Orioles Acquire Miguel Castro Designate Gunkel

[millertime]

Uhhhh...an I the only one who thinks he looks like rapper 50 Cent???  Lol.

[Frobby]

11 hours ago, wildcard said:

But was not put through waivers. Traded instead.

But DFA alerts Dan that the player is available.   He doesn't need to wait for the Rockies to call.  

[1968_bills_fan]

You gotta roll the dice.  To put this in perspective consider these activities in another way.   We have gotten less than other teams from the draft, for some reason.  These buy-cheap guys are sort of like we are drafting guys in the 4th to 12th round who got by the first two years of professional ball-  so they are the 20% survivors of one or two years of drafts of the 4 -12 picks. We haven't had to pay their bonuses or the bonuses and salaries of the guys who didn't make it that far-  so we win with the cash consideration.   They were on some sort of trajectory to AAA or AAAA or the bigs, but ran into some problem.  If the coaches could find a fix with some tinkiering, we may get 3 out of 10 guys who can help us.  Nearly for free.   DO IT.  Remember that guy who is pitching for the Cubs?  

[Moondoggie]

A couple of interesting things I came across. John Sickels wrote this in spring 2015 in his Baseball Prospect Retrospective:

Quote

His velocity increased last year, up to 99 MPH at times. He also made big progress with his change-up but still needs polish on his slider, not an unusual problem for pitchers his age of course. He dominated older competition in the Northwest League last summer, then continued to pitch well in a handful of late starts at both full-season A-ball levels. As always, we need to see how he holds up under a full workload, but Castro has the upside of a number two starter. Grade B-, with more possible.

The Globe and Mail filed this story from spring training that year:

Miguel Castro is hard to miss at Blue Jays spring training

[sportsfan8703]

Seems like a guy that was rushed way too fast. Great arm. Good change up. This guy could be a weapon by the end of the year. We really have a nice stable of relievers in AAA. 

Realistically Gunkel should have never been on the 40 man, but when you have no prospects you can't take a chance of losing a guy in the Rule 5. 

Guys on the bottom of the 40 man have to be scared. 

40. Drake (just because he has no options)

39.  Bleier 

38. Bridwell

[Moondoggie]

52 minutes ago, sportsfan8703 said:

Seems like a guy that was rushed way too fast. Great arm. Good change up. This guy could be a weapon by the end of the year. We really have a nice stable of relievers in AAA. 

Realistically Gunkel should have never been on the 40 man, but when you have no prospects you can't take a chance of losing a guy in the Rule 5. 

Guys on the bottom of the 40 man have to be scared. 

40. Drake (just because he has no options)

39.  Bleier 

38. Bridwell

Do the Orioles consider him a reliever? He had always been a rotation prospect coming through the minors (Sickel said two years ago his upside was a No. 2 starter). I would think that at 22 the Orioles would look at him as a future rotation option first.

[FanSince88]

18 hours ago, weams said:

http://www.purplerow.com/2016/1/25/10821706/colorado-rockies-prospect-miguel-castro-mlb-news-prospects-rankings-reliever

http://bsndenver.com/colorado-rockies-top-25-under-25-no-16-miguel-castro/

Seems like we'd be an ideal fit for him then.  With our strong ML bullpen, there's no reason to rush him to the big leagues.  He'll be able to take his time in AA/AAA and work on his control for a year or two  without being rushed.  

[thezeroes]

4 minutes ago, FanSince88 said:

Seems like we'd be an ideal fit for him then.  With our strong ML bullpen, there's no reason to rush him to the big leagues.  He'll be able to take his time in AA/AAA and work on his control for a year or two  without being rushed.  

He has only this year to work on things and then he will have ZERO Options. He was optioned in 2015 and 2016 so that leaves this year and that was already used.

http://m.orioles.mlb.com/player/612434/miguel-castro

[FanSince88]

2 minutes ago, thezeroes said:

He has only this year to work on things and then he will have ZERO Options. He was optioned in 2015 and 2016 so that leaves this year and that was already used.

http://m.orioles.mlb.com/player/612434/miguel-castro

Ok, so he has a year.  I'm ok if he stays in the minors until September to hone his skills, unless we have a deep need for BP help due to an injury.  Hopefully by next spring he will have better command and maybe develop some good secondary pitches.

[Ruzious]

Gotta give credit to Dan when it's due - he is good at making these types of moves.    

[Cumberbundy]

That's just high quality duqin. Sometimes when you Duq you end up duqin yourself, but I like the looks of this one.

 

 

[wildcard]

26 minutes ago, birdwatcher55 said:

Any word on our talks with Red Sox on our other Rule 5 guy. Last I heard we exchanged names.

Dan decided that what the Red Sox wanted for him was too much.  Dan thinks Cedric Mullins is the same type of player and may be better.  So the O's don't want to give up too much for Tavarez.

[Cumberbundy]

7 minutes ago, wildcard said:

Dan decided that what the Red Sox wanted for him was too much.  Dan thinks Cedric Mullins is the same type of player and may be better.  So the O's don't want to give up too much for Tavarez.

The only thing better than Cedric Mullins is 2 Cedric mullinseses.

 

[weams]

1 hour ago, birdwatcher55 said:

Any word on our talks with Red Sox on our other Rule 5 guy. Last I heard we exchanged names.

CNX. Not. 

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, wildcard said:

Dan decided that what the Red Sox wanted for him was too much.  Dan thinks Cedric Mullins is the same type of player and may be better.  So the O's don't want to give up too much for Tavarez.

That's what Dan said for public consumption, anyway.