Archive for Zach Davies

Minor League Recap: August 11-August 17

Posted in Minor Leagues, Offense, Pitching, Prospects with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 19, 2014 by oriolesprovingground

The Orioles are in first place by a healthy margin (the HEALTHIEST in all of baseball), but there was still a legitimate reason for fans to freak out last week.

But you can relax, because he was injured while running and it had nothing to do with his throwing arm.

This injury will shut him down for the rest of the year, and that is not a bad idea. There is only a couple of weeks left in the minor league innings anyway, and in the best case scenario (and even this would have been highly unlikely), Bundy would have been pitching out of the Baltimore bullpen late in the season. Baltimore’s bullpen is excellent, and their least effective relievers are out of options, so taking this option off the table may even be a good thing. The next step for Bundy will be to rest and pitch some innings in the Arizona Fall League in October (provided he’s physically cleared to pitch). Hopefully he’ll be 100% ready to go when spring training begins in March. Continue reading →

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Minor League Recap: July 28-August 3

Posted in Minor Leagues, Offense, Pitching, Prospects with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 6, 2014 by oriolesprovingground

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. Continue reading →

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Minor League Recap: July 21-July 27

Posted in Minor Leagues, Offense, Pitching, Prospects with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 29, 2014 by oriolesprovingground

The Norfolk Tides are the talk of baseball!

Ok, they aren’t really, but the exclamation points make you think they are. Actually, going 15-3 over an 18 game stretch is pretty impressive, and that hot streak has now brought them up to 8 games below .500, 7.5 games behind the division leading Durham Bulls. Wait, 8 games BELOW .500? After going 15-3 over their last 18 games? Yeah, they’re not a good team. Considering they’re 10 games out of the wild card as well, I’d hold off on printing those playoff tickets.

In “you can stop panicking” news, Dylan Bundy threw 6 scoreless innings last week to bring his ERA at Frederick DOWN to 6.11. He gave up 3 hits and walked to in his outing, but he only struck out one batter (if that actually made you panic more, then…sorry). Continue reading →

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A Trade for Martin Prado Solves a Present and Future Problem

Posted in Offense, Trades with tags , , , , , , , , on July 21, 2014 by oriolesprovingground

Trade season is heating up and like most contenders, the Baltimore Orioles find themselves only a few weeks away from the trade deadline with areas for improvement.  Second base happens to be one of those areas.  With talented rookie Jonathan Schoop struggling offensively, the team could use an upgrade to increase their chances of a playoff run in 2014.  Today over at ESPN Sweetspot Network Oriols blog Camden Depot, I explain why acquiring Martin Prado solves their issue at second base in 2014, but also takes care of potential roster problems in the future.

Direct Link to Article –> A Trade for Martin Prado Solves a Present and Future Problem

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Orioles Starting Rotation (Still) Needs Improvement

Posted in Pitching, Trades with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on July 1, 2014 by oriolesprovingground

After a long vacation that didn’t involve any baseball, I’m back with my first post since early June.  Today at ESPN Sweetspot Network Orioles blog Camden Depot, I take a look at a very familiar topic that has seemed to pop up during the trade deadline and the offseason ever since I started writing about the team.  Writing about upgrading Baltimore’s starting rotation is quickly becoming a bi-annual tradition, where the names change, but the statistics stay the same.  Take a look at the article to see who I suggest they go after this time.

Direct Link to Article –> Orioles Starting Rotation (Still) Needs Improvement

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Minor League Recap: April 28-May 4

Posted in Minor Leagues, Offense, Pitching, Prospects with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 6, 2014 by oriolesprovingground

It was a “.500” kind of week for Baltimore’s affiliates, as each of the teams detailed in this weekly installment won as much as they lost, with Bowie and Frederick even scoring the exact number of runs that they gave up. Frederick barely got any games in as they had to deal with a ton of rain and a couple of postponements/cancellations in the beginning of the week. Additionally, Norfolk used 16 different pitchers during the week, so no one really got a lot of innings. Feel free to use any of these fun facts as an ice breaker in the coming week.

Weekly Summary

Norfolk (AAA): 3-3 (W-L), 36 RS, 33 RA

Bowie (AA): 3-3, 22 RS, 22 RA

Frederick (High-A): 2-2, 18 RS, 18 RA

The Good:

Hitters

Norfolk (AAA): 1B Brett Wallace– 8/23 (H/AB), 2 2B’s, 2 HR’s, 2 BB’s, 9 SO’s

The former top prospect has really been struggling at the plate this season, so it’s nice to see him put together a very productive week. The 9 strikeouts are still a little bothersome, but at least some of the power is starting to show up. Even though Wallace used to be a top prospect (the key phrase being “used to be”), fans shouldn’t expect much out of him, as he’s transitioned from prospect status to “organizational depth”. Continue reading →

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Minor League Recap: August 19-25

Posted in Minor Leagues, Offense, Pitching, Prospects with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 27, 2013 by oriolesprovingground

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.

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