Tony-OH

They are not bringing Stowers up until there are everyday PAs available for him. The annual Santander injury will probably be the key.

They may not have a choice unless they add an infielder to the roster. They absolutely should play him everywhere. His oath to the majors will be as a utility guy.

I don't always agree with him either and I know he has his established views, but when I agree with him, I agree with him just like if I agree with anyone else.

You know Bowie is short on outfielders when Davis Taveras and Cespedes are playing in AA. Neither are good A-ball outfielders.

You have to accept that some fans are just that, fans. They are are always going to think their team is doing things the right way no matter what. I give them the facts and let them then make their excuses. lol

Updated as of June 6th. Some newcomers... FCL and DSL playes will be eligible next week so expect some guys to drop off.

Absolutely. Hopefully the org will realize this as they move forward!

Basically it sounds like he's saying diplomatically that the Orioles hitting philosophy screwed him up and he's trying to go back to what made him successful. In his last 10 games he's got a 10-6 BB-k ratio but is batting just .192 with only three extra base hits.

True, but you need to be a special hitter to have that ability. If it were as easy as Williams' made it out to be, everyone would hit like him. There's nothing wrong with making good swing decisions but sometimes i think these guys take too many hittable pitches thinking there will be that mash pitch later. As players move up, those mash pitches become less and less so sometime, depending on the situation, a hitter needs to be aggressive. I think what we're seeing is an approach that is telling hitters it's ok to wait for that perfect pitch to do damage on when there may be several hittable but not perfect pitches that were not swung at. We'll see what happens when they arrive, but Rutschman is the best of the bunch with this approach and he's exactly lit up the major leagues yet.

Huh? He was promoted today along with Westburg to AAA.

Martin, Nevin, Bannon, Owings, and Gutierrez are all AAA players. Martin at least brings some speed to the utility job. honestly, you can throw Grenier in there as well since he brings above average defense at 2B and average defense at SS.

Weird roster additions to the FCL roster: Dax Stubbs made the FCL team after slashing .079/.294/.079/.373 last year as an 18-year old in the DSL. Yonatan Pineda made the team despite a 10.57 and walking 23 in 15.1 IP in the DSL last year. He's 20 years old now.

Well his .202/.312/.353/.665 was not exactly eye opening last year but then again, neither was Maikol Hernández's .231/.340/.308/.647 but he's in Florida. Junior Lara and Angel Tejada are on the roster but didn't make the opening day roster over two repeats in Gonzalez and Acevedo.

You can never read too much into where players play in their debuts since the Orioles love to move guys around like blackjack dealer moves cards, but the only surprise in the FCL opening day lineup with Anderson De Los Santos starting at DH while Rolphie Cruz played 3B. I would have figured De los Santos would have been the priority play at 3B. I'm sure he will have some playing time there but just a little surprise as you would think the better prospect would get the opening day gig.

Both have been hitting really good over the last three weeks and there's no one playing Norfolk that is a priority play at SS and 3B. This allows Ortiz to play everyday at SS and Prieto at 2B in Bowie. The question is who will now play 3B there. Mayo has not earned a promotion to Bowie so they may just stick an org guy like Cullen or Graffinino to play there or I guess they could send Dorrien back since he pretty much failed AAA.

Just saw him yesterday and that's the best I've seen him. He was 93-96 on the fastball with a lot of 94-95. His curveball was an out pitch for him at times. He'll roll it occasionally but he was getting good late break. His slider wasn't very good, but he did throw a good one a few times. He showed me a workable change. I'd like to see him work on it more because if he can throw that effectively to left-handers he starts looking like he can be a starter. So right now he's got an average major league fastball, a curveball that flashes plus, and a slider and change that need work but he has a bot of a feel for them. Basically he's got starter's potential. I'm not going to lie, his stuff plays a lot better than Drew Rom's who started.

The only thing I know about the Orioles "training" methods is that they certainly haven't found some holy grail for keeping players on the field. The minor league system has seen many, many players on the IL and so many pitchers on the IL that it's hard for them to piece together decent level appropriate staffs at times. Sure, players get hurt and the Orioles organization is no different, but this organization has certainly had their share and then some.

The sad parts are they are trying to be sarcastic, but as we've seen, the sarcasm has been more right than wrong unfortunately.

I really think they were trying to get him to avoid Super-2 status. They've been super careful with their top two pitching prospects with pitch counts and innings and both have now ended up on the IL for serious time. I'm not saying they caused either injury, but I am agreeing with you that their process for developing pitchers at an extremely careful rate has shown no ability to keep pitchers any healthier.

He's listed on the 7-day IL.

I have no inside information but i said that I've read that Jones seems to be the BPA in this draft. I honestly have no idea. I don't spend time scouting guys until they are in the system.

The end of the Jones saga showed that the Alex Cobb trade was nothing but a pure salary dump. Considering the returns for valuable BP arms like Richard Bleier and Miguel Castro, it appeared that losing games and dropping arbitration eligible players were more important than the returns. I've got to tell myself that because the alternative is that Elias/Sig can not identify potential useful major league players while they are minor league talent. So far Kyle Bradish (part of the return for Bundy) looks like the only player of significance acquired in Elias trades and the jury is out on what role he will have on a contending team. The jury is out on Vavra still, but he can't stay healthy.

Lol, that's all it takes for some people to get pumped up. Good bless them. I've never been that kind of fan though. I was the 12 year old kid who yelled at John Lowenstein from the upper deck of Memorial Stadium in the final series of 1982 against the Brewers when he misplayed a fly ball in game one of the Friday night doubleheader!

Our message board historian gives another lesson!

Obviously it's going to always be a smaller sample size because f there being less lefties, but it's been consistent for him to struggle against them as a pro.