I'm a big fan of Bundy, the only issue I have regarding him is that his draft demands were too mild. I would've preferred that he request something astronomical, so that he could have slid to the Sox at 19, oh well, can't win 'em all. I wrote about Bundy and Taillon at FakeTeams, the post contains insight from John Sickels of Minor League Ball. You can find that post here.

Below is what Keith Law had to say about Bundy in the top 100 he just released (insider required).

Rank	Player
11	Dylan Bundy

Age: 19 (DOB: Nov. 15, 1992) Bats: Both Throws: Right Position: Pitcher

Organization: Baltimore Orioles Top '11 Level: DNP 2011 ranking: IE

2011 HS STATS

• GM-NA
• IP-71
• W-11
• L-0
• ERA-0.20
• SO-158
• BB-5
• H-20
• HR-NA
• BAA-NA

How advanced is Bundy, a high school pitcher from Oklahoma taken fourth overall in the 2011 Rule 4 draft? One very senior front-office executive who saw him suggested the only reason Bundy wouldn't make Baltimore's opening day roster this year was his height. Aside from being "just" 6 feet tall, Bundy is about as perfect a high school right-hander as you'll find, boasting plus velocity, plus off-speed stuff, outstanding feel for pitching and a great delivery boosted by a legendary conditioning regimen.

He will sit 93-96 mph and touched 98-99 last spring, with a big, sharp upper-70s curveball and a vicious out-pitch cutter at 86-88 that he uses in lieu of his changeup to left-handed batters. The negatives are few; even his lack of height isn't a major concern, since he gets on top of the ball well and works down in the zone. He was worked extremely hard in high school, including a 180-pitch outing his junior year that earned some criticism on the national level, and no matter how well your arm works, an outing of that length includes some pitching while fatigued, especially for an 18-year-old. I'd like to see Baltimore handle Bundy aggressively, getting him to at least Double-A this year if his performance in the low minors follows our expectations.

With a 2.9 WAR last year, Adam Jones was worth almost twice the amount of money that he is seeking through arbitration.

In his four years in Baltimore, Jones' play has produced 9.1 wins above replacement, which is valued by fangraphs at approximately $39 million dollars. His actual earnings from the Orioles over those four years was $4.5 million dollars.

From a management standpoint, if the Orioles even had a shred of interest in extending his contract, they should have ponied up the additional $2.5 million that Jones is now seeking. Instead, the Orioles are facing the very real possibility that a bitter taste will stay in Jones' mouth, which would no doubt lessen his willingness to extend his contract with the O's down the road.

On the one hand:

*****

Via Twitter:

@DanielKimW:

@jorgearangure Baltimore Orioles' scouts are now banned from all baseball stadiums in Korea.

He also tweeted:

@DanielKim:

@jorgearangure Dan Duquette... very famous in Korea right now. Plus, the kid is not even a prospect. Very bad signing. #whatWEREtheyTHINKING

*****

On the other:

"Kim is expected to come to the United States soon and train in California before he leaves for Sarasota and the start of the O's minor league spring camp early next month.

"He is a player that was on the Orioles' radar for a while and certainly even before Duquette took over.

"He was one of the top youth pitchers in Korea and when their national team would go out, he would be their lead pitcher. He was known by the Orioles' scouting staff and I also had knowledge of him through my contacts in the Far East," Duquette said.

It seems not everyone values Kim as the Orioles do. ESPN's Keith Law said this about the signing via Twitter:

"The O's gave $550K to a 5'9" Korean HS lefty throwing 80-83 with no feel for a breaking ball. Nice use of savings from cutting pro scouting.

"Duquette said Kim throws harder than that and the Orioles have seen him do it.

"His current velocity is 88 to 90," Duquette said. "He throws hard. Some scouts may have seen him in a tournament where it was 30 degrees, basically freezing and they may not have seen the velocity, but we've seen this player several times and we've seen him work in a range of 88 to 90 mph."

And:

"Duquette said there is a decent chance that Kim could start the 2012 season with a full-season club like Single-A Delmarva.

"I think he's a good candidate for that and the reason is he has an advanced curveball and can throw it for strikes. Left-handed pitchers with top quality breaking balls have a weapon they can use to get out left and right-handed hitters and there aren't a lot of them. Kim has a good delivery and good control," Duquette said.

"I think a big thing is for Kim to come to the States, get his feet on the ground and get acclimated to the Oriole organization and also the culture of Major League Baseball. So we should be able to do that. If he pitches well in spring training, he'd be a candidate to make one of our A (ball) teams. If he needs a little more time to get acclimated, he would go with one of our extended spring training teams and play on one of our summer (short-season) ballclubs."

*****

If this member of the national junior baseball team really isn't a prospect, there's no reason to get this upset. But then, they have a track record:

"Byung-Hyun Kim and Hee-Seop Choi were also both suspended for leaving for the U.S. before completing high school, but those suspensions were eventually dropped and both players have since returned to play in Korea."

******

Looked at Korean dailies (non-sports dailies) and found no articles in English or Japanese. Found one in Korean, but the blurb was only a paragraph long. Mentioned the kid was already 18, but they still might be using the older Asian method of age counting. (One year old at birth.)

So, the choice is between the collegiate spitball artists of the press, a stat-head turned media snarkmeister with a hard-on against the Orioles, and anonymous scouts, against DD, who has made some clear and definite statements to the media.

Short of distributing photo ID of every scout in the O's organization to the ticket vendors, I'm not sure how this will inconvenience the team that much. What's to stop them from walking up and buying a ticket? What's to stop DDs pre-Oriole Korean contacts from doing the scounting.

This should be interesting. Of course, if DD's right, Law et al. will pretend the smell isn't from their flatulence.

My wife and I will be in Baltimore Feb 16-19 and I was just wondering if anyone in the awesome Camden Chat community may have suggestions for me. We will be staying at the Hilton Baltimore which, according to their website, over-looks Camden Yards. People occasionally do this on Bucs Dugout so I assume it's cool, but if not please feel free to delete it. Thank you in advance for any suggestions and good luck in 2012 Orioles fans.

-gorillakilla34

After reading reaction to the Guthrie trade, I am now to believe that Dan Duquette at worst is floundering, or at best just treading water while the O's try to find a way to win 81 games on the cheap. There are other shades of gray here, but I am partial to the later line of thought. It seems pretty clear that the Warehouse is itching to get the losing streak monkey off its back. Well, by 'Warehouse' I mean Peter Angelos. I'd be embarassed too if I were him, but he seems to have a high tolerance for embarrassment, at least when it comes to the baseball team. I figure nice reports from the bank are easing the pain. I'll admit they would for me as well. In any event, Duquette is probably caught between the need to rebuild a crumbled franchise and the pressure to win 81 games.

It sure seems that Duquette is trying to tread water until he sees whether some of the young pitching pans out. That would be the battered cavalry that was celebrated a few years back and we're still waiting for some remnant to arrive. In the meanwhile, he is trying to build up a little depth and the Asian market is the focus for pitching. The last time he had to revamp a team, his focus was in Latin America. Every decent team has caught onto Latin America and there is plenty of competition. It remains to be seen how dedicated he is to the Asian market and I'm curious to see if he'll find position players. Building up overall depth will take some time, and his more immediate acquisition of players looking for a second chance is again much like what Duquette did with the Red Sox until yong players could come through the system. Given the pressure to eke out an 81 win season, I'm not expecting any existing decent talent currently under Orioles control for a couple years to be traded. He'll focus on the draft and player development and has already stated this has been a sore spot for the franchise. The O's need to nail multiple drafts in a row and they have not emphasized depth and player development for what, decades? Fixing that will take a bit of time, and there's the rub for a cynical fan base. How does he respond to the pressure to win 81 games versus build up the franchise? There are no easy answers.

The 2011 Orioles were slightly above league average in slugging, right with Toronto. The O's 2011 OBP was below league average by six points, but again, right there with Toronto. If they can up the OBP a bit, as per Duquette's focus, the pitching still needs to make significant strides. TOR's pitching was not all that great last year and they eked out 81 wins. This is not meant to be a rock solid comparison, but this line of thought is likely somewhere in the front office. In the longer term, we've no idea if the Asian pipeline will pan out. We've no idea if a revamped scouting and player development will succeed. If history is any indication, Duquette won't hesitate to make changes if he does not see results. This too would be a change for a stagnant organization.

Procuring middling players for cheap in an attempt to increase OBP is not exciting. Hoping that we'll see more runs because of this higher OBP and continued power from the likes of Reynolds and perhaps Hardy, Wieters, Jones is also not an exciting sell. Combine that with developing better pitching because Duquette has emphasized conditioning, mechanics, and overall player development. This is not the stuff for exciting MASN commercials. Let's face it, an advertising campaign stating "We're trying our best for 81 wins as cheaply as possible" is not exciting. At least Duquette avoided washed up free agents that in the past did make it onto MASN commercials, but it never led to anything in the standings. But the fact remains that all the O's need to generate a buzz in Baltimore is 81 wins.

So now the fans are left wondering what's going on and expectations are low. I do know that the O's have been consistent at not meeting expectations. Even when we knew they were not going to be good, they somehow managed to be even worse. This pretty much sums up the MacPhail years. MacPhail is not the only example, but convenient because he is the most recent. He started out by revamping the team and trying to buy time with a crummy team while the O's "grew the arms". The O's managed to be crummier than expected. When he declared "winning counts" (and hence told the fans they were suckers the previous year) the O's went out and lost just as much as they previously had. I am not saying all his moves were poor. Of course they weren't, but the end result was a team that consistently lost a lot of games while expectations grew. Fans are sick and tired of it and now Duquette has to deal with a soured fan base while making moves that are not exciting.

If the OBP actually does tick upwards and ultimately produces more runs, the young pitchers make some strides, and the other pitchers help stabilize the rotation, the O's just might show some improvement in the win column. Despite all the carping about Duquette, if the O's do that and somehow manage to flirt with 75 wins the fans will get excited. That's how pathetic this franchise has become. They will generate some buzz if they near a win total in the mid seventies. They'll be celebrated if they flirt with 81 wins. The front office knows this and it's a likely goal. I wouldn't say that the Warehouse is purposefully lowering expectations, but all they need is a team that will do better than the dismal play fans now expect. Show even a hint that the team could approach 81 in 2013 and they'll be a topic of conversation during the summer and season ticket package deals will bump up for 2013.

The bar is really low in 2012, as it has been for the past decade plus. Just show progress towards the Mount Everest (for this franchise) of 81 wins. Despite the current negative reactions from the fans still paying attention, the O's know this is all they need to do.

@JimBowdenESPNxm
JIM BOWDEN
DanDuquette just told us at XM 89 that he needs more time to discuss& get discovery on signing Manny Ramirez because of what fan base thinks

This is noteworthy on several levels. First, they seem to be serious in Manny. Second, they seem to be serious about what the fans would think. Are they serious about what Buck would think?

They're saying he could serve his suspension in the minor leagues. They could always sign him to a minor league deal, see what he can do after 50 games, see what the ML DHs are doing after 50 games, and make up their mind then. If he's got 10-15 HRs in Norfolk at the beginning of June, I suspect the fans might not get so upset at having him around for a few months.

On Friday evening I had the opportunity to attend the Ted Williams Hitting Hall of Fame Induction Dinner at Tropicana Field in Tampa which was held to honor hitters Cecil Fielder and Tino Martinez and to add Mike Flanagan's name to the Pitching Wall of Achievement. On hand was Bill Stetka, Director of Outreach and Community Development for the Baltimore Orioles was on-hand to speak prior to Flanagan's wife and father accepting the award. With many members of the Flanagan family on-hand it was quite a touching moment. After the award was accepted and the applause quieted down, Flanagan's father delivered a very emotional speech to the nearly 800 in attendance. I've included the speech below and please forgive the quality.

Bill Stetka intro after the jump.

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At the Warehouse, a tired, old, past-his-prime Production Assistant has gathered together potential cast members for the new season of The Bullpen: Baltimore.

Production Assistant: Alright gentleman, thanks for being here today. You are all here because you are candidates to be part of the next season of "The Bullpen: Baltimore." Some of you have been here before while others are brand new. However, we feel we have a good mix of veterans and youngsters to make for an interesting and entertaining season. Before we get started, let’s do a quick roll call.

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This Fanpost is just to feel out the interest level in there being a keeper league among CC regulars. The reason I say regulars is because keeper fantasy leagues require long-term commitments and it's easier to count on someone you see commenting more than once. Obviously non-regulars will be considered.

Also to be discussed are settings. Number of teams, size of rosters, keeper rules, auction or snake draft, whether to use a website or spreadsheets, etc. Put your preferences in the comments.

If anyone has experience commishing (real word?) and/or would like to try, they are welcome to. If not, I am willing to. Either way, any input is welcome.

Would the Baltimore Orioles spend some money on a so-so pitcher like Edwin Jackson?! Reports are coming out that 3 teams are in the bidding offering a 3 year deal Mr. Ken R is reporting on Foxsports. I would love the Orioles bring more pitching. But I'm not sold on this guy. He was terrible in the Playoffs and wasn't ace material this past season. I personally would like the Orioles to trade for A.J. for cash in exchange pay some of his salary and see what happens? A.J. would bring a lot more fire to the team and more leadership what do you guys think?