Shorebird of the Week – June 5, 2014

A year ago today, Chance Sisco was on the verge of a decision – go to college at the University of Oregon or play professional baseball. A newly-minted graduate of Santiago High School in Corona, California, Chance certainly had to figure his name would be called in the MLB draft, and the Orioles did so in the second round. Obviously they made him enough of an offer to entice him to play pro.

So a year later, after tearing up the Gulf Coast League with a gaudy .371/1/11/.938 OPS in 31 games and getting the opportunity to play a couple games with Aberdeen, where he went 1-for-5, Chance is a Shorebird. At just 19 years of age, starting the season with players 2-3 years older in Aberdeen would have been a solid leap forward for the youngster but instead he’s jumped all the way up to primary catcher with a Delmarva team which boasts one of the best pitching staffs in the South Atlantic League, and he doesn’t appear to be overmatched. You find interesting splits on the Baseball-Reference site and one of those is batter statistics against older/younger pitchers – Sisco has yet to face a pitcher younger than he this season in the SAL.

The Shorebird numbers are very good – hitting .273/2/16/.706 OPS is quite solid for a catcher, particularly on a team which has seen its share of catchers who struggle to keep their average above the Mendoza line. And out of a draft where the Orioles selected three high school catchers in the first six rounds, Sisco has established himself as the cream of the crop. (All three Shorebird catchers so far this season were in the same 2013 draft class – Sisco in the second round, Alex Murphy in the sixth, and Austin Wynns in round 10.)

Naturally there are some things to work on, particularly since Chance is a converted shortstop. And after a nearly even ratio of walks to strikeouts in the GCL, Sisco now has a 36/9 K/BB ratio, which shows how much better the pitching is. Chance also missed a couple weeks early on due to injury.

But after several lean years, the Oriole organization catching stockpile seems to be improving rapidly and Chance’s name will be in the conversation about prospects sooner rather than later.

A pre-primary crop failure for two GOP candidates

I know those involved in one of the two campaigns involved were optimistic about making the deadline, but the Washington Post is reporting that neither Ron George nor David Craig collected enough “seed money” to qualify for public financing before the June 3 primary deadline. Because of that, Larry Hogan will pick up an additional $275,000 monetary advantage over his fellow contenders, and that’s big when the three others combined don’t have $275,000 in the bank between them right now:

  • Charles Lollar – $17,999.87
  • Ron George – $28,943.61 (includes $18,000 in loans)
  • David Craig – $144,058.54

Conversely, Hogan has $389,206.92 in the bank, an account which includes $500,000 in loans to himself and over $100,000 in additional in-kind contributions, donations from related LLC entities, and so forth from his personal coffers. But he spent enough on fundraising to secure the $258,642 in seed money to qualify for public financing.

There’s no question that this will help Hogan, who had burned through $342,007.24 in the preceding six weeks before financial reports were due last month. The Hogan campaign announced a fortnight-long bus tour yesterday, and the extra money can make this a two-pronged final push for him between television ads and the bus tour. Even with all that, Larry should comfortably remain short of the $2.6 million primary limit imposed by public financing.

Of course, each campaign is going to spin this different ways – for example, Lollar’s running mate Ken Timmerman touts the campaign’s “grass roots army”:

You see, other candidates plan expensive advertising campaigns, with air-dropped TV and radio spots that tell you nothing about their character or their plans.

Charles and I are proud to fight at the grassroots, where we are already preparing the way for victory in November by working with Democrats who share our concerns over the future of this state and who share our conservative values and non-partisan solutions.

It’s a nice sentiment, but time after time I’ve watched the candidate who raises the most walk away with the nomination or election over the others who pretend grassroots can carry them. In a local election grassroots goes a long way, but it’s hard to gather that many volunteers to effectively spread a message like media can for a statewide bid. Of the four, Charles was the only one eschewing public financing but his fundraising totals have always trailed the pack regardless.

For their part, George and Craig have (and rightfully so) questioned the extent of collaboration and coordination between Change Maryland and Hogan’s campaign. I’m concerned about the timeline between the January 21 official announcement (remember, the one which was snowed out) and the February 3 beginning of Hogan campaign records. What did Change Maryland spend money on in the interim?

Of the remaining candidates, Craig probably has enough money to adequately compete in the primary but would have to get cracking on seed money collections for the general election, for which he has until September 15 to qualify. But losing out on an extra $15,000 or so a day until the primary could be a damaging blow for those who were hoping to take advantage of the former checkoff.