This week’s episode of the Camden Highball (Camden Depot’s weekly podcast) comes a week and a day late, but it’s better than no podcast at all! This week, Pat and I talk with Camden Depot’s Joe Reisel about what he’s seen in the Norfolk Tides during the first month of the minor league season.
Direct Link to Article –> The Camden Highball: Greetings from Norfolk!
Earlier this week, it was reported that Orioles catcher Matt Wieters will start the 2015 season on the disabled list, as he continues to rehab his way back from Tommy John surgery. Luckily, the Orioles still have four catchers in major league camp, who will be competing for starting and backup duties to begin the season. Today at the ESPN Sweetspot Network Orioles blog Camden Depot, I take a look at those options.
Direct Link to Article –> Orioles Catching Options to Start the Season
After an elbow injury (requiring Tommy John surgery) ended Matt Wieters‘ 2014 season in the middle of May, Caleb Joseph filled and provided enough value to potentially make Matt Wieters expendable. Joseph didn’t hit he ball, but his defensive skills, specifically his pitch framing saved enough runs to more than offset his offensive shortcomings. Today at ESPN Sweetspot Network Orioles blog Camden Depot, I take a look at whether the Orioles should look into dealing their All-Star catcher to make room for Caleb Joseph, pitch framer extraordinaire.
Direct Link to Article –> Should the Orioles Trade Matt Wieters?
Despite both teams sweeping their opponents in the ALDS, each series was fairly close, and if a few breaks had gone the other way, each series could have easily gone to a 4th or 5th game. But that’s not what happened. The Royals came up big twice in extra winnings to notch wins, while the Orioles had two REALLY big 8th innings in their first two games to take control of their series against the Tigers. Now we have an ALCS with two teams that are in a lot of ways, very similar to each other. The Kansas City Royals haven’t seen the World Series since 1985 and the Baltimore Orioles haven’t been since 1983. Just the fact that one of these teams (and their fans) will finally make it back there after such a long time is pretty exciting. Continue reading
Recently, as I was thinking of potential topics to write about, it occurred to me that Orioles Proving Ground has not dealt much with the minor league system of the Baltimore Orioles. This is somewhat strange considering that the name of the blog was partially meant to invoke images of players in the minors proving their worth and graduating to the major leagues. That has not really happened to date, other than maybe a couple of posts. In order to change this, I thought we would start a weekly feature that looks at the best and worst individual performances of Baltimore’s top three minor league affiliates (AAA, AA, and Hi-A). Conveniently, the minor league season will be coming to a close in the next week, so there will only be two installments of this series in 2013, after which it will hopefully pick up again during the 2014 season. For the most part this is just a recap, but some analysis may be given where appropriate.
Just a note. As I do not have much scouting experience and have not attended many minor league games this summer, these posts will look at on field performance only and are not meant to be used as scouting reports.
Orioles Proving Ground 