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Orioles To Part Ways With Hitting Coach Don Long

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The Orioles are parting ways with hitting coach Don Long, reports Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com (Twitter link). Assistant hitting coach José Hernández will remain on staff but assume a different role moving forward. Kubatko adds that the rest of manager Brandon Hyde’s staff is expected to return next season, although there could be some form of reshuffling of roles.

Long has served as O’s hitting coach for the past three years, taking over in January 2019. The club posted a cumulative .246/.310/.412 line during his tenure, which checks in 24th of the league’s 30 teams by measure of wRC+. (Their .240/.305/.403 mark this season alone also ranked 24th). That’s not especially promising production, although it’s tough to judge Long from the outside based solely on results. The O’s have been amidst a rebuild for each of those seasons, giving opportunities around the diamond to unproven players.

Long oversaw a breakout 2021 campaign from Cedric Mullins, while Austin Hays and Ryan Mountcastle have shown enough offensive promise to be potential long-term pieces. But others like DJ Stewart and Anthony Santander either haven’t yet cemented themselves or took steps back this season. It seems Hyde and the front office have determined that a new voice is necessary as Baltimore continues to break in promising young hitters at the big league level, most notably the player widely regarded as the game’s top overall prospect Adley Rutschman.

Excepting Long, there seemingly won’t be much change on the big league staff. (Hyde himself has been expected to keep his job for a while now). However, Kubatko reports on a few more firings among the O’s minor league coaching staff, including the dismissal of Triple-A manager Gary Kendall. The Orioles are expected to offer that vacancy to Buck Britton, reports Jon Meoli of the Baltimore Sun. Britton, the older brother of Yankees reliever Zack Britton, has coached or managed in the Baltimore system for the past five seasons.

2022 Amateur Draft Order Established

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The first round of the 2022 amateur draft has been set, with Baseball America’s Carlos Collazo breaking down the order and various tiebreakers involved.  In fact, a tiebreaker was necessary to determine that the Orioles will receive the first overall pick.  The O’s and Diamondbacks both finished 52-110 this season, plus each went 25-35 in 2020.

Because the Orioles had the worse record of the two clubs in 2019, however, Baltimore will now get the 1-1 selection for the third time in franchise history.  (The Orioles took Ben McDonald with the top pick of the 1989 draft, and selected star catching prospect Adley Rutschman just back in 2019.)  This tiebreak advantage could be seen as another benefit of the long-term rebuild the Orioles have been undertaking for years now, though Baltimore fans might see this as something of a backhanded accomplishment.

Of course, it remains to be seen if the draft process will remain the same going forward.  As Collazo notes, it is possible MLB and the players union could make changes to the draft as part of negotiations for the new collective bargaining agreement.  The players (and agents) will quite likely push to alter how draft pick penalties are tied to the free agent market and the luxury tax system, not to mention how the draft pool process that puts significant limitations on what clubs can spend on amateur talent contracts.

There has also been some suggestion that the league could change the usual practice of establishing the draft order strictly by team record, to keep teams (like the Orioles) from tanking in order to stock up on as much young talent as possible at the top of the draft board.  As well, there has long been speculation that the league could look into allowing all draft picks to be eligible to be traded.  Right now, only the picks in the two Competitive Balance Rounds can be moved as part of trades, and it isn’t out of the question that the CBR criteria is itself changed in some way.

Here is the first-round draft order as it stands just after the end of the regular season.  The order of picks beyond the first round won’t be officially known until any compensatory picks and the Competitive Balance Rounds have been decided.

  1. Orioles (52-110)
  2. Diamondbacks (52-110)
  3. Rangers (60-102)
  4. Pirates (61-101)
  5. Nationals (65-97)
  6. Marlins (67-95)
  7. Cubs (71-91)
  8. Twins (73-89)
  9. Royals (74-88)
  10. Rockies (74-87)
  11. Mets (compensatory pick for not signing Kumar Rocker, the 10th overall pick in the 2020 draft)
  12. Tigers (77-85)
  13. Angels (77-85)
  14. Mets (77-85)
  15. Padres (79-83)
  16. Indians (80-82)
  17. Phillies (82-80)
  18. Reds (83-79)
  19. Athletics (86-76)
  20. Braves (88-73)
  21. Mariners (90-72)
  22. Cardinals (90-72)
  23. Blue Jays (91-71)
  24. Red Sox (92-70)
  25. Yankees (92-70)
  26. White Sox (93-69)
  27. Brewers (95-67)
  28. Astros (95-67)
  29. Rays (100-62)
  30. Dodgers (106-56)
  31. Giants (107-55)

Minor MLB Transactions: 9/25/21

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The latest minor moves from around the league…

  • Orioles right-hander Cesar Valdez accepted an outright assignment to Triple-A after clearing waivers.  Valdez was designated for assignment earlier this week, and this is the second time in as many months that the 36-year-old has been outrighted.  (He had the option of choosing free agency, but Valdez instead decided to remain with the O’s.)  Home runs have been the biggest issue for Valdez this season, as his 5.87 ERA has been inflated by eight homers allowed over 46 innings out of Baltimore’s pen.

Orioles Place Tyler Wells On 10-Day Injured List

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The Orioles have placed right-hander Tyler Wells on the 10-day injured list due to right shoulder inflammation.  Righty Spenser Watkins was recalled from Triple-A in the corresponding move.

Since Wells just pitched yesterday, there is no retroactive placement on the IL move, and thus Wells’ first Major League season is officially over.  Though Wells had never pitched above the Double-A level and hadn’t pitched at all since 2018, the 27-year-old made a very impressive accounting for himself in his debut season.

Over 57 innings out of Baltimore’s pen, Wells posted a 4.11 ERA and very strong walk (5.4%) and strikeout (29%) rates, plus a chase rate that ranked in the 95th percentile of all pitchers.  Wells allowed a lot of hard contact and benefited from a .226 BABIP, though his 3.37 SIERA was quite a bit lower than his actual ERA.

This is the second time Wells has been placed on the IL this season, as he missed just short of three weeks due to wrist tendinitis.  As a Rule 5 Draft pick, Wells needed to spend the entire season on the Orioles’ roster for the team to fully assume his rights, and he has already well surpassed the necessary threshold for time spent on the active roster.

The Orioles have been arguably baseball’s most aggressive team on the Rule 5 front for years, and that tradition has continued under current GM Mike Elias.  Anthony Santander, T.J. McFarland, and Ryan Flaherty are perhaps the most prominent Baltimore Rule 5 picks who went on to become notable big league regulars for the Orioles and other teams, and Wells’ rookie year is a nice first step towards joining that group.

Wells was a 15th-round pick for the Twins in the 2016 draft, and he began his career primarily as a starter while posting some solid numbers in Minnesota’s farm system.  However, his career was stalled by a Tommy John surgery that cost him all of the 2019 campaign, and then he couldn’t play in 2020 due to the canceled minor league season.  The Twins decided to leave him exposed in last December’s Rule 5 draft, and the O’s snapped Wells up in the second round.  (The Orioles also made a first-round pick in right-hander Mac Sceroler, though he was returned to the Reds in June after an injury-marred season.)

Orioles’ Keegan Akin To Undergo Abdominal Surgery

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The Orioles announced today that left-hander Keegan Akin has been placed on the 10-day injured list. Baltimore selected the contract of catcher Nick Ciuffo and recalled right-hander Joey Krehbiel from Triple-A Norfolk. Akin will undergo abdominal surgery in the near future, tweets MLB.com’s Joe Trezza. He’s expected to be ready for Spring Training 2022.

A former second-round draft pick, Akin has been regarded as one of the better young pitchers in the Orioles’ system over the past few years. He’s posted strong strikeout rates throughout his minor league tenure to earn his first big league look last season.

Akin has yet to carry that lower-level success over against MLB hitters. He’s tossed 120 2/3 big league frames over the past couple years, managing just a 6.19 ERA with slightly worse than average strikeout and walk rates (21.5% and 9.2%, respectively). Excepting John Means, the Orioles have gotten very little from their starting pitching options this season. That should give Akin another opportunity to stake a claim to a permanent rotation spot in 2022, assuming he’s back at full strength next spring as expected.

Ciuffo returns to the big leagues for the first time in two years. He’s a former first-round pick and highly-regarded prospect himself, but the 26-year-old wound up tallying just 50 MLB plate appearances with the Rays, his original organization. Ciuffo spent last season with the Rangers on a minor league deal but never landed a big league opportunity and reentered minor league free agency last winter.

The O’s added Ciuffo on another minors deal in December. He was assigned to Triple-A Norfolk but only picked up 58 plate appearances there after losing most of the season to injury. The left-handed hitter will get an opportunity to back up Pedro Severino and Austin Wynns for the season’s final few games. He’d be controllable well beyond this season if the O’s front office decides to carry him on the 40-man roster through the upcoming offseason.

Minor MLB Transactions: 9/23/21

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The latest minor moves from around baseball…

  • The Orioles announced that right-hander Manny Barreda has been outrighted off the 40-man roster and assigned to Triple-A.  Barreda was designated for assignment earlier this week.  A veteran of 15 professional seasons in the minor leagues and the Mexican League, the 32-year-old Barreda finally made his MLB debut this year, tossing 2 2/3 innings over three games for Baltimore.

Orioles To Retain Manager Brandon Hyde

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The Orioles will retain manager Brandon Hyde for at least the 2022 season, reports Dan Connolly of The Athletic. The 2021 season marked the final guaranteed contract on his original three-year deal to manager the O’s, but Connolly reports that the Orioles and Hyde quietly agreed to an extension last offseason that runs through at least the 2022 season.

There’d been at least some speculation about Hyde’s job status, given his original contract was set to expire. MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko wrote recently, however, that the “expectation” was for Hyde to return in 2022, and it appears that will indeed be the case.

Hyde’s first three seasons at the helm haven’t been punctuated by many victories. The Orioles are just 127-246 since he was hired. Of course, there’s little sense in judging a manager on wins and losses when it’s clear that the front office isn’t making much of an effort to put a winning product on the field. The Orioles set out on the early stages a rebuild in the final few months of former general manager Dan Duquette’s tenure, trading Manny Machado, Zack Britton and others in the summer of 2018. Duquette was dismissed not long after, and ownership tabbed Astros assistant general manager Mike Elias as his replacement.

Elias hired Hyde as a successor to former manager Buck Showalter, but he’s gone on to continue that rebuilding effort that was set in motion by Duquette & Co. The most notable moves under Elias’ watch have been trades of some of the few remaining veterans on the roster — Dylan Bundy, Mychal Givens and Alex Cobb among them. The only free agents the Orioles have signed to Major League deals under the current regime are Freddy Galvis, Jose Iglesias, Nate Karns and Maikel Franco (in addition to some minor league deals for veterans like Matt Harvey, Wade LeBlanc, Tommy Milone and Felix Hernandez). Both Galvis and Iglesias were traded before their contracts expired. (Karns and Franco surely would have been as well, had those signings panned out as hoped.)

Given that Elias inherited a depleted farm and proceeded to strip down an already threadbare MLB roster, it’s not a surprise that Hyde doesn’t have much to show as far as wins and losses go. By all accounts, however, he’s been a steadying presence amid persistent roster turnover, and it’s certainly hard to ignore the manner in which some young players have begun to blossom under his watch and the watch of his coaching staff.

Cedric Mullins is in the midst of a breakout season and now looks like a possible cornerstone piece. Austin Hays had a productive August and has enjoyed a massive month of September thus far. Ryan Mountcastle recently swatted his 30th homer and could get some down-the-ballot Rookie of the Year votes, even if he’s not a favorite to actually win the award. John Means has broken out as a rock-solid starter to lead an otherwise inexperienced and struggling pitching staff. None of those successes can be pinned upon the manager/coaching staff alone — player development is an organization-wide effort — but it’s Hyde and his lieutenants who are working most directly with that blossoming young talent on a day-to-day basis.

Looking ahead, it seems unlikely that the 2022 season will be a turning point in terms of a return to contention. The Orioles aren’t expected to spend heavily in free agency this winter, and while they have several intriguing young players — and more on the very near horizon — the AL East is a stacked division. In all likelihood, the Orioles won’t be aiming to contend, in earnest, until 2023 at the earliest.

Still, it’s a vote of confidence in Hyde that he’s being entrusted with another key developmental season in 2022, when top-ranked MLB prospect Adley Rutschman is expected to debut along with other ballyhooed youngsters, including top-ranked pitchers DL Hall and Grayson Rodriguez. Time will tell whether the O’s decide he’s the right person to helm the ship as the rebuild draws to an actual close, but the new contract is ostensibly a step in that direction.

Orioles Designate Cesar Valdez For Assignment

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The Orioles announced Wednesday that right-hander Cesar Valdez has been designated for assignment for a second time this season. Baltimore also recalled second baseman Jahmai Jones and righty Konner Wade from Triple-A Norfolk, optioned right-hander Joey Krehbiel to Norfolk and placed infielder Ramon Urias on the 10-day injured list due to a right adductor strain.

Valdez, 36, only had his contract selected back to the big league roster yesterday. It’ll be a daylong stint on the MLB roster for the righty, who pitched two-thirds of an inning in last night’s game and surrendered two runs (one earned) on a hit and a walk. Valdez has now been scored upon in six of his past seven Major League appearances and 12 of his past 19 dating back to June 1.

Up to that point, Valdez had emerged as an unlikely closer in Baltimore. The journeyman right-hander notched eight saves for the O’s through the season’s first five weeks and carried a 1.23 ERA into mid-May before a swift collapse cost him the closer’s gig and eventually his spot on the roster. Dating back to May 11, Valdez has been tagged for 28 earned runs on 51 hits and 11 walks with 28 strikeouts through 31 1/3 innings. The O’s will either place him on outright waivers or release waivers within the next couple of days.

Given the timing of the Urias IL placement, it seems quite possible that this injury will end his season. He’s somewhat quietly had a nice run as a utility option with the O’s since making his MLB debut last summer, as the 27-year-old has batted .286/.365/.425 with eight home runs and 16 doubles in his first 323 big league plate appearances. A .376 average on balls in play has surely helped his cause, but Urias also owns an impressive 25 percent line-drive rate and a 42.9 percent hard-hit rate.

Urias has split his time between second base, shortstop and third base, although he doesn’t have particularly strong grades. Still, his solid showing at the plate to date suggests he could be a bat-first utility option for the O’s moving forward.

Orioles Select Cesar Valdez

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The Orioles have selected the contract of reliever César Valdez, per a club announcement. To create space on the active and 40-man rosters, outfielder DJ Stewart has been placed on the 60-day injured list due to a right knee osteochondral defect.

Valdez is back with the big league club after being outrighted off the 40-man roster last month. The changeup specialist began the year in a high-leverage role, picking up eight saves while working to a 1.42 ERA over the first month of the season. He ran into some disastrous results from May onward, though, posting a 7.44 ERA in his last 32 2/3 frames before he was bumped from the roster.

Assigned to Triple-A Norfolk after he cleared waivers, the veteran has earned his way back with a strong showing. Valdez has tossed 12 2/3 innings of three-run ball with the Tides, racking up ground-balls at a massive 64.7% clip in that brief minor league showing. The 36-year-old still hasn’t accrued enough service time to be arbitration eligible, so the O’s could bring him back next season for scarcely more than the league minimum salary if they feel it worthwhile to devote him a 40-man roster spot all winter.

Stewart will undergo a cleanup procedure on his injured knee, manager Brandon Hyde told reporters (including Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com). He’s expected to be full-go for Spring Training in 2022. The 27-year-old picked up 318 plate appearances this season but posted below-average numbers on both sides of the ball. Stewart hit .204/.324/.374 while rating poorly as a defensive corner outfielder. As with Valdez, he’s yet to reach arbitration, so the O’s could keep him in the fold for almost no financial cost if they’re willing to keep him on the roster over the winter.

Orioles Claim Joey Krehbiel, Designate Manny Barreda

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The Orioles have claimed right-hander Joey Krehbiel off waivers from the Rays and designated right-hander Manny Barreda, per a club announcement. The O’s also announced that righty Dusten Knight, who was designated for assignment over the weekend, has cleared waivers and been assigned outright to Triple-A Norfolk.

Krehbiel, 28, pitched a scoreless inning during his lone appearance with the Rays this season, whiffing a pair and issuing a walk. He’s spent the rest of the 2021 season with Tampa Bay’s Triple-A affiliate, logging a 4.19 ERA with a sizable 29.5 percent strikeout rate and a tiny 5.1 percent walk rate through 43 innings. It’s the fourth season that Krehbiel has logged some time in Triple-A, and he’s fanned 26.1 percent of the opponents he’s faced at that level in his career. Krehbiel has just four big league innings under his belt, but he’s yet to allow a run in that time.

Barreda, 33 next month, recently had his contract selected and made his big league debut. He allowed four runs in 2 2/3 innings over the life of three appearances prior to today’s DFA — a brief debut for a player who has grinded through parts of 11 minor league seasons as well as five full seasons pitching in Mexico. He’s posted a 3.89 ERA in 39 1/3 innings between the Double-A and Triple-A affiliates for the O’s, and he carries a career 3.45 ERA in just over 500 minor league innings.

Like Barreda, Knight was another 30-something rookie who made his big league debut in 2021. He’s notched an even 3.00 ERA in 36 Triple-A frames this season but was tagged for 10 runs (nine earned) in 8 2/3 frames during his own brief look at the MLB level. He’ll remain with the Orioles organization for the remainder of the year, at least, but he’ll be a minor league free agent at season’s end.

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