It has been a dream and a goal of mine to drive out to Phoenix one of these Octobers and spend a month at the Arizona Fall League, watching the best minor leaguers play ball in a relaxed and honest atmosphere. A lot of that dream is quintessentially American: to just pick up and go West for a while, with nothing but the Saturday Evening Post and a baseball schedule to guide you. A lot more of that dream is that the AFL is almost like walking into a bygone era of barnstorming baseball, where the best players from the teams would get together to just play ball in the winter. The relay has been passed from Babe Ruth to Buck O’Neill to Eddie Feigner to Dustin Ackley.

On Saturday I escaped the sometimes suffocating bubble of dreary Rochester just by turning on the AFL championship game, but more than that I escaped the tighter bubble of Baseball’s problems: competitive imbalance, the frustration of twelve years of losing, and a looming labor war. They were all completely out of mind as I was transported to the sun-drenched field in Scottsdale to see the Phoenix Desert Dogs take on the Peoria Javelinas in a one-game playoff.

The game began with the most exciting play in baseball: Frederick Keys center fielder Matt Angle hit a gap shot on a high fastball and then showed off his speed, digging easily into third for the leadoff triple. Angle’s inclusion on the Desert Dogs is interesting enough; he’s the most advanced of the Orioles’ outfield prospects but unlikely to dethrone anybody on the major league squad. Angle has very little power but tries to make up for it in speed and plate discipline, the classical definition of a leadoff hitter. He’ll be in Bowie next year, but I don’t see any place for him in Baltimore anytime soon.

The big news of the day was the exclusion of wunderkind Stephen Strasburg, who had twisted his knee shagging flyballs. He would have been the Phoenix starter, but instead we were left without the biggest name of the league. I couldn’t blame the announcers for their disappointment, as I myself was also pondering the absence of some of our own top prospects: The Brandons Three.

Brandon Erbe had gotten hurt (sprained finger), a fitting end to an injury-plagued year (shoulder fatigue). Erbe’s raw talent is worth getting excited over, but he’ll need to really assert himself as a healthy starting pitcher in 2010.

The two first basemen, Brandon Snyder and Brandon Waring, had gone home to attend weddings. I’ve covered these two guys a lot over the course of the year, but it’s worth repeating: I do not believe that either one of them can be the long-term first baseman in Baltimore. Snyder’s gotten good marks this fall, particularly in the field, but he doesn’t have the power to hit at first. Waring has power, but I worry about the rest of his game.

The big moment of the game for Orioles fans came with finally seeing Josh Bell in living color. Everything I’ve read about the man suggests he really might be something special at third base long-term in Baltimore, but it definitely is hard to look at him and his Kirby Puckett body and think “above average defender at third”. Bell, who didn’t do anything at the plate on Saturday, notoriously needs to figure out how to hit lefties (one of the more glaring needs for the Orioles in general), and I suspect we might not see him until late 2010 or even early 2011. He had an absolutely terrific year in almost every regard, but he remains a work in progress.

The championship game was a back and forth affair, and it seemed like the Desert Dogs were going to pull out their sixth consecutive championship until Orioles non-prospect Josh Perrault entered in the eighth and served up a plethora of hard hit balls, culminating in an immense go-ahead, two-run blast deep to left, giving the game to the Javelinas. Perrault has gotten some word of mouth, but the guy is 27 years old and a seven year minor league veteran. That he was left off the 40-man roster and will be exposed to the Rule V Draft is telling as to how the Orioles view him.

Even though Phoenix didn’t pull it out and claim the meaningless title of Arizona Fall League champion, the escape from the Northeast winter to the dry heat of Arizona and the underlying excitement of top prospect barnstorming – with Josh Bell rocking the road uniform – really made my day, and might just be enough to get me through this cold winter.

The good news is that in this regard, 2009 was a large success with several different players excelling both on the mound and at the plate. These two teams were much harder to “wrap up” than their higher level cousins. That doesn’t mean the O’s are likely to see another year with multiple top-100 talents next year or the year after, but they have put themselves in a strong position to get back on top quickly.

Frederick Keys (64-75)

Zach Britton, via frederickkeys.com

Best Prospect: There were many players who had terrific years at Frederick, giving the organization a solid amount of depth. But in a system where the stated philosophy is “grow the arms, buy the bats” (although I have yet to see any proof of bat-buying skills), the best prospect is the pitcher who takes a big step forward, and that was Zach Britton this year. At just 21 years old (compared to Roch’s pick of Brandon Waring at 23), Britton was masterful for the Keys, balancing a ton of ground balls with a lot of strikeouts (131 in 140 innings). They say that the jump to AA is the most important, so we should all be very excited to see what Britton can do next year to further cement his rising status.

Biggest Surprise: Pedro Florimon, Jr. improved his stock considerably this year. The 22 year old Dominican cut his strikeout rate from 33% in 2008 down to 23% in 2009, and while his defense and walk rate (and, frankly, his strikeout rate) are still far below average, his power arrived this year with 9 home runs, 32 doubles, and 5 triples. Florimon is hardly a total player and might even benefit from sticking at Frederick again next year, but it was a huge surprise to get anything from him at all.

Delmarva Shorebirds (66-70)

Ronnie Welty, via the Sun

Best Prospect: The 20th round draft pick in 2008, rightfielder Ronnie Welty had one of the best all-around seasons in the entire system, making both the mid-season and post-season Sally League All-Star teams (and scoring the winning run in the All-Star game off noted Yankee switch-pitcher Pat Venditte) while putting up a .373 OBP with 10 home runs (and he’s just 21, so that power has yet to truly blossom) along with double-digit outfield assists and just two errors on the year. I have a feeling we’ll be talking a lot about Mr. Welty in the coming years.

Biggest Surprise: The Baltimore Sun’s Dean Jones, Jr. held a terrific preseason discussion about most of the big name prospects in the system, and reading over the Greg Miclat thread is kind of a kick in the teeth: the consensus seems to be that while Miclat is powerless, he plays a good defensive game and knows how to hit and run and best case scenario could be Brian Roberts‘ eventual replacement. Well. It’s hard to sugarcoat how disappointing his season has been, between defense (25 errors in 111 games) and offense (.299 OBP) and getting outplayed by the younger, “raw” Xavier Avery. Ouch.

Fortunately, there was a surprise that was just as nice as Miclat was disappointing, and that was Rick Zagone’s success. Coming out Missouri, Zagone had a good season with Aberdeen in 2008 and kept the ball rolling right through Delmarva and into Frederick. The best part of watching Zagone’s promotion was that his numbers didn’t take a serious dive after the promotion. He ended the year with roughly the same numbers of strikeouts and less walks with the Keys as with the Shorebirds. He’s still a long way from Baltimore, but so far, so good.

Next week: A look at this year’s draft class and also Our Man Vito.

*I want to thank MASN a ton, because they’ve been linking to my columns alongside actual journalism almost every week. I don’t know how I fooled them into thinking my opinion is worthwhile, but I’m sure glad I did.

Norfolk Tides (71-71)

Best Prospect: There’s just no doubt at all that 2009 was the year of the Nolan Reimold in AAA. He played 31 games (didn’t it feel like more watching Felix Pie squirm out there?) with a ridiculous 1.228 OPS and a home run pace that would have given him 47 over a 162 game schedule in a strong pitcher’s park. And his numbers at home were actually better than on the road (1.342 vs. 1.176 OPS). Then he came up and made himself into a fan favorite and Rookie of the Year candidate with a fun combination of power and hustle and a really terrific plate approach.

Brandon Snyder, via the Sun

Biggest Surprise: As nice of a surprise as Justin Turner has been this year (I wrote before the season that “he’s done okay for himself in his career” and that he’d likely compete for a bench role next spring, and he’s pretty much cemented himself as a guy to watch this September for just that reason with a .362 OBP), the big surprise was unfortunately Brandon Snyder’s fall off the table. I won’t rehash how the walks went down, the power disappeared, and the strikeouts rose up after having an eye-opening first half with Bowie; you all already know that song and dance. Towards the end of the season the Orioles were starting to play Snyder, notoriously horrid on defense, at third base and it began to sound like they’re considering him more of a utility infielder, Oscar Salazar-style instead of the first baseman of the future (a tag which I have some serious doubts about after his half-season in Norfolk).

Bowie Baysox  (73-69)

Best Prospect: I admit that I was probably wrong when I wrote about how against the move to promote Brian Matusz from Bowie to Baltimore was. He has had some struggles in the big leagues, but he has shown an awful lot more potential than any of our other pitching prospects called up (including Chris Tillman, who many still feel is going to be better than Matusz. Boy I sure hope so, because that would give us quite the rotation). I was hardly alone in considering it a rush job, but the way he has almost settled into the rotation in a way that nobody else – outside of Brad Bergesen – has this year is uncanny. His numbers at Bowie were just completely dominant: in 8 starts he pitched 46.1 innings, allowing just 11 walks and striking out 46 batters. I am looking forward to the next six years of Brian Matusz action, and that’s putting it lightly.

Steve Johnson, via the Sun

Biggest Surprise: Clearly the guys none of us had heard of before this July have to be the big surprise, right? Our beloved reliever fetched us a king’s ransom (relatively speaking) between Steve Johnson and Josh Bell. Bell has some weird splits (1.092 OPS from the left side, .463 from the right) which might end with him giving up switch-hitting, but the power and reportedly improved defense make him a definite potential cornerstone of the organization. Johnson meanwhile is more than just a good story (heck, most players are good stories), getting a total of 52 strikeouts in 48.2 innings at AA with just 20 walks. He probably fits in somewhere below Arrieta, Patton, Erbe, and Britton on the pitching depth at the moment, but if he continues to miss bats like that he will slide up in a hurry.

Tomorrow: Frederick and Delmarva

The Fremulon Insurance Prospect of the Week

Rick Zagone (7 innings, no walks, ten strikeouts) has been part of a short list of Oriole prospects that have really jumped out at me this year. While some guys like Brandon Erbe and Ryan Adams had disappointing years for not being able to stay on the field, and other guys like Brandon Snyder disappointed on the field, Zagone pitched well, got promoted, and has continued to be pretty good at a higher level. This latest outing of pure dominance is a cap for Zagone at Frederick: 1.18 GO/AO and 2.5 K/BB in 61.1 innings. Granted that before this week the K/BB ratio was 2.0, but any pitcher that can K 10 and walk none against a strong team like Myrtle Beach (ATL) clearly has some superior talents. Zagone has definitely made it on the short list of guys to watch (I might throw out a post-season top 20 or something at some point if you all are into it).

Norfolk Tides (67-67)

The Tides began the season with a lot of potential and a lot of promise, led by Chris Tillman and Nolan Reimold. Now, with twelve of their best players off the roster (and eleven Opening Day Tides gone…can you guess the only player who does not overlap those two lists?) the Tides are sputtering into the final week back at .500 baseball, having lost six games this week. Spoiled was Jake Arrieta’s brilliant Night in Rochester (7 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 6 K).

I blame Brandon Snyder. His weighted on base average in Norfolk is down to .295. The Orioles should be seriously wondering if Snyder is really going hit enough to be a major league quality first baseman. We’re talking about guys who are 30+ home run hitters. Does Brandon Snyder really fit in with a group including Carlos Pena, Mark Teixeria, Kevin Youkilis, and even Lyle Overbay?

Bowie Baysox (68-64)

Brandon Erbe is hot, Josh Bell is not. Erbe, who has had a tough season of inconsistency (at times looking awful and at other times dominant and at other times hurt), came out dominant this week with 6 innings, 2 walks, 8 strikeouts at chief rival Reading (PHI). That’s some clutch performance for you (if you believe in clutch). Bell, meanwhile, who burst onto the Baysox scene as hot as possible, is hitting just .208 in his last ten games with 2 walks, 11 strikeouts, and just 11 total bases. Ouch.

Frederick Keys (31-32)

Brett Jacobson, the right hander acquired straight-up for Aubrey Huff, has been less than successful in relief for the Keys. Eight walks to match eight strikeouts in 5.2 innings. Jacobson is a power relief arm (think Mickolio), one whom John Sickels thought highly of, and there is a large discrepancy between his walk numbers in the FSL and the Carolina League. I heard over at MASN a while ago that this is most likely due to Jacobson working more on his offspeed stuff instead of just straight fastball, which had been his focus for the Tigers.

Delmarva Shorebirds (28-31)

Last week, I opined that Xavier Avery had probably hit the wall earlier in the summer. The kid is just 19 years old and very raw and toolsy; it’s only natural for him to not play particularly well late in his first full year of professional baseball. Avery clearly was displeased, and shot back this week with a line of .348/.348/.391 and 3 Ks. Obviously, Avery doesn’t have any power yet, and he really needs to develop some real plate discipline skills, but he has some talent with the bat and cut his strikeouts in August down to just 17 (his lowest total for a month since May). He’ll need quite a few more years, but he is at least a very interesting player to keep an eye on.

Vito Frabrizio (4-4)

Our Man Vito, champion of all that is good in the world (and supposedly the basis for The Lord of the Rings books), has been named to the Appy League All-Star Team as the only Oriole representative. Frabrizio is third in the league in strikeouts, sixth in ERA, and seventh in WHIP. On the year, Vito has a 4.0 K/BB ratio in 70 innings.

Jake Arrieta, in his last four starts, has 19 strikeouts to 6 walks in 24 innings with a 3.38 ERA and a 1.33 WHIP. He struggled mightily at first after his promotion to AAA, but those numbers are about what I expect from the big righty with the devastating fastball. Unfortunately, he has now thrown 134.2 innings in 2009, an increase of 21.2 innings from all of 2008. Much more would be rather dangerous to the arm of the 23 year old, so it is bittersweet that I will be attending what could be Arrieta’s swan song for the year tonight in Rochester, NY. Tune in tomorrow (same bat time, same bat channel) for my view from the stands of the last member of The Big Three.

Norfolk Tides (66-61 3rd IL South)

Norfolk is beginning to slip out of contention after being one of the top AAA teams throughout much of the season. Four games out of the wild card and eight out of the division does not bode well for the Tides, but it’s hard to argue that they have had a bad season, with so many of their players now hanging around the Inner Harbor.

Justin Turner is apparently hideous

With Troy Patton on the DL with the same mysterious “arm fatigue” that undid Brandon Erbe’s season, the only prospect on the Tides worth a September call-up is Justin Turner. Turner suffers from the same power-outage that plagues Brandon Snyder, but he makes up for it with a 15% walk-rate and a superior 8.75% K-rate (in August..on the season his walk-rate is the inferior 8.44%).

Bowie Baysox (64-61 4th EL South)

Bowie, too is fighting for a play-off spot as the season winds down; the Sox are just 2.5 games out of position behind Reading and Erie. The loss of Brian Matusz hurts those chances considerably, but Josh Bell is doing his best MVP impression: .327/.397/.582 with 4 homers in 16 games. He has perhaps become our new top prospect (it’s either Bell or Arrieta) and it will be fun to see what he does in the International League next year.

Tim Bascom threw about as well as you’re likely to see him throw on Wednesday against the very strong Akron (CLE) team, walking none but striking out 7 in 6.2 innings. Bascom hasn’t been overwhelming, but he has been solid, with a 1.875 K/BB ratio in 64 innings at Bowie. I wouldn’t expect much out of him as a prospect, as he is already 24 and that ratio tends to go down as the competition gets fiercer.

Frederick Keys (26-30 3rd CAR North)

Chorye Spoone is back with the team that he once led to the Carolina League championship, only this time it’s personal. Recovering from the torn labrum, he has been on a limited pitch count, and shouldn’t be judged by the results he gets this year. Frankly – and I said this in the pre-season – I really don’t think we’ll be talking about Chorye Spoone much anymore, but I’ve been wrong enough in the past to know better than to say “never”.

Not wanting to be shown up by Tim Bascom, yesterday Rick Zagone went out and threw his own 7 K, 0 BB, 6 inning gem against Myrtle Beach (ATL). Zagone has been beset by that same decreasing K/BB ratio I mentioned above in moving up to Frederick, but is still getting groundballs and keeping the ball in the yard, and that’s a big part of the battle.

Brandon Waring has gotten a lot of air-time recently, belting his 24th home run on Saturday. His season OPS is now at .881, but a poor walk-rate (9.8%), a very high K-rate (22.1%), and a high age (23) in high-A ball are keeping me from really getting behind him.

Delmarva Shorebirds (26-27 5th SAL North)

Checking in with the three most known ‘Birds is going to be painful (fair warning):

• Jerome Hoes is sporting a .177/.261/.194 line in 19 games in August. This is his nadir, having probably hit a brick wall (he is just 19) after a pretty good June (.330 OBP). Hoes also has 22 errors on the year at second, second most on the team.
• Greg Miclat has had just a status-busting year at 22 years old. He has shown neither defensive ability (21 errors), ability to get on base (.302 OBP), power (15 XBH, 0 HR), or plate discipline (1.89 K/BB). There isn’t anything more to say about Miclat: he is a bust.
• Xavier Avery is possibly the most exciting young player at Delmarva, but he is another 19 year old who hit a wall after a good June (.353 OBP). He is batting .231/.257/.314 since July 1. The center-fielder has 12 errors on the year.

(photo borrowed)