Cup of jO's (July 7, 2011): Jim Callis Chat (Baseball America)

Game Summary
Orioles 5, Rangers 13
Box Score / Play-by-Play / AP Recap

The Rangers completed the sweep of Baltimore, and the O's now find themselves with just two wins over their last ten games, and just six over their last twenty-three. Staff ace Jeremy Guthrie was slapped around The Ballpark at Arlington, allowing nine hits, three walks and six runs (all earned) in just five innings. Things don't get any easier for Baltimore, as the Birds head to Fenway for a four game series to close out the first half of the season. You can read the STATS LLC preview of game one of the Boston series here.

Of interest...
Of interest this morning is a chat wrap from Baseball America's executive editor Jim Callis. After another O's loss, I wasn't interested in focusing on Baltimore this morning, so I turned to some general prospect info. Dropped into the middle of the chat was a reference to the top player in the O's Minor League system -- Manny Machado (ss, Advanced-A Frederick):

Matt (NJ): Jim, where does profar rank now among current prospects with his surprise power so far this year? Is he the best SS prospect in the minors besides Machado?

Jim Callis: Profar continues to impress and he has grown into more of his offensive potential this year. I have him ranked 14th overall, second among shortstops behind Machado, who I have at No. 7.

That's right. Even with the uber slump since returning from his knee injury, the executive editor at the most widely referenced media source covering baseball prospects still views Machado as the top shortstop prospect in the game, and the seventh best prospect in all of baseball. A little good news for O's fans is always welcome.

Then, scrolling down further, I found a reference to this year's first round selection, and the fourth pick overall, Dylan Bundy (rhp, Owasso HS, Owasso, Okla.):

Ryan (Baltimore): What tier of pitching prospects does Dylan Bundy fit with? A notch below the Teheran/Miller/Moore group?

Jim Callis: Those are the three best pitching prospects in the minors right now, and I'd give them credit for performing in Double-A or higher. I'd put Bundy, who I'd take over all of the 2011 draft pitchers, right behind them.

Call me crazy, it sounds like Mr. Callis considers both Machado and Bundy to be top ten talents, or in Bundy's case at least pretty darn close to that. Granted, each or likely two seasons away from the Majors at minimum. But at least the Orioles are back to adding highly regarded amateur talent to their system.

In our shadow draft, Camden Depot ended-up with Anthony Rendon (3b, Rice Univ.) and Derek "Bubba" Starling (of, Gardner Edgerton HS, Gardner, Kan.) as our top selections for the past two years. Callis had this to say about the Rice standout:

Steve (Seattle): Am I crazy to think that Anthony Rendon might not sign with Washington? Seems like his stocked dropped a lot and he could be a potential #1 pick next year with improved power and health.

Jim Callis: I'd be shocked if Rendon doesn't sign. Nationals GM Mike Rizzo and Scott Boras cut big draft deals all the time, and Rendon will be paid handsomely. I still would take him over anyone in the 2011 draft.

So, at least for now, Camden Depot gets the nod with regards to Rendon over Bundy -- even if only by the slimist of margins. Callis is a huge backer of Machado, so I have no doubt he would prefer Manny to Bubba. Should be an interesting group of pairings to follow. However it ultimately shakes out, O's fans should be thrilled to have Machado (and hopefully Bundy) in the system. Let's enjoy the bright spots when we can. After all, the Birds have Boston up next...

Cup of jO's (July 6, 2011): Introducing Yonder Alonso and Zack Cozart

Game Summary
Orioles 2, Rangers 4
Box Score / Play-by-Play / AP Recap

The Birds smacked eleven hits off of Rangers's starter Matt Harrison in just six innings but were only able to plate two runs as the O's fell again to the Rangers. In his first start for the O's, Mitch Atkins went six strong, allowing eight hits and no walks while striking out four. J.J. Hardy and All-Star selection Matt Wieters each hit solo shots, accounting for the only two runs of the game for Baltimore. Staff ace Jeremy Guthrie tries to help Baltimore avoid the sweep today -- you can read the STATS LLC preview here.

Of interest...
Of interest to me this morning is a pair of trade targets to add to our list of potential trade deadline targets. Yonder Alonso and Zack Cozart are members of the Reds's AAA affiliate, the Louisville Bats. Each were selected to the International League All-Star team, a brief player summary from the team's official blog:

OF Yonder Alonso will be appearing in his first career Triple-A All-Star Game. This will be his second career All-Star selection in his minor league career. The other was in 2009 as a member of the Sarasota Reds when he was selected to the Florida State League All-Star Game. In 2011, Alonso has a .299avg with 9hr and 42rbi. His .299 batting average is good for fourth best on the team with a minimum of 200 at-bats.

SS Zack Cozart has been selected to his third career minor league All-Star Game and it will be the first time he has played in the annual IL – PCL showdown. He was a 2009 Southern League All-Star while with Carolina and a 2008 Midwest League All-Star while a member of the Dayton Dragons. In 2011, Cozart has a .321 avg. with 7hr and 30rbi. He also is second on the team and third in the International League with 26 doubles.

Both Alonso and Cozart fill potential holes for Baltimore -- long term shortstop and long term first baseman -- and Alonso is clearly blocked at first by slugger Joey Votto. As with Blanks, we will go more in depth with Alonso and Cozart in our full scouting report. For now, here are links to their respective stat pages:

Yonder Alonso: Fangraphs Baseball-reference
Zack Cozart: Fangraphs Baseball-reference

Cup of jO's (July 5, 2011): Introducing Kyle Blanks

Game Summary
Box Score / Play-by-Play / AP Recap

It was a typical evening for the 2011 Orioles. The offense sputtered through nine innings, notching just six hits -- two of them homeruns off the bat of Mark Reynolds, who now sits at 20 on the year. Reynolds's homeruns are becoming almost a nightly occurrence, but unfortunately so too are his errors. He booted a grounder to earn an E yesterday -- also his 20th on the year. Chris Jakubauskas and Alfredo Simon were slapped around the Ballpark at Arlington to the tune of 12 R, 11 ER, 16 H and just 2 SO over 6.1 IP. The battered Birds will send Mitch Atkins to the mound tonight -- click here for the STATS LLC preview of his match-up against Matt Harrison and the Rangers.

Of interest...
Of interest to me this morning is our first proposed trade target for this July's trade deadline -- San Diego 1b/of Kyle Blanks. We will provide a full scouting report on Blanks, but for now I simply want to introduce you to a talent I believe could fill Baltimore's first base hole for the foreseeable future. Blanks missed a chunk of 2010 and the start of 2011 recovering from Tommy John surgery. While he was out, the Padres traded their All-Star first baseman, Adrian Gonzalez, to Boston this past winter in exchange for a package that included Anthony Rizzo -- a highly regarded first base prospect. Rizzo has quickly risen through the Minors and currently finds himself at first for the Padres, potentially making Blanks available.

While Blanks has logged some time in the outfield corners while blocked by Gonzalez, he is a plodder and not well suited to the spacious outfield of Petco. It seems unlikely the Padres would turn around and move one of the primary pieces in the AGon deal, which means Blanks should be available for the right price. Is he worth pursuing?

This past week the Padre slugger earned Pacific Coast League (AAA) player of the week honors, after posting a seven day triple slash line of .520/.586/1.240, going 13-for-25. He profiles as a corner bat with above average hit and power tools, and a ceiling somewhere around a .390 wOBA, 30-35 homerun pop and an ability to draw 65-75 walks a year. We'll dig into Banks in more detail with our scouting report -- for now, we just wanted to introduce you to him. Here are his relevant stat pages: Fangraphs | Baseball-reference

Scouting the Trade Deadline: Introducing O's as Sellers

It would be fun to entertain trade targets for a playoff push, or even to be close enough to Wild Card contention that there is a question as to whether the O's should push all in or wait things out a week or two before making a decision. Sadly, as with a vast majority of the past 14 months of July, Baltimore is clearly in "look to the future" mode (or should be). There is some interesting discussion to be had, however, as to whether "the future" means 2012 or more the Machado/Bundy years. For at least one more season, I remain convinced that Baltimore has time to build around this core for a solid three year push and a chance to build some sustained success if things break right. I also remain convinced that in order for Baltimore to make use of this young core they need dramatic action and they need it now.

The 2012 off-season may be the last real chance to add needed talent to make a push for contention in the brutal AL East. The realist in me looks at the holes in the Baltimore 25-man roster and finds it difficult to imagine a scenario wherein Baltimore fills those holes adequately in a single off-season. That means, if I'm sitting in the Warehouse, my focus in July is to find some long term pieces at the trade deadline. We'll spend the next four weeks batting around ideas and providing scouting reports on some potential trade targets for the Birds. Hopefully Jon will chime in with some scouting and statistical analysis, as well, and in the end we will wind-up with some interesting discussion at the least.

As a disclaimer, I realize that "proposing trades" is a cliche sports message board pastime, often plagued with inaccurate assessments of other teams' needs and inflation of the value of the home team's assets. We will do our best to remain as objective and reasonable as possible. That said, if you are a fan of one of the other 29 teams that happens to find your way to The Depot and you see us making flawed arguments that relate to your team, please call us on it.

So, as an intro piece let's take this space to identify the most useful assets for Baltimore to peddle on the trade market:

Big Chips
Adam Jones, of, Orioles

2nd Tier Primary Pieces
J.J. Hardy, ss, Orioles
Jeremy Guthrie, rhp, Orioles

Secondary Pieces or 3rd Tier Primary Pieces
Kevin Gregg, rhp, Orioles
Koji Uehara, rhp, Orioles

Throw-ins or Salary Dumps
Vlad Guerrero, dh, Orioles
Derrek Lee, 1b, Orioles

It may shock some fans to see Adam Jones on our shop list, but he is the one premium chip available that will start to get expensive in the near future. He has the national recognition and enough of a track record to make this year's step forward an opportunity to bring back a large haul. It could be that he is not quite established enough to entice an org to part with a monster package, but one potential elite talent and two more strong pieces are not out of the question. Baltimore will otherwise look to extend Jones, and as impressive as he has been at the plate I have to question whether it makes sense for an organization like Baltimore to invest heavily in a corner outfielder playing center field. If you can get a team to pay an All-Star center fielder's price, I think you have to take it. That also may be the quickest way for Baltimore to fill multiple holes with long term solutions.

Hardy and Guthrie are not top tier trade pieces, but each could bring back a strong B/B+ prospect and a useful secondary piece. Hardy is the more valuable of the two right now due to positional scarcity and 2011 performance, though he is only a three month rental. Guthrie gives a National League team a possible #2 starter for a reasonable price over the next 1.5 seasons.

Gregg and Uehara each have closing experience and could bring back something around the George Sherrill package in 2009 -- that is, one solid B prospect and a throw in. In Gregg's case it would also free Baltimore of an unnecessary portion of payroll devoted to the bullpen.

Both Guerrero and Lee could be pieces of interest to teams looking for a bat off the bench during the playoff push. Unfortunately, their sub-par performance in 2011 means Baltimore would probably have to choose between salary relief or paying a chunk of their due cost in exchange for an upgrade to a B-/C+ type prospect.

For the time being I have excluded some of the Minor League pieces that could be added in a larger deal. I think it is more realistic that Baltimore would get creative with these pieces at the conclusion of the season when looking to add a big piece in the off-season. Let me know who we missed and what you'd want to get back for the trade pieces listed above.

2011 IFA Signing Period: IFA vs Rule 4 Draft

Orioles' prospect Curacao's Jonathan Schoop at 13

This article first appeared on our partner ESPN's Sweetspot Network and is being reprinted here with minor corrections for our IFA signing period piece.

The rule 4 draft occurred over a three day period earlier this week. It is one of the two primary ways a team can acquire amateur talent. The other path is to sign international free agents (IFAs). On July 2^nd, teams will be allowed to sign players who are 16 years old. Some teams have been shown to focus on Caribbean and Latin American talent. In 2010, the Mariners, Yankees, Athletics, Braves, and Cubs all spent more on acquiring international amateurs than they did in the rule 4 draft. In contrast, the Nationals, Angels, White Sox, and Dodgers spent at least ten times more on the rule 4 draft than they did on IFAs.

This begs the question: How do rule 4 picks differ in value from IFAs? During a recent exchange with local bloggers, Matt Klentak (Orioles Director of Baseball Operations) mentioned that the Orioles contracted for a study to be done on the cost efficiency of IFAs and found that investing in rule 4 talent made more sense. The study is proprietary, so we do not know exactly what this difference is. It also seems that other teams disagree. This seems especially true with the small market Oakland Athletics being one of those teams highly involved in signing IFAs. In this column, I will try to answer to determine how much different is the value between rule 4 and IFA talent.

Using Baseball America's numbers for signing bonuses of rule 4 draftee signing bonuses in the first ten rounds of the 2010 draft, MLB spent 166MM total on 299 players.* The average players earned a bonus of 560k. Baseball America's numbers for 2010 international bonuses (not including Cuban free agents) accounted for roughly 75.5MM. I do not have any specific number of international free agents (IFA) signed, but I will try to estimate. There are 33 Dominican Summer League teams with about 30 players on each team. Players tend to stay at the academies for at most three years, so a rough estimate would be that each team requires 9-10 additional players each year which means 300 new players each season. Using this number, the average Dominican Summer League prospect would cost 250k.

The difference in cost per prospect suggests that every dollar spent on foreign talent, $2.24 must be spent for an American prospect. However, we have more math to do because this ratio assumes that the two types of prospects are equal in their likelihood to become Major Leaguers. Using Keith Law's top 100 minor league prospects list, I count 23 IFAs (I did not count 3 Cubans) and 74 rule 4 talents. Remember that we started out with essentially 300 new prospects from the draft and IFAs. This means that a rule 4 talent is about 3.2 times more likely to become a top 100 prospect. This passes the sniff test as IFAs are often signed at a younger age and without good competition to gauge the skills of a player. With less ability to define ability, a team must act in the spirit of Branch Rickey and acquire quality through quantity. The idea being to grab as many prospective talents as possible and wait for the true talent to rise. Factoring in the likelihood of being a top 100 prospect, we now find that a dollar abroad now equal 70 cents at home. It does appear that talent costs considerably less through the rule 4 draft than it does through international talent signings.

However, a team like the Athletics appear to insist that IFAs are a useful talent pool to exploit. Although it may be cheaper to develop home-grown talent, it is not an infinite resource. Each draft contains about 80-100 players who are going to earn more than a cup of coffee in the Majors. This does not leave much to go around. IFAs provide an additional pool to supplement what is available in the MLB draft. The league contains about 27.7% foreign born players (the overwheming majority of these players were never eligible for the rule 4 draft), so we can imagine that each year about 20-25 IFAs are signed who will make the Majors and play for at least a little while. Based on those numbers, we can say it takes about 15 IFA signings (~3.75MM) to produce a single player who generates a WAR of 1. The market value for a win these days is about 4.5MM on the MLB free agent market. If this numbers based on a length sequence of assumptions are reasonably accurate, we find that our initial query may not be the one by which teams, like the A's, are making their decision to invest in IFAs. It may well be that teams invest in IFAs because it is a better way to invest your money than by signing free agent veterans.

*I did not include signing bonuses for players signed after the first ten rounds. This number in recent years ranges from 20 to 30 MM. This is value is likely less or equal to the money it takes to run the various academies for IFAs. Jorge Arangure Jr reported that the Tampa Bay Rays' facility in Brazil will cost 0.5 to 1 MM per year to run. They did not have to build that facility themselves, but those who do have to build their own academy typically spend more than 1MM initially just to construct the field and buildings that are need. With this in mind, I decided to conveniently cross off the extra costs from the draft and the extra costs from running facilities outside of the United States.

Cup of jO's (July 4, 2011): All-Star Matt Wieters

Game Recap
Box Score / Play-by-Play / AP Summary

Mark Reynolds homered again and the O's were able to rally past the Braves after coughing up a three run lead in the sixth inning. Zach Britton put together a solid start, and even chipped in with the bat, homering in the third inning. The Birds travel west to Arlington for a 4th of July showdown with Colby Lewis and the Rangers.

Of interest to me...
Of interest to me this morning is Jeff Zrebiec's article in the Baltimore Sun on Matt Wieters's selection to the All-Star game -- what I am sure is to be the first of several future appearances. According to Zrebiec's piece, Wieters leads the Majors in runners caught stealing (22) and is the only backstop yet to allow a pass ball. Wieters's defensive work has been a joy to watch in an otherwise disappointing year for the Birds, and has even made its way to YouTube in highlight real form:




I've clocked Wieters sub-1.9 seconds on pop times to second base throughout the year -- well below the generally accepted average for Major League catchers (around 2.0 seconds). Always in possession of a plus to plus plus arm (he even served as a closer at Georgia Tech, touching the mid-90s off the mound), it is the improvement his footwork and transfer that has allowed him to step up for good catch-and-throw backstop to among the best in the league.

While the Minor League hype surrounding Wieters was centered on his bat, it is his glove and his arm that have helped the young phenom secure his first selection to an American League All-Star squad. Also encouraging is Wieters .315 wOBA, which places him seventh in the Majors among catchers, and his fWAR of 2.0 making him the fourth most valuable catcher in the Majors according to Fangraphs.

I have little doubt that Wieters will continue to grow, offensively. The larger question is how many years the Orioles will be able to pencil him in at the 2-spot before his 6-foot-5 230-pound body starts to react negatively to the grind of a Major League season. The Twins's Joe Mauer is the only comparably sized talent we have with whom to compare Wieters. If his career arc is any indication, the news is good for Baltimore as Mauer was able to stay healthy enough to produce 33.9 fWAR over his under-control years in the Twin Cities. Wieters, of course, has further development to come before he can be counted on as a 6+ fWAR player, year-in and year-out. But 2011 has been a terrific step forward for the former top O's prospect, and his presence as a nightly member of the Baltimore battery can only have positive effects on the young arms on whom the O's depending to shut down the powerful bats of the AL East.

Congrats on the All-Star selection, Matt. Here's to your emergence as one of the top catchers in the game.

2011 IFA Signing Period: July 2nd

Each year the International Free Agent signing period begins on July 2nd, and is generally highlighted by a handful of the "big fish" being scooped up early. The remaining bonus babies tend to come off the shelf over the course of the following few weeks, with the lower-priced talents signed anywhere from July 2nd through completion of the Dominican Prospect League in the winter. Historically, Baltimore has not been a large player in Latin America. With the arrival of Andy MacPhail, however, came hope that the O's would begin to ramp up their presence in acquiring talent from a region that produces roughly 30% of the Major Leaguers in the game today.

Four years into Mr. MacPhail's tenure as the President of Baseball Operations in Baltimore, and the Birds have a new Dominican facility, but little to no increase in scouting presence and what has been referred to by those involved as a "limited" interest in the Dominican Prospect League (a winter league set-up to showcase eligible Dominican teenage baseball talent in game settings). Heading into Saturday's start to the 2011 IFA signing season, Orioles fans had little to look forward to.

Perhaps the most connected analyst to follow the international market, Baseball America's Ben Badler previewed all thirty teams and the rumors surrounding them as relates to the IFA crop. Badler presented his summaries by breaking the teams down into several categories -- High Rollers, Sleepers, Opportunity Knocks, Price is Right, and Bargain Hunters. Baltimore was one of six teams to fall into the final category, including tw0 0rganizations recently stung with scandals and not yet ramping-up again in the region, one team in financial distress, one working to rebuild their international scouting department after losing their director in 2009 and one limited year-in and year-out in available finances for amateur acquisitions. This is what Badler had to say about the O's:

Baltimore Orioles: Orioles management has talked for years about wanting to get more involved internationally, but so far those efforts have been limited. Venezuelan lefthander Eduardo Rodriguez was a good 2010 signing who pitched well last year in the Dominican Summer League and is off to a nice start in the Rookie-level Gulf Coast League, but their actions in Latin America figure to be on the lower end again this year.

There were around $20 million worth of signings on Saturday, with no AL East team reporting any acquisitions. The Yankees, Red Sox and Blue Jays are all being linked to several highly touted prospects, with the Rays and Orioles still lurking in the shadows (according to the internet rumor mill). Might the O's swoop in to grab one of this year's high profile prospects? Don't bet on it.

Andy MacPhail has noted in multiple interviews/speaking events this year that high priced talent in the Dominican Republic is not a focus of Baltimore's, primarily because of the limited in-game action available for viewing and evaluating these players. One might wonder, if in-game looks are what the Orioles need to be sold on a prospect, why not partake in the Prospect League set up for this very purpose?

Snark aside, Mr. MacPhail has some legitimate gripes with the current system. Buscones (trainers) run the show when it comes to showcasing Dominican talent, which usually means limited looks in controlled showcase settings. Batting practice, infield/outfield workouts, bullpen sessions, timed running, and the like are common place. Structured multi-look game action, not so much. The result is a possibility that you could be ponying up seven figures to sign a talent that lights up a gun or puts on impressive BP displays but who has not been asked to show his talents in game action over the course of a structured season. Further, anecdotally, the hit rate on these seven-figure signings is uneven, to be kind. So what is the solution?

If you ask the Rays, they would tell you that the solution to the problem of high priced/high risk talent in the DR is to pick your spots on the island and to blaze your own trail in other Latin American markets. The Rays negotiated a deal with Brazil to open up the first MLB academy there, and even found a way to get their host country to pick up a large chunk of the tab. Whether or not this endeavor produces results of course remains to be seen, but no one can fault Tampa for waiting it out on the sidelines while the rest of the AL East throws money around.

Other like-market organizations have already made big moves, with Kansas City, Cleveland, Atlanta, Houston, San Diego, Pittsburgh and Minnesota handing out a combined $7+ million in international signing bonuses on Saturday. Is Baltimore ahead of the curve, avoiding this spending? Have these other organizations not run the research that Baltimore has run on Latin American spending? Or do they simply disagree on the conclusions that can be drawn from such research?

The hope is that Baltimore has something interesting and innovative up their sleeve. Is it a structured focus in Venezuela? Poaching some experienced Dominican scouts to improve the number of eyes they get on the talent, and therefore the likelihood that they can uncover some of the hidden gems knocking around each year? Increased attendance and participation in the Dominican Prospect League? Any of these courses of action would be a welcome change, but seem equally unlikely.

For better or worse, it seems the Orioles are content to wait this battle out on the sidelines, focusing on calculated low cost investments. It could be that this ultimately results in a higher hit rate than that experienced by teams targeting the seven-figure signings. I'm not at all sold that this will be the case, but am hopeful that Mr. MacPhail and his colleagues will prove me wrong. In the meantime, all that Orioles fans can do is show patience and confidence in leadership -- two asks that are getting more and more difficult with each passing month.

Cup of jO's (July 3, 2011): While we were out...

Catching up with the birds...

Baltimore is mired in a five game losing streak, dropping to ten below .500 for the first time this season and likely ending any outlandish fantasies about miracles runs at a Wild Card. Through these five losses, Baltimore has not led at the end of an inning, and has only grabbed the lead once -- yesterday in the top of the fourth inning the O's took a 2-0 lead after a Mark Reynolds before losing that lead as soon as the Braves stepped up to bat in the bottom half.

Baltimore now has the third worst run differential in all of baseball (-62) behind just the Cubs (-76) and the Astros (-91). They are 14.5 games behind the first place Yankees and five games behind the Red Sox for the Wild Card. With the 2011 season all but officially over for The Birds, it's time to consider the future. While looking ahead to the next season is not a novel occurrence for O's fans, the sheer weight of 14 straight years of meaningless second half games has a way of grinding the interest out of a fan base (and rightfully so). In order to try and keep our readers excited, or at least interested, over the next month, I will be posting scouting reports on trade targets -- both rumored and suggested.

Hopefully that will keep stimulating conversation among Orioles fans, and as a group Orioles fans can continue to try and hold out hope that a turnaround is somewhere in the not-to-distant future. This is still a core that can be built around, but as Jon and I have written numerous times this upcoming off-season may be the last significant opportunity for that building to produce a meaningful effect. To the extent Baltimore can find solutions in the trade market over the next 28 days, the pressure of checking everything off a long "to do" list in the off-season could be considerably lessened.

I'll be at the field this afternoon for game one of the USA Collegiate National Team's series against their counterparts from Japan. This evening I'll post some thoughts on the start of the International Free Agent signing period and yesterday's somewhat surprising barrage of bonuses.

Zach Britton is taking on the Braves this afternoon -- you can read a preview of the match-up from STATS LLC here.