I wrote about the highlighted players on Tuesday, so I won't rehash what I wrote about them. Today's post will focus on the remaining 18 members of the Tides, and their chances to be Oriole #1000. 

I would put this group of Dariel Alvarez, Paul Janish, Jayson Nix, & Chris Parmelee among the most likely of the remaining 18 Tides to play for the Orioles this year. Alvarez is a solid prospect who will almost positively be an Oriole at some point, when is really the only quesiton. The other three guys are MLB veterans who play solid defense and were some of the last spring training cuts so they seem to be just a DL move away from Baltimore. 

My second tier of possible candidates for Oriole #1000 includes Julio Borbon, Michael Bowden, Zach Davies, Pat McCoy, Audry Perez, Chaz Roe, & Garabez Rosa. I feel like anyone from this group could make it to Baltimore or none of them could. Probably the most likely is Davies, another prospect, who was rewarded with a few late March Spring Training road starts. Borbon, Roe, & Rosa played a good bit for the O's during Spring Training which could bode well for them. Bowden was signed near the end of spring training, and have over 100 MLB games under his belt, and the team picked up McCoy off of waivers from the Tigers last year, so the O's obviously see something in both of them. And Perez is a catcher, and let's be honest, you never know when you'll need a catcher. 

My "who knows" group includes two guys who were out of the Orioles system but were resigned over the winter, Michael Almanzar and Pedro Beato. I'm also including Cesar Cabral and Dane De La Rosa in this group since they've had some MLB experience. 

And finally the three remaining players I will put in my "I just don't see it" category. Zach Booker is a bullpen catcher and is on the roster pretty much only to warm up pitchers, Chris Jones has been in the Orioles organization since 2013 and hasn't been mentioned in any call-up scenarios I've ever heard, and Hector Daniel Rodriguez seems to be a career Mexican League/AAA guy.  

So there's my two cents on the Tides roster and how likely each player is to make it to Baltimore. What do you think? Do you care? I'm pretty sure that I might be the only one out here who is even aware of the pending milestone, well until I started writing about it and sharing it at least.