Author Archives: Jake McDonnell

Five early thoughts on 2019 Orioles Spring Training

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This week marked the beginning of Spring Training for the Baltimore Orioles. Pitchers and catchers reported on Tuesday. Multiple position players are already working out and taking batting practice at the Sarasota complex.

Full team workouts begin next week and the Orioles won’t play their first Spring Training game until Saturday, Feb. 23 against the Twins at 1:05 pm from Ed Smith Stadium.

A lot of what we heard this week, not just from players but from Mike Elias and Brandon Hyde, was related to the excitement surrounding the 2019 season. There’s only so much to talk about after just four days of workouts, but now there’s information out there that didn’t exist at the start of the week.

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Projecting the Orioles 2019 starting rotation

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Baltimore Orioles pitchers and catchers report to Sarasota on Tuesday in what figures to be an interesting Spring Training. With so many spots on the Orioles roster up-for-grabs, Ed Smith Stadium will not be short of competition in the next month and a half.

With that in mind, the Orioles pitching rotation might be the most stable area on the team in regards to carryover from 2018. Pending injury, three starters in last year’s rotation will return. The back end of the rotation gets dicey. However, there’s some exciting young arms in the mix that got valuable experience in the reluctantly memorable 115-loss season.

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Ranking the Ravens positions of need entering offseason

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On Episode 37 of the Charm City Bird Watch Podcast, Nolan McGraw, Ian Schultz, and myself dished out our Ravens postseason positional report cards. We gave letter grades for each position on the Ravens roster, following up with our bye week grades from Episode 24. After making it to the playoffs for the first time in four years, the Ravens roster graded out as follows:

Because of roster turnover or injury, the positions that graded out high may not match these grades next season. The same goes for the areas that turned in lower grades. Those who follow the Ravens can point to certain positions that need some work over the summer. Here’s my positional ranking, from the ones that need addressed most to the ones that should be addressed last.

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