An Orange Kind of Day

It's another scorching hot day in the Baltimore area with the temperature around 105 and the heat index in the one hundred teens. So it seems appropriate to show off a few of my orange uniform autographed cards today. Because, well, why not?

Today's focus will be on minor leaguers who are no longer playing in the O's farm system. Look at all that sizzling hot orange.

It's like an inferno! Maybe the minor league teams should start wearing blue to cool things down.

Orioles Winter Meeting Moves

The Orioles didn't make a big splash at the winter meetings; in fact they barely made a ripple, but I have to say that the few moves they made does make the team a little better off for the 2012 season.

The O's "big move" was acquiring LHP Dana Eveland from the Dodgers for minor leaguers Jarrett Martin and Tyler Henson.

Eveland has bounced around the Majors over the seven seasons he has spent in the big leagues. He made his MLB debut with the Brewers in 2005 and has since pitched for the Diamondbacks, A's, Blue Jays, Pirates, and Dodgers. At this point in his career, Dana is best known for the 2008-09 seasons he spent in Oakland and 42 of his 100 career appearances were with the A's. In limited September 2011 action with the Dodgers, he pitched well (3-2 record with a 3.03 ERA over five starts) so I hope that he can keep that positive momentum going into 2012.

Martin is a lefty pitcher who went 5-12 with the lo-A Delmarva Shorebirds in 2011 and was drafted by the O's in the 18th round of the 2009 draft. I don't believe I ever saw Martin pitch since he only spent two seasons in the Orioles organization and played for Bluefield and Delmarva, which are the two furthest affiliates from where I live. I don't have any autographs of his so you get a double dose of Henson.

Henson was a 5th round pick in the 2006 draft and spent the entire 2011 season with the AAA Norfolk Tides. He spent part of Spring Training in 2011 with the Orioles but finished the year with a relatively disappointing stat line in his first AAA action. Tyler has played at every level of the Orioles farm system over the past six seasons, and I enjoyed watching him play for the hi-A Frederick Keys and AA Bowie Baysox during the 2009-2010 seasons. He was one of Kalina's favorite minor leaguers, so she might need some time to recover from this trade.

If you are a twitterer, both Martin (@JarretMartin) and Henson (@hendog4) have accounts so you can follow them if you are into that kind of thing.

To clear room for Eveland on the 40 man roster, the O's designated reliever Willie Eyre for assignment. Eyre pitched well for the Birds in 2011, (2-2, 3.44 ERA in 19 games) and I thought he did well enough to be brought back for the 2012 season, but what do I know?

In other Orioles news, they announced that infielder Greg Miclat is the player to be named later in the Taylor Teagarden trade with the Rangers that was announced last week. Greg was the Orioles 5th round pick in the 2008 draft and had been steadily rising through the farm system. He spent the entire 2011 season with the Baysox and was probably the Orioles system's best base-stealer, as he swiped 50 bases in 53 attempts last year alone. Giving up Randy Henry and Miclat seems like a steep price for backup catcher, but again, I'm obviously not the one calling the shots and the team needed someone to fill-in for Wieters.

The Rule 5 draft wrapped up the 2011 Winter Meetings and the Orioles selected three players, one in each round of the draft. In the Major League phase, the team picked Ryan Flaherty from the Cubs, who had spent last year with the AAA Iowa Cubs and will compete for the 3B/utility infielder spot in spring training. In the AAA phase, the O's plucked LHP Andrew Loomis from the Phillies system, and in the AA phase they selected 3B Matt Sweeney from the Rays. Sweeney had been part of the Angels-Rays Scott Kazmir trade a few years back and is from Maryland. The O's were one of only two teams to make a selection in the AA phase and had none of their players selected in any phase of the draft, so take that for whatever it's worth.

I hope that some of you made it all the way down one of my longer posts in recent memory. Can you imagine how much I would have written if the team had signed Pujols?!?

Thank You Kalina!

In an odd turn of events, Kalina went to a baseball game without me this past weekend. Now, don't get me wrong, she is a huge baseball fan and there are times she might fly solo to an O's game with some of her friends, but it doesn't happen often.

This past weekend, she happened to be visiting her grandpa in Pennsylvania without me, and the Orioles AAA affiliate, the Norfolk Tides, just happened to be playing the Phillies' AAA team, the Lehigh Valley Ironpigs, not too far away from his house. And in a good example of why I love her so much, she volunteered to go to the game and get some autographs for me. That's right, she is amazing!


She got eight total autographs from the Tides for me, including Nick Green and John Hester, who are new additions to my collection. Now if they get called up to Baltimore, I can add them to my have list, as opposed to the dreaded need list additions.

 

Her favorite signers were two guys she has enjoyed watching on their rise through the O's farm system, Nolan Reimold and Tyler Henson, as well as John Hester, who she seems to think is cute or something.

All in all, she had a great time and I really appreciate her going and getting those awesome autographs for me. Overall, graphing is more bold activity than she generally likes to get into at games, so I'm thankful she stepped outside of her comfort zone to help me out. Thanks again Kalina!

Adios Baysox

The Bowie Baysox, the AA O's affiliate located somewhat near my house, were unfortunately eliminated from the Eastern League playoff contention on Monday, the final day of their regular season.  They had battled for weeks with the Harrisburg Senators, the Nats AA affiliate, for the second (and last) spot in the Western Division standings, and could have forced a one game play-in game if they had one and the Senators had lost on Monday.  Neither of those things happened and the Senators clinched their playoff spot, so the Baysox season was over.  It's too bad because we only made it to one or two of their games over the past couple months and didn't one last night of fun in at Prince George's County Stadium. 

Well, as a proper send off to the team, here are some of the Baysox autographs I got over the season.  Caleb Joseph up top was my favorite player this season, so I took the time to separate his card. 

This is what their 2010 team set looks like; the Aberdeen Ironbirds set looks very similar.  I really like how many of the cards show the players in their orange uni's!  The Tucker card is an All-Star insert card from 2010 Topps Debut.  Waring led the E.L. with 179 K's, Henson was 2nd with 156.  None of these guys have very nice autographs... 

This is Tanaka & Johnson's first O's affiliate cards.  Car-los Ro-jas! McCrory pitched for the O's in 2008 & 09, but spent most of the season with the Baysox.  Chad's card isn't very flattering.  Cooney didn't like how his little pinkie is up on his '09 Shorebirds card.  Gamboa is a great guy, very friendly, another one of my favorites.  

Joel was one of the hardest autographs to get on the team.  I got all of these signed at one of the meet-the-team days, but did get his Baysox card signed at our last game of the season.  He led the Eastern League with 33 homers, 264 total bases, and was second with 98 RBI.  He's had stints with the Dodgers and Devil Rays in the Majors, but won't be coming to Baltimore this September.

Viola had awful numbers with the AAA Norfolk Tides at the start of the season but his numbers over 23 appearances with the Baysox were good enough for him to get a September call-up with the O's.  I think that Komminsk is probably sick of me getting his autograph, and since I don't have anything left for him to sign, I'll stop now.

Eastern League All-Star Game Pictures

Last Wednesday, Kalina & I drove up to Harrisburg, PA for the 2010 Eastern League All-Star game & Home Run Derby at Metro Bank Park. The Derby was held about an hour or so before the game, and there had been an autograph session held before the Derby, but I wasn't able to get there in time for that. I would've liked to make it in time for the autographs too, especially when I found out they had card sets on sale for both the Eastern & Western division teams, but I had fun anyway. I grew up in nearby Carlisle, PA so we met up with my parents at the game and had a great time.


Our Bowie Baysox were represented by OF Tyler Henson & reliever Pedro Beato. Zach Britton was originally scheduled to appear, and possibly would've been the Western Division's starting pitcher, but was promoted to AAA a few weeks before the game. Eastern League HR co-leader Joel Guzman was also selected to the team as an injury replacement, but had a previous commitment and couldn't attend.


Henson was one of the 8 players that took part in the HR Derby. Here he is hitting one out of the park.


And here's a picture of him on the scoreboard before taking his hacks. He ended up placing third in the Derby, which isn't bad since he only hit 1 HR in the first round. Tyler also played the entire game and went 2-4 with two doubles.

Adam Loewen, former Orioles pitcher, and current Benedict Arnold OF of the New Hampshire Fisher Cats, also took part in the HR Derby. The scoreboard above is incorrect and should have read HR:0 Outs: 1. (The scoreboard operator was having trouble keeping up with the Derby.) If you click on the picture, you can see that Loewen appears to be laughing, and that's because he is. He actually swung and missed at the first pitch thrown to him. It was probably a 60 MPH fastball. Great work Adam! He ended up with zero home runs, which gave me immense satisfaction.

Loewen also appeared in right field for the second half of the game, and had a few bonehead plays, including one which he tried to catch Tyler's deep fly ball and almost Jose Canseco'ed it over the fence. You suck Adam! If you don't know why I dislike him so much, I'd tell you, but it's a post for another day. If anyone asks, I can certainly share the story.

Here's Tyler standing on second base after his Loewen assisted double.

Pedro Beato appeared in the 9th inning and threw a single pitch to close out the 10-3 win for the Western Division. Now that's what I call efficient!

Great Job Tyler & Pedro! It was awesome to see our local guys in the All-Star Game. I hope the All-Star Game comes to Bowie soon, but I'm guessing they might need to upgrade Prince George's Stadium before they can bring it home.

4/10 Baysox Game Autographs

I have shown off a few of the autographs that I got at this Baysox game but here are the rest of them.


This is my first autographed card of Eddie, who blew through the O's Minor League system last year. He started the season with lo-A Delmarva, was promoted to hi-A Frederick midway through the year and ended up in AA Bowie by the end of the season. The amazing part is that his ERA went DOWN with each promotion, from 1.86, to 0.55 to 0.00. I didn't have this Shorebirds team set until the end of the year and didn't see the Baysox play again after I bought it, so this was my first shot to get Eddie to sign it. Eddie was very personable and seems like a good signer.



Pat followed a similar, if slightly less successful, path as Eddie's last year. He also played for Delmarva, Frederick and Bowie. And he is extremely tall; listed at 6'8". I think the O's like tall pitchers IE Mickolio, Hendrickson, Egan...

Miggy signed his 09 Baysox team set card. I've said it before and will say it again, I really dig the orange border on these cards.

Now, the 09 Keys team set, I don't like so much. Never have the players wear black uniforms on picture day and then shoot close-ups of them! They have to squeeze in their signature or sign over the black!

Bascom's last name stretched into his face to avoid the black.

The Carolina League Top Prospects set also used the Keys' team set pictures.



You see what I mean about these signatures fading into the black. They look even worse in person; the scanner actually brightens them up a bit. There's barely any light space on the cards.


Whereas the Keys' giveaway team set utilized white uniforms and action shots. Major upgrade! That's how a Minor League team set should look, or at least more-so like this.

Tyler was nice enough to also sign his 07 Ironbirds card for me.