Os show they learned their lesson when it comes to who they draft

By: Corey Johns

It’s been 26 years since the Orioles drafted a pitcher that they developed into a true ace pitcher. They’ve drafted top prospects at the time, like Mike Paradis, Richard Stahl, Chris Smith, Adam Loewen, Matthew Hobgood and Dylan Bundy, but none of them have really turned out. And there is a clear trend of those pitchers that differs from guys like Mussina and this past MLB First Year Player Draft it seems like the Orioles have learned the error of their ways and gone back to their most successful draft strategy.

The Orioles organization, even before Dan Duquette or Andy McPhail, always carried a mantra of ‘grow the arms and buy the bats’. If they want to have a dominant pitcher, he better come up through their farm system and the problem if they just haven’t and it’s been wasting what has been one of the best lineups in the game over the past four seasons.

This year the Orioles have no true aces. Their starters struggle to get deep into games or to have one good outing after another. The reason is, they keep having to fill their rotation in with middling pitchers because the guys they were banking on becoming their top pitchers simply haven’t become that.

In 2009 the Orioles selected Hobgood with the fifth overall pick in the MLB Draft. He was the 2009 Gatorade National Baseball Player of the Year after going 21-1 on the mound at Norco High School in Norco, California. He also hit 40 home runs for his school and was a three-sport athlete as well.

But Hobgood only made one appearance in his minor league career past Single-A and opted for free agency this past winter. Nobody has picked him up. It was unforunate for him. He battled injuries. He missed the entire 2012 season after undergoing surgery to repaid a torn rotator cuff and he was never quite the same again. But even after three seasons of the minor leagues before his injury he was pitching poorly at lower levels of the minor leagues.

Two years later the Orioles used the No. 4 overall pick on Bundy. His career has notably been derailed by many injuries. He too was a stellar high school pitcher but it was quickly discovered that his arm was used up in high school and he had to undergo Tommy John Surgery and a year later was shut down with calcification in the back of his shoulder. He’s in the majors, and doing well despite having minimal time in the minor leagues, but he was not drafted No. 4 overall to be a middle relief pitcher. He was supposed to be a No. 1 or No. 2 starter.

Two years after the Orioles selected Bundy No. 4, they selected Hunter Harvery No. 22 overall out of Bandys High School. He was a highly touted pitching prospects, but he’s dealing with injuries now too and missed all of last season and has yet to pitch this season.

Clearly, the Orioles have not had success drafting first round pitchers out of high school. They are by far the riskiest players a team can draft because they are five to six years away from being major league ready and anything can happen in that time. But also, when they are throwing in the high 90s at a young age before their body has really developed and become capable of handling that sort of strain, they become more susceptible to these injuries. Plus high school and club coaches are going to use them as much as possible.

In a way, developing a tremendous arm in college a bit later might save a pitchers arm.

This is not to say a pitcher from college likely won’t have to battle injuries, but it is also much less of a guessing game.

Right now the Orioles top pitchers are Chris Tillman and Kevin Gausman. Gausman was the No. 4 overall pick of the Orioles in 2012 and he’s already become one of the team’s top pitchers. He was drafted out of LSU. Tillman was originally drafted by the Seattle Mariners out of high school in 2006, but the Orioles traded for him a few years later after he was already established a bit.

No baseball pitcher coming out of high school at 18 and sometimes 17 years old is ready to be pitching in the Majors Leagues and they won’t be for a long time Too much can happen to a player in that time. It’s just not worth the risk to used a high pick in the draft on a guy like that.

Hindsight is 20-20, but taken three spots after Hobgood in 2009 was Mike Leake out of Arizona State. He’s made it to the majors after one year of the minor leagues and has had decent success. Sonny Gray has quickly turned into a Cy Young caliber pitcher after being taken 18th out of Vanderbilt in 2011 by the Oakland Athletics. Even Chi Chi Gonzalez out of Oral Roberts as already made his Major League Debut after being picked by the Rangers one spot after the Orioles picked Harvey in 2013.

These are three guys the Orioles will never have leading their rotation. Bundy might break into the rotation a few years down the line, but that’s not at all what they were hoping for when they took him.

Hopefully this past major league draft was a sign of the Orioles changing their ways a bit.

This past draft the Orioles first three draft picks were all college players. Cody Sedlock has a ton of success at Illinois and has a fairly fresh arm considering he’s only been in the rotation for one season. He may only have a two year time table to get to the Major Leagues. Second round pick Keegan Akin was a very successful pitcher at Western Michigan and he too may not be far away from the Major Leagues. At the end of the second round they took Matthias Dietz, who was the top junior college pitching prospect in the draft.

Those guys are much less of a risk than high school pitchers are and have a much shorter time table to get to the majors. So maybe, the Orioles learned their lesson the hard way and are changing the way they do things when it comes to the types of pitchers they draft.

This article was provided by So Much Sports. For more great sports coverage by So Much Sports please visit somuchsports.com and baltimore.somuchsports.com.