The Orioles added two pitchers Wednesday in the Triple-A phase of the Rule 5 draft. This phase is very different than the major league Rule 5, which was postponed for now during the lockout. These players do not need to be placed on the 40-man roster and they are, essentially, now Orioles. No need to send either of them back to the team from which each was claimed. They can also play on any affiliate the Orioles send them to in 2022. Since these players were neither on any club's 40-man roster...

For a good decade, the Nationals would take their seats at the Rule 5 draft, the annual event that always wraps up the Winter Meetings, and sit back and watch as other clubs either selected or lost players. As a perennial contender, they didn't typically have roster room to devote to a longshot prospect, nor did they tend to have many young players of their own coveted by other organizations. Now that they've entered a full-scale rebuild of their entire operation, both at the major-league and...

I recently talked with Jim Callis of MLBPipeline.com about some of the players the Orioles selected in the 2021 First-Year Player Draft. But we also, for a separate Zoom interview, discussed some players that had big years this past season on the O's farm. Players who did not yet need to be added to the 40-man roster but players who, in the case of three of them, are closing in on a shot with the Orioles. We discussed outfielder Kyle Stowers, who played at three levels in 2021, ending the year...

They were the last Orioles affiliate to win a league championship. They had to rally from being down two games to one in a best-of-five finals to win, but did, and an epic postgame celebration followed when the 2015 Double-A Bowie Baysox claimed their one and only Eastern League championship. That Bowie team included Trey Mancini, Chance Sisco, Mike Yastrzemski and Corban Joseph, plus some minor league vets that came up big, like Quincy Latimore, Brandon Snyder, Terry Doyle and Garabez...

Recently, in this entry, I interviewed Orioles pitching coach/director of pitching Chris Holt and we discussed offseason velocity gains for pitchers. Can they make them, should they try to do so and how do they go about it? Holt and the organization are in favor of pitchers looking to improve their game, but they also have a strong interest in how a player intends to do this and what help and resources are available. During our discussion about velocity, I also asked Holt about the bigger...

The Orioles made two selections in the Triple-A phase of the Rule 5 draft to bring the roster to a full 38, again relying on analytic data to improve their relief depth. They had the first overall pick and used it on sidearming right-hander Nolan Hoffman of the Mariners organization. They also chose right-hander Cole Uvila from the Rangers in the second round. Hoffman, 24, was a fifth round draft pick in 2018 out of Texas A&M. He hasn't pitched above high Single-A. Hoffman has posted a...

They are still a long way from the major leaguers, but seeing a host of players from the 2021 Orioles draft class end the year playing so well at low Single-A Delmarva was a real plus for the organization. After drafting players they are high on in the first two drafts under Mike Elias - like Adley Rutschman, Kyle Stowers, Gunnar Henderson, Jordan Westburg, Coby Mayo and Heston Kjerstad - the class of '21 was raking late in the year with the Shorebirds after starting their pro careers this...

The Orioles will begin announcing their selections in the Triple-A phase of the Rule 5 draft today after making a much-needed move to address their catching deficiency. Jacob Nottingham has signed a minor league deal that likely includes an invitation to spring training. The team revealed the transaction this morning, but it's listed in Baseball-Reference.com as happening on Dec. 1. Nottingham, 26, can provide an option at a position that's lost Pedro Severino, Austin Wynns and Nick Ciuffo...

The Nationals of the last half-decade boasted as veteran-laden a roster as you'd find in baseball. Yes, there were a handful of young, rising stars mixed in, but general manager Mike Rizzo always made a point to surround them with heavily experienced players who weren't about to get caught up in any moment that became too big for them. And nowhere on the field was this more true than behind the plate. The Nats featured almost exclusively veteran catchers for years, from Kurt Suzuki to Yan...

Even though injuries limited to him to just 48 games last season and he has only 40 games under his belt at the Double-A level, infielder Terrin Vavra made it to the Orioles' 40-man roster late last month . Drafted in round three (No. 96 overall) in 2018 by the Colorado Rockies out of the University of Minnesota, Vavra came to the O's organization in a trade for reliever Mychal Givens on Aug. 30, 2020. Givens went to the Rockies and the Orioles acquired Vavra and Tyler Nevin, along with a...