Baltimore Orioles: Juan Morillo, Derek Jeter, Suk-Min Yoon, A.J. Burnett, etc.
May 15, 2012; Baltimore, MD, USA; Baltimore Orioles center fielder Adam Jones (10) steals second base as New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter (2) cannot make the play in the seventh inning at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. The Orioles defeated the Yankees 5 – 2. Mandatory Credit: Joy R. Absalon-USA TODAY Sports
Baltimore Orioles: Juan Morillo, Derek Jeter, Suk-Min Yoon, A.J. Burnett, etc.
This is one of those miscellaneous posts on a number of subjects…
Juan Morillo – The Baltimore Orioles have signed this 30-year-old Dominican to a minor league deal. Let’s go with the good news / bad news approach here. The good news is that this is the human being who has thrown the fastest baseball ever recorded in China – at 99.4 mph, while pitching for Taiwan in the Chinese Professional Baseball League. There are over a billion people in China, and none of them can do that. The bad news is that Morillo has never been able to control where that fastball is going. His walks-per-nine-innings numbers are the stuff worthy of comparison only to Mitch Williams.
He has played in Mexico, Japan, and Taiwan since last pitching but a few games in the majors in 2009. Can “fresh eyes” and the Orioles pitching department fix a project like this?
Here are his scant MLB stats from www.baseball-reference.com …
Year |
Age
Tm
Lg
W
L
ERA
G
IP
H
R
ER
HR
BB
SO
WHIP
H/9
HR/9
BB/9
SO/9
2006
22
COLNL
0
0
15.75
1
4.0
8
7
7
3
3
4
2.750
18.0
6.8
6.8
9.0
2007
23
COLNL
0
0
9.82
4
3.2
3
4
4
1
1
3
1.091
7.4
2.5
2.5
7.4
2008
24
COLNL
0
0
0.00
1
1.0
1
0
0
0
0
0
1.000
9.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
2009
25
MINAL
0
0
22.50
3
2.0
3
5
5
1
3
1
3.000
13.5
4.5
13.5
4.5
4 Yrs
0
0
13.50
9
10.2
15
16
16
5
7
8
2.063
12.7
4.2
5.9
6.8
Derek Jeter – The announcement has come this afternoon that Jeter will call 2014 his final year. I have a lot of trouble building up hatred for anything or anybody, though understand, I’d like to see the Orioles be 19-0 against the Yankees this year. But I’ve always respected Jeter for his baseball skills – truly extraordinary. I swear that he has to be hitting about .500 when I’m watching, as I’m sure I’ve seen him get more hits than outs.
This is one of those aging things also for me. You know you’ve been in a community a long time when you remember the minor league beginnings of the career of a guy who will be a Hall of Fame member. I remember him playing in Hagerstown with Greensboro of the South Atlantic League, and though young, he was clearly way ahead of the game for his age.
However, an annoying aspect of Jeter that I will also remember is when any strike is called on him, he looks back at the ump as if to say, “I’m Derek Jeter; I did not swing at that pitch, and YOU have the gall to call a strike against me?”
I’m sure he’ll have a sort of farewell tour wherever he goes this year. He was a great player.
A.J. Burnett – Well, we had to know this was coming. He has today reportedly signed with the Phillies for $16 million. So, I was among those hoping he’d come to Baltimore, but I don’t know about 16 mil! That works out to about $500,000 for a start. I still hope the Orioles can get a veteran like Jimenez or Santana, but I can’t throw stones on this deal not working out.
Suk-Min Yoon – It has been all over baseball news today that Yoon posted a Twitter picture of himself in a baseball cap. It is universally denied that there is a deal. I am going to guess that this is one of those things lost in the cultural translation. Probably whomever the Orioles have had looking at and dealing with him gave him a cap. And probably Yoon thought it would be cool to do the Oriental two-finger thing with a picture of him wearing it … like, “yo, look at this cool hat some American gave me!” It reminds me of all the tee-shirts my boys collected every time they went on a college recruiting visit. So this picture likely means nothing.