The MiL Season Wrap Thread

It was a pretty miserable season for the Orioles' minor league affiliates, both in terms of team record and lack of high-ceiling prospects.

Norfolk (62-82): The Tides were 20 games under at the midpoint of the season, but at least they played .500 ball from there. The top hitting prospects were 24-year old 1B Trey Mancini (.775 OPS) and 25-year old 1B/OF Christian Walker (.758). Mancini was hot for a while but floundered badly in August to put his numbers at pedestrian levels and cast serious doubt on whether the O's can hand him a significant role next year. None of the pitchers were of particular interest -- most of the better ones saw time in Baltimore and were unimpressive there.

Bowie (56-86): This team was awful from start to finish. The obvious bright spot was 21-year old catcher Chance Sisco, who hit .320/.406/.422 before a brief promotion to Norfolk in which he hit two homers over the final five games of the year. Mancini, who dominated the Eastern League in 2015, dominated again for a few weeks in 2016 before his promotion. Mike Yastrzemski (.809 at Bowie) earned a promotion but did nothing once he got to Norfolk. On the pitching side, reliever Donnie Hart got promoted to the Orioles and has been very effective in a LOOGY role. Jesus Liranzo got promoted from Delmarva to Bowie and pitched very well until the final day of the season when he allowed 3 ER and saw his ERA balloon to 3.38; still, he is someone to watch.

Frederick (68-72): The Keys were a .500ish club all year. 2015 top draft pick DJ Stewart got promoted midseason after putting up mediocre numbers in Delmarva, andresponded well, posting a .279/.389/.448 line. 24-year old Aderlin Rodriguez is probably not a prospect, but he had a great season, hitting .304/.359/.532. 23 year old catcher Yermin Mercedes dominated the Sally League and then posted a .318/.381/.542 line in 31 games at Frederick. Perhaps he'll be the DH for Bowie next year. Two starting pitchers dominated the Carolina League, John Means (1.80 ERA in 9 starts) and Matthew Grimes (1.45 ERA in 13 starts), but neither was impressive after being promoted to Bowie. Ryan Meisinger posted a 2.25 ERA after a promotion from Delmarva; Garrett Cleavinger was less impressive, posting a 4.82 ERA despite a very high strikeout rate.

Delmarva (73-66): The Shorebirds missed out on a first-half division title by a half-game due to a rainout, but fizzled in the second half of the season, perhaps missing Stewart, Meisinger and Cleavinger (and Mercedes over the final month). The final part of the season was highlighted by Randy Gassaway, who hit .330/.372/.511 over 50 games. Ryan Mountcastle faded down the stretch, but a .281/.319/.426 line isn't bad for a 19-year old playing full-season ball. Cedric Mullins (.273/.321/.464 with 30 steals) and Alex Murphy (.252/.335/.423) provided some pop. The real highlight of the Shorebirds was the rotation, featuring 20-year old Brian Gonzalez (147.2 IP, 2.50 ERA), 19-year old Ofelky Peralta (103.1 IP, 4.01 ERA), 21-year old Christian Alvarado (148 IP, 3.41 ERA). Cleavinger, Mesinger and Liranzo all dominated in relief before getting promoted.

Aberdeen (32-43): Offensively, the highlight easily was 3rd round pick Austin Hays, who posted a .336/.386/.514 line in 38 games despite missing several weeks with a wrist injury. Most of the interest was on the pitching side, featuring no. 1 pick Cody Sedlock (3.00 ERA, 1.07 ERA), no. 1 supplemental pick Keegan Akin (1.04 ERA, 0.85 WHIP featuring 6 consecutive 3-inning scoreless outings and 19-year old Australian signee Alex Wells (2.15 ERA, 0.91 WHIP). Lower picks Zack Muckenirm (2.43 ERA, 1.23 WHIP) and Cody Dube (2.54 ERA, 1.09 WHIP) also showed well.

GCL Orioles (27-32): I did a separate thread on them here: http://forum.orioleshangout.com/forums/showthread.php/154617-GCL-Orioles-Wrap?highlight=wrap

All in all -- ugh!

The pre-season rankings of 27 out of 30 seem spot on.

Even though the team records were on the poor side, I was pleased that they ended up with more prospects than I expected - though there aren't any great prospects. With some of the OF prospects, I wish they were just a year younger. And nice to see highly rated guys like Sisco and Stewart finish the season on a high note.

Grats to Delmarva for having a winning season. I'm expecting a lot of their players and (cross fingers) Hunter Harvey to make Frederick a big winner for the first half of next year - and Bowie will have to improve quite a bit next year. The disappointment to me was Chris Lee's injury not letting us see if his low SO numbers were a fluke.

I'm expecting a lot of their players and (cross fingers) Hunter Harvey to make Frederick a big winner for the first half of next year - and Bowie will have to improve quite a bit next year.

Hunter Harvey won't pitch in the first half of next year. Maybe he'll get a few innings in the second half.

The worst I can remember Norfolk and Bowie being under DD. That means the minor league depth really had bad seasons. Terdoslavich, Hoes, Avery were just simply not good. Combine that with the terrible SP in the upper minors and this is what you get.

I'd rather have the A ball teams be good and the upper level teams struggle because they are usually just filler. The only "real" prospects we had this year in AA-AAA were Gunkel, Lee, Mancini, Sisco and maybe Walker. We didn't get much contribution from the milb system this year. They ate a lot of innings. Wilson and Wright were pretty much bad overall. Hart is the only reliever that stayed on the island.

Anyone have any additional info in the Gassaway kid? Hadn't heard of him until he flashed on the screen as a player of the month today. Appears that he has been absolutely taking this last month of the season down at Delmarva. Is he a legit OF? Big kid, listed as OF/DH/1B on his reference page.

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Anyone have any additional info in the Gassaway kid? Hadn't heard of him until he flashed on the screen as a player of the month today. Appears that he has been absolutely taking this last month of the season down at Delmarva. Is he a legit OF? Big kid, listed as OF/DH/1B on his reference page.

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http://forum.orioleshangout.com/forums/showthread.php/154314-Shorebird-s-Randolph-Gassaway-Named-South-Atlantic-League-Player-of-the-Week

http://forum.orioleshangout.com/forums/showthread.php/154314-Shorebird-s-Randolph-Gassaway-Named-South-Atlantic-League-Player-of-the-Week

Thanks! Would be nice to get some more OF talent in the pipeline.

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I'm going to miss having MiL box scores to look at -- especially when the Orioles are losing.

I'm going to miss having MiL box scores to look at -- especially when the Orioles are losing.

Agree. A nice diversion during commercial breaks.

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I'm going to miss having MiL box scores to look at -- especially when the Orioles are losing.

I'm going to miss going to the games. I enjoy those a lot more than Camden Yards. Considering when you worked in the city during the riots, you tend to not want to be there a lot.

Some serious tatts! :clap3:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">My pal Louie from <a href="https://twitter.com/BowieBaysox">@BowieBaysox</a> and my little dude Camden. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Birdland?src=hash">#Birdland</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/OriolesFOTY2?src=hash">#OriolesFOTY2</a> <a href="https://t.co/bC7ZdTBqEn">pic.twitter.com/bC7ZdTBqEn</a></p>— Romeo (@RomeoBaltimore) <a href="

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">1 year ago today, the Baysox won the 2015 Eastern League Championship. That was a pretty cool time <a href="https://t.co/24Kr906OaX">pic.twitter.com/24Kr906OaX</a></p>— Bowie Baysox (@BowieBaysox) <a href="https://twitter.com/BowieBaysox/status/777886138514173952">September 19, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Time to clean house this offseason, from Graham, Peterson, right down the line. We border on the Syd Thrift years. Disgusting.

All this winning at the MLB level is making it tough to be a minor league fan! They never replenish the pool!

All this winning at the MLB level is making it tough to be a minor league fan! They never replenish the pool!

It should be possible to have a contending major league team and a productive farm system simultaneously. Obviously when you draft low due to a successful major league performance, lose picks by signing free agents and trade away some younger talent/competitive balance picks for established talent, the talent in the farm system will thin out. But we are really lacking in MiL talent at the moment.

It should be possible to have a contending major league team and a productive farm system simultaneously. Obviously when you draft low due to a successful major league performance, lose picks by signing free agents and trade away some younger talent/competitive balance picks for established talent, the talent in the farm system will thin out. But we are really lacking in MiL talent at the moment.

On the bright side the three first round picks in last year's draft are going to help a ton.