Baltimore Orioles: Adley Rutschman get spring training invite

The Baltimore Orioles are giving their top prospect from last year’s draft, Adley Rutschman, an invite to big league spring training. That means that anyone who makes the trek down to Sarasota for Florida Grapefruit League games starting next month will potentially get a look at Rutschman.

Fans shouldn’t let this get their hopes up to see Rutschman in the big leagues this year. The Orioles would be foolish to bring Rutschman to the big leagues in 2020. It’s impossible that he’s ready for that. Seasoning a prospect does in fact take time.

But we will see him in major league games during the spring. I would expect him to be on travel rosters as the spring goes on, meaning he’ll be facing some big league pitching. I’d also expect to see him as a defensive replacement in home games at Ed Smith Stadium, giving the home fans a chance to see him play. Again however, don’t be shocked when he’s cut and goes down to minor league camp. This is just a chance for him to get his beak wet.

Baltimore Orioles: MLB Handled the Houston scandal properly

Baltimore Orioles’ fans and fans of other teams across the league are increasingly more angry at MLB commissioner Rob Manfred regarding the Houston Astros’ cheating scandale. Many people are saying that the players should be punished for their transgressions. They’re right about that – but so is the commissioner in terms of how this was handled.

The players should absolutely face discipline. However while this hasn’t been confirmed, it’s presumed that all 69 players that were interviewed were granted immunity by Commissioner Manfred. Again this is assumed, however if immunity was granted one would be led to believe that it was done in writing.

So given the outrage that exists, if Commissioner Manfred went back on his word and issued discipline to players, he would be putting the league at legal risk. And it would be an open-and-shut case. So then people demand to know why immunity was granted in the first place. The answer is fairly easy…

…the league would have never cracked the case the way that it did had there been no testimony from players. And the only way the commissioner could get the players to talk was through a promise of immunity. It’s all very much a Catch-22 in a sense.

But there’s another reason that giving immunity to the players was the right thing to do. Commissioner Manfred undoubtedly saw how things spiraled out of control during the NFL’s Bountygate scandal. Suspending the coaches and executives involved isn’t privy to an appeal. When NFL players were suspended for their roles in that scandal, the union got involved and it turned into a mess.

So the immunity situation aside, Manfred didn’t want to be in a situation where he was suspending multiple players and having the MLBPA get involved in appeals among other things. They want this to go away, as well they should.

Again, Commissioner Manfred would be putting the league at legal risk if he disciplined the players at this point. Now the is an exception to this. If new evidence were to come out, or if a player or players were found to have lied, one could then argue the immunity was null and void. However as it stands now, this is just something with which fans will have to deal and accept.

Baltimore Orioles: Is Rio Ruiz the answer at third?

Rio Ruiz provided the Baltimore Orioles and their fans with the most memorable moment of the 2019 season, hitting a walk off homer to defeat the Houston Astros in August. (Evidently Houston didn’t have some elaborate cheating scheme going that day at Camden Yards. But I digress.) the big question facing him now is whether or not he’ll be the starting third baseman in 2020.

And the answer to that appears to be yes. If for no other reason, by default. He’s the main third base candidate on the roster right now. Granted that could change, but for now it’s the case. Last year Ruiz started 114 games at the hot corner. Now before people say that whatever the O’s did last year didn’t work, keep in mind that they’re a rebuilding team. They’re trying to find their way.

Incidentally, Ruiz also fielded at a 9.69 clip at third last year. There’s room for improvement, but that means that almost 97% of the time Ruiz wasn’t committing an error. Most teams will take that.

Offense is Ruiz’s bugaboo in a sense. He only hit .232 last year. And he’s struggled at the plate for much of his short career. The Orioles would like to see more production out of that spot in the lineup.

However again, I suspect that Ruiz will be the starting third baseman in Sarasota, and on Opening Day at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. This barring a free agent signing or a trade.

Baltimore Orioles: Did MLB crackdown on cheating for more than one reason?

Commissioner Rob Manfred put the Baltimore Orioles and the rest of MLB on notice with his penalties to the Houston Astros this week regarding sign stealing and cheating. It’s not going to be tolerated. For the record, I agree with that, and I agree with the penalties to Houston (and eventually Boston).

However I also suspect that these penalties are being dished out for more reasons thank just the integrity of the game, per se. Professional sports, including Major League Baseball, are getting cozier and cozier with the gambling industry. I won’t get into the hypocrisy of this regarding baseball, but I’ll simply state that the fact is the league’s accepting gambling more and more.

PointsBet Sportsbook announced yesterday that any bets involving the New York Yankees, the Houston Astros, and/or the World Series in 2017 will be issued a full refund. Now while the Yankees’ sense of entitlement with 26 rings in their arsenal already does come across as smug, the fact is that anyone who placed a bet does have a legitimate gripe.

Sportsbooks are going to eventually be partners to various leagues. Heck, there are rumors that part of the new entertainment center at Nationals Park in Washington is going to be a Sportsbook. Can you imagine that? Gambling IN a big league park?

However if that’s going to become a thing, it behooves MLB to ensure that the games are fair more and more. And I suppose there’s some irony in that. Gambling helping to clean up the game. Imagine that.

Baltimore Orioles: Buck Showalter interviewed with Houston

Former Baltimore Orioles’ manager Buck Showalter interviewed yesterday with the Houston Astros earlier this week for their managerial job. Showalter of course led the O’s from August of 2010 through the culmination of the 2018 season. Showalter led the O’s to their first playoff birth since 1997 in 2012, and their first division crown in as much time in 2014. His contract was not renewed at the end of 2018.

Personally I think it would be a perfect situation for Buck. It would probably be the most talented team by far that he would have inherited in his career. It’s a championship-caliber team, that will probably have a chip on it’s shoulder given the scandal which has erupted. Buck’s probably just the type of manager who would be able to put a stop to the type of antics which got Houston into this mess to begin with.

The flip side of course is the Orioles. More specifically, the Orioles’ fans. While it would be tougher to see him go to Boston because they’re in the Orioles’ division, I think it would be hard for a lot of people seeing Buck manage another team. And I’m not going to lie, you can count this non-biased writer as one of them.

While I understood why the Orioles wanted to make a clean break and go in a totally different direction after 2018, I did feel that Showalter should have had the opportunity to come back if he wanted to do so. I still feel that way. It wasn’t just the fact that he put a winning product on the field for the first time in so many years, it was that he restored pride to an organization and a city that had searched for it for so long.

That’s Buck Showalter’s legacy in Baltimore. It’s simple, but poetic. He restored pride to the Orioles. And in large part to the fans as well. He often said that he “got Baltimore.” And that’s important; it’s a city that a lot of people find difficult to “get,” for one reason or another. So would it be tough to see him in another uniform? Absolutely. But that’s how this business of baseball works sometimes.

Former Toronto manager John Gibbons is also reportedly going to interview for the job. Which direction they go is another story, but ANY organization would be lucky to have Buck Showalter at the helm. With that said, Orioles fans shouldn’t blame manager Brandon Hyde for not being Buck. Yes, personally I believe that Buck should still be here. But that’s not to say that Hyde isn’t a good guy for the job, and that he isn’t doing a decent job.

For what it’s worth, Houston comes to Camden Yards for a three-game set on Friday, June 5th. If Buck Showalter’s in the third base side visitors’ dugout, my hope is that Baltimore turns out that night and that weekend and shows it’s appreciation.

Baltimore Orioles: Could the Birds take advantage after the cheating scandal?

The Baltimore Orioles find themselves in a league with two teams that already are and/or will be guillotined due to the cheating scandal in MLB. Both Houston and Boston have fired their managers, and while the organizational discipline hasn’t come down yet on Boston, odds are it’ll be similar to what we saw with Houston. The Orioles have the additional benefit of being in the same division with Boston, a team which again is about to be handicapped for years to come.

Could this help the Orioles in 2020? Yes…it could possibly help them. But more poignantly, does it make the Orioles reconsider their strategy of not going after big ticket items? And by that, I mean via trades.

I think it’s a long shot, but there’s always a chance that GM Mike Elias in effect decides to become a buyer in a sense, and maybe makes a trade for a player currently on Houston or Boston’s roster. Again, I think this is a long shot. But it’s something to consider, and it’s something that I hope Elias would at least give some thought to doing. If not now, perhaps at the trade deadline.

Why should this effect the Orioles’ direction? Those two teams are going to be losing some top draft picks the next couple of years. That will thin out the herd in their farm systems by a country mile. So might they perhaps consider swinging a trade for a major league player right now in exchange for a prospect who could re-energize their farm system?

I suspect that both teams would hold off on doing something like that until after the season starts. They’re both still good teams with good players; odds are they aren’t about to punt the season before it starts. Now if at the deadline things aren’t going well, would it not be something they’d at least consider?

Which brings us back to the Orioles. Would they want to potentially move the rebuilding process along quicker by perhaps acquiring a great player from a championship-caliber team? That’s really a tough call. You’d be sacrificing some farm system depth for a player who probably isn’t going to help you right here and right now. But one who perhaps might have a few years left of team control and could help you to contend down the line. I can’t tell you which is the best way to proceed. But I can tell you that I think Elias would be foolish to not at least consider that option.

Baltimore Orioles: Who’s managing Boston on Sunday, March 23rd?

The Baltimore Orioles open the home portion of their Florida Grapefruit League schedule on Sunday March 23, 2020 against the Boston Red Sox. It’s fairly safe to say that Brandon Hyde will be in the home dugout at Ed Smith Stadium that afternoon managing the O’s. But who’s going to be manning the third base side visitors’ dugout?

As of last night, Boston’s current manager, Alex Cora, and the BoSox “mutually agreed to part ways.” Basically, the writing was on the wall. Incidentally the league said that the investigation into the Red Sox is still ongoing, and Cora and the organization could still face penalties. If what happened to Houston is any blueprint, the Red Sox organization is about to be guillotined.

Because he figured so prominently in the Houston situation and then appeared to bring the same system to Boston, many people “in the know” are saying that discipline for Cora was going to be worse than what Hinch got in Houston. Are we talking perhaps a two-year suspension? That part’s unclear.

Many fans have openly wondered whether the tentacles of this thing could reach the Orioles given that Mike Elias and much of his staff came from Houston. Anything’s possible, folks. Let’s not kid ourselves into thinking that Houston and Boston were the only teams pulling stunts like this. That would be incredibly naive and foolish.

However I tend to believe that Elias would have been suspended on Monday with the rest of the Houston personnel had he been on the league’s radar. I also tend to believe that given the fact that his name didn’t appear in the official report, odds are he’s in the clear. But you know who’s not in the clear? The Boston Red Sox.

Baltimore Orioles: You can run but you can’t hide from justice

The Baltimore Orioles defeated the Houston Astros exactly once in 2017 – the year in which Houston, led by manager A.J. Hinch, won the World Series. As we know now, Houston cheated their way to that title, and kept right on cheating after winning it. Yesterday those chickens came home to roost.Major League Baseball announced that the Astros were having the following penalties levied against them:

  • One-year suspension for manager A.J. Hinch
  • One-year suspension for GM Jeff Luhnow
  • Loss of first and second round draft picks in the 2020 and 2021 drafts
  • $5 million organizational fine
  • The placement of former Astros assistant GM Brandon Taubman on baseball’s ineligible list

Let me be very clear; these penalties are appropriate. When you cheat the game you do so at your own risk. You can run, but you can’t hide. And when it comes, justice is swift and sure.

And in this case justice is being handed down at a particularly sensitive time. Pitchers and catchers report in less than a month. So in essence an interim front office staff’s going to have to figure out whether it makes sense to elevate a base coach as an interim manager, or whether they should hire someone from outside instead.

Furthermore if you’re a Houston Astros’ fan, you have to think that perhaps the season’s going to be punted. Not to mention the future, with the team missing two years’ worth of first and second round picks. All of this sends a powerful message to all players when it comes to cheating. Just don’t do it.

Incidentally, within an hour of these penalties being handed down, Houston decided to fire both Jeff Luhnow and A.J. Hinch. For what it’s worth, my understanding is that Hinch still cannot be a part of any organization this year. So even if someone wanted to hire him in some capacity this year, that would be out of the question. All the more reason not to cheat.

Baltimore Orioles: Is sports knowledge too commonplace?

The Baltimore Orioles lucked out when they hired Brandon Hyde. In him they got a good baseball man who had worked his way up the coaching ranks. And it in fact appears that he’s being given full autonomy to do what he wants to do with the team on the field.

I heard a disturbing story over the weekend regarding the Cleveland Browns (of the NFL) and their new head coach, Kevin Stefanski. First off, Stefanski’s a guy who could be seen as similar to Hyde. He’s worked his way up the coaching ranks, and now he’s getting his big break to be a head coach.

It’s almost a given that a coach in any sport who’s never been the head guy is going to take over a bad team. And the Cleveland Browns certainly qualify as a bad team (at best, underachieving). But I read an article over the weekend which stated that Stefanski was told that he’s to turn in his game plans to ownership and to the analytics department at the end of every week. Owner Jimmy Haslam and his analytics department will then go over the game plan, and presumably have the autonomy to make changes if the deem it necessary.

That’s an alleged report. However it’s consistent with some of the things I’ve heard about Haslam’s ownership tenure. And that’s an untenable situation for a head coach in any sport. To have to turn in game plans to the owner? That’s akin to a baseball owner calling pitches from his suite.

However as sports have become more and more a part of mainstream culture in America, they become more well-known. I think I know baseball pretty well – needless to say, well enough to write about it! I also think I know football and basketball pretty well. But I’m also smart enough to know that I don’t know enough about these sports to coach them at the professional level.

I suppose what I’m saying is that many people seem to believe that simply because they “know the game,” they’re good enough to know it at all levels. It appears that the Cleveland Browns have an owner who’s not only not empowering his people, but who thinks he knows the game well enough to be going over game plans. That isn’t a recipe for success.

Baltimore Orioles: Does swagger overcome skill?

Over the last decade I’ve covered some of the best Baltimore Orioles’ teams, as well as the worst. For the record, the worst team was probably the 2018 O’s. And that still has me scratching my head, incidentally. But the best? The 2014 AL East Champion Orioles.

About that 2014 team…in my view they were the best in baseball that year. Hands down. Justifiably, that should have been the franchise’s fourth World Series Championship. Not only were they a championship-caliber team, but they handled themselves as true professionals. As only a true Buck Showalter-led team can be.

The O’s of course were tripped up in the ALCS by a Kansas City Royals team that was on a mission. Professionalism was put on the back burner by that group, as their only focus was winning the game. And win they did. Again, I personally believe that the O’s were the best team in baseball that year. Yet a team with swagger, confidence, and joie de vivre defeated this power-hitting team by way of broken bat singles and hunts. The Birds were paper cut to death.

When I watched last night’s Ravens’ playoff game against Tennessee, I had flashbacks to that ALCS. Once again, Baltimore was the better team – on paper. Once again, you had an opponent who came in with a lot of momentum and a lot of swagger. And they somehow defeated a Baltimore team that they shouldn’t have. And if you look at Tennessee’s offensive numbers last night, they kind of paper cut the Ravens to death. (Quarterback Ryan Tannehill threw for 88 yards last night – and two touchdowns.)

So…does swagger outdo skill? If you take the 2014 Orioles (and Royals) and the 2019 Ravens (and Titans), perhaps it does. Heck, look at the 2017 Philadelphia Eagles defeating the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl. Did anyone other than Philadelphia see that coming?

Look at a team near and dear to my heart, the current Maryland Terrapins’ basketball team. This is a team that’s loaded with talent. They were outdone the other night by an Iowa team that had noticeably less talent. But which did have swagger. The same is true of the Terps’ loss earlier in the season against Penn State.

This isn’t a recent phenomenon, incidentally. The 1969 NY Jets famously defeated the Baltimore Colts in the Super Bowl. You see the same thing there. A great team was beaten by a team less-skilled team who simply believed they could shove it down their opponents’ throats.

So if swagger wins games, why isn’t every team full of it? I’m not sure it’s quite that simple. You have to play with swagger and live with it. All of the teams I’ve mentioned totally threw caution to the wind. They so hated the concept of losing, they became unafraid of it. Outwardly that makes little sense, but again consider the 2014 Royals. If you look at the determination they had in their eyes to win, it almost looks like the Orioles were playing not to lose. The same is true of the Titans last night.

This attitude is merciless to opponents. Again, any break the Royals and Titans caught in games, they exploited. And they weren’t shy about tell you. Again, it’s too easy to suggest that anyone who believes he’s going to win and is willing to take risks will do so. But maybe there’s something to be said for confidence. Obviously, however, skill means something also.