Oriole #1034- Miguel Castro

Well, hey there. Remember me? I'm the guy who used to regularly blog about Orioles autographs.

This site will never be what it once was, but I'm reinvesting myself to it in an attempt to at least post about all of the Orioles debuts that have occurred to this point and into the future. The way the 2018 season is going, I wouldn't be surprised if there end up being about 50 debuts this season alone.

To get back into things, I'm going to start where I left off last year. As far as I can tell, Miguel Castro's mid-May 2017 debut was the first one that I didn't post about at that point. So here we go, let's see if I remember how to do this...

Miguel Castro made his Orioles debut on May 17, 2017 and has been a relatively important middle reliever for the team over most of the past year. He was a nice surprise for the team through most of last season before fading in September but still ended the year with a 3-3 record covering 66.1 innings over 39 games. He's been similarly effective in 2018, and has a 1-2 record with 3.00 ERA over 36 innings in 23 games. Frankly, it's amazing that any pitcher for the 2018 Orioles has a respectable ERA considering the way the season has gone so far.

One thing that really surprises me about Miguel is that he's still only 23 years old; it feels like he's been around for such a long time. He made his MLB debut with a short stint as the Blue Jays closer  in 2015. Later that summer he was sent to the Rockies as part of the (at the time) mega-trade sending Jose Reyes to Colorado with Troy Tulowitzki heading to Toronto.

Miguel struggled in Colorado over the 2015-16 seasons and the Orioles acquired him via a trade with the Rockies in April 2017. They acquired him for virtually nothing since the minor leaguer they sent to Colorado in the trade retired from baseball. The O's got Brad Brach from the Padres in similar fashion, so it's good to know they can make some good moves to combat some horrible big money contracts. (cough Chris Davis cough)

I always like to throw in a big thank you to my dad for creating this Old Man Card (OMC) for Miguel to sign. Miguel graciously signed for me during a stint with Bowie last season, and he still seems to be a good signer even during his time in Baltimore.

It's good to write a post after such a long hiatus and hopefully this won't be the last one!

Oriole #1026- Seth Smith

Wow, look at me, once again working on the 2017 Oriole debuts, and posting almost within a month of the debut. Get your breaking news here folks. But seriously, my tentative goal is to catch up on the 2017 debuts by the end of next week and then actually post about debuts shortly after they actually occur. But who knows, I'm always playing catch up around here.

Seth Smith was one of three Orioles who made their debuts on Opening Day 2017, and took the field at the same as Welington Castillo in the top of the first inning. I used my tried and true debut tie-breaker to place Castillo (2, catcher) ahead of Smith (9, right field) based on their position numbers. Makes sense, right? Typically I only have to use the tie-breaker on Opening Day every year, with a few random, rare exceptions that pop up every handful of years during the season. Things generally aren't going well for a team if they have two position players debuting in the same game during the middle of a season. Trust me, I've been an Orioles fan a long, and suffered through the 1998-2011 incompetency with the rest of you.

Back to Smith, who came into the Orioles organization via a trade with the Mariners on January 6, that sent Yovani Gallardo back to Seattle. Regardless of how Seth performs for the Orioles, I don't think many Orioles fans will miss Yovani, who was 6-8 with a 5.42 ERA in his lone season in Baltimore. And does anyone else notice how the Orioles and Mariners seem to trade with each other almost every season? Seriously, on the Orioles 25 man roster, Adam Jones, Mark Trumbo, Chris Tillman, Wade Miley, and Smith all came to the Orioles via a trade with the Mariners. That's crazy.

As of today, Seth has appeared in 16 of the Orioles' 27 games. He missed a few games with a hamstring injury, and has generally been on the bench against left-handed starters. He's hitting .286 for the year, and his 4-4 performance yesterday against the Red Sox actually raised his average .064 points from .222 prior to the game. He's also hit 2 HR, including one in the 7th inning of a game on April 7th against the Yankees that put the Orioles ahead to stay.

Over his 11 year MLB career, Seth has played for the Rockies, A's Padres, Mariners, and now the Orioles. He will be a free agent after this season, so it's possible that his time in Baltimore will be relatively short. A story that I found interesting about Seth is how he was the backup quaterback to Eli Manning when they played at Ole Miss.

As was the case with the Welington Castillo autograph that I posted about a few weeks back, my dad got this card signed during Spring Training for me. So not only does he make all of these Old Man Cards to get signed, he gets them signed as well! I actually did get Seth to sign once while I was down there but he didn't personalize that card. So my dad hooked me up with the personalized autograph after I was back in snowy Maryland. Thanks as always old man!

Oriole # 1001- Jorge Rondon

It's kind of funny to me that it took over a month between Orioles #999, Mychal Givens, who debuted on June 24th, and #1000, Gerardo Parra, who made his momentous debut on August 1st. And then all of sudden, Oriole #1001, Jorge Rondon, made his O's debut the day after Parra. Granted that Rondon's debut did occur because of an injury to Mike Wright, who had just been recalled on July 31st, but still debuts seem to follow a feast or famine type of pattern. And I would certainly expect another handful of debuts to come in the following two months of the season. 

Photo credit

Jorge's Orioles debut was quite a successful one, as he pitched 3.1 innings against the Tigers on Sunday, and gave up just three hits while he struck out one in a scoreless appearance. I do not have an autograph of his, and he has very few cards out there, so I hope to get an OMC signed at some point in the near future. He was optioned back to Norfolk after his appearance, but it was due to the roster crunch not his performance.

Photo credit

He has also pitched in the Majors for the Cardinals in 2014 ( 1 game-1 IP, 1 BB) as well as the Rockies earlier this year (2 disastrous games- 1 IP, 8 H, 10 ER, 3 BB, 1 K, 90.00 ERA). He is 27 years old so is past the "prospect" years, but he has 10 years of minor league pitching experience and has absolutely dominated at AAA Norfolk this season to the tune of a 1.93 ERA over 25 appearances out of the bullpen to go along with 37 strikeouts over 42 innings. Also he has an all-important spot on the 40 man roster, so I would certainly expect him to be back in Baltimore at some point this season.

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 #845- Jim Miller

As I continue to go through my recent personalized upgrades, I've realized that I have never written much about a number of these players. Some I might have shown off a signed card, others maybe I wrote a sentence or two about, but many former Orioles have been slighted thus far on my blog. So I will work on fixing that issue!

Jim Miller was one of those players. My only mention of him to this point, was his inclusion in a long post about a road trip I took to Norfolk back in 2009. I showed off two of his signed Orioles affiliate cards that I got on that trip, which was my one and only in-person autograph experience with him.

Since that time, my dad has begun production with his amazing OMCs, so I now have possibly the only signed Jim Miller O's card in existence. A friend on SCN was able to help me get it signed last season.

Jim's professional baseball career has been interesting to say the least. He was drafted by the Rockies in the 8th round of the 2004 draft and has pitched in 471 minor league games to date. He had just a single start in all of those appearances but has racked up 134 saves, with a 3.53 ERA and a 27-37 record as a reliever.

Jim was traded from the Rockies to the Orioles (with minor leaguer Jason Burch) for Rodrigo Lopez on January 12, 2007. He pitched the next four seasons in the O's minor leagues, with a short MLB call-up to the Birds in September 2008; he made his Orioles & MLB debut on September 1 of that year, and had an 0-2 record with a 1.17 ERA with one save over his eight games with the O's.

Since his time in Baltimore, Jim has again reached the MLB level with the Rockies (2011), A's (2012), & Yankees (2013). The 33 games he pitched for the A's are the vast majority of his 48 MLB appearances to date. But Jim is still working to live out his MLB dream, and is currently pitching for the Yankees AAA affiliate Scranton/Wilkes-Barres Railriders.

Good luck to you Jim! (Just not too much since if you make the bigs again you will probably be pitching for the Yankees.)

Oriole #970- Ubaldo Jimenez

During 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). 

So obviously, that made the night's starting pitcher, Ubaldo Jimenez, the next Orioles debut, and locks him in as Oriole #970. 

During Spring Training, the O's signed Ubaldo to the largest free agent contract (4 years, $50 million) they have ever given to a free agent pitcher. So needless to say, the team has some high expectations for him.

He has pitched in the Majors since last in the 2006 season and has played for the Rockies and Indians. He had an 82-75 record with an ERA just under 4.00 and has had some ups and downs in his career. In 2010 for the the Rockies, he made the All-Star team and finished third in Cy Young voting. Last season, he was one of the best pitchers in the game after the All-Star break. But once he was traded to the Indians, he posted an era over 5 over his first season and a half in the American League.

It is a bit of a mixed bag as far as his career has gone, but we can hope that the last half of no season was no fluke. In his first start for the O's, Ubaldo pitched six innings, gave up five hits, including two homers, three walks, and four earned runs while striking out six. Not exactly what you want from your $50 million man, but he still has plenty of time to turn things around. I wish him the best of luck, and I have a feeling the O's will need him to succeed to have a chance at the playoffs this season.

I was quite surprised at how good of a signed Ubaldo was during my Spring Training trip. Sadly enough, I just don't expect MLB veterans to be good signers at this point, and it was a pleasant surprise to see him signing as often as he did. He signed no fewer than three times that I saw, and possibly more. I can certainly say that I like that about him! Now if he can just succeed on the mound, things will be perfect!

I always love to get cards signed that depict the player signing autographs, so this OMC creation is perfect, and it even shows him in an orange uniform to boot!

My National Experience

I attended the National Card Show at the Baltimore Convention Center on Saturday and pretty much spent the entire day at the show. I easily could have spent at least another half day at the show, but I had other things to do since I recently got back from my trip. I was able to cover the entire show, but not as well as I would have liked. I also ran into fellow Orioles collector and blogger Ryan, and got a preview of his haul from the show.

For someone like myself who has such a limited collection focus, I knew going in that it would be pretty unlikely for me to find any autographs I need for my Orioles collection, but a show like this at least gave me some hope. I went in to the show with the realistic goal of knocking out the three recently-debuted Orioles that I needed; Jim Thome, Omar Quintanilla, and Lew Ford.

After looking through a few certified autograph boxes in search of the trio, I came across an in-person autograph dealer about halfway through the show. Visually, his autographs meshed well with other examples I have seen of the autographs I needed, so I pulled the trigger. It also helped that he happened to have all three of the players I needed.

Of course, as I mentioned in Monday's post, I later came across this signed Ford Tides card at one of the last booths I stopped at, so that Twins card is now available for trade.

In addition to those three guys, I came across this autograph of short-time Orioles infielder Eider Torres. The price was next to nothing and I like it much better than the autograph that was in my collection, so I made the upgrade.

So this SP certified autograph of Torres is now up for trade. 

I also found a large number of cards that I needed for my various Topps, Topps Heritage, and subset collections, but I was unable to scratch off any of the other Orioles autographs needs on my list. While I wasn't really surprised, I was still somewhat disappointed. I guess my collection is at the point where, even at a show the size of the National, no one has what I'm looking for. However, one of the dealers mentioned that he had sold a signed 1964 Lou Jackson Orioles on Thursday, so I guess that I know there is at least one out there!