Francisco Peña clears waivers and outrighted (updated)

SARASOTA, Fla. - Catcher Francisco Peña has cleared waivers and been outrighted to Triple-A Norfolk, according to an industry source. He's expected to be in camp on Thursday.

The Orioles designated Peña for assignment last week after acquiring pitcher Gabriel Ynoa from the Mets for cash considerations.

Catching depth was becoming an issue with Welington Castillo leaving camp on March 5 for the World Baseball Classic and Austin Wynns unable to report due to an ankle injury.

Having been on the disabled list twice last season and appearing in only 34 games, right-hander Darren O'Day treated today's bullpen session as more than a casual workout. It was a fresh start for a reliever.

O'Day threw in the first group with Wade Miley and Ubaldo Jiménez. Manager Buck Showalter paired him with Castillo.

"First bullpen of the year, so I thought it went well," he said. "It was good to get to throw to Welington. Enjoyed throwing to him. He was awesome. It was a good start, for sure.

"Everybody looked awesome. Stuff was darting all over the place and making it hard to catch. These guys are doing a good job behind the plate, though."

Anything Castillo does behind the plate will be scrutinized because he's replacing Matt Wieters and he's leaving camp for a least a few weeks to play in the World Baseball Classic.

"He seems positive, upbeat, which is good out of a catcher," O'Day said. "You want a guy who's easy to talk to. Just throwing to him I can tell he's going to steal some strikes for us. He's got a lot to learn, so he's going to have to catch a lot of different guys. But encouraging definitely to throw to him."

Does O'Day adjust to Castillo or the other way around?

"For me, I've been around a lot, so I know how I'm going to get guys out, but maybe he sees something that I don't know about," O'Day said. "It's a two-way street. I was lucky enough to work with Pudge Rodriguez at the end of his career. At the beginning, I was very tentative about telling a Hall of Famer I don't like his pitch call. But to his credit, I finally summoned the courage to talk to him after I had struggles the first two times I threw to him. He was good about encouraging guys to talk to him about it, so I found the more dialogue you can have with a catcher - it's a two-way street - the better you're both going to be.

"Yeah, I'll get to know Welington. I pitch a little differently than a lot of guys, so it might take us a little more time to get together than other guys, but I have confidence it will happen."

Showalter almost arranged to have Castillo catch closer Zach Britton, an early introduction to the heavy upper-90s sinker.

"John (Russell) and I were talking today about who Castillo is going to catch," Showalter said. "Every chance we get, I want Zach to feel comfortable and I also want Welington to step back and say, 'OK, this is a different cat, I really got to keep the ball down, work my way through it, not assume it's the end of the break.' That process has to start now.

"We've got to make use of all the time because he could be gone for three weeks. He knows that. He's a pleaser. He talks about it. This guy really wants to work on the things that he needs to work on."

Castillo now occupies the locker that belonged to Wieters, who's still on the market. O'Day wonders why another team hasn't signed the former first-round pick.

"Four-time All-Star? Pretty good player," O'Day said. "I loved having him as a teammate. Surprised? You don't see ... As much as these journalists try to get everything that's happening, you don't see it all, so I'm sure Matt has some offers out there that he's just not happy with. He'll find the right spot, hopefully soon."

O'Day said he won't make changes to his usual spring routine after going on the DL last year with hamstring and shoulder injuries.

"No, I'm going to do the same things to get ready for the season," he said. "I'm just really happy that I was able to come back at the end of the year and be healthy. I missed some innings for sure, but I think I know what I need to be ready and hopefully I'll be able to get that."

Showalter said he hasn't decided whether O'Day will pitch less in spring training.

"I'm not going to get painted in that corner," he said. "I'd lean on Darren. He's real honest with us. When Darren's right, not many people can do what he does. But we have some other people like that, too, that have been revealed to us. A lot of guys have benefitted from it, from him not being as active. We kind of had to force feed some guys and move some guys up the ladder, so to speak.

"I'm not going to tell you that if Darren is healthy and feels good and is telling me (he's fine), we'll use him. There's a certain threshold here that I don't like to go with relievers and I'm not going to do it. But I'm certainly not going to sit here in the middle of February and say Darren O'Day's not going to be used as much this year. That may not happen."

While O'Day has reported to camp in excellent health, projected opening day starter Chris Tillman is expected to begin the season on the disabled list.

"As a guy who's been through two shoulder (injuries), hurts so bad you can't throw, yeah, I've been there twice. And I've come back from it," O'Day said.

"You can come back from it. You've just got to strengthen it. I have full confidence. Chris is in good hands. You can see how much time he puts in the training room doing exercises and stuff. We're confident he'll be back in time to help us quite a bit."

Tillman talked earlier today about the first part of his spring schedule being written in ink and the latter half in pencil. Showalter said it wasn't just an expression. It's literally in ink and pencil.

"If we don't have any setbacks and we don't have anything that changed that schedule, he can make it to be one of our first five starters," Showalter said. "How we play with it with our days off is TBD. There's a lot of options there.

"I'd like to keep away from DLing him on the 30th if we can, but we might do that and still have him available to be one of the first five pitchers, which allows some flexibility with the roster to start the season. It would actually give us two spots to be flexible with, the DL spot and not needing a fifth starter until the 15th."

Tillman wants to stay ahead of the injury, not risk worsening it in an attempt to break camp with the team. Pretty much what you'd expect from one of the club's leaders.

"It's a real mature approach and I think he trusts us and knows us," Showalter said. "A lot of guys don't feel comfortable coming to somebody and saying that. They just go, 'Oh, that will go away. I'll work through it," and all of a sudden it's April 1 and we've got a problem. Then the team has a problem, and that's all you need to know about Chris.

"The biggest thing he wants is to be there for his team, regardless of what it might mean for him. If you know Chris, he's the kind of guy who says, 'If things ended today, I'm a real lucky guy and I'm in great shape for the rest of my life.' So, the team doing well and he being a contributor is a driving force for him doing what he's doing. I've found through the years that those guys really get a return for having that type of approach."

Showalter relayed another example of Tillman's maturation.

"Yesterday, with a drill, we used to put people in his group to make sure someone was there to really show him the way, and now he's leading those groups," Showalter said. "It's, let's make sure Chris is in this group with these young guys or these old guys. He takes a lot of pride in it. We come in the morning to go over first and second bunt defense and he's sitting in the front row. Guys feed off of that and they see, well, there's Britton and there's (Brad) Brach and there's O'Day. Geez, these guys have been here a while and they're locked and loaded.

"That's one of the things that I think these projections on teams get missed and I hope they keep missing them. I think he got it and I think he also saw how much time we had down here this year. He will work as hard with this stuff. We're just trying to build up the arm strength to put him back on the schedule he would have been on if he had been if he didn't take those two or three weeks off."

I wrote in the previous entry that the Orioles remain in the market for a left-hander reliever. Showalter said they could carry three, including closer Britton and rookie Donnie Hart. The preference would be a southpaw capable of consuming multiple innings.

"With our starters being a little right-handed strong, you'd like to have a left-hander that can throw long relief," he said. "We'll see if someone comes along that we would consider. It's pretty easy to look at the left-handers with (T.J.) McFarland being out of options. That's why I guy like (Jed) Bradley is here.

"I know Dan (Duquette) is talking to some of the guys that are still out here, a couple of guys that might fit into that role. There are two or three left-handers here that might fit."

Updated: The Orioles confirmed that Peña cleared waivers and was outrighted. They also confirmed the Juan Francisco signing that was reported last night and announced that they signed outfielder Michael Choice to a minor league deal.

Choice, 27, hasn't played in the majors since appearing in one game with the Rangers in 2015. He's a career .188/.253/.320 hitter in 96 games, including nine with the Athletics in 2013.

The A's made Choice, who plays all three outfield positions, the 10th-overall pick in 2010 out of Mansfield Timberview High School in Arlington, Tx.

Choice spent last year with Triple-A Columbus in the Indians organization and is a career .274/.356/.460 hitter in seven minor league seasons. He hit 30 home runs with Single-A Stockton in 2011.