Ryan Powell’s pro baseball career consisted of four seasons in independent leagues before becoming a scout in 2013, and his mother Wendy never got to see her son play his final game. With Wendy now suffering from brain cancer, the Orioles arranged for Powell (the club’s head of independent scouting) to play an inning during the team’s intrasquad game on Tuesday with both his parents in attendance. MLB.com’s Brittany Ghiroli has the full story, which includes information on how you can donate to various cancer charities by bidding on one of Powell’s specialty bats, autographed by several MLB players. Here’s more from Baltimore…
- While the Orioles may still add a left-handed hitting outfielder and a lefty reliever, MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko doesn’t expect the club to bring back former Orioles Travis Snider or Wesley Wright. Snider and Wright are both free agents after being recently cut by the Royals and Diamondbacks, respectively.
- The release of Miguel Gonzalez wasn’t a popular move within the Orioles clubhouse, Eduardo A. Encina of the Baltimore Sun writes, as Gonzalez was extremely well-liked by his teammates. There was “a lot of anger” about the move both yesterday and today, Ghiroli tweets, and “guys are upset, shocked by the whole thing.” The transaction has logic from a business perspective, as Gonzalez hasn’t pitched well and the O’s could recoup around $4MM of Gonzalez’s $5.1MM salary by releasing him now (or they could get the entire salary off the books if the righty is claimed by another team). Gonzalez also had a minor league option remaining, however, so Baltimore’s decision to release him instead of sending him to Triple-A “has to scare practically every player in that clubhouse,” as Encina writes.
- The Orioles have had their share of messy situations this spring, Encina noted in another article, including the fact that $7MM investment Hyun Soo Kim likely won’t make the Opening Day roster. Kim’s contract stipulates that he can’t be optioned to the minors, and while the Orioles got out of a similar situation with another Korean player in Suk Min Yoon two years ago, that move was helped by Yoon being able to find a higher salary with a Korea Baseball Organization team. According to Encina, the O’s are having a tough time finding a KBO club willing to top Kim’s $7MM salary over the next two seasons. Between Kim, Yoon and the Orioles’ controversial signing of pitcher Seong-min Kim a few years ago, Encina wonders if the team is hurting its chances of signing future Korean talent.
If (and this is a BIG if) Kim heads back to the KBO, the likely team/s I think he will end up with is either Doosan or SK… The SK Wyverns showed interest in him last year before signing a Major league contract, the Doosan Bears will be monitoring him, though with the addition of OF/1B Nick Evans last season, there’s still room for him… KBO league teams can only sign foreign players to one year contracts coming up, most won’t even last long, so there’s still a likely chance that he’ll end up with Doosan if he heads back to Korea. But with his desire to end his career there in the US, there’s pretty much zero chance he’ll head back to his country… And him accepting the demotion will happen.
Numerous media outlets in South Korea (Naver and SBSnews) said that the MLBPA are closely monitoring Kim’s situation, and will step in if necessary.
I suspect he’ll be released rather than demoted. Some rebuilding team with a gaping hole in the OF will take a shot at league minimum.
So they are having a Hard time Finding even a Korean league team that will take him for 7milllion? No one else in MLB wants him and hes offended that the Orioles don’t want to start him ?Release Mr. Kim before opening day, call it a mistake and sign another L handed hitting outfielder.
Offended? What are you talking about? Show me at least one source saying that he’s offended about his lack of playing time or him not having the nod there at LF this upcoming season.
Almost everything Dan does hurts the Orioles’ chances.
Except for building a team that had its first winning season in over 15 years and a team that won their first division title in over 20 years. Besides the few questionable additions and subtraction, he has done a damn good job building the O’s.
Correct. There’s no real argument against that. Showalter too.
Some of his moves have been questionable — especially trading away for young pitching talent and not getting much in return. Other moves (Nick Markakis Nelson Cruz) we will have to wait and see.
As for the Gonzalez move, while it was done for “financial” reasons, a lot of clubs make a similar move. And let’s be fair here: players have also proven themselves to be extremely shrewd in the “business” side of the game as well.
Yup. Resigning Davis and O’Day, trading a 3rd string catcher for Trumbo, those things really hurt the O’s. You’re acting foolish today.
Resigning Davis was widely looked at as a mistake and Trumbo is also overpaid. He was very nearly non-tendered, Bmore was the only team willing to take on his salary
Davis didn’t have any other bidders, they played themselves!
The “financial” move re Gonzo will sting some people but it’s a move a lot of clubs make. Players are equally culpable in making shrewd “business” decisions.
So is the goal now to “scare practically every player in that clubhouse” because I assumed the goal was to win games? Guys living in fear for their jobs are not generally going to be good ballplayers. They are either going to be tentative and scared to make a mistake or they are going to take too many risky chances because they feel they have to in order to save their jobs. What a ridiculous situation. The only thing worse will be if the Orioles have a good season now (which I highly doubt, but is still possible), because then other teams will start copycatting thinking that this strategy is what caused it.
What “strategy ” ? To put the best players available to you on the field ? Peter Angelos bent over backward to bring back the core of a team that’s been to the playoffs twice in the past four years, and which BTW has the winningest record in the AL east over that same period . Its a very good thing they signed Davis because they weren’t able to get Coespedes or Upton or even Fowler this off season. They really need to stop and reflect on all that “clubhouse anger” they are feeling and BTW also, They should release Kim before opening day too ..Why ?Because he isn’t a Major League talent. As for not being able to sign Korean players in the future., maybe that’s not a bad thing for the Orioles and anyway, it probably wont stop them from doing so .
“Because he isn’t a Major League talent.”
Pretty fast to judge, aren’t you? The O’s scouted and signed Kim for a reason, he has the recquired skill sets and tools to succeed at the Major league level, he still has yet to apply those playing there. He’s nervous, playing for the first time in a new country, not to mention he did put pressure upon himself when he said in a statement back in Seoul last December about not destroying Kang’s reputation when he’s about to play in the big leagues. The Kim today is not the confident Kim I’ve witnessed in the KBO… give him time, he still has yet to show what he’s capable of doing.
Yeah and Miguel Gonzalez was a relatively big piece for those 4 Orioles teams. To just cut him before the season because he has a few bad spring games is completely contrary to your point about keeping the core together. Saving $4MM while pissing off everyone a large portion of the clubhouse just seems foolish to me.
Look at his numbers last year and his spring numbers. It’s obvious he is starting to decline and why hold on to him hoping he gets his numbers up when they have younger arms who will do just as good if not better than Gonzalez would have.
Starting to decline could also mean “ripe for a turn around.” Mike Trout’s numbers are starting to decline too, should he be cut loose? It may not work, and probably won’t, but the point is that Gonzalez earned the right over the last few years to at least get through April with the big club. If he isn’t producing, then you still have time to use one of those other options and make a lot less friction in the clubhouse. Guys are less likely to revolt if unproductive veterans are cut loose during the season than veterans of the team who aren’t even given a really fair chance to prove themselves. All this looks like is the Orioles trying to get out of paying a guy his money and that looks bad to all of the other players.
You just compared a questionable 4/5 starter to one of the best players in baseball. That is a terrible comparison. A better example would include another Oriole in Yovani Gallardo. His numbers barely declined and he sat in free agency all winter until the O’s picked him up. Gallardo has a much better track record than Gonzalez and still had trouble getting a job. It just shows that declining pitchers scare most teams and if they don’t feel they will produce for the team they let them go. It’s part of the game. You have to release certain players to make your team better and in this case, whether it’s popular within the clubhouse or not, it was Gonzalez.
Orioles should have had their fill of International players. I am not saying that as a slight to an entire nation of players. It would just seem to me that they have only had one impact player of the sorts. Chen seems to me like the only successful signing they have had in all their attempts to get a bargain outside of the country. The same offseason, they signed Wada. Wada went on to collect $8.15MM over two years but never made a pitch on the big league side for the club. The other players mentioned above in the writing all seem as though they were not impactful or even produced any positive results. However, I am not as fortunate to be able to follow the O’s as the fandom. It just appears to me that this is a resource that has not panned out favorably for the O’s thus far outside of Chen. Maybe it’s time to go in another direction?
While I appreciate and enjoy both sides of the debate in previous comments, I would like to commend the Orioles for what they did for Ryan Powell and his mother. Scouts and other behind the scenes personnel in baseball organizations are sometimes overlooked and under appreciated, but the Orioles went out of their way to do this for them. Outstanding.
The Seong-Min Kim that the Orioles attempted to sign is currently enrolled in college (might have finished since I haven’t read anything about him in over a year) in Japan and preparing to enter the NPB draft after he graduates. The Seong-Min Kim that you have linked in the article is an entirely different player.