Down on the Farm(Vol. 3) Baltimore Orioles

Or, in reality, the Baltimore Ori-nos. This team out of all the farm systems I’ve ever looked at, has one of the poorest systems around. Honestly there just isn’t many players to write about, unless I wrote about some of the players they already called up(and in my opinion, prematurely). Thus, in my introduction, I’ll introduce some of those guys.

First I’d like to look at, one of my personal favorite players, Brain Matusz, just because he wears his hat flat billed. He, of course, like the rest of the system took a backseat being Chris Tillman, although it seems he has the potential to beat Tillman out. After last years very strong performance after getting the call, he was looking like middle-low end #1, or very end #2. He started this year, probably the teams fault just as much as his, very very slow. I believe a lot of that previous hype has been lost, and he now projects a low end #2, or #3.

Moving on we have Jake Arrieta, who has been impressive since getting called up earlier this year. Although he isn’t near as good as Tillman or Matsuz it appears he’ll have a decent little career here…. As soon as he gets the Hell out of Baltimore.

Matt Weiters. I really like this kid, he still needs some Minor League time though, he could be a top end catcher is the Ori-no’s don’t overly rush him, he has all the skills.

NOW, I will start pre usual with the offense, and all of the 2 or 3 guys worth writing about.

The best of course is Josh Bell, who could very well replace Tejeda by the trading deadline. He profiles as about the same player as his predecessor as well. 25 HR or so power, some SB. He was actually in the show earlier but was hurt the whole time and looked really unimpressive. The thing I don’t like about him is he’s already 23, he should’ve been up last year, earning his keep. That would’ve only made sense, this year could’ve been the beginning of the “good” Orioles, Tillman, Matsuz, Arrieta, Weiters, Reimold, and Bell. Decent little nucleus there, but of course things never work out that way, and the sad thing is by now Bell could has hit his ceiling, and be too used to Minor League play.

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The only other guy worth noting is Mychal Givens. The future SS, he’s only 19, and is probably the best long term option the team has anywhere. As I’ve mentioned before, the “typical” SS, its him, really fast, good eye, blah blah blah. Nothing new, although the one thing he has over a bunch of them(Ian Desmond cough cough) is that he can actually field the ball, he’s going to be a solid SS, and hopefully by the time he gets to the ML level the Orioles can maybe be a winning team.

Sadly, I now have to move on to pitching, where only 3 guys are worth talking about L , I know, sad, very sad.

Lets start with the obvious guy, Chris Tillman. Most people were calling him the next Halladay last year(You know, bad team, great pitcher). He’s going to surprised a lot, give him a few years and he may win 17 games. His main problem is he doesn’t miss a lot of bats, and his ground ball rate SUCKS, 33% is just horrible. He already throws 3 plus pitches, but none of them are “plus-plus” and completely over powering. He should be able to be relevant next year.

Matt Hobgood. Quick name one thing all of these guys have in common! They all want to play for a contender, awh sorry Baltimore. They can turn it around, but its going to take guys like Hobgood being developed right. Hobgood was long thought to be the #2 starter right behind Tillman, and it’ll be a few years yet, but I agree. His ground ball rate is a lot better than Tillmans as well, at around 45%. This guy also can K people, with a great slider in development.

And last, but not least, Brett Jacobson, the future set up man. His fastball is ELITE, he still needs to develop at least one more pitch, he strikes out almost a batter an inning with a fastball and bad slider, and that’s not a good bad. He may end up being the closer one day, as oddly enough Baltimore doesn’t have a guy in the Minors being developed as an elite closer(Stupid again, I know) He’d be like Mariano Rivera… Okay that’s pushing it, but when’s the last time anyone gave them hope?

Okay, so I know I’ve made fun of them this whole time, but since Ripken left, who hasn’t? If they can develop the pitchers they may have some hope, but lets not get carried away, I didn’t even have enough players to write a 1000 word article… Darn you Orioles.

By: Patrick Ruschmeyer
MLB Center Staff Writer

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