One of many issues with the Orioles’ organization that had been bothering me for the entire season was the state of the Orioles’ upper minors – in other words, the lack of talent at Triple-A Norfolk and Double-A Bowie. The troubling lack of immediate organizational depth was highlighted this week after Blake Davis was forced to play second base in the series finale against the Pittsburgh Pirates Wednesday afternoon. Davis committed a costly error which helped the Pirates win that game.
On the surface, it just seems like another loss in a season that will feature many of them, but for one thing – it was the first time Davis had played second base all year. Once Ryan Adams was demoted to Triple-A to get more at-bats, the Orioles didn’t even have enough depth to call up someone who could actually play second base along with Robert Andino, who was already in the big leagues but had been exposed with regular at-bats.
Davis playing second base and committing that error was essentially a microcosm of the Orioles’ depth at the upper minors. After Zach Britton was promoted to the big leagues at an unexpectedly early date, Norfolk was left with nothing. Norfolk remains completely devoid of impact talent, with Brandon Snyder, Josh Bell and Chris Tillman – three very flawed players – among the most interesting of the players on that squad. I’m honestly shocked whenever I see that Norfolk won a game on a particular night.
Bowie, meantime, has some interesting prospects, but nothing that would find its way onto a Top-100 prospect list. Xavier Avery is an athlete with upside. LJ Hoes is a 2008 third-rounder who doesn’t have a set position. Joe Mahoney had a very nice year with the bat last year, but he was hurt for much of this year. Dan Klein is a future reliever for the big league club but may not pitch for the rest of the year due to a small SLAP tear in his right shoulder.
More simply put, there are no impact prospects on the way until Opening Day 2013 – at the very earliest. That’s when the next run of prospects, which include Manny Machado, Jonathan Schoop and Bobby Bundy, could begin to knock on the door for the big leagues. Go lower into the minors, and fans will see some more nice prospects, including Parker Bridwell at Aberdeen. Dylan Bundy could be a late 2013 arrival, assuming he signs (he will).
(Machado and Schoop, by the way, have been named to the Futures Game, which takes place a day two days before the big league all-star game. Good for them.)
But as for now, there is no help on the way. Part of the how the Rays have competed in such a brutal division is by constantly churning out prospects year after year. Once one free agent leaves, there are multiple prospects vying for that vacated position. After Carl Crawford left for Boston and Johnny Damon became the full-time designated hitter upon the Manny Ramirez fiasco, Justin Ruggiano and Desmond Jennings were both ready to step in at left field once Sam Fuld turned back into Sam Fuld. (Ruggiano is currently manning left field for the Rays, and doing it well.)
And once James Shields leaves Tampa Bay, a stud pitching prospect Matt Moore will be ready to fill the void. It’s a never-ending cycle of prospects constantly vying for big league jobs in Tampa Bay, and it’s a large part of how they compete while withstanding key losses in free agency. It’s a next-man-up philosophy in Tampa, and it’s a model that Toronto is trying to copy, what with its fourth-ranked farm system in the game.
Jeff Zrebiec, one of two terrific Orioles beat guys for the Baltimore Sun along with Dan Connolly, puts the Orioles’ situation on the farm into context well in a blog post on Orioles Insider:
“But there remains a serious void at the upper levels of the minor leagues with players who can come up soon and help the Orioles win. How else can you explain two guys who weren’t even invited to big league spring training – Chris Jakubauskas and Blake Davis – occupying spots on the 25-man roster? There’s still plenty of time for this to change, but which guys in Bowie and Norfolk are making statements that they should be heavily considered for big league jobs next spring? I’m sure people are going to blame this guy or that guy, and that’s fine. But it has to be considered an organization-wide failure. Andy MacPhail heads the front office, so it’s certainly on him. It’s also on the player development and amateur scouting departments, both past and present.”
So I agree with all of that, especially the “organization-wide failure” part, and I think all fans would as well. The front office for the Orioles, along with the scouting and development folks they employ, must be held chiefly accountable for why there is not one impact prospect ready to help the Orioles at the big league level within the next 18 months. It’s inexcusable for a team that must be built through the farm system in order to compete in the AL East to be so lackluster in the upper minors at any time. While a front office can’t completely influence a farm system – some of it is just plain luck with prospects avoiding injuries and the like – that entity are still what must be held responsible for failures on the farm.
MacPhail would probably tell fans that the team has seen a lot of talent graduate from the upper minors to the big league club in the last couple of years – which is true – and therefore, there will inevitably be a temporary void in the upper minors – which is just an excuse.
So why in the world are the upper minors so devoid of talent? I can come up with two rather large reasons: 1) The lack of progress by those counted on to make progress, and 2) The lack of activity on the international front.
There were a bunch of players that Zrebiec pointed out in his post that are in make-or-break years in terms of putting themselves in a position to burst onto the big league club in 2012. The players he mentioned, all of whom I already wrote about above, are Bell, Snyder, Mahoney, Avery and Hoes. However, none of them have taken steps forward.
Bell, 24, is hitting .255/.297/.434 at Norfolk this year, while striking out 75 times and walking just 16 times. Both Bell’s approach and pitch recognition have kept regressing since the trade that brought him to the Orioles. Snyder, a former first round pick, has been staring at a hole at first base at the big league level for quite some time now. Snyder, 24, has gotten limited action in the big leagues, but has hit .261/.321/.414 at Norfolk this year. Orioles fans had high hopes for Snyder after he hit .343/.421/.597 in Bowie in the first half of 2009, but Snyder hasn’t been able to put up anywhere near those numbers at Triple-A. It doesn’t look like Bell or Snyder will ever be able to significantly contribute to the big league cause.
Mahoney, 24, had a big season last year, hitting .307/.366/.498 between Frederick and Bowie, but got hurt at the beginning of this year and recently returned to Double-A, where only has 55 at-bats this year. With Snyder and Mahoney, it’s particularly difficult to be a big-time prospect because they’re first basemen, and to be a valuable first baseman, one has to mash (and it’s not as if one can add a ton of defensive value at first). That caveat applies to Frederick first baseman Tyler Townsend, who has had a nice year, as well.
Avery and Hoes, both 21 years old, were Baseball America’s third- and fourth-best prospects coming into the year for the organization, respectively. Those two will probably not be the organizations third- and fourth-best prospects when Baseball America does its next rankings. Avery is a good athlete, but Zrebiec writes in his piece that he’s heard questions about his baseball instincts.
Avery is hitting .265/.320/.335 at Bowie after hitting .271/.337/.386 last season between Frederick and Bowie. Hoes, meantime, is hitting .255/.309/.340 between time at Frederick and Bowie this year. Hoes’ biggest issue might be that he doesn’t have a set position. However, both are young and can still turn it around, but probably not in time to be contributors for the big league club next year.
The club’s best prospect in the upper minors, right-handed reliever Dan Klein, is hurt and probably will not pitch again this season. Klein, who will be 23 in July, put up a 1.11 ERA in 32.1 innings between Frederick and Bowie before he got hurt. He struck out 37 batters and walked just six. If Klein had stayed healthy, he could have perhaps been a September call-up, but right now, the priority for the organization is to get their 2010 third rounder healthy for next year, when he can hopefully contribute in Baltimore.
That the Orioles’ top prospect at either Double-A or Triple-A is probably an injured reliever probably says it all.
The Orioles are also victimized by their embarrassingly minimal efforts on the international front. While the rest of their division is extremely active on the international front, Ken Rosenthal reported during spring training that the Orioles aren’t active anywhere internationally. It goes without saying that the Orioles need to be extremely active on all fronts internationally to make up for the fact that they can’t out-spend the Yankees or Red Sox on the free agent market in order to be successful. That’s obvious.
So why are the Orioles so inactive on the international front? I have no idea. There are no excuses for being out-worked in the international market. The Orioles say there isn’t enough of a quality return on the international market to invest a lot into it, so they look primarily to the draft for quality returns.
While investing primarily in the top international talents may not have great returns, those returns can improve by spending on a greater amount of players without such high price tags. There are ways to make it work, and the Yankees, Red Sox, Rays and Jays all find a way to make it work. The “poor returns” excuse looks especially lame after handing Mike Gonzalez $12 million, Kevin Gregg $10 million, Vladimir Guerrero $8 million, Derrek Lee a base of $7.25 million.
MacPhail has also stated in the past that the Orioles don’t invest resources into the Dominican Republic because of the youngsters there don’t play baseball games as much as they’re handled by talent brokers with the design of making the youngster look great in individual workouts. Camden Depot beautifully shoots down this excuse here.
Now, the Orioles spend a lot in the draft in the MacPhail era and give out more than their fair share of over-slot bonuses, which is great. It really is. It’s much better than the way the draft was run before MacPhail showed up. But why limit yourself as an organization to just the draft? If an organization is in the Orioles’ position, that organization needs to be acquiring as much young talent as they possibly can from as many sources as possible, as Rosenthal wrote. That means acquiring talent both via the draft and everywhere around the world.
With the way the Orioles operate in the international market and given their situation in the AL East, they have to pull off a lot of A+ drafts. That’s impossible, as Rosenthal states. Too much pressure is being placed on the scouting department to essentially be the best drafting squad in the business because the Orioles are in the AL East and are not supplementing draft picks with international youth. And given that there are inevitable busts that come with the draft – which, as Rosenthal states, means Snyder, Billy Rowell and perhaps Matt Hobgood (although he’s still very young and can turn it around) – the organization is constantly behind their competition in the division.
The Orioles need more Jonathan Schoops in the farm system. Schoop, 19, was signed as a free agent out of Curacao in 2008 and is almost certainly considered a top-five prospect in the system by most in the know.
The Orioles’ system would look a lot better with a couple Jonathan Schoops in the upper levels.