Tuesday Bird Droppings: An Orioles minor league minicamp begins

Good morning, Camden Chatters.

This just in: there’s still absolutely no news regarding a potential end to the MLB lockout. More on this story as it (fails to) develop.

While major league players are barred from any team-related activities for the time being, minor leaguers — at least those not on the 40-man roster — can go about their baseball business as usual. The Orioles are using the opportunity to hold a week-long minicamp in Sarasota for the newest pitchers in the organization, consisting of 14 pitchers who were either drafted or signed as undrafted free agents in 2021.

The O’s selected nine pitchers in last year’s draft, with fifth-round right-hander Carlos Tavera the only one taken in the top 10 rounds. Presumably all nine hurlers will attend the minicamp, along with UFA righties Carson Carter, Daniel Federman, and Preston Price. Should be a good time, and hopefully a helpful experience for the newly professional youngsters. The camp will be run by Justin Ramsey, who last year was the Double-A Bowie pitching coach, along with Ryan Goll (High-A Aberdeen development coach) and Joe Haumacher (Complex League pitching coach).

Now, on to today’s Camden Chat Sporcle quiz. How well do you know Orioles trades? I’ve chosen 15 trades in club history — including some of the very best and very worst — and your task is to match the players who were swapped for each other. (In some cases, there were other players involved in those trades too, but we’ll just do one-for-one matches for the purposes of this quiz.) Good luck!

Links

Orioles make sure their system stays in sync - School of Roch
Preaching a consistent message and philosophy at every level of the organization seems like it should be a no-brainer, yet previous Orioles regimes utterly failed at it. Kudos to the Mike Elias administration for finally getting everyone on the same page.

A look at O's co-hitting coach approach with Ryan Fuller - Steve Melewski
We really need to come up with a Bennifer-type couple name for O’s co-hitting coaches Ryan Fuller and Matt Borgschulte. Borgler? Fullschulte? I dunno, I’ll keep workshopping it.

The Orioles are about to add another big-money international class. What have the millions spent in Latin America yielded so far? - Maximizing Playoff Odds
Jon Meoli looks at a few of the Elias-era international amateur signings who have stood out so far. We’re years and years away from knowing if any of these guys will make it to the majors, but I like what I’ve seen.

Orioles birthdays and history

Is today your birthday? Happy birthday! It’s the 30th birthday of the one and only “Dr. Poo Poo,” Stevie Wilkerson. In parts of three seasons with the Birds, Wilkerson batted .210/.268/.340...and also made five pitching appearances, in which he posted a 7.11 ERA and memorably recorded a save. The O’s released him in August and he’s currently playing in the Mexican Winter League.

Other ex-Orioles born on this day include 2008 right-hander Greg Aquino (44) and the late Neil Berry (b. 1922, d. 2016) and Carl Powis (b. 1928, d. 1999), who played for the Birds in the 1950s.

On this day in 1991, the Orioles traded Mickey “Froot Loops” Tettleton to the Tigers. Tettleton had been a solid offensive catcher for the Birds for three years, including a 26-homer, All-Star season in 1989, but the O’s needed to make room for up-and-coming backstop Chris Hoiles. After the trade, Tettleton went on to have several more productive seasons, while the pitcher the O’s acquired for him, Jeff Robinson, posted a 5.18 ERA in his single year in Baltimore.