Orioles Proving Ground

There hasn’t been too much to report on last week in the minor leagues. Oh wait, there was a trade that happened, and there seemed to be a lot of people that didn’t appreciate my take on it. Other than that, the Norfolk Tides cooled off a bit after an extremely hot 3 weeks and we saw some position player pitching in Norfolk, as third baseman Cord Phelps took the mound in extra innings on July 31 against Toledo. Phelps didn’t last long, pitching 0.1 innings, while giving up two hits and the game-winning run. The fact that the game ended quickly after Phelps entered the game was probably for the best.

Norfolk also saw the additions of Ubaldo Jimenez and Ryan Webb to the Norfolk roster, as Jimenez was there for a rehab assignment (he won’t be there long), while Webb was designated off the 25-man roster (similar to being optioned and different from being designated off the 40-man roster – it’s confusing I know, so you can read more about it HERE). I don’t understand the move by the Orioles to send Webb to AAA, as he has been their third best reliever this year, only slightly less valuable than Darren O’Day. It puzzled me enough that I went on a mini-twitter rant about it the other day.

Still, a confusing move by #Orioles Webb is 3rd best member of bullpen at 0.8 fWAR, just 0.2 behind Britton, who tops the list

— OriolesProvingGround (@OriolesPG) August 1, 2014

@BSLJeffLong @pfholden I feel like we’re there now. Why get Miller, just to take one of your better relievers off the roster to save depth

— OriolesProvingGround (@OriolesPG) August 1, 2014

Weekly Summary

Norfolk (AAA): 4-3 (W-L), 31 RS, 24 RA

Bowie (AA): 3-4, 38 RS, 31 RA

Frederick (High-A): 3-3, 21 RS, 35 RA

The Good:

Hitters

Norfolk (AAA): 3B Cord Phelps – 9/21 (H/AB), 2 2B’s, 3 BB’s, 5 SO’s

Phelps absolutely sucked in his pitching performance last week, but he was good with the stick. We won’t hold his pitching line against him though, since that’s not his job. Instead we’ll say, “Well done with the bat, good sir (in a 1700’s era British style accent)!”

Bowie (AA): SS Garabez Rosa – 10/25, 3 2B’s, 1 3B, 1 HR, 1 BB, 3 SO’s

Rosa hit for the cycle this week! Granted that’s not very exciting considering he had 7 games to do it, but I wanted to give him credit anyway. Plus, what else could I say? The dude had a good week.

Frederick (High-A): 2B Jerome Pena – 7/18, 3 2B’s, 1 3B, 4 BB’s, 8 SO’s

Pena actually struck out roughly 36% of his plate appearances last week (that’s not good at all), but when he did hit the ball, he hit the ball well. Four of his 7 hits went for extra bases. The fact that he only got 2 RBI’s from that just tells you how silly it is to care about RBI’s.

Pitchers

Norfolk (AAA): RHP Josh Stinson – 9.1 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 7 SO’s, 3 BB’s

This was a very solid effort by Stinson last week spread out over two appearances. He essentially pitched the equivalent of a 2 hit complete game. Well, technically that’s not true. What’s truer is that he pitched the equivalent of a 2 hit complete game, with an additional relief appearance where he recorded only one out. I’ll be honest, sometimes I really don’t have anything constructive to say.

Bowie (AA): RHP Zach Davies – 13.1 IP, 11 H, 3 R, 13 SO’s, 2 BB’s

I thought that Zach Davies as the best pitcher on the Bowie pitching staff last week and whoever votes for the Eastern League Pitcher/Player of the week agreed. The 13 strikeouts to only 2 walks was what impressed me the most. I’m assuming his 2-0 record during the week was what impressed the voters.

Baysox RHP Zach Davies (@ZDavies3) has been named EL Pitcher of the Week after throwing 13.0 shutout innings over 2 starts this past week

— Bowie Baysox (@BowieBaysox) June 23, 2014

Frederick (High-A): RHP Mark Blackmar – 6 IP, 4 H, 4 R, 5 SO’s, 2 BB’s I didn’t see any exceptional performances on the Frederick pitching staff this week, so Balckmar gets the nod. The line above wasn’t as bad as it seems, since all of his runs were unearned. The fact that he only allowed one base runner per inning on average, tells me that there was some bad luck/timing with the error that allowed those runs to score. Although I wasn’t at the game, so what do I know?

The Bad:

Hitters

Norfolk (AAA): OF Xavier Paul – 0/1, 1 SO

Normally I don’t blame a guy for one at bat, even if it was a strikeout. One bad at bat doesn’t make a bad week. But then this happened…

#orioles released OF Xavier Paul, who was at AAA Norfolk — Roch Kubatko (@masnRoch) August 3, 2014

As someone with over 3 years of major league service time under his belt and an OPS+ greater than 100 (which is better than league average) in part time duty as recently as 2012 and 2013, Paul probably has a good chance getting picked up by an organization looking for outfield depth.

Bowie (AA): OF Chris Marrero – 2/18, 1 2B, 1 BB, 8 SO’s

Since when did Chris Marrero start being listed as an outfielder on the Baysox website? I always thought that he was limited to first base and couldn’t really play anywhere else. This is also strange considering that the team doesn’t even list a first baseman on their current roster. Marrero, a former prospect in the Nationals system struggled in AAA this year and is performing even worse in AA. It’s probably safe to say that he’s not anything close to a prospect anymore and is likely a candidate to be released before the season even ends. It’s also safe to say that the Potomac Nationals can probably take down this advertisement hanging up in Nationals Park.

Frederick (High-A): OF Brenden Webb – 4/23, 1 BB, 9 SO’s

There were a couple of candidates for this spot, and I almost spared Webb the horrific embarrassment of being labeled the worst hitter at Frederick last week (in my opinion). However, all of the other candidates had at least one extra base hit, and none of them struck out as much as Webb. Rules are rules (I’m not going to look, but I’m pretty sure I’ve made that comment in a previous post).

Pitchers

Norfolk (AAA): RHP Steve Johnson – 4 IP, 6 H, 4 R, 6 SO’s, 6 BB’s, 1 HR

I don’t really have anything to add to this line, other than Johnson should be happy that there wasn’t more damage than giving up 4 runs.

Bowie (AA): RHP Matt Bischoff – 3 IP, 7 H, 6 R, 1 SO, 3 BB’s, 1 HR

With all those base runners allowed by Bischoff, there’s a good chance that the home run he gave up was the rarely seen 6-run variety. I’ve never seen one in person, but I’ve heard they’re “double rainbow” spectacular.

Frederick (High-A): RHP Matt Hobgood – 2.2 IP, 5 H, 6 R, 3 SO’s, 2 BB’s

The former 1^st round pick had a week to forget. Generally allowing 2.63 base runners per inning pitched will lead to giving up a lot of runs. What is 0.63 of a base runner? It’s equal to roughly one Jose Altuve.

Transactions

This entry was posted on August 6, 2014 at 10:00 am and is filed under Minor Leagues, Offense, Pitching, Prospects with tags Brenden Webb, Chris Marrero, Cord Phelps, Garabez Rosa, Jerome Pena, Josh Stinson, Mark Blackmar, Matt Bischoff, Matt Hobgood, Minor League Recap, Ryan Webb, Steve Johnson, Ubaldo Jimenez, Xavier Paul, Zach Davies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.