My first Minor League prospect report from 1996

[Tony-OH]

I may have come a little way.  

But it was fun to go back and read some names I haven't thought about in a long time! 

Looks like I didn't do a top prospects list per se, but more of a "minor league organizational report."

At least I liked Sidney Ponson!  

Just a note. I was a Warrant Officer at Fort Bragg when I wrote this with no contacts whatsoever. All the "analysis" was off of what I read or statistical analysis.

https://web.archive.org/web/19990202231502/http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/8533/organ.htm

 

[btdart20]

4 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

I may have come a little way.  

But it was fun to go back and read some names I haven't thought about in a long time! 

Looks like I didn't do a top prospects list per se, but more of a "minor league organizational report."

At least I liked Sidney Ponson!  

Just a note. I was a Warrant Officer at Fort Bragg when I wrote this with no contacts whatsoever. All the "analysis" was off of what I read or statistical analysis.

https://web.archive.org/web/19990202231502/http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/8533/organ.htm

 

Closing in on 30 years!  

That’s an ugly pipeline.  Glad you at least liked Ponson.  Slim pickings otherwise.

[RZNJ]

I thought Calvin Pickering was the real deal.  Tommy Davis?  I forgot about him.  We must have drafted Mark Smith around that time too.  Always lots of hope with no payoff.

[Just Regular]

I got to meet Billy Owens at the Arizona Fall League this year - he's still scouting.

9.19.1998 - Pickering hit his first career HR off David Cone as the O's dealt the '98 Yankees one of their few losses.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BAL/BAL199809190.shtml

I remember going on to buddies he was the next big thing, and this was a game we'd remember.     Turned out it was, not that it was something you knew that day....it was the last game of The Streak.

I either never knew or didn't remember Ryan Minor was a basketball player.

[Tony-OH]

19 minutes ago, btdart20 said:

Closing in on 30 years!  

That’s an ugly pipeline.  Glad you at least liked Ponson.  Slim pickings otherwise.

Damn, that does seem like a long time ago now that you say it like that. A whole lifetime ago for sure.

I love the way back machine. Always cool to go back in time and see the amount of time and effort I was putting in back then to start this thing up. 

This is the first snapshot of the site from 1999. Some of the links still work.

https://web.archive.org/web/19990427141640/http://www.orioleshangout.com/

 

[Frobby]

Great stuff!  Man our farm system was barren in ‘96.   

[cnmilton]

Tony, how many years was the Orioles system barren like in 1996?  Outside of Sidney Ponson, there doesn't appear to be any every day players anywhere on this list. No wonder the Os were a train wreck for so long

[RZNJ]

14 minutes ago, cnmilton said:

Tony, how many years was the Orioles system barren like in 1996?  Outside of Sidney Ponson, there doesn't appear to be any every day players anywhere on this list. No wonder the Os were a train wreck for so long

Click on this link if you don’t mind crying.  A history of Oriole 1st round draft picks.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/draft/?team_ID=BAL&draft_type=junreg&query_type=franch_round

[btdart20]

18 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

Click on this link if you don’t mind crying.  A history of Oriole 1st round draft picks.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/draft/?team_ID=BAL&draft_type=junreg&query_type=franch_round

I wonder if a roulette wheel with names would have produced better results.

[Prayin4Reign]

Mike Berry put up some numbers that year!  I can't say I remember him though.  Aside from Ponson, I remember Nerio Rodriguez and Chris Fussell.  I think Fussell was pretty heralded, but nothing happened there.  Injuries?  Man....that was a pretty barren system.  Pat Gillick years.  

[86this]

On 12/4/2023 at 3:35 PM, btdart20 said:

Closing in on 30 years!  

That’s an ugly pipeline.  Glad you at least liked Ponson.  Slim pickings otherwise.

Some of these guys were hardly "slim".  LOL

Definitely not like today's organization's talent pipeline, that's for sure.

[yark14]

Thanks for sharing.  I was 9 at the time. Grew up in very rural Iowa, but I had a great uncle that lived in Baltimore that would mail me game programs, copies of the Sun after big games, memorabilia, and baseball cards.

I remember having a Calvin Pickering "rated rookie" type baseball card...perhaps Ryan Minor as well.  Really interesting to look at guys like Chris Kirgan that I was never aware of at the time, but put up massive numbers...yet flamed out in the high minors.

[Rbiggs2525]

Wow. The Orioles were making trades to get better then but you can see why it fell off so fast. Nothing left in the farm.

[LookinUp]

This was smack dab in the middle of what, 20 years, where the O's didn't produce a single position prospect who stuck in the majors with the O's. It's incredible.

Contrast that with Adley, Gunnar, Westburg, Holliday, Kjerstad, Cowser, Mayo, Basallo, Ortiz, Norby, not to mention some pitching success, all over the last few years. 

After 4 decades of mostly poor results from our minors, we're in a golden age for the Orioles. I sure hope we can sustain this.

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, LookinUp said:

This was smack dab in the middle of what, 20 years, where the O's didn't produce a single position prospect who stuck in the majors with the O's. It's incredible.

 

Brian Roberts was 2001.

Leo Gomez and David Segui were 1990.