Oriole #996- Chaz Roe

Unlike the previous four players who made their Orioles debuts (Rey Navarro, Mike Wright, Tyler Wilson, & Oliver Drake), Chaz Roe has been around the block a time or two. He actually has limited MLB experience, which includes 21 games with the Diamondbacks in 2013, as well as 3 appearances with the Yankees last year, but he was selected way back in the first round of the 2005 draft by the Rockies. He has pitched in the farm systems for five different teams and spent some time in the independent American Association over the past 11 years.

Chaz made his Orioles debut on May 24th against the Marlins and pitched two scoreless innings without allowing a baserunner and striking out two. He's made it into two more games since his O's debut, he walked two over 1.1 innings against the Astros on Tuesday, and gave up a hit and struck out one against the White Sox in the first game of today's doubleheader. So covering three appearances over 5 innings, he has given up just one hit, two walks and struck out three. Not too shabby.

Thanks to my dad's time spent getting autographs on his spring training trip and work making his Old Man Cards, I have probably the only signed Chaz Roe Orioles card in the world. Thanks Dad! And I'm 100% positive I have the only one personalized to Rayn!

I included Chaz in the group of Norfolk Tides players whom I considered that "anyone from this group could make it to Baltimore or none of them could" when evaluating candidates for Oriole #1000 just over a month ago. Looks like I was at least partially correct.

And good luck Chaz, keep mowing down those hitters!

Oriole #992- Rey Navarro

As the Orioles are faced with yet another early season injury as Ryan Flaherty is now heading for the disabled list, it at least leads to the first post-Opening-Day-roster-member debut of the 2015 season as Rey Navarro has been recalled from AAA Norfolk. Rey will be making his Orioles and MLB debut in tonight's game, and is being thrown right into the fire starting at second base and batting seventh against the Red Sox. After eight seasons in the minor league farm systems of the Diamondbacks, Royals, Reds, and now Orioles, he is finally getting that call-up. 

If you have been reading the blog recently, Rey is one of the players who I wrote about in my posts about the lead-up to Oriole #1000. I correctly predicted that since he was already on the 40-man roster, he would likely make his debut prior to #1000. And now the field of candidates for that special number has theoretically been lowered as well. 

Thankfully, Rey is one of the (many) new players in the Orioles organization that my dad was able to get to sign an autograph for me on his Spring Training trip. That, along with his Orioles Old Man Card, leave me feeling confident that I very likely have the only Rey Navarro signed Orioles card out there. Thanks Dad, you tha man! 

Rey only has one major release baseball card, in 2007 Bowman Draft Draft Picks as a member of the Diamondbacks, and was also included in the 2008 Tristar PROjections and '08 Justifiable minor league sets. If you are looking for cards of his though, make sure to search for Reynaldo Navarro. 

I have a funny story about Rey from this year's Orioles Fanfest. As an autograph collector, I take pride in my ability to ID pretty much any players on the O's roster, as well as many of the minor leaguers. (I'm good with faces, not sure how or why, but I am.) However, while walking around the Baltimore Convention Center and taking in the festivities, I ended up in the kids room for a few minutes. A few players were around the room playing games with the kids. Ryan Flaherty was playing air hockey, and (I believe) JJ Hardy was up front pulling bingo numbers along with someone who I couldn't place. So I figured he must not be an Orioles player, if I couldn't place him. After Fanfest, I realized that I was wrong, and that the other guy at the bingo table was none-other than Rey Navarro. 

My dad's autograph prowess on his Spring Training trip was so strong that he was able to get Rey to sign two of his cards, so if anyone needs his autograph for their collection, just let me know and maybe we can work out a trade!

Who will be Oriole #1000?

After the five Orioles debuts to start the 2015 season, the team is now on the cusp of having the 1000th player in team history make their debut for the club. With 991 players having currently appeared in a game as an Oriole, it's almost a guarantee that the 1000th Oriole will debut this year. In recent years, there have generally been somewhere around 20-25 new players appear in a game for the team each year, so nine more debuts would be just the 14th new player in 2015, so I would say that it's a lock that #1000 happens this year.

While it's certainly possible that Oriole #1000 will be a player that the team brings in from another organization, I'm going to examine some of the players in the farm system right now that could make their debut as that unique number.

Some of the most likely candidates are those players who are on the Orioles 40 man roster but haven't yet played in a game for the O's.

This group includes pitchers Tim Berry, Oliver Drake, Eddie Gamboa, Tyler Wilson, and Mike Wright, and infielder Rey Navarro.

Of this group, Berry and Gamboa have both spent a couple days on the 25 man roster, but did not appear in a game during their short stints with the team. (Gamboa's was just up this week when Wesley Wright went down with an injury, and Berry was up a few days last summer.) Buck also seemed very impressed with Wilson's work during Spring Training, and he gave him a few late spring road starts.

While those six are likely to play for the O's at some point over this summer, all together they still leave us short of #1000. While looking at the 29 players on AAA Norfolk's roster, Steve Johnson, T.J. McFarland, Steve Clevenger, Christian Walker, Nolan Reimold, and Henry Urrutia have already spent some time with the Orioles, so it won't be any of them. And all of the 40 man roster players listed at the top of this post are on the Tides roster except for Tim Berry, who is with AA Bowie right now. I will look at the remaining 18 Tides and examine their chances to be Oriole #1000 in my next post.

Once again, thanks so much to my dad for obtaining a lot of these autographs for me on his Spring Training trip!

Possible 2015 Orioles- Positions Players

Today's post is going to focus on the autographs my dad got on his Spring Training trip of the new position players in the Orioles organization who will likely/possibly be playing in Baltimore at some point during the 2015 season. I'm listing them from most likely to least likely to make the team out of Spring Training.

After Travis Snider, Everth Cabrera might be the second most likely new Oriole to start the 2015 season. He can play everywhere and has some legit speed. Also the O's don't pay players $2.4 million to play in Norfolk. He's had a few minor hiccups during his time in Sarasota following a few major life-choice blunders during his time with the Padres over the past few years, but I am very confident that he will play in Baltimore at some point in the near future. 

Dariel Alvarez, who obviously took some time out of his baseball schedule to sign quite a few autographs, at least for my dad, has made quite the mark in Sarasota. He seems to have the strongest throwing arm in camp and can certainly hit. Buck has mentioned his issues with the English language, confirmed by my dad while trying to get Dariel to personalize one of these cards, as well as some showmanship issues with him, but I can fairly well guarantee that he will make at least an appearance in Baltimore this summer.

I'm not really sure how this trio of infielders, Paul Janish, Jayson Nix, & Chris Parmelee fit into the mix. A lot has been made of improving the defense at AAA Norfolk and I have a feeling that these guys will be playing there to start the year at least. A lot has been written about the quality of Janish's defense at short, Nix has had a good spring at the plate, and Parmelee sounds like a smooth operator with the glove at first. All of them or none could really appear in games for the O's. 

Matt Tuiasosopo (who has to have one of the most fun names to say in baseball) and Rey Navarro have both already been sent to the minor league camp and are long shots to make it to Baltimore. It seems like there might be more utility infield flexibility or openings than in the outfield, so who knows is Tuia ever plays in Baltimore. Either way I'm prepared!

The one player that I'm confident who will not play in Baltimore, at least in 2015, is Alex Hassan, who the Orioles lost on a waiver claim to the Athletics when they had to make room on the roster for Everth Cabrera. But if he ever makes his way on to the team, I have a signed and personalized Orioles card ready to slide into the collection!