Tag: Shorebird of the Week

While he didn’t start the season on the Shorebirds’ roster, Mikey Planeta has returned to solidify center field for the Shorebirds.

It’s his second tour of duty with the team, and thus far Mikey has improved quite a bit on the .226/0/33 he posted in 117 games last season. In 38 games so far this year, the 27th round pick from 2009 is posting a .276/0/7 mark, improving his OPS from .545 to .658 in the process.

Planeta also has developed a reputation as an outfielder whose arm a runner shouldn’t challenge. He was near the league’s top in outfield assists last season and likely will be there again this year as he has a accurate arm. Perhaps he doesn’t have the blazing speed one would expect from a center fielder but he has stolen as many as 14 bases in a season (last year.)

The one knock on his game is needing to be more selective at the plate – Mikey’s struck out 42 times this season in 163 at-bats while walking just 6. Last year he had a 123:18 strikeout to walk ratio, so it’s likely the part of his game which needs the most work.

A native of Arizona, Mikey played at Glendale Community College before being drafted in 2009. And since he’s only 21, he could have a future in the organization as a corner outfielder based on his arm. It’s likely the Orioles will be in no hurry to move him up as they have a few talented outfielders in the system above him so should be able to enjoy Planeta’s game for the rest of this season, anyway. He should get plenty of at-bats to work on plate discipline.

It’s traditional that I award a league All-Star the coveted Shorebird of the Week tag as soon as I can. Having picked four of the five All-Stars for SotW honors already, the last holdout was catcher Michael Ohlman.

Now Michael’s not been as much of an offensive threat as the other two Shorebird position players (Manny Machado and Ty Kelly) but when compared to Shorebird catchers of recent vintage Ohlman is head and shoulders above the pack. The 20 year old product of Lakewood Ranch High School in Florida is hitting .242 with a pair of home runs and 20 runs batted in. His .691 OPS is reasonably decent, too.

Ohlman is a Shorebird veteran, having spent part of the 2010 season here before being reassigned to Bluefield for the short-season summer. Michael was a little overmatched last time he was here at Delmarva, since he hit just .174 in 34 games here before turning in a .233/0/20 line with Bluefield.

Michael’s numbers this year, though, may represent a sign that he’s “getting it” because the 2009 11th round pick hasn’t hit much – his career average coming into 2011 was an anemic .207 mark. With this being only his second full season of play it’s hard to compare numbers but Ohlman should set a number of offensive highs for himself if he stays healthy. And he has that All-Star selection to help boost his confidence.

Unlike a lot of previous campaigns, this year the Shorebirds’ strength is on the offensive end rather than on the mound.

But one of the more effective starters has amassed 5 quality starts, including shutting out the opposition for seven and eight innings at a time. It’s no wonder Jacob Pettit sports a 5-0 record, with the Shorebirds holding an 8-2 record in his 10 starts thus far. (In the two losses the bullpen lost one-run leads in the ninth inning; otherwise we could be a perfect 10-0 in games Pettit started.)

His success may be a little startling when you notice he wasn’t drafted until the 42nd round by the Orioles last year. But with the rookie team in Bluefield, Jacob anchored their starting rotation with a 2.68 ERA that belied his 3-5 won-lost record. More amazingly, Jacob walked but four batters in 57 innings pitched. Add one base on balls in a late-season five-inning Aberdeen appearance and that’s still walking less than one batter per nine innings and a dominating 1.03 WHIP.

Pettit has come down to earth a little bit as he faces more discerning hitters at a higher level; still, he’s only allowed 21 walks in 59 2/3 innings and that’s about a respectable three per nine inning clip. (Five of those free passes were in his last start, where he gutted out a seven-inning stint, giving up two runs on three hits.)

Obviously the 24 year old Washington native who played at Division II Western Oregon State didn’t attract a lot of notice from the scouts, and was probably seen by the Orioles as an organization player. But Jacob is taking advantage of the opportunity presented to him as a member of the Shorebirds’ starting rotation and has done his part to keep the team successful.

Ty Kelly has accomplished a rare feat; picking up an already solid .267 average 100 points in the second month of the season.

At the end of April he was 12-for-45, but so far in May he has hit in every game (28-for-64, a .438 clip) to place his .367 mark among the league leaders. Included in that string was a 5-for-5 mark on Tuesday against Lakewood; a game where Ty cracked his first home run of the season.

Aside from changing his uniform number, Ty has been the same steady performer as he was here in 2010 – just at a higher level. You may recall his decent Shorebird numbers from last year – a .259 average with 4 homers, 58 runs batted in, and a .721 OPS mark – and the fact he played in all but 11 of the team’s 140 games last year.

This year Ty sat out a few April games as the Shorebirds’ infield is loaded with prospects, but since getting regular playing time in the absence of megaprospect Manny Machado Kelly has taken advantage of the situation and it will be hard to keep him out of the lineup when Manny returns. This despite the fact Ty was only a 13th round pick in 2009 out of Cal-Davis.

Since Ty doesn’t turn 23 until later this season, he may find himself making a run at piling up some of the numbers he compiled last season, a campaign where he paced the team in a number of offensive categories. Obviously the competition in that regard has improved this season, so it appears Kelly has stepped up his game to match.

Despite the fact there’s a more publicized prospect on the Shorebirds’ roster, the offensive leader which has emerged this far is outfielder Kipp Schutz. One can’t argue with a .381/3/28 batting line nor a 1.002 OPS.

Over the last few seasons the Shorebirds have featured speedy outfielders like Xavier Avery and Matt Angle, both of whom have progressed up the system after playing well with Delmarva. Kipp, however, is more the prototypical hard-hitting corner outfielder. And runners in scoring position? So far Kipp has been money, hitting .462 in that situation. No wonder he’s leading the team in runs batted in, besides being fourth in the league in that category (and second in average – he trails only megaprospect Bryce Harper of Hagerstown in both categories.)

For Schutz, an Indiana native who just turned 23 during spring training, this is his first shot at full-season ball. After being drafted out of Indiana University by the Orioles as a 19th round pick two years ago, Kipp spent a summer apiece in Bluefield and Aberdeen. After a mediocre .252/1/15 line in 40 games at Bluefield two seasons ago, Schutz blossomed last season in Aberdeen with a .313/4/42 line in 68 games for the IronBirds, meriting his selection as a New York-Penn League All-Star.

With a limited number of good corner outfielders in the Orioles’ system, there’s a good chance that we won’t see Kipp around after the All-Star break, so enjoy his sweet left-handed stroke and solid outfield play while you can.

In his last start, Scott Copeland returned to the form he had when he first arrived at Delmarva.

Last September 1st Scott made his one and only 2010 appearance for Delmarva, spinning six shutout innings and winning a 1-0 pitchers duel against Kannapolis. That followed a solid 12 starts for Aberdeen where Copeland was only 2-5, but sported a superb 2.91 ERA and held opposing hitters to a .197 average.

Fast forward a few months and on Monday night Scott found that form again, tossing 6 2/3 shutout innings at Charleston in the Shorebirds’ 8-0 win.

While Scott is deemed the fifth starter due to his spot in the rotation, he’s put together a pretty good campaign thus far in 2011. The native Texan and Southern Mississippi University product is 2-0 so far (including Monday’s win) with a 3.07 ERA in five starts. Picked as a senior and well down in the draft – Scott was a 21st round selection – it may be surprising to some that Scott has advanced this quickly, but as I noted above he mowed down Aberdeen’s opponents without a lot of problems.

Perhaps the one flaw in Scott’s game which has cropped up at times this year is a tendency to walk a lot of batters. He hasn’t escaped from any of his starts unblemished in that regard and has walked five in a start twice – back on Monday in 6 2/3 innings and April 21 at Augusta (4 2/3 innings.) A ratio of 19 strikeouts to 17 walks may signal he needs to be more aggressive, since he’s proven thus far to be a good ground-ball pitcher (3.13 ground outs for each fly out.) One would believe he could last longer in games by economizing his pitches and allowing a little more contact.

Starting pitching has been a key to the Shorebirds’ early success and Scott is pulling his weight in that regard.

During the six game winning streak Delmarva currently enjoys, we’ve seen a few close games. The man Ryan Minor counts on to put out the fire is closer David Walters, who is tied for the South Atlantic League lead with six saves racked up thus far.

Overall, his numbers may not look all that impressive – in eight appearances Walters is 0-2 with a 5.59 ERA and a WHIP of 1.45. But when you have the game on the line, a bad inning will generally accrue entirely against your stats; either you get the save or the loss. Walters has been the last Delmarva pitcher used in seven of his eight games; that eighth game added 4 earned runs to his totals in just 2 innings pitched. So as a true closer he’s 0-1 with a much more respectable 2.35 ERA, saving 6 out of 7 chances.

David, a product of Francis Marion University and Mariottsville, Maryland, is one of those who was passed over in the 2009 draft and signed as a minor-league free agent by the Orioles. (However, he could have been a Atlanta Braves prospect since they drafted him in the 47th round in 2008.) Nevertheless, he moved up through the Orioles system quickly enough that the 23-year-old landed in Delmarva for the tail end of the 2010 campaign. For the Shorebirds he was 2-1 with a 4.91 ERA in 22 games, covering 25 2/3 innings. Walters finished third among ‘Bird pitchers with 4 saves as well.

Perhaps the biggest asset David has is the heavy sinker which makes him a ground ball machine – his current 3.17 ratio of ground outs to fly outs means he’s as likely to induce a double play ball as strike out a batter. He’s only struck out 21 batters in 35 1/3 Shorebird innings over the last two seasons so David pitches more to contact.

Because he wasn’t a high draft pick, David may not move up the organizational ladder as quickly as, say, a Manny Machado or Trent Mummey. This means he has a chance to set a Shorebird save record as long as we keep winning. (The best save mark I’ve found in quick research is 33, by Derek Brown in 1998.) And since that ’98 team won 81 games, that gave Brown plenty of opportunities – let’s hope David can be as successful.

By the way, the Daily Times also did a profile on David on Sunday so the word must be out.

 

It all started a generation ago with a guy named Hensley Meulens. A career minor leaguer who spent time in the big leagues with the Yankees, Expos, and Diamondbacks, he was the first player from the island of Curacao (at least according to www.Baseball-Almanac.com) to make his major league debut in 1989, with the more renowned Andruw Jones coming up with the Braves a few years later.

While players from Curacao are not strangers to the Orioles organization (as one example, we had outfielder Quincy Ascension a few years back) they’re still pretty rare. The latest native of that land to chase his dream through Delmarva is this week’s Shorebird of the Week honoree, Jonathan Schoop. First of all, the last name isn’t pronounced “scoop” or “shoop”, but “scope.”

However you say it, though, the guy is raking so far. While there’s some 18-year old phenom bonus baby playing a few strides to Schoop’s left every night, the 19-year old is killing lefties so far (admittedly, 6-for-8 with a home run and 5 RBI is a small sample, but it bodes well) and leads the team (or is tied for the top spot) in several offensive categories: games played (13), at-bats (52), triples (2), and home runs (2).

Schoop got his start when he was signed by the Orioles (at the age of 16) and sent to play in the Dominican Summer League in 2009. There he hit .239/0/35 in 68 games, but the scouts were impressed enough to send him stateside to debut in the Gulf Coast League last summer. Jonathan did well enough there to move along to Bluefield and eventually Frederick – overall he hit .290/5/35 between the three stops (although he was only 5-for-21 in 6 Frederick contests.)

If he keeps hitting this way (18-for-52 so far, with the two homers and 9 RBI) Jonathan may be back in Frederick to finish out the year. Considering a lot of players his age are either playing college ball or playing at rookie league, the Orioles may have found a diamond in the rough among the nearly 150,000 citizens living on that baseball outpost.

The question was not if, but how soon Manny Machado would be the Shorebird of the Week. Well, today is the day. It was going to have to be early in the season because, quite frankly, it would be a complete shock to Shorebird fans if he stayed here the entire summer. The way he’d started the season he looked to be Frederick-bound by May, although he’s cooled off of late.

Still, when you’re a first-round draft pick and considered a team’s top prospect with all of nine professional games under your belt there’s bound to be a sensation. So far Manny’s taken it in stride, and he’s off to an 8-for-24 start in his first seven games as a Shorebird (although he’s just 1-for-9 since Sunday.) Yet project a .333 average out and that should be among the league leaders later this summer – he’s already second in the league with seven walks (compared to five strikeouts) and a .984 OPS is nothing to sneeze at.

With the Orioles so high on Machado, there’s little reason to think Manny will be here beyond the All-Star break so enjoy him while you can. He was wearing out Greensboro’s pitching and it’s difficult to believe that Manny won’t make the adjustments to whatever SAL pitchers throw at him – after all, some predict he’ll be gracing the left side of the Orioles’ infield by the end of next season.

That may be a touch optimistic, but Manny has all the tools needed to succeed at this and higher levels – it’s now strictly a matter of gaining experience.

As my Shorebird of the Week feature enters its sixth season tonight, it’s without precedent that a player I selected as a Shorebird of the Year makes a return trip to Delmarva. But indeed Brian Conley is coming back.

I picked Brian as my SotY because he had a relatively good season of enough length to establish a body of work. He hit .270/6/29 for Delmarva last season in 98 games (for those new to Shorebird of the Week, the stat line is shorthand for batting average/home runs/runs batted in.) Brian also showed a discerning eye at the plate, walking and striking out an even 70 times apiece – normally the ratio at this level runs about 2 strikeouts per walk, or more. The performance from the 17th round 2008 Oriole draft selection out of Towson University was good enough to earn him a late-season promotion to Frederick.

Unfortunately, that Carolina League casting call wasn’t reflective of Brian’s Delmarva success. In 16 games and 45 at-bats Brian hit just .222 with a homer and 4 RBI. Perhaps that’s the reason he regressed to Delmarva this season, but he along with Kieron Pope will lend a veteran presence to a team which has its share of young stars. Since Brian turns 25 on May 7th, his role may have become one of mentor to several up-and-coming prospects rather than potentially joining Adam Jones and Nick Markakis in Camden Yards.

But the fan favorite will begin his third season at Perdue Stadium with a chance to help the team improve on last year’s 59-81 record. Look for Brian to hold down a corner outfield spot and be penciled into the lineup on a regular basis.