O's Building Plan Begins To Pay, With Interest
By Kevin Hess
Joe Jordan was hired as the Orioles’ director of scouting in the fall of 2004 and led his first draft with the team in 2005. That first haul of talent was unlike any the O's had seen in years and included Nolan Reimold, who is strongly making a case for American League Rookie of the Year, and pitcher David Hernandez, a 16th-round steal. Brandon Erbe and Brandon Snyder are two other prospects who have etched themselves a place in the organization’s top 10, according to Baseball America.
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Nolan Reimold and Matt Wieters are two of the Orioles' young stars.
(Mitch Stringer/PressBox) |
For Jordan and the Orioles, the rapid rise of the Baltimore farm system from the depths of obscurity has been a total team effort, from upper-level management on down.
“There has always been support for the scouting staff, what we believe in and what we’ve been trying to do,” Jordan said. “Literally, since I got here I’ve had full support to do what I wanted to do. I’ve been very fortunate.”
That support has been shown especially by president of baseball operations Andy MacPhail, who was hired in 2006 with a goal of building a competitive farm system for the long haul.
This season alone, three more prospects (Brad Bergesen, Jason Berken and Matt Wieters) have joined Hernandez and Reimold to strengthen the organization’s core talent at the major league level and all have played key roles throughout the season.
The organization’s depth goes far beyond the majors. Pitchers Chris Tillman (who was a key piece in the Erik Bedard trade to Seattle), Jake Arrieta and Brian Matusz all project to be in the rotation within two years and have been dominating at the minor league level.
Positional prospects Snyder, Billy Rowell and Caleb Joseph all offer projectable tools at the next level. Throw in pitchers like Troy Patton (acquired in the Miguel Tejada trade) and Erbe, and Jordan's work is beginning to pay off.
“I told the guys when I got hired that we’re going to look for three things: tools, athleticism and baseball players,” Jordan said. “We haven’t gotten them all right; there have been some mistakes. But we scout the whole draft and we’ve done well with pitching both early and late in the draft. We’ve just tried to work with the understanding that there are big-leaguers that can be drafted after the fifth round; we just have to go find them.”
To find good talent a team must have a trusted and reliable scouting staff, which Jordan has created. One scout, Dean Albany, said the formula for building a winner in Baltimore is the good relationship and communication between the personnel.
“Everybody is on the same page,” Albany said. “Our draft has now been stretched so that we can take guys in the 40th or 43rd rounds and overpay them, thanks to ownership. We’re starting to see the rewards of that. That’s something Boston and the Yankees have been doing for a long time, taking guys lower in the draft and overpaying them.
“Well, we’re hitting back now. We’re not second fiddle to either one of them. Our ownership has told us that if we get the players, they’ll pay them. That’s probably a big reason why it has turned around. We have just as many resources and just as much backing as any team in the big leagues.”
The work the scouting staff has put in hasn’t stopped just because some of their prospects have made it to the highest level. As Jordan noted, they are already working toward the 2010 draft.
“It’s a continual process to put talent into the system every year because if we’re not graduating kids to the big leagues that means we are not giving them what they need,” he said. “What we’ve created is that the system has gotten healthier from the standpoint of there are now prospects at each level. It’s a competitive environment and that’s what I want to create.”
Issue 139: July 2009
