Shorebird of the Year – a 2022 season wrapup

We just missed our shot at history of the wrong kind.

Had the rain that fell on our area on September 11 managed to wait another few hours, we would have gotten the final scheduled game against Down East in and a loss would have saddled Delmarva with a 49-82 record, making the team the worst in Delmarva Shorebirds history. Instead, a rainout allowed the 2012 team (who finished 52-86) to retain that dubious distinction for another year.

Needless to say, it was a frustrating season to watch. But instead of running through stats like I have in previous years, I figured out I could use the same formulas that I used to determine Shorebird of the Month/Year to rank the 12 teams of the Carolina League in hitting, pitching, and fielding. So that’s what I did, with the team’s overall record determining the order.

  1. Charleston (88-44) – 5th in hitting, 2nd in pitching, 5th in fielding.
  2. Myrtle Beach (78-53) – 4th in hitting, 3rd in pitching, 7th in fielding.
  3. Fredericksburg (75-55) – 1st in hitting, 6th in pitching, 3rd in fielding.
  4. Carolina (69-62) – 7th across the board.
  5. Augusta (69-62) – 2nd in hitting, 8th in pitching, 10th in fielding.
  6. Down East (65-66) – 10th in hitting, 1st in pitching, 6th in fielding.
  7. Salem (64-66) – 3rd in hitting, 10th in pitching, 2nd in fielding.
  8. Lynchburg (63-68) – 6th in hitting, 4th in pitching, 9th in fielding.
  9. Kannapolis (58-74) – 9th in hitting and pitching, 1st in fielding.
  10. Fayetteville (55-75) – 12th in hitting, 5th in pitching, 10th in fielding.
  11. Columbia (52-79) – 11th in hitting and pitching, 3rd in fielding.
  12. Delmarva (49-81) – 8th in hitting, 12th in pitching and fielding.

The Orioles are supposed to have the number one farm system in baseball, and if you look at the teams above Delmarva it’s easy to see why: while Norfolk is a .5oo-style team playing out the string in AAA, Bowie just missed the Eastern League playoffs by one game in the second half of its season because they used many of the same players who propelled Aberdeen to the South Atlantic League first-half title (and eventually a playoff series win for first time in franchise history before losing in the final series.)

On the other hand, the story is different for the teams feeding Delmarva: the single Florida Complex League team finished second-to-last in the FCL with a 16-39 record, barely beating a split Astros team by percentage points. In the Dominican Summer League, the two Orioles squads finished fourth and fifth in the seven-team Baseball City Division with a combined 49-68 record: the Orange team was 26-34 and the Black team was 23-34. Last year I said, “Hopefully that’s a issue with diluted talent between two (FCL) teams and not a sign to come for the 2022 Shorebirds.” Sadly, it was and next year doesn’t look real promising either. It seems like our drafting is light-years ahead of our international signing, with the emphasis domestically being on college players who arrive almost ready for advanced-A so they don’t stay at Delmarva long. We seem to get the project guys and the guys who are needed to fill out the system.

But I had several guys who were picked as Shorebirds of the Month and immediately (if not sooner) were ticketed for promotion. This year I had ten players who were picked as Shorebirds of the Month; here’s a synopsis of how each fared:

  • Darell Hernaiz (April PP) – after slashing .284/6/25/.852 OPS in 32 games for Delmarva, Hernaiz was promoted May 24 to Aberdeen and only hit .305/5/29/.822 OPS for the Ironbirds. This resulted in a final promotion to Bowie, but the results weren’t nearly as good: .113 in 13 games before an injury ended his season prematurely.
  • Daniel Lloyd (April pitcher) – promoted June 6 after going 0-1 with a 4.21 ERA and 1.325 WHIP here, he almost duplicated those numbers with the Ironbirds: 3-4. 4.11 with a 1.326 WHIP there. For the season Lloyd has struck out 80 and walked 23 in 71 2/3 innings.
  • Isaac Bellony (May PP) – Isaac had two stints with Delmarva, hitting .289/6/34/.856 OPS for the Shorebirds overall. Those stats were padded a bit by a September week where Isaac went 12-for-20 in his five-game September return after being sent back down with a paltry .169/4/18/.559 OPS with Aberdeen. He never recovered after a 2-for-29 start there after his June 9 promotion, but the great week here increased his Delmarva average from .256 to its final .289 mark.
  • Alex Pham (May pitcher) – Alex was promoted a week before his month as Shorebird of the Month concluded with a 1.59 ERA in 11 1/3 innings with a 1.324 WHIP. His injury-marred season with Aberdeen concluded with a 5-2 record but a high 5.66 ERA and 1.403 WHIP in 20 1/3 innings. There was also a one-inning detour to Florida for a perfect appearance in August.
  • Trendon Craig (June PP) – After getting a late start from extended spring, Trendon came to the Shorebirds on May 10 and stayed through July, hitting .262/2/33/.734 OPS in 59 games. 27 more games in Aberdeen were enough to get his feet wet and slash a respectable .258/0/10/.630 OPS for the higher squad.
  • Carter Baumler (June pitcher) – Unfortunately, Carter was the only SotM of the first eight to not be promoted as an injury ended his season in mid-June. He hung on the active roster until July but never pitched after June 15, finishing his once-a-week regimen with a 1.54 ERA in four Wednesday starts covering 11 2/3 innings, striking out an eye-popping 20 but walking seven.
  • Frederick Bencosme (July PP) – A great contact hitter, Bencosme hit .375 in two FCL games before joining the Shorebirds on June 9 and slashing .336/3/29/.841 OPS in 59 games here. He wasn’t quite ready for Aberdeen, though, putting up only a .154 average in 12 games after being promoted August 27.
  • Dylan Heid (July pitcher) – Also received from the FCL in June (on the 23rd), Dylan parlayed a win and 2.25 ERA in four innings there to 31 2/3 innings here, with a 2-2 record and 4.55 ERA to go with a 1.516 WHIP. In 5 2/3 innings in Aberdeen, Dylan kept a 4.76 ERA and improved 1.412 WHIP. Overall, he fanned 64 and walked 31 for the season, getting a better ratio at each higher level.
  • Reed Trimble (August/September PP) – After going 0-for-6 in two FCL rehab games from offseason surgery, Reed was thrown into our fire July 22 and put together a nice stretch run, hitting .291/2/18/.747 OPS in the last 31 contests of his season.
  • Ryan Long (August/September pitcher) – Save for an injury that cost him three weeks in July and early August, Ryan was perhaps Delmarva’s best pitcher this season. His 7-5 record led the team in wins and 3.10 ERA was tops among those with 50 or more innings pitched. Add in a 73/31 strikeout to walk ratio and 1.252 WHIP and you’ll agree Ryan made some strides this season; in fact, the late injury may have cost him a promotion.

These are all good players, but none of them will join this list of Shorebirds of the Year, with that season’s Prospect of the Year in parentheses:

  • 2006 – Ryan Finan (Brandon Erbe)
  • 2007 – Danny Figueroa (Brad Bergesen)
  • 2008 – Sean Gleason (Zack Britton)
  • 2009 – Ron Welty (L.J. Hoes)
  • 2010 – Brian Conley (Tyler Townsend)
  • 2011 – David Walters (Jonathan Schoop)
  • 2012 – Brenden Webb (Dylan Bundy)
  • 2013 – Lucas Herbst (Adrian Marin)
  • 2014 – Chance Sisco (Mike Yastrzemski)
  • 2015 – John Means (Jomar Reyes)
  • 2016 – Yermin Mercedes (Ryan Mountcastle)
  • 2017 – Alex Wells (no prospect award)
  • 2018 – Brenan Hanifee (DL Hall)
  • 2019 – Adam Hall (Grayson Rodriguez)
  • 2021 – Darell Hernaiz (Jordan Westburg)
  • 2022 – keep reading (Heston Kjerstad)

Ryan Long was my best pitcher, but I don’t think anyone made as much of a positive impact (while being here the requisite 88 scheduled games) as this guy:

While he was playing third base in this photo (taken April 24 vs. Myrtle Beach) it was almost as often Luis Valdez would be at third courtesy of a walk or single and a stolen base or two out of his 59 stolen bases. Only a promotion kept him from setting a team record.

Luis Valdez left the Carolina League August 16, nearly a month before play ended, yet still led the loop with 59 stolen bases (he added 12 more in a month for Aberdeen for good measure.) While there wasn’t a whole lot to cheer about for most of the season, by the time June came around it was a little like clockwork: if Valdez got a hit (he slashed .271/2/20/.689 OPS on the season for Delmarva, with a .347 on-base percentage) he would soon try for second, and if he succeeded would go for stealing third as well – assuming the catcher’s hurried throw didn’t end up in center field to move him up initially. With his 80-grade speed, this dude would steal on the toss back to the pitcher if he thought he could catch them unaware.

For being the most exciting player on an otherwise dull and hard-to-watch team, Valdez was the easy choice for Shorebird of the Year. Luis ended up in the running each month, but was beaten out by the guys who won. His consistency paid off, though, in the biggest prize.

I made the executive decision awhile back to end my Shorebird of the Month after this season, and I’m sticking by that one. But since I opted to create a second Substack page for my passion for baseball (called The Knothole) I not only created a place for my Shorebird of the Week Hall of Fame and Shorebird of the Week tracker to live on, but the excuse to keep going with the Shorebird of the Year – expanded to take both a pitcher and a position player. They’ll be eligible for the Shorebird of the Week Hall of Fame as a Shorebird of the Year just like John Means was (or Luis Valdez will be.)

So instead of placing my picks and pans here, I’m going to use it to debut The Knothole next Thursday. By then my updated tracker will be there as well as the Hall of Fame, which looks to have either one or two new members this season.

Shorebird Player and Pitcher of the Month: August/September 2022

Well, my friends, the rodeo has come to an end.

I never believed that when Josh Potter became my first Shorebird of the Week back on April 6, 2006 that it would become a series that spanned most of the life of my monoblogue website, which was only a few months old when I started. It turned out that I featured a pretty good slice of the guys who played here in that span of time, over 250 in all.

But it has to end someplace and it’s getting harder and harder for me to put these together in a manner that I like, so when I can’t do my best work it’s time to put the feature to bed. I will saddle it up one more time tonight with my August/September combined Shorebird position player and pitcher of the month.

After an injury-induced false start last season, Reed Trimble finally showed us what he could do. This is him in one of his first Delmarva games this year back on July 24.

Let’s begin with the position player, who finally had a healthy half-season to show what he could do. An injured Reed Trimble came up at the tail end of last year after being drafted as the Competitive Balance “B” pick in 2021 out of the University of Southern Mississippi and hit just .169 in 16 disappointing games. Rejoining the Shorebirds in late July this year, he got off to a bit of a slow start again but the Tupelo native finally blossomed like a crepe myrtle in August, stroking a slash line of .307/2/16/.775 OPS in the month-plus. (Since there were only 10 scheduled games in September this season, I decided to combine months.)

It culminated a year where Reed hit .291/2/18/.747 OPS in 31 Delmarva games (after an 0-for-6 rehab stint in Florida.) Since Reed turned 22 this year, he’s not way off the timetable for a prospect although it should be noted that this season’s CBB pick, Jud Fabian, tore up the Carolina League in meriting a quick promotion to Aberdeen – in fact, he was in line to snag this honor until he was called up, as was Dylan Beavers. Unfortunately for Reed, it’s two more outfielders who have leaped over him on the Orioles’ depth chart. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Orioles pulled a Darrel Hernaiz with Trimble and kept him here for another couple months to see how he starts a season.

Besides Fabian and Beavers, the other contender was a bit of a surprise. Fan favorite Creed Willems put together a great month as part of a second half where he surged his overall batting average over 50 points after July 4. But Trimble won out for my final Shorebird Position Player of the Month honor.

Ryan Long got the win for the Gallos de Delmarva on the Sunday I took this shot back in May. Overall, he was probably the Shorebirds’ ace starter for the season.

If it weren’t for the extended month, my pitcher would not have had the requisite number of games on the roster as he came off the injured list on August 14. But Ryan Long picked up where he left off as the ace of the Shorebirds’ staff (he was close to winning in June and July as well) and thus is my final Pitcher of the Month.

Ryan came to us as a 17th round draft pick last season from the unusually named Pomona College/Pitzer College in California. (In looking this up, I found it’s two schools who compete in athletics as one, and the arrangement is over 50 years old. Whatever works for them.) He was sent to the GCL in Florida and, truth be told, didn’t burn the place up – 0-2 with a 7.71 ERA in just seven innings. Regardless, once spring training ended Ryan found himself on the Delmarva staff and he’s quietly become one of our best hurlers: in August and September he finished 3-1 with a 2.16 ERA in 16 2/3 innings, with a nifty K/BB ratio of 17 to 4. (That’s been an issue with several Delmarva pitchers, as they are worst in the Carolina League at allowing walks.) It didn’t hurt that, despite his injury after the first appearance, he put forth four straight shutout outings covering 16 innings.

Ryan finished the season with just that three-week chunk missed with an injury but led the Shorebird qualifiers with a 7-5 record and 3.10 ERA, as well as a 1.25 WHIP. He also put up a good 73/31 strikeout to walk ratio in 72 2/3 innings. He’ll turn 23 over the offseason so it’s my suspicion he will be Aberdeen-bound to begin 2023, joining several other 2021 picks who have already made the leap.

Unlike the batting competition, Long pretty much dominated the pitching side; however, there were spirited efforts from 2022 draft choice Cameron Weston, trade piece Yaqui Rivera, and full-season pitcher Moises Chace to crash his party. But Long had the best month.

So, like Porky Pig would stutter, that’s all folks! I’ll have the Shorebird of the Year next week and that will be it for baseball coverage at monoblogue. In October it’s relocating and expanding to a new Substack page called The Knothole where my love of baseball will see the end of this era and the beginning of my historical look at the game. (I might have some Shorebird stuff, too, but no more players of the month.)

Until next week, happy trails.

Shorebird Player and Pitcher of the Month: July 2022

For the penultimate edition of this series, I have two winners who have come aboard midstream to provide a spark to the team, which ended July by taking 5 of 6 in Lynchburg.

After getting yet another hit, Frederick Bencosme leads off first in a recent game against Salem.

This is a good photo of Frederick Bencosme because it shows him at a place he often hangs out: first base. After two games in June getting his feet wet in the Florida Complex League, Frederick was promoted here June 9 and has worked his way around the infield: mostly at short, but also getting a handful of starts at second and third.

Even though he hails from the Dominican Republic and not Panama, the kid reminds me a lot of Rod Carew – plays the similar positions, has good bat control, and hits it where they ain’t quite a bit – for the month, Bencosme slashed a team-best .369/2/10/.960 OPS, which followed up a similar June. For the season here, Frederick is hitting .362 in 40 games, with a knack for putting the ball in play – just a combined 35 strikeouts and walks in 167 plate appearances here. It follows up a solid season in his native DR, where he slashed .310/2/16/.816 OPS in 44 games for the Orioles 2 team.

Signed as an international free agent August 14, 2020, the cancellation of the 2020 season meant Bencosme couldn’t begin playing until last season (although it’s likely he would have waited anyway as a late-season signee.) But the 19-year-old has shown he can hit pitching at each level he’s played; perhaps the one drawback to his game so far is the need to improve his fielding a little bit as he lags behind his league peers at shortstop. Still, it wouldn’t surprise me if he didn’t spend a few weeks at Aberdeen before the summer’s out, depending on what happens with the plethora of infield prospects ahead of him on the depth chart.

Dylan Heid took the loss in this, his debut against Lychburg, but has recovered since to become one of the most reliable Shorebird pitchers.

Drafted in the 11th round last season out of the University of Pittsburgh-Johnstown, Dylan Heid had a July where he led the Shorebirds in strikeouts as well as OPS against, effectively shutting down the opposition to the tune of a 2-0 record and 2.25 ERA in 16 innings pitched – close to a starter’s workload in 5 relief appearances.

2022 was the pro debut for Heid, who – like his position player mate Bencosme – made two appearances in the Florida Complex League before coming to Delmarva late in June. After strugging in his two June appearances here, allowing 6 earned runs in 5 1/3 innings, he’s whittled that lofty ERA down to 4.22, with a 2-2 record in 21 1/3 innings, striking out 28 while walking 12.

Heid was one of those players who waited out last year’s draft as a member of the MLB Draft League, suiting up for the Trenton Thunder, a former Eastern League member that lost its spot to the previously independent Somerset Patriots. That experience may have been helpful for Heid, a Pennsylvania native who came from a school that’s only sent a handful of players to professional baseball. One knock surely to come on him is that he’s old for this level, having turned 24 in May, so he’ll need to be impressive to keep moving up the ladder.

This monthlong stretch may be of great assistance in that regard.

As I noted above, this is the penultimate edition. I’ve decided to combine August and September since the latter schedule has just 10 games. So the final Shorebirds of the Month will be selected September 15, with the Shorebird of the Year picked September 22. Then it will be time to embark on a new, exciting baseball-related project I’m putting together called The Knothole.

Shorebird Player and Pitcher of the Month: June 2022

Sometimes this column is about stats, but there are times when it’s about expectations. Because of expectations – and the fact he was around the whole month – your Shorebird Position Player of the Month for June is outfielder Trendon Craig.

You see, Trendon put together a solid month at the plate by any measuring stick: Slashing .309/1/13/.826 OPS, this 20th and final pick by the Orioles last year out of the small-time Louisburg (N.C.) College turned around a slow start to the season in May to bring his overall slash to .235/2/21/.691 after Monday’s game. It came on the heels of a .294/1/8/.796 OPS mark in 24 Complex League games last season after being drafted. And watching how overmatched Trendon looked in May, I’m pleasantly surprised to be writing this. But his across-the-board consistency across the offensive numbers combined with a flawless season in the field gave him the nod.

A native of Georgia, Trendon went to high school in the Fredericksburg area of Virginia before going to the same junior college that produced some nobody you’ve never heard of, Cedric Mullins. Given the fact he’s only 20 – turns 21 this coming Sunday – and his average and OPS are trending higher, Trendon may be on track for a look-see in Aberdeen later this summer; if not, certainly for 2023. Not bad for a guy who had 586 guys picked before him – a relative position that would have put him 585 spots behind my other major contender for this month, Heston Kjersted. If Heston had been here a week (or even 2-3 days) earlier, he would have been the winner and Trendon in the agate type, but I use both cumulative and rate stats and the cumulatives is where Heston was lacking just a bit.

As for my pitcher, he was the fifth and last pick in what’s been sort of a star-crossed 2020 draft for the Orioles. Because of the pandemic and injury issues, it took until this season for Carter Baumler to make his pro debut, and Carter has been assigned so far a unique plan for this season: if you don’t come out on Wednesdays, you miss him. (Hence, I haven’t seen him since I usually go Thursday and Sunday.) Moreover, due to another arm flareup and an ill-timed rainout, Carter hasn’t pitched in a game since June 15th – since he’s not on the injured list, though, he remained eligible for Shorebird of the Month despite not pitching.

In a month where the Delmarva pitching was pretty brutal, though, the 2.08 ERA and 15/6 strikeout/walk ratio in just 8 2/3 innings stood out. A product of Dowling Catholic High School in West Des Moines, Iowa, he grew up on the outskirts of Des Moines and took a $1.5 million bonus in lieu of a commitment to TCU. (Ironically, money saved on signing the aforementioned Kjersted sweetened Baumler’s bonus pot. Wonder if Carter’s ever bought Heston lunch?) Things looked good until he needed Tommy John surgery in the fall of 2020 after beginning his workouts with the Orioles. So this is the first step back, and the Orioles are being cautious.

Overall on the season Carter’s only pitched 11 2/3 innings, allowing just seven hits, seven walks, and striking out 20. At just 20 years of age and lacking experience, I see no reason for him to pitch anywhere but Delmarva this season with the expectation he’ll be let loose a little bit next season, whether here or (more likely) with the IronBirds.

The other good pitching candidate this month was Ryan Long, who led the team in innings pitched and won one of the few games the Shorebirds were victorious in last month. No one else really had a month that wasn’t mediocre to awful.

One housekeeping note before I go: it’s looking more and more like I will combine August and September for my final Shorebirds of the Month. With only ten games scheduled in September, it didn’t seem fair to the pitchers to base it on maybe two appearances. July’s selections should be ready August 4.

A less worrisome trend

One of the things that surprised and helped attract me to this area 18 years ago was the fact that Salisbury had a minor league baseball team. I’ve always had a little bit of familiarity with the minor league system from following my Detroit Tigers and seeing the back of thousands of baseball cards, but it never dawned on me that Delmarva was the team representing Salisbury, just like one may not guess that the old Tidewater Tides were actually playing in Norfolk, Virginia or that the Down East Wood Ducks are from Kinston, North Carolina.

After the pandemic wiped out the 2020 season, we learned that a few of our erstwhile opponents in the South Atlantic League would be saying goodbye to the affiliated baseball ranks without giving their fans a chance to say sayonara to the team. While the Lexington Legends transformed themselves into a franchise in the independent Atlantic League, followed by the West Virginia Power – who were reborn as the Charleston Dirty Birds – the Hagerstown Suns disappeared from the baseball world, done in by poor previous attendance and facilities. (The good news for them: they will get a new stadium and also join the Atlantic League for the 2023 season, at least as of last September.)

In baseball’s realignment for 2021, the Shorebirds were one of five former South Atlantic League teams shuttled to the Carolina League, which flipped levels with the SAL to become a full-season class A league. (The SAL became what’s known as an advanced-A league.) In that respect we were joined in the move by the Augusta Greenjackets, Charleston (South Carolina) Riverdogs, Columbia Fireflies, and Kannapolis Cannon Ballers (who had already planned a name change from Intimidators and new stadium for 2020 before the season was scrubbed.)

This all may be old news to the folks who read this website and know I’m a passionate fan of the Delmarva Shorebirds: enough so to take the time each month to select a position player and pitcher of the month, pick a Shorebird of the Year each season, and host a page on my site for the Shorebird of the Week Hall of Fame for all the guys who make The Show. But it’s important to the reason I felt it necessary to do this post.

In the winter of 2020, I was very concerned that the Shorebirds would follow the fate of the aforementioned Legends, Power, and Suns. Knowing that the Orioles enjoy having most of their affiliates within easy driving distance and also knowing the game of musical chairs enforced by Major League Baseball was going to leave one team standing on the sidelines, it was apparent to me that the cut was going to come down to either us or Frederick, since the teams in the upper minors appeared safe and they were going to find a way to keep Aberdeen with the closeness to Baltimore and the Ripken influence. As it happened, Frederick was the odd team out.

Because of the pandemic restrictions for 2021, I knew attendance would be way down – truth be told, I was just happy to get the season we did given how heavy-handed the government reaction to the CCP virus was. The Shorebirds ended up with about half their usual attendance, although toward the end of the 2021 season things began to look a little more “normal.” So I was concerned about how things looked in April this season, when we had several nights with three-digit attendance figures. And I got to thinking: was it just us, or was this a league-wide thing? So I decided to do a study, and here’s how it worked.

As I said above, there were five teams that shifted from the SAL to the Carolina League which I could use as comparisons to a previous base year, 2019 – the last full “normal” season. However, the new stadium in Kannapolis eliminated that apples-to-apples, leaving me Augusta, Charleston, and Columbia to use as comparisons. While there were affilation changes at all three due to realignment, I presumed that would be of little to no effect. (Maybe somewhat in Augusta since they went from the San Francisco Giants to the nearby Atlanta Braves, but Yankees to Rays in Charleston or Mets to Royals in Columbia – eh, not so much.)

My methodology, taking games played between the season opener and Memorial Day – which was a leaguewide day off this season – accounted for both attendance and weather, since the box scores indicate both. I even came up with a formula to determine how good the weather was for each team and season because that’s an important factor as well: based on the weather at game time I factored the weather as a zero for rain or drizzle, one for overcast, two points for cloudy, three for partly cloudy, and four points for clear or sunny.

So is the issue only with Delmarva or are we not alone? Let’s take a look, beginning in alphabetical order with Augusta.

Augusta Greenjackets

Home stadium: SRP Park (2018), capacity 4,782

In 2019, they had 23 home dates prior to Memorial Day and averaged 4,125 fans per game. Their average temperature at game time was 83 degrees and the weather factor was 3.44, meaning their games generally occurred in clear to partly cloudy weather (only one had a delay.) Their record at Memorial Day was 24-27.

Three years later, they had 24 home dates prior to Memorial Day and averaged 4,175 fans per game – basically a wash. This despite an average temperature that was three degrees cooler and weather just slightly worse at a factor of 3.33, with just one delay. This year they were 23-22.

What this tells me is that whatever slight bit of luster the stadium has lost is being countered, perhaps by taking marketing advantage of the new Braves affiliation. (Three of their four affiliates are now in Georgia.) They look to be in pretty good shape for the time being.

Charleston Riverdogs

Home stadium: Joseph P. Riley, Jr. Park (1997), capacity 6,000

The 2019 season saw the Riverdogs average 4,327 fans for their 27 home dates prior to Memorial Day, with great weather: a 3.52 weather factor, with just one delay, and average of 80.8 degrees at game time. (Can we borrow some of that?) The team was 28-23 at Memorial Day 2019.

This year, despite a better team at 31-14, their attendance slumped to 3,810 per date for the same 27 dates. I don’t think there’s THAT many passionate Yankee fans in Charleston, so perhaps the reason was the weather: while the weather was less than one degree cooler at 80.4 degrees, the weather factor was down to 2.78 thanks to three cloudy days and two games that began in the rain. In terms of real bottoms in the seats, the team is down 14,000 from their 2019 total-to-date, and if that tracks for the season like 2019 did it would make a significant dent in attendance that totaled over 300,000 that year. A drier summer, though, may allow the Riverdogs to catch up or at least hold serve.

Columbia Fireflies

Home stadium: Segra Park (2016), capacity 9,077

The Fireflies were still rather new to Columbia in 2019, so they averaged 4,201 per date for their 22 pre-Memorial Day dates that year – this despite a weather factor of 2.77 and three games with rain delays, as well as an average gametime temperature of 77.6 degrees. The team wasn’t great on the field that season, hitting Memorial Day with a subpar 19-32 record.

Three years on, they still don’t have a great team despite new affiliation, trailing the Carolina League with a 14-31 record on Memorial Day. So even though the gametime temperature (77.4 degrees) held remarkably steady between the two years, and they had better weather (a 3.24 factor) and only two delays, their attendance has declined markedly to 3,367 per game.

Historically, Columbia hasn’t been able to keep a team very long – their previous team, mostly known as the Capital City Bombers, lasted a couple decades before being moved upstate to Greenville in 2005 and becoming what’s now known as the Greenville Drive. But it’s somewhat of an unfair comparison because the team came to Columbia in 2016 and had the benefit of Tebowmania in 2017, so attendance wasn’t going to stay on such a plateau. Still, a drop of nearly 20 percent would be concerning to most owners and league officials. And that leads me to…

Delmarva Shorebirds

Home stadium: Arthur W. Perdue Stadium (1996), capacity 5,200

At the start of 2019, the Shorebirds were opening a fantastic season – they began with a 24-4 record, hit Memorial Day at 39-11, and finished with 90 wins and the first half SAL North title. So despite a weather factor of just 2.96, one delay, and an average gametime temperature of 70 degrees, the Shorebirds averaged 2,398 for their 25 openings.

Fast forward to 2022, and we have the opposite team: just 16-29 on Memorial Day. While it’s seemed like a cold spring here, our gametime temperature was only a degree cooler at 69.3 and the weather factor only slightly worse at 2.86. The team had no weather-related delays. (They did get an umpire delay at a game I was at. Need to make sure not to eat where he did.)

So the drop in attendance to 2,147 per game is a little troubling, but not as significant as Columbia’s. In fact, it’s fairly comparable to Charleston’s, which means a dry and warm summer could get us back into the neighborhood of 200,000 fans overall. (We will have four fewer scheduled dates for the foreseeable future as A-ball teams are now scheduled for 132 games instead of the previous 140.) Based on average, that’s a drop of 12,000 fans for the Shorebirds right there but because most of that shortage is on the Mondays they now have as an almost-perpetual off day, it’s more like about 8,000 fans.)

And because this is a phenomenon hitting three of the four teams I studied, I think it may be the setting up of a new normal that’s hopefully just a base which can be improved upon once economic conditions finally improve – that, however, will have little to do with baseball.

If – and that’s a pretty big if at this point – the Shorebirds do somehow manage to get 200,000 fans at this point, that’s going to be a testament to a loyal fan base that hasn’t minded the mediocre-to-bad teams Baltimore has normally sent us over the years to show up and see the boys play. To see all the empty seats in April I was pretty worried Seventh Inning Stretch LLC, the owners of the Shorebirds, may find an excuse to leave our friendly confines by their selling the team to someone who wants to move it either the available facility in Frederick or the new stadium in Hagerstown but if attendance stays reasonably steady or improves for the next few seasons they’ll maintain their investment.

Do that and, good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise, I’ll be there.

Postscript: since the original draft of this I wrote the week after Memorial Day while the Shorebirds were on the second and last two-week road trip for the season, the Shorebirds had a five-game homestand that featured wildly varied attendance figures: high triple-digits on Tuesday and Thursday, the usual nice 2,000-ish crowd on Wednesday from the Silver Sluggers (age 55+ promotion where they get discounted tickets) and solid crowds on Friday and Saturday of over 4,000 apiece – the two largest crowds of the year and first ones over 4,000. Friday may have been helped a bit by the long-awaited pro debut of Heston Kjerstad (2nd pick overall in the 2020 draft, sidelined in 2021 by myocarditis and since early spring training with a hamstring injury) and Saturday was a Little League day. Both Friday and Saturday had fireworks as well. (Sunday’s game was rained out and Saturday’s was delayed two hours by rain as well.)

Overall, they drew 12,957 for the five games, so if you round it up with what could have been a decent Sunday attendance of 2,043 to make the math easy it’s 15,000 for the set. (That number would have been doable since the Shorebirds were planning a postgame mini-clinic for kids.) Going back to my “picks and pans” last year I mentioned that their largest 6-game set in 2021 brought 14,249 to friendly confines of Perdue; well, this year they beat that number with the last 6-game set before Memorial Day and most likely would have again this week had rain not foiled those plans. (In looking back, though, that six-game set was only five due to a Thursday rainout so it probably would have been someplace around 16,000 for six games – just about even with what we drew the last week of May.)

Going forward, the end of the school year will hopefully help build the midweek numbers a bit and there are several good promotions and big-crowd events still to come. So I feel a little less worried than I was and I like having the numbers to back it up.

Shorebird Player and Pitcher of the Month: May 2022

If things had turned out ever-so-slightly different, I would have had dual repeat winners for the first time. Until the last week of the month, Darell Hernaiz was once again the clear leader of the band insofar as the top position player went, but instead of getting another award he got something more important: a long-overdue promotion to Aberdeen on May 24.

Isaac Bellony parlayed his good May into being called up the Aberdeen the next month. Here he celebrates a win over Fredericksburg May 19.

In the interim, this month’s eventual winner did something you don’t see every day: hit a natural cycle of (in order) single, double, triple, and home run. That 5-for-5 day last week (with another single added for good measure in a 14-6 win at Charleston) vaulted Isaac Bellony past the absent Hernaiz and into this month’s honor. The switch-hitting outfielder ended the month with a slash line of .250/4/20/.845 OPS, all of which led the qualifiers. (One hitter had a better average and OPS but in a limited number of at-bats, only 16.)

The 20-year-old native of St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands was signed back when the Orioles were beginning their push to rebuild the international pipeline in the latter days of Dan Duquette’s tenure as general manager. (For context, Bellony was signed on July 27, 2018 – right in the midst of five major league selloff trades that brought over a dozen players to the Orioles’ starved minor league system. Those begat a haul that soon brought former Shorebirds Jean Carlos Encarnacion and Jean Carmona over.) Isaac showed some potential in the Dominican Summer League when he began playing in 2019, so after the year-long minor league hiatus he was promoted to the Complex League in Florida, hitting .259/4/11/.804 OPS overall, primarily for the Orange team (37 of 39 games.)

In the absence of Hernaiz, Isaac has become the primary offensive threat for the Shorebirds, and despite his average falling off a little bit in May, his overall .262/6/30/.843 OPS at the end of May led the remainder of the team in those slash categories. One item that may change in the future, though: like Cedric Mullins before him, future success may dictate the switch-hitting may be dropped as Bellony’s only 1-for-21 as a right-handed hitter this season. Given his stat sheet now has a handful of left-on-left at-bats, that may have already occurred.

Fans of the Shorebirds may have noticed the international flavor of the team this year, particularly as Bellony represents a product of the emphasis on scouting abroad. Isaac is the first homegrown international position player to be a Shorebird of the Month since 2017 (current Shorebirds coach Daniel Fajardo was the last) but I suspect there may be more in the pipeline.

Meanwhile, on the pitching side Daniel Lloyd was definitely in the mix for repeating the honor of Shorebird Pitcher of the Month, but instead I chose to honor another player recently promoted to Aberdeen.

While Alex Pham was only in for two hitters in this May 15 game against Salem, his body of work since rejoining the Shorebirds last month was enough to give him the nod as Shorebird Pitcher of the Month.

Righthander Alex Pham was here at the very tail end of an extended 2021 season, pitching in three games as a wrap to a year that sent the Bay Area native from his senior campaign at the University of San Francisco to Wareham, Massachusetts for a brief pre-draft stint in the showcase Cape Cod League circuit to five games (and all of 6 2/3 innings) in the Complex League to two weekends and a week here. Looks like he pretty much covered all the corners of the country.

While Alex was unscored upon here, a couple rough outings in Florida contributed to an overall 3-1, 4.63 mark and 1.543 WHIP. A 12:3 strikeout to walk ratio was also promising for a guy not picked until the 19th round. (Just like Shorebird of the Week Hall of Fame pitcher Josh Hader – granted, Hader is by far the most successful from that year’s round, just three of whom even made the Show.)

Pham didn’t show up here this season until the end of April, so I’ll take the liberty here of lumping in his single one-inning appearance with April to his May stats. It all worked out to a 1.59 ERA in six appearances covering 11 1/3 innings, where Alex allowed just eight hits and struck out 15 while walking seven for a 1.324 WHIP. Perhaps those aren’t eye-popping stats, but Orioles management has been aggressive with moving up the 2021 draft class and considering Alex will turn 23 later this fall they wanted to see how his outstanding breaking ball (it was very fun to watch batters react to it) would play at a higher level. (So far, so good – his Aberdeen numbers are a shade better than he had for the Shorebirds.)

Pham emerged from a scrum at the top of the pitching heap that included the aforementioned Lloyd as well as Hugo Beltran, Shane Davis, Alejandro Mendez, and Preston Price. Hopefully those who remain will keep making it hard to select the next Shorebird Pitcher of the Month.

I’ll be back to the normal first Thursday selection in July for the June honorees.

Shorebird Player and Pitcher of the Month: April 2022

Back for another season, and I’m kicking it off with a very familiar face as my first Shorebird position player of the month.

My first Shorebird position player of the month for 2022 is carrying over his success from last season, when he was named the Shorebird of the Year. Here’s Darell Hernaiz during the opening weekend against Fredericksburg.

In fact, Darell Hernaiz is one of just a few Shorebirds of the Year to begin the next season with Delmarva. But unlike the others, who won simply as being the standardbearer on a well below-average team, Darell is stuck behind a whole host of more highly-regarded prospects on the left side of the infield, several of whom he shared time with here last season.

So while Darell’s still here, he’s spent his April crushing the competition to a point where Hernaiz is the unquestioned best offensive player on the team, slashing .322/5/16/1.009 OPS – all numbers which led the Shorebirds’ attack.

While Darell was highly placed as a 5th round draft pick in 2019 out of a Texas high school, the Puerto Rican native still languishes behind guys like Gunnar Henderson (drafted ahead of him in 2019), 2020’s Jordan Westburg and Coby Mayo, and Cesar Prieto, a Cuban shortstop signed this offseason and assigned to Aberdeen. Even though Prieto was hurt recently, the Orioles opted to move Greg Cullen’s rehab to Aberdeen rather than finally promote Hernaiz. Perhaps it’s the seven errors Hernaiz committed that keeps him here, but one has to wonder if Darell will be one of those guys who leaves as a six-year free agent and makes it with someone else. Meanwhile, he’ll hopefully just keep raking and contend for a back-to-back honor no one has done before.

I reached back to the tail end of 2021 to snag this photo of Daniel Lloyd, who was literally the last Shorebird pitcher fans at Perdue Stadium saw in 2021. Here he closed out the 4-3 win over Fredericksburg last September 12, receiving his lone decision from last season. That’s why I keep all my old photos!

We also have a somewhat familiar face as the Shorebird Pitcher of the Month, as Daniel Lloyd came up with the wave of 2021 draft picks at the tail end of last season. But while Daniel struggled a bit as a Shorebird in 2021 (1-0 but with a 6.17 ERA and 1.971 WHIP in nine appearances covering 11 2/3 innings) he’s done what many players have in their return to Delmarva: put up markedly improved numbers. In eight innings in April Dan allowed but one earned run and only five hits (and walks) while striking out 11. He only allowed a run in one of his five appearances in April and kept the streak going to begin May, running his ERA down to 0.90.

A South Carolinian born and bred, I’m sure Dan is enjoying the Shorebirds’ current week in Columbia, where he pitched for the University of South Carolina after starring at Summerville High School in the Charleston area. He was selected by the Orioles in the 14th round last season, and opened his career with one inning in the Complex League before reporting to Delmarva last August. Dan is one of a handful of pitchers who the Shorebirds retained this spring after many of them got our home cooking for the first time last season now that Delmarva no longer has a buffer team in Aberdeen for rookies out of the former Gulf Coast League.

Since Dan is only 21, he’s certainly at an appropriate level for his advancement and will probably see a lot of late-inning situations for the Shorebirds as the season goes on. At this time, Lloyd has not been in a save situation but the guys who get holds eventually get that chance, so we will see.

Unlike the position player competition, which Hernaiz dominated, the pitching came down to several guys as the month ended, with bad outings doing in a couple competitors. A very reasonable argument, though, could have been made for Juan De Los Santos to have grabbed the brass ring, and it was a close contest where Lloyd barely prevailed.

Pleasing predictions, 2022 edition

It’s been well over a year since I previewed what would become the 2021 Low-A East season by pontificating just what the talent level stacked up against our Shorebirds would be in the newly revamped league. As it turned out, my crystal ball wasn’t perfectly clear but it was polished enough to get most of the trends correct. (One thing I didn’t forecast was how aggressively the Orioles would move some of our prospects up. Our 68-52 record could have been 75 to 80 wins at least if some of our initial hot prospects stuck around.)

Now that we have a full season of minor league ball behind us after the 2020 hiatus, we can further see the trends and which teams should be the best. Even better, we already have a schedule in place so I can take things a step further and predict the overall records based on their schedule. (Hint: the southern teams that have to play a Charleston squad benefitting from a loaded Tampa Bay system 24 times apiece ain’t looking too good.)

That Charleston team looks to be the class of the now-resurrected Carolina League at this juncture. (Since more of the former SAL teams were moved up to High-A ball, they and the Carolina League switched spots on the minor league totem pole and the Shorebirds – who stayed in low-A – are now members of the CL. It’s nothing new: the former SAL lost two teams to the Midwest League a dozen years ago because of franchise relocations.)

Here are the predicted standings in each division:

Southern Division

  1. Charleston (Tampa Bay) 84-48
  2. Columbia (Kansas City) 67-65
  3. Myrtle Beach (Chicago Cubs) 60-72
  4. Augusta (Atlanta) 57-75

Central Division

  1. Carolina (Milwaukee) 76-56
  2. Down East (Texas) 75-57
  3. Fayetteville (Houston) 57-75
  4. Kannapolis (Chicago White Sox) 47-85

Northern Division

  1. Salem (Boston) 82-50
  2. Lynchburg (Cleveland) 67-65
  3. Delmarva (Baltimore) 66-66
  4. Fredericksburg (Washington) 54-78

I can already see people asking me, “Why are the Shorebirds picked so low when the Orioles have the #1 (or #3, or #8, depending on source) minor league system?”

It’s not like I wouldn’t like to see the Shorebirds succeed but to me their system is top-heavy as most of the key prospects are at the Aberdeen level or above. And if you look at the lower levels of the system as I did to compile this prediction you’ll notice those teams were mediocre at best last season compared to the competition.

However, if the Orioles have indeed truly struck gold with their international prospects signed over the last couple years they could quickly vault into contention in what should be a division that’s relatively competitive. The Shorebirds have to solve their issue from last season with beating Salem on a consistent basis, though, and right now the Red Sox seem to have a very good system at the Low-A level. (The Indians – oops, Guardians – always seem to be good at this level, too.) It appears each will take their turns beating up on Fredericksburg, and this year no divisional team has the advantage of playing the FredNats more than another, as we did last season.

There is also an argument that suggests that our 2021 draft class – which will make up a significant portion of the Shorebirds – carried the team to a 20-10 record after being called up en masse in mid-August so the team will be better than I’m predicting. But I had to consider that 12 of those 30 were against the aforementioned FredNats.

All in all, though, ours is a team definitely on the upswing. It should be a much more competitive summer than some of those I endured a decade ago so I wouldn’t mind being a little bearish on our prospects.

Odds and ends number 109

Because I did quite a bit of e-mail list pruning over the holidays – it was easier than shedding those holiday pounds, which are still there – it took a little longer for me to find compelling items I wanted to spend anywhere from a couple sentences to a couple paragraphs on. So here we go again.

A cure for insomnia

You may not have noticed this while you were putting on pounds and using your gas-guzzling vehicle to drive around and buy holiday gifts, but Delaware now has a Climate Action Plan. Of course, it involves the folly of minimizing greenhouse gas emissions – as if our little state will make much of a difference on that front – and actions they term as “maximize resilience to climate change impacts.” They fret that “Delaware has already experienced over 1 foot of sea level rise at the Lewes tide gauge since 1900. By midcentury, sea levels are projected to rise another 9 to 23 inches and, by 2100, up to an additional 5 feet.” These are the people who can’t tell you if it will snow in two weeks but they’re sure of this one. Moreover, these assertions were easily swatted out of the park.

The only climate action plan we need is to first follow Virginia’s lead and ditch the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, since that’s simply a wealth transfer mechanism from middle-class pockets to utilities to government to entities they deem as those in need of “equity.” After that, it’s time to repeal every last renewable energy mandate and get back to reliable power, not dependence on arbitrary and capricious wind and sunshine for our electricity. The dirty little secret is that we need those fossil fuel plants as backup anyway so we may as well get our use out of them. Don’t believe me? Well, the Caesar Rodney Institute agrees:

Did you know Delaware has been mandating wind and solar power in addition to providing subsidies for both for over a decade? In 2021, the mandate required 21% power from wind and solar, increasing to 40% by 2035. So far, 90% of the wind and solar mandate is being met with out-of-state generation, with only 2% of electric demand met by in-state solar. At night, when it’s cloudy, and in winter, when solar power drops 40% compared to summer, reliable power is needed for backup.

“What Delaware Needs in State Electric Power Generation?”, Caesar Rodney Institute, December 26, 2021.

So we are subsidizing other states. Unfortunately, we are probably in the same boat for awhile but, rather than muck up the shipping lanes entering Delaware Bay with useless wind turbines or put hundreds of acres out of use for agriculture with ugly (and generally Chinese-made) solar panel farms, we could just build a series of natural gas generating plants with a minimal infrastructure investment in additional or expanded pipelines. It’s the better way.

Losing the hand

If you recall the 2010 election, the Beltway pundits bemoaned a missed opportunity in Delaware because Mike Castle lost in the Republican primary to TEA Party favorite Christine O’Donnell. (Some guy wrote part of a chapter in a book about this.) After their favored candidate lost, the Delaware GOP establishment took their ball and went home, resulting in a schism that still occasionally pops up to this day.

Well, Mike is back in the news as he was recently selected to be part of the board at A Better Delaware. As they describe it:

During 40 years in public office, Gov. Castle served two terms as governor, from 1985 to 1992, before he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives for nine terms. While in Congress, he served on the Financial Services Committee and on the Education and Labor Committee and was a strong advocate for fiscal responsibility and working across party lines to build bridges and form coalitions to find pragmatic, bipartisan solutions to some of the nation’s most pressing problems.

“Former Gov. Mike Castle Joins A Better Delaware Board,” January 18, 2022.

What do we get when we reach across party lines? Our arm ripped off and beaten with it. Democrats in Delaware have zero interest in working with Republicans (let alone the conservatives who need to be in charge) so I don’t see the use of this relic who exemplifies everything that frustrates common-sense Delawareans about the Delaware GOP. If you want A Better Delaware, you need to elect people vowing to do whatever it takes to undo the forty years’ worth of damage done by the Democrats. They can shut up and sit down for awhile.

But it would be cool if Christine O’Donnell took a job there.

Tone-deaf

Anymore I use part of my odds and ends to pick on that crazy one from South Dakota, Rick Weiland. (You thought I would say Kristi Noem?) Just two weeks ago he wrote, “It has never been more important for the Biden administration and Congress to go bold and make sure everyone has enough high-quality masks to protect themselves and others.” Weiland was advocating for some boondoggle called the Masks for All Act.

Of course, we all know that two weeks later mask mandates were being dropped all over the blue-state country by Democrat governors who claimed to be following the science, and they did… right up to the point where the “science” affected their chances of holding on to any sort of power. It’s all about power, folks, and don’t you forget it.

But Weiland is the same nut who rails on about “insurrectionists” in Congress and deplatforming Fox News because it, “consistently downplays the seriousness of the pandemic, while amplifying risky treatment alternatives like ivermectin (and) is allowed to spew disinformation directly into the homes of millions of Americans 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.” Yet people take this stuff seriously. I just thought you needed a good laugh.

Invading the Shore

Speaking of crazy people…

It took awhile, but now we seem to have a branch of Indivisible of our very own on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. “We are IndivisibleShore,” they write, “and are here to help you help progressive candidates win elections in Maryland, specifically The Eastern Shore and Eastern parts of the Western Shore.”

Well, that’s about the last thing they need – talk about an invasive species. Besides the Zoom training sessions, they also promise, “We have phone banking, door knocking (when safe) and postcard writing available. We also will be sponsoring music events and get togethers when safe.” One out of five ain’t bad if the band is halfway decent, as I’m quite aware that most musicians are on the opposite side of the political spectrum.

This guy gets it

Now we can come back to sanity.

One thing I recommend reading (or hearing, since it’s a brief weekly podcast) is the Castle Report. While Donald Trump was a fine president, I think Castle would have been Donald Trump on steroids when it came to trimming the government back to Constitutional levels (provided he had a like-minded Congress.) He’s the reason I joined the Constitution Party here in Delaware. (And somehow I’ve managed in one article to talk about two different guys surnamed Castle. Odd. Or maybe an end.)

This week he talked about the Canadian truckers’ convoy and it’s one of his best. One thing to ponder from his piece – ask yourself who this sounds like:

So, who is this man, Justin Trudeau, and what are his qualifications to hold the office of Prime Minister of Canada? Other than the fact that he was elected by a majority of Canadian voters, he has only one qualification and that is he is the son of the former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Pierre was of military age during World War ll but declined to serve. He built his fortune and his political career at home while Canadians were dying on the battlefields of Europe. Pierre was apparently a devout communist and never met or even heard of a murderous, dictator he didn’t love. He went to the Soviet Union to participate in the great achievements of Joseph Stalin. He wrote glowing praises of Mao’s regime in China. He had a friendly relationship with Castro and visited with him in Cuba. Some of the praise he heaped on Stalin was of new Russian cities built from the rubble of the great war, but he never mentioned the many thousands of slaves who died building those cities.

Justin seems to have nothing to recommend him to Canadians except he follows in his father’s communist footsteps. What, I wonder, is his own merit or his own achievement? He has no scholarly achievement, no publications to his name, no business experience, but he is an accepted legacy, member of the global ruling elite and, therefore, protected.

For example, as a young man, he often appeared in blackface and sang the Harry Belafonte classic, The Banana Boat Song. He now says he considers that racist but no resignation, and no groveling apology. He is also free to call the truckers racists because one truck flew a Confederate flag.

“Unacceptable Views”, Darrell Castle, The Castle Report, February 11, 2022.

It’s worth mentioning that the Canadians are just the first, as other nations have gotten into the act. But imagine this: thousands of everyday Canadians lined Canada’s main highway east from British Columbia to cheer these truckers on, in subfreezing weather. It was a little bit like a Trump rally in terms of enthusiasm, but instead of a political figure these folks were there for a political statement and not the opportunity to glom onto celebrity. That’s a key difference. Let’s pray for their success.

Play ball!

While the major leaguers are locked out and almost certainly won’t begin spring training on time, our Delmarva Shorebirds are on track to begin their spring training on February 28 and begin the regular season April 8, as they are unaffected by the lockout. There are lots of reasons to go to the ballpark already, but the Shorebirds have an interesting promotional schedule worth checking out.

It’s a good way to bring this 109th edition of odds and ends to a close.

Presenting: The Shorebird of the Week Hall of Fame Class of 2021

It may now be a misnomer because three of this year’s four inductees were Shorebirds of the Month, but I also have a couple Shorebirds of the Year who were never a weekly/monthly honoree here, so I can be fast and loose.

Back when I decided to go to the monthly format, I made this honor more of a performance-based award than it had been previously. Sure, there have been players who were one-month flashes in the pan, but by and large the talent has come through and it’s beginning to show now that we’re four seasons into this new format. Two of the four inducted this year were selected in the first SotM season of 2017 and one comes from 2018. Only one holdout is from 2016, and, for the first time in six seasons we do not have a player from 2014 as they have finally cycled out after sending eight players to the Hall of Fame. I don’t foresee ever having that sort of success out of a single year again.

Given the big club’s era of rebuilding and lack of interest in trading away prospects, it’s no surprise that all four in my Class of 2021 debuted with the Orioles, although one didn’t stay long afterward.

I was a little shocked that Ryan McKenna would be my first honoree this season as he debuted April 5, in part because he was a position player at a time when the Orioles needed pitching. They would get it with my other three players: Zac Lowther on April 25, Jay Flaa two days later on April 27, and finally Alex Wells on June 26. It was so fast I thought I would have a huge class of six or seven, especially with the revolving door of pitcher tryouts the Orioles were having – 14 of their 16 major league debuts this season were pitchers. And while it’s true none of these guys made a great impact, they still gained the valuable experience that could make them better – I don’t see this as a repeat of the Class of 2011 where the majority of the guys only made the Show for that one season.

As we transition into the Elias era and players he drafted from 2019 on begin to close in on the brass ring, we still see a number of late Duquette-era players on the cusp of perhaps making up the Class of 2022 – assuming a full non-lockout season, of course.

Believe it or not, though, that Shorebird of the Week crop in 2014 still has a couple guys out there playing who have not debuted yet. But I would be shocked if the agate type featured David Richardson, Luis Gonzalez, or Mitch Horacek – teams may be desperate for pitching, but I don’t think they are that desperate to use journeymen pushing 30 if they’re not already there. Similarly, you have 2016 Shorebirds of the Week Jesus Liranzo, Ofelky Peralta, and Brian Gonzalez toiling in the AAA ranks last season. None are on 40-man rosters.

More realistically, we look at those who are still standing from 2017-19. Only Preston Palmiero and Steven Klimek are non-major leaguers still active from the 2017 honorees, and while Palmiero made it to AAA this season and hit well, he’s a long shot to make the Angels. Klimek is now a minor league free agent.

The odds are much better for the 2018 Shorebirds. DL Hall was the only Shorebird of anything placed on the Orioles’ 40-man roster, making him the safest bet of anyone who’s still waiting for his debut. The next most likely in this group is infielder Mason McCoy, but others with outside shots are outfielder Zach Jarrett and pitchers Tim Naughton and Brenan Hanifee. Brenan may be more of a 2023 candidate since he’s missed two seasons to injury – but the Orioles still like him and have waited on him since 2019, when he was at Frederick.

Even more so, the Shorebirds of 2019 were a loaded class. After Hall, the two best prospects to be potentially featured in the Class of 2022 are pitcher Grayson Rodriguez and outfielder Robert Neustrom. Also lurking in the wings from making it to Bowie are pitchers Drew Rom and Grey Fenter, who was picked in last year’s Rule 5 Draft by the Cubs and returned in spring training. Less likely to make the jump are infielder Cadyn Grenier, outfielder Johnny Rizer, and pitcher Ryan Wilson. They are coming into make-or-break seasons, with Grenier also available for the Rule 5 draft.

Missing 2020 means we have a big gap, and none of the Shorebirds I selected in 2021 made it past Aberdeen this season. It will be interesting to see how they fare as their success (or lack thereof) will determine what the classes of 2024 and 2025 look like.

With the publication of this post, I’ll bring the newly updated SotWHoF back live and allow you to read and enjoy.

Picks and pans from a Shorebird fan, 2021 edition

It’s been a loooooong two years since I last wrote some of these, and to be honest I thought a lot about it would change. But the funny thing? My first pick was the then-new concourse, but I never made it out there this season. Perhaps because it’s still underutilized despite my suggestions.

It was no surprise that attendance was down this season: no benefit of a “normal” offseason, having a somewhat shorter schedule overall, and getting a lot of questions about COVID restrictions after beginning the season with limited capacity all took their toll on the gate, which tumbled to a franchise-low 110,281 for the 60-game home season. Yet even the best six-game week only brought 14,249 to the park, which was about 4,000 fewer than an average pre-COVID six-game week would draw.

But I can’t really pan the staff this season, because if ever a group deserved a mulligan it was this one. Here’s hoping that, with the pandemic beginning to recede, 2022 will become a good comparable to 2019 – albeit with four fewer openings as the low-A schedule compressed to 132 games, 66 home and away. That makes a difference of about 12,000 fans. Drawing 200,000 once again next season would be an achievement but it’s doable. Getting back to full staff will also be a big help.

Because of the lack of staff, I can’t really pan the food too much – however, if I were to make a suggestion (and integrate my other idea) it would be nice to have a select-your-own sub (as in hoagie) station out on or near the concourse. It could even be cold subs or something not requiring a great deal of cooking, but I think it would be a nice idea for variety. Also, I wouldn’t mind them bringing the supreme pizza back – not that I ever recall eating it when it was here a couple years ago. (These guys make a surprisingly good pizza, even if it is just cheese or pepperoni.)

And now that we have some assurance that the team will be here, perhaps it’s time for more of those back-of-the-house improvements. (They did update the restroom at the entrance level concourse this year, refinishing it.) But even better, I think there could be a lot more done with the lobby and entrance to the Eastern Shore Baseball Hall of Fame.

In looking at it over the years, I think the original intent of the stadium was to have most of the people enter by going up the stairs to the upper concourse where most of the concession stands are, then work their way down to what used to be the general admission bleacher seats. The lower center entrance was probably envisioned more for the box seat holders, but it’s become the predominant entrance over the years to a point where the upper entrances were barely used this year. (Maybe once or twice.) I’m not sure how to do it without looking at a plan, but it seems to me that they could make it a better experience than just walking down a nondescript hall. If you get the kid’s perspective of going up the stairs then reaching the top, smelling the smells, and then crossing the concourse to see the green grass of the field – although that view is unfortunately blocked by the elevator tower – maybe you’ll understand why this is something that interests me.

But looking forward to 2022, it will be nice to have the full amount of time to prepare promotions for next season. We did manage several fireworks shows, Scrapple Night, and a Gallos de Delmarva night at the tail end of the season, so it wasn’t a lost season by any means. Get the giveaways to be available on their appointed night and we should be all right.

Speaking of picks, instead of predicting the 25 players we were going to get (which would have been nigh-upon-impossible given this spring’s situation) I predicted how the league’s teams would finish. Here’s how that turned out:

  1. Down East Wood Ducks (Texas) (72-48, 2nd overall, lost championship series)
  2. Delmarva Shorebirds (Baltimore) (68-52, 4th overall based on tiebreaker*)
  3. Charleston RiverDogs (Tampa Bay) (82-38, 1st overall, won pennant)
  4. Lynchburg Hillcats (Cleveland) (58-62, 7th overall)
  5. Columbia Fireflies (Kansas City) (48-71, 10th overall)
  6. Myrtle Beach Pelicans (Chicago Cubs) (59-61, 6th overall)
  7. Fayetteville Woodpeckers (Houston) (55-85, 8th overall)
  8. Salem Red Sox (Boston) (71-49, 3rd overall, won our Northern Division)
  9. Carolina Mudcats (Milwaukee) (68-52, 5th overall)
  10. Kannapolis Cannon Ballers (Chicago White Sox) (40-79, 12th overall)
  11. Augusta Greenjackets (Atlanta) (54-66, 9th overall)
  12. Fredericksburg Nationals (Washington) (44-76, 11th overall)

(*) We defeated Carolina in the season series, 8-4.

Given these numbers, I would say the surprises were Salem and Carolina, which didn’t look like they would have very good teams based on their systems but turned out to be two of the teams in contention until the final days. Lynchburg and (especially) Columbia, on the other hand, seemed to be the real underperformers. Aside from those outliers, though, teams tended to finish a position or two off where they were expected to be (except Myrtle Beach, who hit their 6th place target by a game over Lynchburg.) So maybe I’ll try again for next season, with the added bonus of knowing each team’s schedule.

So there you have picks and pans. I’m going to take it easy for a few days.

Shorebird of the Year – a 2021 season wrapup

There were a few fretful days when I wondered if I would be able to write this post.

We first had to endure the cancellation of the 2020 season thanks to the CCP virus and our reaction to it, then had to learn our fate as the powers that be at Major League Baseball sliced and diced the old minor league baseball system. Fortunately, we did not come out as Julienne fries.

Instead, we survived as the Orioles’ lowest full-season team in a hybrid regional league called the Low-A East that combined teams from the old South Atlantic League and demoted franchises from the former Carolina League and played an excessively divisional schedule where 96 of the scheduled 120 games (a season shortened by 20 games from our old format) were played against three teams: the Fredericksburg Nationals, Lynchburg Hillcats, and Salem Red Sox. (None of whom came from the old SAL. In fact, we did not play an SAL alumni team in 2021.) For long stretches of the season, the team did not emerge from the Maryland/Virginia combo and did not venture south of North Carolina all season. Before April is out next season, though, that will be rectified as the Shorebirds make a long road trip to Augusta, Georgia and Columbia, South Carolina. It will be a 132-game campaign, which is slated to be the plan for the A-ball level going forward.

Once play began it was apparent we would have a successful team, but then aggressive player advancement by the Orioles meant our roll was slowed for awhile in the second half of the season, causing us to fall behind Salem in a division we led for much of the first half. The influx of (mainly) 2021 draft choices in mid-August turbocharged a team that had fallen off its early torrid pace to stand at 48-42, but even a 20-10 finish wasn’t enough to catch Salem – a team that was our nemesis all year. The Red Sox were one of two teams against whom we had a losing record (14-16) with the other being the Down East Wood Ducks (4-8). They were two of the top three teams in the league. Conversely, we were 25-11 against Fredericksburg, 17-13 against Lynchburg, and 8-4 against Carolina for a 68-52 mark overall, tied with Carolina for fourth out of the 12 teams. Had the league employed a more traditional 3 division winner + 1 wildcard format, we would have grabbed that number four slot based on the tiebreaker. As it was, we played spoiler – eliminating Salem from contention by beating them in the final game of the season and allowing the aforementioned Wood Ducks into the league championship series, where they fell in five games to Charleston.

Because I liked the team stats format I used for 2019, I’ll use pretty much the same with new numbers plugged in.

  • Our .253 average was good enough for 4th out of 12 teams. We came out of a July slump to post good numbers.
  • We scored a club-record 720 runs in 16 fewer games than it took the 2000 team to accomplish the old record of 700 – yet that was only third in the loop.
  • The Shorebirds finished fifth in the league with 1004 hits.
  • Power numbers were interesting: 187 doubles were 7th, but the 20 triples were dead last – one behind Fredericksburg. So figure out this logic: we were third in the league with a franchise record 113 home runs, beating the 2016 squad that had 112 in 139 games.
  • Just like runs, we had 646 RBI and finished third overall.
  • 1,570 total bases was enough for the fifth spot.
  • We drew 573 walks, second only to Carolina’s 642, and struck out 1,097 times to be second lowest behind Salem’s 1020.
  • The Shorebirds were sixth-best in both stolen bases (152) and getting caught (41.)
  • They were third in on-base percentage at .358 and fourth in slugging with a .396 mark, leaving them fourth in OPS with .754 overall.

We had record-setting pitching two years ago. This season, though, we were bested by a couple select teams in most categories.

  • In a more difficult year for pitching leaguewide, we finished second with a 4.14 collective ERA. Charleston led at 3.45.
  • We finished fifth in the league with 28 saves.
  • We threw the fifth-most innings at 1,028.
  • 929 hits allowed was fourth-best. Our 573 runs allowed was third but our 473 earned was second behind Charleston, who allowed 494 and 403 respectively. So while our pitching was frustrating at times, so was everyone else’s.
  • We again finished fifth with 95 home runs allowed.
  • We led the league by hitting only 55 batters, one fewer than Salem.
  • Our 1,161 strikeouts was only good for eighth, but our 432 walks was third. Strange stat of the year: one intentional walk. It was so unusual I had to see who allowed it (Jensen Elliott) and who he walked (Stephen Scott of Salem), way back on May 9. It was the one Sunday game I missed, for Mother’s Day.
  • Our 1.324 WHIP was second again, miles behind Charleston’s 1.176.

We had a rough season fielding with a .965 fielding percentage that was ninth, and our 148 errors ranked even worse in tenth leaguewide. We also finished ninth in double plays turned with 205, tied for fifth with 20 passed balls, and allowed 172 stolen bases to rank ninth. The 15% caught stealing was tenth out of the twelve teams.

In terms of the Orioles’ revamped minor league system, we have an incomplete grade thanks to the extension of Norfolk’s season – however, they’re still mired near the bottom of the Triple-A East at 51-75 as of this writing.

Thanks to a fortuitous rainout affecting the Somerset Patriots, Bowie didn’t have to endure a playoff game to make the Double-A Northeast finals with a 73-47 record. But they were swept out by Akron, who also won Bowie’s division as the top two squads came from the same division.

Aberdeen also finished second in its division, but well short of the playoff mark with a 58-61 record in the High-A East.

Out of eight teams in the South Division of the Florida Complex League, the two Oriole teams finished sixth and eighth – the Black team was 18-27 while the Orange team finished a league-worst 10-33. Hopefully that’s a issue with diluted talent between two teams and not a sign to come for the 2022 Shorebirds.

Unfortunately, the story was similar in the Dominican Summer League where the Orioles 2 team was 23-27 and finished sixth in an eight-team division and the Orioles 1 team was the #1 worst at 13-34. That’s not what you would expect from a farm system deemed to be the best in baseball right now.

Now it’s time to look at how my position players of the month fared.

We begin with J.D. Mundy, who did well enough in May to both win the position player honors and a promotion to Aberdeen before the month was out, based on a .324/4/20/1.038 slash line here in 20 games. In other words, he was picking up an RBI a game. Once promoted to Aberdeen, J.D. slowed down slightly with a .278/11/37/.881 OPS in 52 Aberdeen games before an injury ended his campaign a month early. Because he missed some time at the end of the season, it’s not known if he would have made the jump to Bowie like some others did but he may do so early on in 2022. He’s not going to be old (24) for the level he’s at, though.

June’s top position player was Mason Janvrin, who also eventually made it to Aberdeen despite a paltry batting line of .203/10/33/.664 OPS in 82 games here. In the season’s last two weeks Mason went 2-for-17 in 6 Aberdeen games, picking up a couple RBI along the way. Perhaps helping Mason was his being far and away the leader in drawing walks while with Delmarva, picking up a team-leading 47 free passes (second was 28.) Janvrin also led in runs with 68 and stolen bases with 25. Great speed and good batting eye, but not likely to advance much farther without another 60 points on his batting average. He will also be 24 next season.

He came here to succeed J.D. Mundy as primary first baseman, but TT Bowens had his own stellar month in July and soon advanced to Aberdeen himself after Mundy went down. Getting his first taste of pro ball this season, Bowens slashed .237/13/46/.786 OPS in 64 Delmarva games before doing even better in Aberdeen with a .259 average, 5 home runs, and 9 RBI to go with a .772 OPS. With another week or so on the team, Bowens could have been a serious contender for Shorebird of the Year but finished just short of the 2/3 of the season on the roster required. A popular guy here, but sort of a fringe prospect given his NDFA status – however, the improvement from level to level and appropriate age (another 24 year old next season) are plus marks for Bowens.

The only position player to play for the team start-to-finish, Darell Hernaiz won the Shorebird Position Player of the Month honor in August. Because he was here the whole time, Hernaiz led the team in numerous categories: 94 games played, 410 plate appearances, 372 at-bats, 103 hits, 52 RBI, a .277 batting average (as the top qualifier), and 133 total bases. For the season his numbers were .277/6/52/.690 OPS. Hernaiz won’t turn 21 until later on next season so he’s a guy who could make the Aberdeen squad in 2022 but may end up here for a couple months to see if he can get to elite level, like a .300 average with just a bit more pop.

The best of a late-season recharge of 15 players that came for the final 30 games, Coby Mayo won the September position player honors. Starting out in the Complex League, Coby tore the league up to the tune of .329/4/15/1.005 OPS in 26 games before 27 games of .311/5/26/.964 OPS hitting here. He turns 20 over the winter, and is in a similar situation as Hernaiz in that his numbers merit a promotion but his lack of experience may hold him back here until midseason.

Now let’s see how the pitchers did.

I began with Xavier Moore, who parlayed a good month-and-a-half with Delmarva (1-2, but with a 2.89 ERA, 1.232 WHIP, and a 27/11 K/BB ratio in just 18 2/3 innings spread over 7 appearances) into being my May Pitcher of the Month and to a promotion to Aberdeen, where he had the same won-lost record but blew up to a 9.00 ERA in 14 appearances covering 19 innings, where he allowed only 15 hits but a 23/14 K/BB ratio and 5 home runs. He was on a starter’s schedule but only threw an inning or two in each appearance. Moore may come back here to begin next season because he really didn’t show much at Aberdeen. He may be ticketed to be a late-inning guy for us next season; if so, he needs to pitch more frequently. Moore turns 23 over the winter.

June’s Pitcher of the Month was the “work fast, throw strikes” guy Jake Lyons. After putting together a good campaign for Delmarva [4-3, 3.69 ERA, 1.361 WHIP, and 85/34 K/BB ratio in 68 1/3 innings (11 starts in 19 appearances)] he got to pitch 3 games with Aberdeen where he went 0-1, 3.18 in 11 1/3 innings with a 0.971 WHIP and 17/3 K/BB ratio – sort of like he found another gear. He was a consistently good pitcher with Delmarva and should be the same for Aberdeen next season. In fact, Jake led the team in strikeouts but was only 3rd in innings pitched so that should tell you he has good stuff. He won’t be 23 until deep into next season, by which time he could be knocking on Bowie’s door with continued improvement. He could surprise some folks as a 22nd round choice.

In July I selected Noah Denoyer as the Pitcher of the Month. Out of those pitchers who would be closest to qualifying for league honors, Denoyer led in ERA with a 2.87 mark to go with a 5-3 record in 15 appearances (11 starts.) In just 59 2/3 innings Noah allowed but 45 hits and had a 71/25 K/BB ratio. Noah got another 12 innings in 5 appearances with Aberdeen and pitched to a 2.25 ERA and only bumping his WHIP up from 1.173 at Delmarva to an even 1.25 at Aberdeen. Denoyer will turn 24 just before spring training next season but he looks like he belongs with Aberdeen, too. Very good for a guy passed over in the 2019 draft.

Part of a two-player return in the Jose Iglesias trade, my August Pitcher of the Month had the most dominant stretch of the year during his run. Jean Pinto is a pitcher on the rise, moving up after 20 innings of 1.80 ERA, 0.75 WHIP ball in the Complex League to put up good numbers here. No, he didn’t match the almost absurd 28/4 K/BB ratio he had in Florida, but 1-1 with a 2.51 ERA, 56/13 K/BB ratio, and just 29 hits allowed in 46 1/3 innings here may give the 20-year-old (21 in January) Venezuelan a new challenge in Aberdeen to begin next season. He might elbow some older guys out of the way in doing so.

On the other hand, my September Pitcher of the Month may be auditioning to keep his career going. It’s not that Rickey Ramirez did a bad job during his time here, going 3-1 with a 3.21 ERA and 1.214 WHIP in 28 innings with a 39/12 K/BB ratio in 18 appearances (16 as closer with 4 saves) but the fact that he’s old for this level (turns 25 next month) and was a Rule 5 pick from the Twins – the sort of guy who gets lumped into the “organization player” category. To keep up, Rickey basically has to make it to Bowie at the end of next season. (To be fair, though, the rebuilding Orioles have given a number of older pitchers their first crack at the Show this season, so there’s still hope for a guy like him.) After all, he endured a disastrous 5 appearances in the Complex League, where his ERA was 8.44, just to get to Delmarva.

*********

Here is a list of my Shorebirds of the Year, going back to the award’s inception in 2006. I’m also adding the Prospect of the Year, in parentheses. Some of these guys are now (or will be come December) in the Shorebird of the Week Hall of Fame, in bold.

  • 2006 – Ryan Finan (Brandon Erbe)
  • 2007 – Danny Figueroa (Brad Bergesen)
  • 2008 – Sean Gleason (Zack Britton)
  • 2009 – Ron Welty (L.J. Hoes)
  • 2010 – Brian Conley (Tyler Townsend)
  • 2011 – David Walters (Jonathan Schoop)
  • 2012 – Brenden Webb (Dylan Bundy)
  • 2013 – Lucas Herbst (Adrian Marin)
  • 2014 – Chance Sisco (Mike Yastrzemski)
  • 2015 – John Means (Jomar Reyes)
  • 2016 – Yermin Mercedes (Ryan Mountcastle)
  • 2017 – Alex Wells (no prospect award)
  • 2018 – Brenan Hanifee (DL Hall)
  • 2019 – Adam Hall (Grayson Rodriguez)
  • 2021 – keep reading (Jordan Westburg)

The biggest problem I had with selecting a 2021 Shorebird of the Year was finding an eligible player. I’ve had a longstanding rule that the player I select as Shorebird of the Year has to spend at least 2/3 of the season here, which would have been 80 games this year. (They did not necessarily have to play all 80 – in the case of a starting pitcher that would have only been 16 starts.)

We cycled through a team-record 74 players this season, and when I say record I mean they smashed the sucker – per Baseball Reference, the highest previous total of Shorebird players in a season I found was 61 back in 2012, the midst of an era of otherwise forgettable 50-odd win teams. But now that Aberdeen isn’t a buffer team below us I suspect this high total will be the rule and my selections will be limited.

Only two position players actually played more than 80 games here this season: Darell Hernaiz, who led the team with 94, and Mason Janvrin with 82. Christopher Cespedes was also on the active roster long enough to qualify, although he only played in 70 games. On the other hand, most of the pitchers who made 15 or more appearances qualified – I think my three exceptions were Gregori Vasquez, Rickey Ramirez, and Jake Zebron. That left a field of 10.

Out of that group, there were really four pitchers and a position player who separated themselves from the field: Noah Denoyer, Jake Lyons, Houston Roth, and Adam Stauffer among the pitchers, and Darell Hernaiz as the position player. Unfortunately, the pitchers didn’t interest me for various reasons:

  • Stauffer threw just 39 innings before his promotion, which isn’t much of an impact.
  • Roth led the team in wins with 8 but faded noticeably at the end of the season to finish with 4.54 ERA, highest among the group.
  • Lyons was perhaps the most consistent in the field but didn’t dominate in any one category.

Out of the group, the best pitcher was Noah Denoyer, whose 2.87 ERA easily led my cadre of qualifiers. Noah put together a great season for an undrafted free agent, but it’s hard to justify giving the award to a guy who threw less than 60 innings this season (and wasn’t a closer.) Compare that to my aforementioned 2012 campaign where, even with all those players, four pitchers exceeded 100 innings (and three of them are SotW Hall of Famers.) In a sign of the times, Roth led this season with 81 1/3.

Fortunately, we had a good, solid qualifying position player, a kid who improved himself most of the year and turned out to be a well above average performer when all was said and done.

After last year’s hiatus, we have an infielder as a SotY for a second straight year. This season it’s Darell Hernaiz.

It was that constant improvement and, quite frankly, the fact that the Orioles left him here to develop which tipped the scales toward Darell Hernaiz. There were a number of guys who, if they had stayed for a few more weeks, would have been contenders but going forward this award may be for the team turtles who advance slowly and steadily.

So all I have left for the 2021 Shorebird season is picks and pans next week, as well as some updates as required to the SotW Tracker before the Hall of Fame induction post scheduled for December 2. All this before we crank up another season with a home debut on April 8, 2022.