Spring Training Contest Information!

I finally got motivated to hold my own contest after watching many other blogs hold excellent contests over the past year. I don't know if this contest is an original idea but I haven't heard of anyone else doing it before and I think it's something that could be fun to do.

Since Spring is the time of year that any team can have the best record, the idea is for everyone to select the team that they think will have the best winning % in Spring Training; it will include all Grapefruit and Cactus League teams, and the results from split-squad games but not games played against college teams. As a tiebreaker, I would like everyone to select their team's record (team's play between 30-35 games as listed below). Multiple people can pick the same teams and who ever comes closest to selecting the actual record will win the prize.

As far as the prizes go for this, I was going to list a bunch of cards that the winner could choose from but I have decided to just say that I'll work with the winner to make sure that they are happy with their winnings. It will be something good from my selection of autographs, inserts, short prints, and base cards. Your prize will be something that you should really enjoy.

I will update this post as people join in on the contest but here is the list of teams and the number of games that they will play.

GRAPEFRUIT LEAGUE

Atlanta Braves (33) Captain Canuck 24-9
Baltimore Orioles (32) Aaron 20-12, Jeremy 23-9
Boston Red Sox (33) AdamE 21-12
Cincinnati Reds (32) heavy hitter 19-13, Carl Crawford Cards 22-10
Detroit Tigers (35) Grand Cards 19-16
Florida Marlins (31) Paul W 23-8
Houston Astros (33) Steve E. 13-20
Minnesota Twins (31) SpastikMooss 23-8
New York Mets (34) Slangon 22-12
New York Yankees (33) Bo 22-11, Drew 25-8
Philadelphia Phillies (31) KmSals 26-5
Pittsburgh Pirates (32) Paul 24-7-1
St. Louis Cardinals (30) Kevin 22-8, madding 14-16
Tampa Bay Rays (32) RadicalEddie 19-13, BA Benny 22-10
Toronto Blue Jays (30) mmmrhubarb 21-8-1, The Gooch 23-7
Washington Nationals (33) Collective Troll 25-7, Mark's Ephemera 16-17

CACTUS LEAGUE

Arizona Diamondbacks (33) Sean Benton 20-13, TheBrooklynMet 21-12
Chicago Cubs (35) The Diamond King 23-12
Chicago White Sox (34) White Sox Cards 24-10
Cleveland Indians (32) night owl 20-12
Colorado Rockies (33) phaedrusX 21-12
Kansas City Royals (31) zman40 21-10
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (33) Wickedliquids 26-8
Los Angeles Dodgers (31) Roy 25-6
Milwaukee Brewers (33) Thorzul 20-13
Oakland Athletics (33) dan 23-10
San Diego Padres (32) Rod 20-12
San Francisco Giants (34) Joe K 22-12
Seattle Mariners (33) Play at the Plate 20-13, packaddict 19-14
Texas Rangers (31) Moe tbd, Spiff 19-12


For a bonus Contest attached to the Spring Training contest, you will get an entry into my baseball HOF autograph giveaway if you link this post in your blog, or are a follower of my blog. So you can earn two entries into that contest very easily. All names will be plugged into random.org and assigned a number and a winner will be picked that way. You will get your choice of autographs from Brooks Robinson, Jim Palmer, Andre Dawson or Robin Roberts.

So c'mon everybody, let's get this contest started!

Minor League Members of the O's 40 Man Roster-Rhyne Hughes

As you can see, this card is not autographed, which is the reason why I have waited to profile Rhyne until last in my posts about the Minor League members of the O's 40 man roster. I do not own an autograph of Mr. Hughes. He was at the Orioles FanFest but wasn't a priority for me since he hasn't (yet) played for the Birds and wasn't signing with anyone else who I was specifically targeting.

Rhyne came to the Orioles as the PTBNL (player-to-be-named-later) in the Gregg Zaun trade with the Rays last August. The Rays originally selected him in the 8th round of the 2004 draft and he played with five of their Minor League affiliates up through AAA Durham in his 4.5 years with the organization. After the trade to the O's, he played with the Norfolk Tides for the remainder of the season and appeared in 20 games. The first baseman is known mostly for his bat and has decent power but his defense and plate discipline have been questionable at times.

I'm not really sure how Hughes fits into the Orioles plans, but I figure that he is behind Brandon Snyder in the 1B prospect spot and trails Ty Wigginton and Michael Aubrey for the backup 1B spot. I hope that he has a good spring and expect that he will begin the year at Norfolk.

Minor League Members of the O's 40 Man Roster- Chorye Spoone

Chorye Spoone (Corey Spoon) was drafted by the Orioles in the 8th round of the 2005 draft. Like Brandon Erbe, he is a local guy, growing up in Pasadena, MD about 18 miles south of Baltimore.


Some scouts regarded him as having the best stuff of any of the Orioles prospects (at least until Brian Matusz came along) and he has flashed a mid-90s fastball and a great curveball. However he has had injury problems, including labrum issues, over the past two seasons and made only 19 starts combined over the 08-09 seasons. With all of the excellent pitching prospects throughout the O's system, Spoone's stock has dropped significantly.



2010 will be a very important year for Spoone as he needs to get back to the success he experienced in '06 & '07 at Delmarva and Frederick. I would expect him to start the year at Bowie, which is where he was pitching in '08 before his season was ended by the labrum injury. If he has any more injury problems or can't find a return to his early success, my guess is that this could be his last year with the O's, at least as a member of their 40-man roster.


I hope that Spoone can regain his "prospect" status. I don't believe that I have ever seen him pitch in a game, since my interest in the local Minor League teams started in 2008. I have seen him on the '08 Baysox and '09 Keys and hope that I finally get to see him flash his stuff on the mound in 2010.

Alfredo Simon Joins the Party

Alfredo Simon 2008-

I have written about Alfredo quite a bit since he was the only current member of the Orioles whose autograph that I didn't have after the addition of Koji Uehara last week. But a reader named Paul came through with this awesome addition to my collection. Now I don't have to stay up nights wondering how the hell I didn't yet have Alfredo in my collection. I'm kidding, but I do like being able to say that I now have every current Orioles players' autograph. Thanks Paul!

So I'm not really sure what's going on with this card; he's obviously wearing a Phillies uniform but the card has the Giants logo on it so it's from around the time he was traded by the Phillies to the Giants in mid-2004. Why do card companies do this? I know you want the team logo to be current, but it bothers me when you have these "2 team" types of cards. It should either be one or the other since I now have no idea how to categorize it. What I do know is that it's definitely not an Orioles card, which Alfredo does have two of, a 09 Topps Heritage and a 09 O-Pee-Chee, so I still hope to get one of those signed when I'm at spring training.

Also, his autograph is already a front-runner for my 2010 Siggy award for the least legible autograph. I guess the big swirl at the beginning is an A, and then I guess there is an S, but I'm not sure. His given name seems to be Alfredo Carlos E Cabrera Simon so he could sign some variation of that but it's impossible to tell.

Alfredo broke camp last year as the Orioles 5th starter, which lasted all of 1+ regular season starts (and a grand total of 6.1 innings) before he went down with a Tommy John injury and missed the rest of the year. Reports out of Sarasota are saying that he looks good so far this spring and he is really bringing the heat. He had also pitched in 4 games for the O's at the end of the '08 season.


Another thing that I found interesting about Alfredo is that this is his second go-round (technically) in the Birds organization. The O's drafted him in the 2006 Rule V draft from the Texas Rangers and traded him that same day to the Phillies for Adam Donachie (who had been taken in the draft from the Royals). The Phillies eventually returned Alfredo to the Rangers and the O's returned Donachie to the Phillies (who returned him to the Royals) since neither was able to crack the clubs' 25-man Opening Day rosters. But now it's 2010 and they are both together in Sarasota at the Orioles Major League Spring Training camp. Pretty cool, right?


Also, Adam was a member of the NW Arkansas Naturals, the Royals AA team, in 2008. The team plays in Springdale, Arkansas where my grandma lives and I got to see them play when I visited her last summer. It's a small baseball world.

Minor League Members of the O's 40 Man Roster- Troy Patton & CONTEST Approaching!

Troy came to the Orioles in the December 2007 Miguel Tejada trade with the Astros. He made his Major League debut with the 'Stros at the end of the 2007 season, and made 3 appearances, including two starts, earning the loss in both games he started. He is still seeking his first Major League victory, but has a respectable 3.55 ERA in his 12.2 big league innings pitched.


He missed the entire 2008 season while recovering from a torn left labrum and made his O's Minor League debut at the beginning of 2009 with the AA Bowie Baysox. He thoroughly dominated his Eastern League opponents and had a 6-2 record with a minuscule 1.99 ERA in 11 starts. I had to pleasure to see one or two of those starts and Troy definitely deserved his promotion to the AAA Tides. Unfortunately, things didn't go as well for him in the International League. His stats with Norfolk weren't pretty; he had a 1-3 recordwith a 6.45 ERA in 9 starts but from what I hear, at least some of that had to do with fatigue since he hadn't pitched a full season in two years.

Troy seemed like a very nice guy on the occasions that I saw him at Bowie and I spoke with him at length once towards the end of his time with the Baysox. I really like him and hope that he can find success again early in 2010, most likely with the Tides. I don't think he has a very good chance to crack the Orioles out of Spring Training, but I do hope to see him pitch for the Orioles soon.



Oh, and if you saw the mention of a contest in the title of the post and made it all the way down here, I don't want to let you down. I will be starting the first contest on the blog here soon. The details will be pretty simple and all I have to say at this point is that it will have something to do with Spring Training. I hope that you're excited, because I think it will be fun.

Minor League Members of the O's 40 Man Roster- Craig Tatum

While technically you could argue that Craig shouldn't be considered a Minor Leaguer since he made his Major League debut with the Reds last season, he has never played for the O's so for my purposes, I am considering him a Minor League guy. The Orioles claimed him off of waivers from the Reds on November 20, 2009 and he will be trying to make the O's as their backup catcher for the 2010 season.

Craig grew up in Hattiesburg, Mississippi and was a standout pitcher and batter during his years at Hattiesburg High School which earned him the title of the Mississippi Gatorade Player of the Year. He attended Mississippi State and earned second team All-SEC honors as a sophomore which led to the Reds selecting him in the third round of the 2004 amateur draft.

Interestingly enough, Craig earned his first promotion to the Reds on 7/19/09 when my favorite player ever (no, I'm just kidding, I wasn't a fan) Ra-moan Hernandez injured his knee and went on the DL. He appeared in 26 total games for the Reds and hit only .162.

One negative about Craig is that he played high school baseball with Jonathan Papelbon and still trains with him in the off-season.

Finally! A Koji Autograph Enters the Collection!

Koji Uehara 2009-

Thanks to some help from my dad, I was finally able to add a Koji Uehara autograph to my collection. He was one of only two players still with the Orioles organization (the other is Alfredo Simon) that had played for the O's and who I still needed an autograph from. I had just missed out on him when he signed a few times at Camden Yards over the '09 season but I labeled him a "I Don't Think He's a Good Signer" in my 2009 Year in Review post last fall since I only saw him sign 2 or 3 times all season.

I also sent him a TTM request towards the end of the season but think that it probably reached the O's after he had gone home to Japan for the offseason. So I was 0-2 to that point.

I was hoping that he would attend O's FanFest so that I could get his autograph there but the the team didn't have him travel to Baltimore from Japan just for that one event. 0-3.

My next step was to check online and I found that he had quite a few certified autograph releases in last year's Topps & Upper Deck sets. One would think that I should be able to find something for about $10 since there were 5-10 different autographs and most were numbered into the 100's right? Wrong! Most of them sold for no less than $20 with a few that I specifically liked going for upwards of $50. I hate the thought of paying that much for a player who is still on the team that I could theoretically get to sign for me at a game. I think the prices on all of his certified autos have remained so high since collectors in both Japan and the US are interested in buying his cards. 0-4, man I wasn't catching any breaks with Koji.

But then my Dad came through and found a seller who was open to bargaining and he got this awesome card for a good price. Koji is even wearing a sweet Baltimore jersey in the shot on the card. And his signature is pretty awesome. I think that I see some exclamation points in there or something. It's also pretty legible which is surprising for a veteran player like him.

So I can finally scratch Koji off of my needed list! It's nice to have him under the belt.

Now watch out, Alfredo Simon! I'm gunning for you next!

Minor League Members of the O's 40 Man Roster- Luis Lebron

Luis Lebron is likely to be the O's closer of the future and has been compiling Minor League saves since 2005. It appears that Luis was signed as an international free agent out of the Domincan Republic before the '05 season and he will be attending his first Spring Training with the Major Leaguers this season.

Lebron has pitched at every level of the Orioles Minor League system through AA Bowie. He strangely put up his best career numbers thus far over the second half of the '09 season with the Baysox when he saved 9 games and had a measly 1.98 ERA. It's unusual since he had never dominated that much at any of the lower levels.

I saw him pitch at both Frederick and Bowie last season but was not able to get many cards signed. I don't know if it was a language barrier or something else but Luis never seemed as willing to sign as many of the other Minor Leaguers. I don't want to accuse him of anything but he seemed to have a "big league" attitude at times.

I don't think he really has any chance to break camp with the O's this season and would expect him to pitch for either the Baysox or AAA Tides in 2010.

Finally! Baseball is Back-O's Pitchers & Catchers Report Today

So my life in snow-covered sub-arctic Baltimore improves just a little bit today as the Orioles' first spring training in Sarasota kicks off at noon. That is the pitchers' and catchers' official report time so Wieters, Matusz and the gang are all showing up at Ed Smith stadium about now.

I wish that I could be out there getting autographs from everyone today but am looking forward to my trip to Sarasota in early March. It will be my first time at the stadium so anyone who might have some autograph tips, please send them my way.

Reading the reports and seeing the pictures from all of the websites who send their reporters to Sarasota will more than brighten my day; this is when my winter officially ends and baseball begins!

The O's don't have many battles on the 25 man roster this season but I will keep an eye on the backup middle infield spot as well as a few openings in the bullpen.

Let's Go O's! This is the season we break the 12 year losing streak!

Above Picture from here

Minor League Members of the O's 40 Man Roster- Pedro Florimon

Pedro Florimon, or PedFlo as we lovingly call him, came out of almost nowhere to become one of the organizations' top prospects, especially at the SS position. He had a breakout year in 2009 as a member of the Frederick Keys, and possibly has passed Blake Davis on the O's SS prospect depth chart.


He has always had decent speed and could steal bases, forming the main part of his offensive game. But to give you an idea of how unexpected his power was in '09, he hit 9 homers in 115 games for the Keys while he had hit only 5 in 251 previous ABs for Delmarva, Aberdeen & Bluefield. He also upped his average by about 40 points from 2008. Note: (I am not including the disappointing 7 game stretch he spent with Bowie at the end of the season. He was just over-matched at AA.)


I'm not sure how his career will progress but I don't expect to see Pedro playing for the Birds in 2010. He is still only 23 and would have to perform over-the-top in Spring Training to surpass the likes of Robert Andino, Justin Turner, Scott Moore, or Davis. Depending on the development of '09 second-round draft pick Mychal Givens at the low levels of the O's system, PedFlo could be a replacement for Cesar Izturis in 2011. He will need to prove that he can hit and field at the higher levels of the Minors but I hope that his 2009 wasn't a fluke.

Minor League Members of the O's 40 Man Roster- Brandon Erbe

Brandon Erbe is currently the Orioles #7 prospect according to Baseball America and has been ranked among the organization's Top Ten prospects since being drafted in the 3rd round of the '05 draft. He hasn't necessarily lived up to expectations at this point but is still only 22 years old, so has time to turn things around.



Erbe's career stagnated a bit over his two full seasons at Frederick in '07 & '08. Over those seasons he went 16-20 with a 5.17 ERA. He did lead the Carolina league with 151 strikeouts in 2008, proving that he does have the stuff to make batters swing & miss.

This is probably my favorite card of his since the picture was taken mid-throw
and it gives you an idea of his pitching motion

After missing almost two months of the 2009 season due to shoulder tendinitis, He finished the year on a high note, with a 5-3 record and a 2.34 ERA with 2 complete games in 14 starts for AA Bowie.


Erbe makes a perfect Oriole, since he was born in nearby Owings Mills and has lived in the Baltimore area his entire life. I really hope that he makes it to the Orioles; I know that he will have plenty of family and friends that live nearby to support him if he does!



I've seen Brandon pitch at Frederick and Bowie and have had the chance to talk to him and meet him a few times. He always has seemed like a nice guy who appreciates pitching near his hometown as it makes it easier to see his family and friends. Most reports project that he will make it to the Major Leagues in the bullpen so it will be interesting to see if he starts or comes out of the bullpen in 2010.

Go Kyrgyzstan, Go Kyrgyzstan, Go!

So I ended up with Kyrgyzstan in JD's Wild Cardz Olympic Contest (that's their flag there for those who didn't know, myself included). I was initially excited, since the country name supposedly means either forty girls or forty tribes, and has a population of 5.5 million. I had to win, right?!?

It is located in central Asia, just south of Kazakhstan (Very Niiice, Jagshemahsh, etc.), west of China, north of Tajkistan, and penetrated by Uzbekistan. See more on the map below from this website.

I should be money to win this, right? You are wrong, sir. I am totally screwed. Guess how many Olymipic athletes Kyrgyzstan has competing in these 2010 Vancouver Olympics? C'mon, what do you think? Did you say 0? Well, that's the number of Olympians competing for my adopted country. Also, they have never won a single Olympic medal, ever. Garbage, I say.

It makes it easier to root for my country now...U-S-A! U-S-A!