Who Will Be Oriole #1000? Redux

Since the Orioles are knocking on the door of having the 1000th player in team history make his debut for the club, I figured that it's once again time to look at the possible candidates for that milestone number. Back in mid-April, I wrote two posts about some of the players who were likely to make their O's debuts in the near future. At that time, following the Opening Day/week debuts, the team was still nine players away from debut #1000.

The most likely candidates to make an appearance on the team were fairly easily identified as those already on the team's 40 man roster. Since those posts and from the guys who were on the 40 man at that time, Oliver Drake, Tyler Wilson, Mike Wright, & Rey Navarro have all made their Orioles debuts. In addition to those guys, Chaz Roe, Cesar Cabral, and Chris Parmelee have also been added to the 40 man and have made their Orioles debuts.

Still remaining on the 40 man roster, and having not yet made their Orioles debuts are:

Tim Berry, who is currently struggling with a 2-5 record and 6.99 ERA at AA Bowie, 

and knuckleballer Eddie Gamboa, who is 4-4 with a 3.45 ERA over 11 starts at AAA Norfolk.

Of those two, I would say that Gamboa is a strong candidate to make his Orioles debut in the relatively near future, especially considering the O's already called him up to Baltimore once earlier in the season but he didn't make it into a game at the time. Conversely, Berry is a candidate to be removed from the 40 man and I don't think we will see him in Baltimore anytime soon.

The O's have also added reliever Jorge Rondon on a waiver claim from Colorado in early May and he now resides on the 40 man roster as well. He has pitched in 12 games for the Tides and is 2-0 with a 2.89 ERA so he is certainly a viable candidate to make an appearance for the O's.

Beyond those three members of the 40 man who haven't yet played for the O's, I would say the likely or possible members of the Tides to make it to Baltimore are, in no particular order, Dariel Alvarez, Paul Janish, Julio Borbon, Pedro Beato, Michael Bowden, Zach Davies, and Pat McCoy. Prospect types like Alvarez and Davies will almost certainly play for the O's at some point, barring a trade or an injury, but who knows when that could be? Beato, Bowden and McCoy are all pitching well for the Tides, and I know that Buck seems to like the defense of Janish and Borbon, so that keeps them as possibilities.

There are obviously thousands of other players currently playing for the other 29 MLB teams and their affiliates that could come to the O's in some sort of trade, but I just can't assess the likelihood that any of them come to Baltimore and appear for the Birds.

After all of that analysis, here's my final prediction for Oriole #1000...Eddie Gamboa! Time will tell if I'm right, but I would expect #1000 to occur within the next month-ish, so the wait shouldn't be too long! Let me know who you think #1000 could be in the comments.

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.