MASN: Steve Meleswski with Brian Graham - We are absolutely one of the premier development systems

[Aristotelian]

I wouldn't pay attention to year-to-year rankings. The question is whether we are able to maintain competitive baseball based on home-grown talent for 5-10 years at a time. Look at the Cardinals, Rays, A's. We aren't there yet but we are getting in the conversation.

I would give us an A for pitching in recent years (Gausman, Britton, Miguel, Chen, Hunter, etc. with the potential of Bundy, Harvey, and others; arguably you can count Tillman and O'Day, although they were really developed elsewhere). I really like what the organization is doing with time-to-the-plate. Huge difference for Tillman, so maybe he does count.

However, I would give us about a C for position players. Manny is a stud, Wieters is OK, but we don't really have anyone after Schoop, and he is looking like a possible bust. (AJ, Pearce, and CD don't really count). I don't really see what we are doing in terms of development. OBP is a major problem and our developed guys hitting approaches are all over the place.

Got a couple of draft picks this year. It will be very interesting to see how they pan out in 3-4 years.

[Mayor McCheese]

We developed Jones and Tillman. We developed several pitchers that have had value to other teams. You are talking about developing position players. Which we only recently started drafting again.

I don't think you can say we truely developed Jones. He was drafted in 2003 by SEA and played 3-4 years in their farm system before making it to the Majors in 2006.

He was traded here in 2008 and played FT with the Orioles.

I think we have developed a lot of good arms over the past 3-5 years. Besides Wieters and Machado, no real fielding prospects although I do think it is improving with Schoop, Walker, Alvarez, Cisco, etc.

bad developed prospects - LJ Hoes, Xavier Avery, Urrutia, etc.

[Ohfan67]

We developed Jones and Tillman. We developed several pitchers that have had value to other teams. You are talking about developing position players. Which we only recently started drafting again.

I actually gave them credit for Tillman in my count. Jones, to my knowledge, never played a game in the Orioles minor league system. He was a major leaguer when he arrived and has performed as expected. The O's minor league system should get zero credit for Jones. I know you don't like to do research Weams, but you should put down the glass of orange cool aid every know and then. (just giving you grief!)

[Ohfan67]

The minor league system and the major league coaches should get a lot of credit for helping cast offs from other teams get closer to reaching their potential. If that's included as part of development, then the O's numbers/contributors look much better.

[weams]

I actually gave them credit for Tillman in my count. Jones, to my knowledge, never played a game in the Orioles minor league system. He was a major leaguer when he arrived and has performed as expected. The O's minor league system should get zero credit for Jones. I know you don't like to do research Weams, but you should put down the glass of orange cool aid every know and then. (just giving you grief!)

I have lots of folks that are better researchers than myself to rely upon. I am not a baseball researcher. You are right about Jones. I was not a big fan of Joe Jordan's draft depth. I do like that we have accumulated enough arms to impress other teams five times that I recall recently.

[weams]

I don't think you can say we truely developed Jones. He was drafted in 2003 by SEA and played 3-4 years in their farm system before making it to the Majors in 2006.

He was traded here in 2008 and played FT with the Orioles.

I think we have developed a lot of good arms over the past 3-5 years. Besides Wieters and Machado, no real fielding prospects although I do think it is improving with Schoop, Walker, Alvarez, Cisco, etc.

bad developed prospects - LJ Hoes, Xavier Avery, Urrutia, etc.

You are right. regarding Jones. Hoes, Avery, Darnell McDonald, Kyle Hudson, Buck Britton, Matt Angle, Joe Mahoney, Robby Widlansky...they really are not the types of players that you should expect anything to develop from. Other than the cup of coffee that a couple of them got.

[Mayor McCheese]

You are right. regarding Jones. Hoes, Avery, Darnell McDonald, Kyle Hudson, Buck Britton, Matt Angle, Joe Mahoney, Robby Widlansky...they really are not the types of players that you should expect anything to develop from. Other than the cup of coffee that a couple of them got.

I agree. I was shocked when Houston saw Hoes as an everday player. Now hes pretty much pushed back down to the minors.

I think the Orioles could be one of the top farm systems in the next 3-4 years. Since we pretty much have a solid core at the MLB level who really cares if we are middle of the pack right now. It's going to be exciting over the years to come down on farm.

[weams]

I agree. I was shocked when Houston saw Hoes as an everday player. Now hes pretty much pushed back down to the minors.

I think the Orioles could be one of the top farm systems in the next 3-4 years. Since we pretty much have a solid core at the MLB level who really cares if we are middle of the pack right now. It's going to be exciting over the years to come down on farm.

Houston has made a whole lot of miscalculations. A lot.

[weams]

I agree. I was shocked when Houston saw Hoes as an everday player. Now hes pretty much pushed back down to the minors.

I think the Orioles could be one of the top farm systems in the next 3-4 years. Since we pretty much have a solid core at the MLB level who really cares if we are middle of the pack right now. It's going to be exciting over the years to come down on farm.

They got enamoured with his OBP numbers in the minors. He never defended well enough, or had enough power to compete in the MLB at an outfield position. Once he washed out as a second baseman the bloom was off that rose.

[Crazysilver03]

I don't think you can say we truely developed Jones. He was drafted in 2003 by SEA and played 3-4 years in their farm system before making it to the Majors in 2006.

He was traded here in 2008 and played FT with the Orioles.

I think we have developed a lot of good arms over the past 3-5 years. Besides Wieters and Machado, no real fielding prospects although I do think it is improving with Schoop, Walker, Alvarez, Cisco, etc.

bad developed prospects - LJ Hoes, Xavier Avery, Urrutia, etc.

Xavier Avery was always going to be hard to develop and it didnt work. Hoes developed into what he was projected to be, a 4th OF with a good OBP but no power.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[weams]

Henry was always too old to be developed. He will be what he can be. And he still may be of 700K worth of value.

[Frobby]

Brian Graham has a good reputation and I am glad he is proud of the organization of which he is an important part. However, he is not exactly an unbiased judge of the quality of the Orioles' development system, is he? He may be right, but I wouldn't accept his evaluation (especially as slanted for media consumption) as the definitive word on the subject.

[wildcard]

Its a lot easier to draft and develop impact players when a team has a bad major league club and is drafting in the top 10 like the O's did with Wieters, Machado, Gausman and Bundy. Its been a lot harder when the major league team is winning like the O's have that last three years and they are drafting near the bottom of the draft. Its even harder when the O's sign Cruz and Jimenez as free agents and lose their top two picks like that did last year.

The O's have to be creative under these circumstances and the O's are pretty creative.

[purple@orange]

The farm system's improved from the days of Sidney Ponson, Luis Matos, and Hayden Penn, but to say the O's draft and develop extremely well is at the very least a stretch. They haven't drafted and developed a legit power hitter/impact position player in over 30 years. That's beyond embarrassing

[MurphDogg]

The farm system's improved from the days of Sidney Ponson, Luis Matos, and Hayden Penn, but to say the O's draft and develop extremely well is at the very least a stretch. They haven't drafted and developed a legit power hitter/impact position player in over 30 years. That's beyond embarrassing

To be a baseball fan that doesn't consider Brian Roberts, Manny Machado, Matt Wieters, and Nick Markakis impact position players is beyond embarrassing.