While he’s the lowest draft choice among Shorebird hurlers, righthander Cliff Flagello has carved out a useful niche on the Shorebirds staff as a dependable middle reliever. With most pitchers at this level limited to 5-7 innings per start, a guy like Cliff who can come in a couple times a week and give a team 2 or 3 innings to set up the closer gets plenty of chances to impress.
Obviously Cliff has done as asked because he’s settled into the long relief role nicely. In 27 appearances for the Shorebirds this season he’s pitched 59 1/3 innings but only allowed 42 hits, holding the opposition to a .195 batting average. While he’s a little bit susceptible to giving up the base on balls (32 thus far, or about 5 per 9 innings) Cliff has managed to pitch around them and amass an ERA of 2.88. It makes for a WHIP of 1.25, a number right at the staff’s overall average. (That composite WHIP places the Delmarva pitchers fourth out of the sixteen teams in the SAL.)
As I noted, Cliff was the lowest draft pick among the current Shorebird pitchers, picked in the 25th round last season. In part this may have been from toiling at the heretofore unknown to me Shorter College, an NAIA institution in Rome, Georgia (home of another SAL franchise, the Rome Braves.) After being assigned to Bluefield last season he did well enough to move up the ladder to Delmarva, where’s he actually improved on most of his Bluefield numbers except for walks.
The 23 year old hurler certainly is taking advantage of his shot at moving up through the Orioles’ chain and may become a fixture in the same task up in Frederick next season. For now, Cliff will hopefully continue to take care of the middle innings for Delmarva manager Ramon Sambo.
Just today, I found out that one of the other pitchers that Cliff lived with has gotten moved up a level. Who you may ask? Brett Borders. How do I, a little girl, knows this? I know this because I am Brett Borders number one fan. I pretty sure I can say this for the whole Shorebirds team, and staff at the staduim, we’ll miss you Brett!
~Erin~
It’s the one sad thing about having a low minor league team, the fact that players may like playing here but their ultimate goal is to move up to Frederick, Bowie, and so on. Brett Bordes is one of my favorite Shorebirds from this year, but I’m glad to see him move up – he made his Frederick debut tonight as a matter of fact.
Erin, you may have seen this but if not you should enjoy reading the post I did a few weeks back.
By the way, it really is 2 a.m. – I just got back from seeing a few of those onetime Shorebirds who have made it all the way to the Show. Wasn’t all that happy with the result but we can still take 3 of 4 this weekend.
thats great that they’re using all their low draft picks and undfrafted free agents…why not throw the higher draft picks…why spend the money on them and let them rot on the bench?? isn’t low A about player development?!
Unlike the last couple seasons, Joe, we don’t have a #1 pick or even a sandwich pick here. In ’06 and ’07 we had Brandon Snyder (’05 #1 pick), Billy Rowell (’06 #1 pick), and Pedro Beato (’06 sandwich) but they’re all in Frederick now. Matt Wieters (’07 #1 pick) skipped our level, he’s in Frederick too.
The highest picks we have here this season are IF Ryan Adams (#2 in 2006), LHP Zach Britton (#3 in 2006), LHP Tony Butler (#3 by Seattle in 2006), OF Kieron Pope (#4 in 2005), and IF Tyler Henson (#5 in 2006). All of those guys are regulars except for Butler who’s been on the DL for awhile. Numerically we also have 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 11th, 12th, 17th, 18th, 18th, 19th, 20th, 21st, 23rd, 25th, and 31st rounders plus 6 who were non-drafted free agents and one we signed from another organization.
It’s actually fairly common for a roster at our level to be mostly lower-round guys because the #1’s and #2’s out of college are assumed to be at least high-A to AA material. They have 50 rounds in the amateur draft for a reason – there’s usually 2 or 3 rookie league teams to fill out and not all the guys who are drafted sign right away.
I believe the 6th pick of the 2007 draft (8th round) and one of the top closers in college baseball in 2007 is on the Shorebirds. If he pitches more than once a week as a reliever, it’s an occasion. How do you explain that? Bear in mind, a pitcher who throws that infrequently… can not be effective.
I think they’ve placed Shane Mathews (I think this is who you’re referring to based on the description) in the same sort of role as Cliff Flagello, long relief. The knock I could see on him is that he walks too many guys – of course that could bear out your argument about lack of use contributing to a lack of sharpness. He’s very possibly working on a second straight season of walking more than he strikes out so perhaps they’re working with him in longer stints in order to develop another pitch.
I have come to know Cliff very well. He is a crazy little guy, 5 foot 10 inches(lol), he is a very social person. And he is actually getting married in Hawaii while he is there for winter ball, same with Walley Crancer!