Tag: Shorebird of the Week

While it’s the idea that every player on the Shorebirds improves as the season wears on, the long grind of the season also proves to weed out players from roles which may not suit them. Such seems to be the case with Mark Blackmar, who was a bust as a starting pitcher but has been a success as a reliever over the last month or so.

The splits are telling enough for the 21-year-old Texan, who was drafted in the 16th round two years ago out of Temple College in that state. As a starter, Mark was 1-5, 6.84 in 11 outings (50 innings) with a 1.92 WHIP. Over his last eight outings as a reliever, Mark is 2-1 with a 3.60 ERA in 25 innings, with a much better 1.12 WHIP.

So the overall numbers don’t look all that great and probably won’t translate well when the agate type of the 2013 season is set; for example, Blackmar would have to hurl another 13 scoreless innings this season just to get his ERA for the year under 5. (As it stands, his ERA for the season is 5.86 to go with a 3-6 record, 100 hits allowed in 75 innings, and a reasonably good 42/24 strikeout/walk ratio.) But the improvement should be obvious and it will give the Orioles an opportunity to set Mark up for success, perhaps as a reliever here or in Frederick.

While it wasn’t so pronounced in Aberdeen last season, there were signs that Mark would be a better pitcher in small doses, particularly when it came to control. As a starter for the IronBirds Blackmar’s strikeout/walk ratio was 14/16 but in relief it was 15/7. The same applies this season as Mark went from a 23/20 ratio as a starter to 19/4 as a reliever. Perhaps he has a more aggressive mindset out of the bullpen, but whatever the case the change is pronounced enough to perhaps convince the organization Mark would serve best out of the ‘pen in the future.

Aside from the time he’s been out of the lineup with an injury, it’s clear that, unlike some other Shorebird campaigns, there is a definite #1 catcher and Wynston Sawyer is the guy. He’s caught in more games than the other catchers on the roster combined, and if he can stay at his offensive level shown so far this season Sawyer has the potential to post a number of career bests among his four years in the Orioles’ organization.

With a career-high 5 RBI last night on a three-run homer and two-run double, Sawyer’s average moved up to .249, with a career best 6 home runs and 27 RBI. His .759 OPS to date is by far a career pinnacle, nearly 150 points above his lifetime average coming into 2013. (OPS is on-base percentage plus slugging percentage – the league average is around .700, so Sawyer is showing above-average ability.)

Perhaps one reason for Sawyer’s improvement is the fact he’s almost exclusively a catcher now. In previous seasons Wynston spent plenty of time playing at first base, with a nearly even split between the positions last season. But this year he’s only played at first once, although it was fairly recently (July 29.)

Sawyer, who doesn’t turn 22 until November, came out of Scripps Ranch High School in California as an 8th round pick in 2010 but has never really shown a great bat. If anything, it was consistent because Sawyer had hit .231, .231, and .221 his first three seasons. The .221 mark was at Delmarva last season, where he had a line of .221/2/49/.608 OPS. Over the years, though, Wynston has shown himself to have good strike zone knowledge as his ratio of walks to strikeouts has improved each season.

But after flying out of the gate with a .351 average in April, Sawyer crashed back to earth with a subpar May and June. At the All-Star break Wynston was in his usual .230s rut, but lately the bat has heated up and four of his six home runs have been hit in the season’s second half. With a lack of catching depth in the organization, the opportunity is there for Sawyer to be promoted by next year.

If you would have asked me two months ago to rate the chances of this week’s honoree being Shorebird of the Week, I would have probably said zero, because he would be in Aberdeen. But over the last two months Dennis Torres has developed into a consistent pitcher who continues to rack up scoreless appearances.

My initial skepticism was based on a horrible May where Torres was rudely welcomed by the South Atlantic League, allowing runs in five of six appearances, walking 10 while striking out only nine in 9 2/3 innings, and giving up a frightening .357 average against. But since that point Torres has vastly stepped up his game, shaving his once-high ERA down to 3.13 and putting up an 18/8 strikeout/walk ratio since the first of June. He also notched his first professional win June 11 against West Virginia, which so happened to be the game I took the bottom photo at.

To be fair, the 23-year-old product of Massachusetts (both the state and its university, based in Amherst) is essentially making his professional debut this season because he only made two Gulf Coast League appearances last season, tossing 2 1/3 scoreless innings. Being just a 28th round pick, Dennis was certainly down the pecking order there but seems to have moved up the ladder here, as evidenced by getting more two-plus inning appearances.

Down the road, it’s likely that Torres will be filling in as a reliever for the rest of Delmarva’s campaign. He’s on track to get 45 to 50 innings in this season (having thrown 31 2/3 so far) and continued success should put him in the mix for a promotion next season.

As part of a team which looks like it may finally break out of the offensive doldrums which have plagued its second-half effort – picking up 48 hits against a solid Savannah pitching staff which boasts the South Atlantic League’s second-best ERA – Roderick Bernadina led the charge with nine hits in 17 at-bats, raising his average 21 points from an anemic .219 entering the series to .240 afterward – a perfect 60 hits in 250 at-bats.

At the tail end of last year, a point where all three of the regular 2013 outfielders were already being penciled into the lineup by former manager Ryan Minor, Roderick was one of two (Greg Lorenzo being the other) who was hitting on a consistent basis. Unfortunately, we start the statistic rolls over with a new season and Bernadina’s .298/2/12/.765 OPS line was wiped away. And while he got off to a decent beginning to 2013, hitting .255 in April, he found himself sitting at the Mendoza line near the end of May. (Worth pointing out, though, is that Roderick was out for a couple weeks that month due to a hamstring injury.)

Something intriguing about Bernadina’s numbers is his reliance on our friendly confines. While Perdue Stadium isn’t known as a hitter’s park, Roderick hits .295 here compared to .182 on the road. Over the years it’s been the opposite for many players who come through here, and it’s noteworthy that the Savannah series was held here. So the question will be whether the hot hand prevails and builds up his road average as the Shorebirds begin a trip to Hagerstown and West Virginia tonight or if those less-familiar parks again take their toll. (Between the two parks, Roderick is 1-for-8 this season. He missed the initial trip to Hagerstown with the hamstring strain.)

Now the 20-year-old from Curacao (who turns 21 next month) still has time to develop, and there’s a baseball pedigree in his family as cousin Roger Bernadina plays for the Washington Nationals. He also has a potential for perhaps another 150 at-bats this year, and a good finish can put him in the .270 range for the season.

But this year has been a regression of sorts to the numbers Bernadina had at the lower levels of the Orioles’ system, where he hit .242 and .239 in 2010 and 2011, respectively. And given his brief experience with Frederick last season (1-for-13 in four games) it may take a strong finish and further average increase of 25 to 30 points to push him out of “organization guy” status into that of “prospect.” Then again, cousin Roger spent three seasons in the SAL with Savannah (2003-05) but quickly progressed to The Show in the period between the ages of 22 to 24 – can Roderick follow a similar trajectory? We’ll see.

The Orioles have many varied ways of acquiring talent to try out at the minor league level. Most come through the annual amateur draft conducted each June, while a number are international free agent signings. But few have arrived in the unusual manner George Barber has.

In 2010 the Los Angeles Angels drafted Barber in the 43rd round out of Broward Community College in Florida. He signed and played sparingly for the Angels entry in the Arizona League (on par with the Gulf Coast League where the Orioles have an affiliate.) After hitting just .235 in 7 games over a month’s time, Barber was cut loose the following spring of 2011 and returned to school.

But somewhere along the line the now 23 year old decided to enroll in a school of a different sort called the Xtremeline Baseball School Camp. Last October, George was signed by the Orioles – not coincidentally, Xtremeline is operated by Orioles executive Fred Ferreira. (The same connection also produced the recently-promoted Tucker Nathans as well as others farther down in the system.) And after a little bit of bouncing around – two days with Bowie where George went 3-for-9 in 3 games and a week in Aberdeen where he was 3-for-19 – George arrived on June 27 and has been a lineup fixture since.

Barber is fitting in to date as about an average player: a .246 batting average (15-for-61) with an OPS of .635 thus far. These aren’t numbers which will merit an immediate promotion but can be a building block for success over the team’s last 40-odd games – remember, George had a total of 7 pro games under his belt when he began this season. In essence, he’s in roughly the same situation as a new draftee getting his feet wet in rookie league, except he’s playing in a somewhat more competitive loop. In his case, this is likely a 60-game tryout, with a decision on his fate probable at year’s end. Unlike a high draft pick, Barber has less margin for error.

But you can also figure he’s playing with house money given where he was a year ago. Not many players get a second bite of the apple, so Barber is trying to take advantage.

At this level of baseball, where starting pitchers are often limited to four to six innings per appearance, the second pitcher bridging the gap between the starter and closer takes on additional importance. Normally there is no “seventh inning guy” or “setup man” for these teams; instead the role almost becomes that of a secondary rotation featuring three or four pitchers rather than the six-man starting rotation favored by the Baltimore organization.

One pitcher who is absolutely thriving in this role is the Orioles’ sixth round selection from last year out of Samford University, Lex Rutledge. The 22-year-old Mississippi native has done an outstanding job since joining the Shorebirds in May.

I say “outstanding” based on the fact Lex has pitched 35 innings but allowed just 20 hits and 15 walks for a WHIP of exactly 1. That will play at any level, and the 4-2, 1.29 topline Rutledge is sporting backs up the fact he’s been a tough lefty to figure out for the SAL, which is batting just .165 off him and creates 2.65 ground outs for every fly ball out. The sinker is obviously working.

Rutledge was a valued commodity out of high school in Tupelo, Mississippi, so much so that the Milwaukee Brewers selected him in the 26th round of the 2009 draft. Instead, he opted for college baseball and was snatched up by the Orioles in 2012. Yet while he pitched well enough in the Gulf Coast League (0-1 but with a 1.64 ERA in 11 innings) Lex looked nowhere near as dominant at Aberdeen last year, going 0-3 with a frightening 9.49 ERA in six starts – none of which lasted more than 3 1/3 innings. So perhaps relief is a role he’s more comfortable in, although he has started twice for the Shorebirds and posted an incredible 13 strikeouts in five total innings. (His longest stint this season is four innings, pitching in relief.)

As a high draft pick, the question always becomes that of how soon the Orioles will move a player who excels with one of their lower level teams. Since he’s not used as a starter, he can fit into any bullpen role the organization may envision as they’re apparently not moving quickly to stretch him out to be a fulltime starting pitcher. And because he’s getting the outs both via the ground ball and the strikeout (fanning 38 in 35 innings so far) they may envision him as a late-inning reliever down the line. In either case, surely the Shorebirds are happy to have a shutdown guy in their bullpen.

Because of a quirk in the calendar the last time through the cycle, today is the first time I’ve ever had a July 4 Shorebird of the Week. The fortunate honoree is pitcher Matt Taylor, who has been a consistent presence in the Shorebird rotation this season. Unlike some of the others in the group, though, Matt seems to be the work horse rather than the show horse and he’s repeating at this level perhaps because of this.

So far in 14 starts Matt only has a 4-7 record but for the most part he has kept the Shorebirds in the game during his starts. It’s tough to complain about a 3.61 ERA or 1.4 WHIP, as he has allowed 66 hits and 35 walks in 72 1/3 innings, and he’s shown improvement in practically all of his key indicators over last season in Delmarva (although he went 5-7, his ERA was 4.31 and WHIP was 1.52.) The only cause for alarm could be a somewhat elevated walk rate, but it’s still under 4.5 per game.

A fifth round draft pick from 2011 out of Middle Georgia College, Matt is probably at a point where he may see time at Frederick before the season is out – although since he’s still only 22, there’s no need to rush him to the Carolina League just yet. It’s quite possible Matt could be a mid-rotation starter for them in 2014.

It seems like Taylor is one of those borderline type of guys – not catchy enough to call a blue-chip prospect, but certainly one who has handled this level adequately enough to advance. That may be a little disappointing for a fifth-round selection but Matt still has time to develop and he’s not hurting the Shorebirds when he pitches.

It’s quite likely that having a connection within the Orioles’ organization helped get him drafted, as his father is Buck Showalter’s right-hand man with Baltimore as their bench coach. But it’s still up to Steel Russell to play well enough to keep his job and this year seems to be an indication he may be able to advance.

Brought up off the Aberdeen preseason roster for catching depth in May, Russell has split time with Chase Weems over the last few games after regular catcher Wynston Sawyer came up injured. But the spot duty seemed to agree with Russell as he started the season 17-for-49 at the plate. So while Steel has been scuffling a little of late, he still tops Shorebird receivers with a .269 average based on 18-for-67 in 20 games.

Steel, who was drafted in the 32nd round by the Orioles last year out of Midland Junior College in Texas, is a 22-year-old Pennsylvania native who obviously has been around baseball all his life. His father John is now a coach with the Orioles but played for a decade with the Phillies, Braves, and Rangers as well as managing the Pittsburgh Pirates for three seasons (2008-10.) So the bloodline is there.

But it was a little bit of a surprise to see Russell get a season-finale cup of coffee for the Shorebirds last year (going 1-for-3 at West Virginia) based on a poor batting line in the Gulf Coast League: .180/0/11/.447 OPS with that low-minor team. But he did and has settled into his 2013 role well enough to get the majority of the starts (granted, it’s 4 vs. 3) since the All-Star break.

If Russell can break out of his recent 1-for-18 skid and stabilize his average about where it is, there’s always the possibility he won’t be known more as the coach’s son than as a player in his own right. The Orioles drafted a lot of catching depth this time around because it was perceived they were shallow at the position, so continuing to work hard could be Russell’s ticket to future success.

It’s a situation Delmarva Shorebirds fans have become all too familiar with – the end of a half-season and the team hopelessly buried in the second division. But we had one thing going for us, and that was the chance to deny the homestanding Hickory Crawdads the division title in the final game of the first half. Admittedly, it didn’t look good as the Shorebirds were thumped 12-0 the night before and were sending a pitcher with an ERA of 6-plus to start the last game before the All-Star break.

Perhaps Baltimore followers have been disappointed with Parker Bridwell to date, but his start Sunday probably raised a few eyebrows with the Orioles – and crushed the playoff dreams of Hickory fans who watched Parker throw eight-plus innings of shutout ball, allowing just three hits and fanning 10 with nary a walk. (The run he allowed was the single batter he faced in the ninth, who came around to score on the bullpen.)

Granted, this one great start didn’t make the overall numbers that much better, as Bridwell is still 4-6 with a elevated 5.57 ERA for the season. But there are signs that the 21-year old prospect from Hereford, Texas is heading in the right direction in this, his third tour of duty with the Shorebirds. Consider that the 5.57 ERA is improving from 7.06 in five 2011 starts and 5.98 last year, and the strikeout-to-walk ratio which was 13-to-13 in his first stint and 71-to-63 last season is thus far 64-to-27. 27 walks in 63 innings is about 4 per game – still somewhat high, but pointing in the right direction. He only walked 5 in his last three starts, covering 18 2/3 innings.

While being a ninth round pick doesn’t make a prospect a sure thing, the Orioles have probably given Bridwell a longer leash than someone picked to fill out the Aberdeen roster in the 39th round. This is obvious when you consider that, despite his struggles, the Shorebirds have handed him the ball every fifth or sixth day since he came to Delmarva in 2011. Even his one “relief” appearance in that stretch was to resume a game suspended several weeks before, as the resumption landed on his rotation turn.

So Bridwell, who cracked the Orioles’ top-20 prospect list before this season, still has a long way to go in showing fans he can turn in these performances start after start. He’s approaching a career crossroads, as a player needs to take less than two full seasons to advance through levels after A-ball. But putting together a string of starts such that he had against a desperate Hickory team might just be the impetus to finally push him up the ladder.

Sometimes the Shorebird of the Week has to be a good story, and Tucker Nathans has a story of perseverance and taking the road less-traveled to the point where he finds himself now.

Many small-college players find themselves overlooked by pro scouts, but over the last couple decades the extended tryouts known as independent leagues have popped up around the country, giving both overlooked players and those who believe they still have something to prove an opportunity to attract notice. Since Nathans went to Fairfield University in Connecticut – not exactly a hotbed of big league talent, although a handful of players have come from that school and played professionally – the route he chose to take took him through two seasons of independent baseball, primarily with the Newark Bears of the Can-Am League, a loop of teams in the Northeast and Canada.

Nathans attracted the notice of the Orioles after two seasons with a total of four teams (Newark, Brockton, Florence, and a traveling team called the NYSL Federals) where he hit .279/6/45/.743 OPS over 109 games in 2011 and 2012. Once he secured a tryout with the Orioles – a team which has seemed to dig deep for talent in the independent leagues over the years, including big leaguer Lew Ford last year – Tucker did well enough to secure a spot with the Shorebirds as a bench player.

But after a slow start in April, more regular playing time has allowed Tucker to lead the Shorebirds with 6 home runs and be second with 24 runs batted in. His .248 average isn’t exactly eye-popping, but a .782 OPS is pretty good and his versatility has seen Tucker play five positions thus far for Delmarva, along with seven turns as the designated hitter. Nathans has played the most in the outfield, but has served at second base, shortstop, and third base.

At the age of 24, Nathans is probably considered a little old for the SAL and likely isn’t high up on the Oriole prospect list. Most players in his situation fall into a category dubbed “organization players,” the guys drafted at the tail end of the draft or signed off the street to fill the rosters at the lower levels. But Tucker draws a paycheck from a major league organization, which is something almost all of those he played with over the last two years cannot say. In that respect, he’s already playing with house money and it will be interesting to see how far Nathans can take this opportunity.