Tony-OH

He's 21 years old, not 19. This would have been his junior draft year so the way to look at is he's going to have over 900 professional PAs before he would have been drafted. Who knows how he would have done in college, but he's definitely gotten more development time than he would have had he gone to college. Looking at his skill set, I'd guess he would have ended up 3-5th round pick this year with teams hoping his power and good arm would translate at the pro level. All in all, he got more money to sign out of high school and now has more developmental PAs. He made the right choice to sign. He's still a prospect.

He's been struggling the last 30 days slashing just .167/.319/.247/.566 with 19K and 6 BB over 82 PAs. He's hit just two homers over this span. Watching him, he's struggling with breaking balls and offspeed and looks pretty non competitive against lefties for the most part. There's talent in there, but he's going to need more time at High-A before being considered for promotion.

Yeah, I was trying to get him on the top 30, but I just couldn't fund a guy to drop off and I needed to add in Emilio Sanchez. He's on the cusp, but he also needs a real position. I'm not convinced he can stick on the dirt, but if he does, it will be at 2B.

Huh?

The book is far from written on Bradfield. He just may take more time than anyone had hoped when he was drafted.

Updated thru yesterday. Added in the DSL players to keep an eye on.

Am I the only one that it bothers when Orioles announcers call the team Baltimore instead of the Orioles? Brett Hollander, who is a Baltimore guy and actually an announcer I enjoy listening to, is the main offender though I've heard others occasionally do it as well, though much less. It makes them sound like the other team's announcers or a generic National announcer. I just don't get it. "Our" announcers should be calling the team the Orioles. I mean, if someone asks you what's your favorite baseball team, do you say Baltimore? Have you ever asked your friends, "How about that Baltimore game last night?" Have you ever asked another Orioles fan what the score of the Baltimore game? Nope. We call them the Orioles and I'm not sure why Hollander insists on calling them Baltimore vs the Orioles more times than not. He's from here and I know he's an Orioles fan. I've met Brett and he had me on his show back when he was doing Orioles talk on WBAL. I like the guy, and I know he's a knowledgeable Orioles fan so I just don't get it. On top of it, I know he knows he's announcing the game for Orioles fans and not a national audience. And probably the most frustrating thing is I really enjoy his game calling, but every time I hear him say Baltimore, it makes me cringe. Am I alone here?

Just be clear, because I don't like this does not mean I'm throwing vitriol towards him. Saying that, he could have blocked this deal or made them change the colors to better match the unis and could have been a hero. Instead, here we are.

The on field product is everything we always wanted. A mostly drafted and developed team of young good/great players. From the human side, its nice to see guys who have "developed" together get to enjoy their success at the major league level together. It's also nice that they all seem like legitimately good dudes. Elias clearly puts an emphasis on drafting/acquiring high quality young men on and off the field.

Damn man, that was EXACTLY what I thought when I read Roy's take. Roy must've thought he was still in the game thread.

Actually, that patch absolutely belongs on the city connect jersey, because those are just a money grap to entice fans to buy another jersey, no matter how ugly.

Ha, no! I'm having a case of "Stop messing with my favorite sport's team unis for a few extra dollars!" Like I said, I'm not going to stop watching because of it, but it's fugly and honestly, it's just greedy.

100%. It's only a matter of time before the Summer's Eve Douche Stadium at Camden will be announced! then people will be like, "At least they kept Camden in there!:" More bread for the masses....

Say what you want about Peter Angelos, he did the fans right in keeping the stadium name and unis classy. Maybe if the ad was at least with a black or orange background instead of the abhorrent teal it wouldn't be so bad, but that's just embarrassing. Looking at the others that Malike posted, a few teams at least matched the color scheme. So to afford and watch your favorite team now, you have to be inundated with betting ads, have to endure non color matched ads on jerseys, and of course buy ten different streaming services besides our $200+ cable bill. Don't forget ads on the back of the mounds, behind home plate, on the fences in some parks and of course the 8th inning walk by Joe's orthopedics, where you too can walk to first base with your brand new $500 orthopedic insoles.

Agreed on all, and that's what bugs me. It's silly for anyone to think this is going to help them keep players. It's not. There's no way it's enough money to suddenly allow the Orioles to extend Gunnar or whoever. If it was a significantly amount of money that was obviously going to be going into keeping players, then sure, it's tacky and sucks, but I'd rather have a tacky, sucky blue advertising spot on their beautiful black and orange unis then lose Gunnar. But no way this is enough money to make that difference. Meanwhile the taxpayers who going to drop what, $600 million more into stadium upgrades? Plus, the optics of this being the first thing that changed under Rubenstein is not good either. But I'm sure he'll throw some more hats out and like the Romans who got their bread, they'll cheer their new Caesar. Personally, I'm just deeply disappointed in Rubenstein. I mistakenly thought having a billionaire as an owner would stop this Nickle and dime stuff. I was clearly wrong. It's not that I thought he was an everyday guy, but I did think this is the exact kind of cheap BS that John Angelos would do but Rubenstein would not allow. Guess a few more piles of cash in the money bath is worth having his fans look at that fugly blue patch that doesn't match the orange and black unis at all.

Exactly. This was an Angelos-type penny pinching move. I'm disappointed that Rubenstein allowed this to happen. In his first real move he monetized his players sleeves and made them go shill for the another multi-billion company in pictures that were embarrassingly shared by the team's twitter account. The faces of Gunnar and Rutschman tells it all. They look like hostage pics.

Adding a giant blue circular patch on the Orioles great uni's is tacky, gross, and pretty embarrassing. Imagine being a multi-billion company company that has to start chilling for other multi-billion companies to make "ends meet?" This reminds my of the foreign leagues. Is it going to make me stop going or watching games, no. Is it an embarrassing first step for the new owner, yep. Mucking up your unis of your team for a few extra million dollars when you're a Billionaire who now owns another company with more than a Billion is pretty sad. Mark me as down as one who is disappointed in Rubenstein for allowing this to be his first real change to the organization. Maybe this gives us some real indication that while he may be a guy who going to do commercials, and throw hats to the fans like Ceasar had bread thrown to the crowd for cheers, he's also going to be a guy who will maximize his profits no matter what. For a team that has a low payroll and is one of the most profitable teams in baseball, I don't see how this changes anything other than makes them look like a Little League team. Too bad Chico Bail Bonds wasn't able to afford to be the sponsors.

That's a good analogy of the situation.

Aberdeen added a nice center field camera but their cuts to the action can leave a lot to be desired. But the whole league is pretty weak in that regard. Etzel is not a punch and judy hitter and can get into one once in awhile, but I think scouts just expect more power for his size. I like him overall, and I realize many previous hitter's power numbers were not great in Aberdeen, so let's see how he looks in Bowie and the Eastern league's friendly confines.

He's been "stepping in the bucket" hitting his whole career, but what he was able to do against lower level pitching was keep his hands back and at least line the ball into left field for singles on outside pitches. Perhaps the quality of the pitching at the higher levels does not make that as feasible. I'm not a hitting mechanics experts, but I do know once it gets around how to get you out, you have to make the adjustments. He had not really failed for an extended amount of time (besides that stretch at Aberdeen) so perhaps some of this failure will encourage some adjustments.

Nice recap. It seems like he needs to start focusing on hitting those outside pitches to left field but maybe has decided that he can't do damage on them so he's waiting on more middle-in. The problem is if he doesn't show the ability to hurt pitchers throwing him away, that's all he's going to see in the big leagues. As he gets stronger, he'll be able to drive the ball more to the opposite field and that should help. If not, he's going to have to be willing to take that single to leftfield until he does it so well, they're going to have to start pitching him elsewhere.

While true, it does not mean quality stuff does not get major league hitters to chase, and McDermott's two breaking balls are quality major league offerings. I share the concerns about uncompetitive pitches, but McDermott does throw enough pitches in the zone and has the quality of the breaking balls to at least work in relief in my opinion. Now ill it work as a starter, I just don't know yet. I do think he could be an asset in the pen this year though. Maybe not in high leverage right now, but I'd put him in that two inning 5th or 6th inning role and see how he looks for a bit.

Defense is a lot harder to judge but Bradfield definitely is more rangier for me in my "limited looks due to bad broadcasts." I do think Etzel is good out there and I'm not saying he can't handle center, but Bradfield just makes those Wow plays. I'm going to look harder at his defense with the better broadcasts in AA. Saying all that, Etzel is doing EXACTLY what we had hoped Bradfield would do. Now it's way too early to declare Etzel a better prospects than Bradfield, but I'm not discarding the idea either. All things considered, Etzel has definitely been the better pro so far. Let's see how he handles the jump to AA. That should give us a better indicator.

He never went on the IL but they may not have needed the space. He clearly was on concussion protocol after not pitching for 16 days. Very well may have been rusty, but like you said, good to see him back on the mound.

Etzel is no where near the same as Bradfield defensively nor with top end speed. While Etzel is an effective defensive outfielder, he doesn't have nearly the range that Bradfield has nor does he have that elite top end speed. Etzel is fast and is also a very good base stealer, and clearly his bat is ahead of Bradfield. Heck, he may end up a better player than Bradfield overall when it's all said and done, but the fact that Etzel has been moved in to play some 1B at times gives you some indications about his defense in the outfield. Saying that, I hope to get better video of his jumps and routes in AA where the broadcasts are typically better than the Sally League.