Jump to content

Baltimore drafted Seattle QB Russell Wilson in 2007


Recommended Posts

Maybe I'm the last person to know this.

I was perusing 2013 projections from Steamer, as offered on Fangraphs. They have a player named "Russell Wilson" as putting up 322PA and a slashline of .191/.247/.273 in the 2013 MLB season. It didn't have a team next to his name, but I assumed he was some hot shot prospect from another team looking to break out this year. I looked up who it was.

It wasn't simply a person who happens to have the same name as the Seahawk's breakout star QB; it IS him. Someone was having a little fun over at Steamer, projecting his MLB stats this year, had he stuck with baseball.

His Baseball-Reference link on google had blurb about him being drafted by the Orioles. I did a double take; "No way", I thought. Why didn't I know or remember that? I follow the drafts and the minor leagues pretty close ... but there it is:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=wilson001rus

So I went to the QB's wikipedia... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Wilson ... and confirmed it. We took him with the 41st pick. In the same draft we picked Matt Wieters, Jake Arrieta, Joe Mahoney, Matt Angle and Tim Bascom with the first five picks. None of the other picks panned out.

Says here we drafted him and he decided to go to NC State instead. The Rockies drafted him in 2010 and he played a few games for them in 2011. He told them he wouldn't be coming back for 2012. The rest is, as they say, history.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I believe a more accurate statement would be: "In the same draft we picked Matt Wieters. None of the other picks panned out."

I guess I was thinking more along the lines of Mahoney and Angle at least played in the majors, and Bascom isn't a complete lost cause yet. If enough stuff were to go down, Bascom would be in line to come up if his numbers were good.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I guess I was thinking more along the lines of Mahoney and Angle at least played in the majors, and Bascom isn't a complete lost cause yet. If enough stuff were to go down, Bascom would be in line to come up if his numbers were good.

I believe, at minimum, the following pitchers will either be on the Orioles' major league staff or ahead of Bascom in the pipeline....

Jason Hammel

Wei-Yin Chen

Chris Tillman

Miguel Gonzalez

Jim Johnson

Darren O'Day

Troy Patton

Brian Matusz

Luis Ayala

Pedro Strop

Dylan Bundy

Tsuyoshi Wada

T.J. McFarland

Tommy Hunter

Steve Johnson

Zach Britton

Jake Arrieta

Kevin Gausman

Mark Hendrickson

Zack Clark

Joel Pineiro

Mike Belfiore

Mike Wright

Todd Redmond

So a callup for Bascom would likely be more indicative of many, many superior options failing than him 'panning out'.

Don't mean to bust your balls, and I realize the main point of your post wasn't to suggest 2007 was a good draft for the Orioles. However, over 1,500 players appear in the majors each season. An 0-4 callup, 6.20 ERA pitching, or .177 hitting doesn't make a whole lot of difference from an AAA'er. Being called up as roster filler is more often about being at the right place at the right time than distinguishing yourself from AAA teammates.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Posts

    • Most quality major league starter's hold their velocity throughout their starts. They may cruise for a bit, but have it when they want it. Typically command goes long before velocity.
    • Do we not want to throw a left hander and take advantage of the spacious left field?
    • Thank goodness a minor league system is not judged on wins and losses, because they are putting many Ws up of late. Delmarva is pretty much an embarrassment right now from the hitting side. The first real wave of international position prospects have been left wanting after the first month or so of the season. The Shorebirds are scoring a league low 2.29 runs per game and slashing a league worse .182/.259/.263/.523. The Tides pitching outside of Povich and McDermott to a lesser extent has been pretty bad minus a few decent relieves in Vespi, Krook and Charles.  Elias/Sig's thought on being able to identify pitching talent through pitch shapes and spin rates through the draft after the 10th round has been a pretty big failure. Armbruster was the flag ship pitcher and he's been a flop this year so far, though I had already seen major red flags from him last year. Not surprisingly these guys struggle at the high levels and why they were available that late. Glad to see Elias made a change in his draft philosophy last year and went after some younger, higher ceiling guys like Forret vs 21-year old juniors in those later rounds.   
    • Akin currently has a FIP of 1.11. He’s struck out 15 and walked 3 in 10 innings without yielding a homer.  I consider that well.
    • There are several advantages to a head first slide.    With a head first slide, the mass of your body (torso) is lunging forward, not pulling backward - you get to the bag quicker. When you tuck a leg to slide, your foot tends to raise up and not hit the front of the bag, whereas, with your hand you can hit the front of the bag and maintain contact with it. You can adjust the direction of your slide going head first and even switch which arm you extend to touch the bag (swim move) to avoid a tag.  Both can have their place.  I was taught to slide with the right leg tucked going into second base.  That way, your face/chest/crotch are not exposed to the throw from the catcher if the fielder misses the throw, and you're facing the outfield and can find the ball easier if there is an errant throw so you can decide quicker if you can take another base. 
    • Briefly, here is the method I use with a DirecTV DVR for all sorts of timing in football analysis: 1. From a recording on your DVR, hit pause at some point shortly before the ball is released by the pitcher 2. While still on pause, use the FF button to advance the video 1 "frame" at a time.  On 1080i, the screen is redrawn 30 times per second, so each click is 1/30th of a second.  On 720p or 1080p, it's 60 frames per second.  So timing should be accurate to either 1/30th (0.033) or 1/60th (0.017) of a second 3. Advance the video to the point of contact--It is easy to go forward, but difficult to go backward, so you need to advance slowly to fin the closest point 4. From that point, count the number of FF clicks until Gunnar hits 3rd base, you should actually be able to see the image move with each click, so it's easier to count these than you might think 5. Divide clicks counted by 30 to get seconds for the event.  For example, if you get 322 clicks, it's 10 and 22/30 seconds (10.73 sec).  This assumes the MASN broadcast is in 1080i. I've been using this method for more than 15 years and you can confirm calibration with an NFL game where the clock is on the screen.  Since you don't have that in baseball, you just have to know whether it's 30 or 60 clicks per second and you'll know that by whether it's an 11 or 22-second triple.
    • Wait, Drungo isn't allowed to make jokes? I thought that post was hilarious given the context. I think better of him for it, though I've always thought highly of him.
  • Popular Contributors

×
×
  • Create New...