Shorebird of the Week – April 25, 2013

If you were to write a work of fiction featuring a baseball player, you might give the protagonist a name like Creede Simpson. But in the case of the Shorebirds, fiction is reality – although the numbers right now for the infielder may suggest a tall tale.

Indeed, the season is but 20 games old, but consider that Simpson is leading the team in RBI with 17 despite only playing in 16 games. Much of this is because Creede has been absolute money with runners in scoring position, hitting a sick .545 (12-for-22) in that instance. That number is even better than his overall average with runners on base, which is a paltry .536 (15-for-28).

Because he’s had more chances with runners on than without, Creede is the early candidate for a team Triple Crown with the top average (.389), most home runs (3 of the team’s 7 overall), and RBI (17). All this may be a pleasant surprise to the Orioles’ brass which only picked him in the 25th round after he played ball at his hometown SEC participant Auburn University. While the SEC is fairly well-regarded as a baseball conference, Auburn is generally an also-ran in the league.

Moreover, the 23-year-old Simpson had a mediocre debut at Aberdeen last year, hitting .234/5/28/.647 OPS for the IronBirds last season. But he advanced to Delmarva this spring nonetheless and has seized his opportunity with a fast start.

While it’s likely his stats will balance out somewhere in the end, the question as always is where that level will be. If it’s something along the line of .280/15/75/750 OPS that would be cause for celebration as the Orioles could have a diamond-in-the-rough prospect from a low-round pick. Sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction.

An early – and interesting – endorsement

I’ve actually sat on this piece of news for a few days, as it didn’t seem to attract a lot of notice anywhere else and I think I know why.

On Tuesday I received a message in my e-mail from the “Draft Charles Lollar” campaign telling me that:

I am honored and deeply humbled to be endorsed by Dr. Ben Carson regarding my consideration to run in the upcoming election to become the next Governor of Maryland.  Dr. Carson is a great leader who exemplifies the American spirit.  This is the same spirit that I intend to bring with me as we begin to share our message with Maryland’s voters now and all the way to Annapolis. – Charles

Great, outstanding, a nice “get” – but what did Dr. Carson actually say? You see, in most endorsements the person promoting the candidate will have a few words to say but in this case we only have the statement that Dr. Carson endorsed Charles. I don’t say this to call Charles Lollar or those working on his nascent and still unofficial campaign liars – don’t misunderstand – but perhaps they need to learn a little more basic technique in writing press releases. And maybe that’s why what would ordinarily draw attention didn’t do a whole lot for the campaign.

On the other hand, given Carson’s comments about gay marriage which led to him withdrawing as Johns Hopkins commencement speaker, the lack of attention may be good. Unfortunately, these comments on political correctness in general have detracted from the good work Carson does in his community and could reflect poorly on Lollar if we don’t seize the narrative.

Still, this is the clearest indication yet that the race for Governor may be between at least four major candidates. All four of these men had presences of various sizes at the recent Maryland GOP state convention, but of that quartet only Frederick County Commission President Blaine Young has used the words “for Governor” in his campaign. 2012 U.S. Senate candidate Dan Bongino, Harford County Executive David Craig, and Lollar, who made an abortive try for the state’s top job in 2010 before withdrawing and running for Congress instead, have been non-committal beyond an exploratory stage of sorts, although Craig’s campaign is planning a three-day tour of the state in June, according to his local “county point person.” I would presume this would serve as Craig’s official launch to the race.

On the other side of the fence, it’s worth pointing out that Larry Hogan and Change Maryland sat out this convention with the exception of providing a program sponsorship. With four strongly hinting at running for governor, the field may be a little crowded for Larry to jump into. The same goes for Michael Steele – yes, some would like him to run, but would anyone step aside for Steele after eight years away?

Yet with four reasonably strong potential candidates, it looks like the race for the state’s top job could be a scrap on both sides. For the first time in nearly two decades, the GOP has no odds-on choice for governor such as they had with Bob Ehrlich from 2002-10 and Ellen Sauerbrey in 1998. Even the 1994 GOP race only featured two strong candidates, meaning that unless things change between now and the filing deadline the nominee could win with far less than 50% of the GOP vote, leaving himself just weeks to form a united front among disappointed supporters of the other contestants. (Obviously this also depends on the tenor of the primary race, with the hope we don’t relive a situation like the 2008 First District or 2012 Sixth District Republican Congressional primaries, for example.)

It’s an interesting field, one where at this early stage I could see Young, Lollar, and Bongino going after the same conservative wing of the party and allowing the more moderate Craig to slip through. Unfortunately for Lollar, the Carson endorsement wasn’t as well-handled as it probably should have been, particularly since Charles isn’t officially in the race yet. Perhaps this was a misstep by an inexperienced state campaign, but Carson’s was one endorsement which should have been held back for a few weeks.