Lee Lowenfish

The overhyped July 31st Major League Trade Deadline has come and gone. It could very well happen that the old adage will come true again: “The best trades are the ones you don’t make.” But in this age of incessant TV and internet coverage, you would think that Armageddon was near if your team didn’t make a trade.

The games on the field remain the best barometer for how your team is doing.
Toronto has been struggling to get over .500 all season. Yet many pundits are proclaiming they “won” the deadline deal process by nabbing shortstop Troy Tulowitzki from the Rockies and southpaw David Price from the Tigers.

‘Taint so easy, McGee (boy, am I showing my age referring to Fibber McGee and Molly the Golden Age of Radio couple.) Toronto still has bullpen issues that obtaining 42-year-old LaTroy Hawkins in the Tulowitzki trade is not necessarily going to solve. Adding Mark Lowe from Seattle may help.

The Jays are also not deep in starters even adding Price. And amazing how short memories are in baseball. The financially-strapped Tampa Rays traded Price a year ago and many pundits again declared the Tigers winners of Deadline Day.

What happened? The Orioles swept Detroit in three games, neutralizing their top ace Max Scherzer (now with the Nats), knocking out fading Justin Verlander, and beating Price 2-0 in the clinching game.

Yet I understand Toronto’s acquisitions – the Jays haven’t made the post-season since 1993 when they won the second of back-to-back World Series.

What a difference a year makes! Bud Norris won that clincher for the Orioles over Detroit but was designated for assignment on Trade Deadline Day. After winning 15 games in 2014, he fell to 2-7 in 2015 and was demoted to the bullpen.

My Orioles have been underachieving from spring training on. I saw it coming – that they were basically a .500 team - but it doesn’t make it any easier to watch. Watch I still do because I love their defense, especially now that shortstop JJ Hardy has returned to anchor it.

A prime example was the great 8-4-2 relay – Adam Jones-Jonathan Schoop-Matt Wieters – that saved the Friday night July 31 8-7 victory over the Tigers. The good news was that the O’s made up an early 6-0 deficit. The bad news was that pending free agent southpaw Wei-Yin Chen put the Birds in such an early hole.

Hardy’s power bat may be on permanent hiatus, but he remains a pleasure to watch on the defensive side of the ball. With Manny Machado at third and Schoop at second, both healthy again after serious knee injuries, the Oriole infield should be in very capable hands for a few years.

Free agent-to-be Chris Davis is more than adequate at first base but recent addition Minnesota castoff Chris Parmelee was truly excellent at first – if only he could find his batting stroke. Davis played a surprisingly good right field, filling in for a while the huge hole left when Nick Markakis departed to Atlanta as a free agent.

However, Parmelee was designated for assignment on Trade Deadline Day when the Orioles received left fielder Gerardo Parra from the Brewers in exchange for promising minor league righthander Zach Davies.

Now that the hoopla is over for July 31st it is time to take careful note of how your teams are playing in the dog days of August. As humidity increases and the sun keeps beating down, staying in condition and keeping firm one's readiness to win are more important than ever.

GOOD AND SAD NEWS ON THE SCOUTING FRONT
A well-deserved kudo is in order to the Goldklang Group of minor league franchises for continuing their project of honoring baseball scouts at their different ballparks.
On August 7, the Charleston (South Carolina) River Dogs will erect a plaque in
honor of current Giants scout Ed Creech.

Later in the summer the St. Paul Saints will honor Mike Arbuckle, long with the Phillies and now with the Royals, and the Hudson Valley Renegades will honor longtime Astros scout John Kosciak.

The sad news is the passing on Cape Cod on July 31st of Charles “Buzz” Bowers, a renowned New England scout. Buzz was one of the first scouts inducted into the Goldklang group’s Scouts Wall of Fame. He was joined by Lenny Merullo, who also passed away earlier this year.

Bowers was a contemporary and friend of a fellow pitcher Hall of Famer Robin Roberts. Like Roberts, Bowers attended Michigan State and both also played in the Vermont college summer league. Buzz considered former Reds hurler Ray Fisher, the legendary U. of Michigan and Vermont summer coach, his greatest mentor.

Buzz never made it out of Triple-A for the Phillies but began his scouting career with Philadelphia and later worked for the Dodgers.

In 1992 he went to work full time for the Red Sox. The legendary scout Bill Enos, who died in January 2015, named Bowers as his replacement.

Among the future major leaguers Bowers signed were infielder Lou Merloni, now a Boston sports commentator, and pitcher Carl Pavano, who after some success in Boston was traded to Montreal with fellow righthander Tony Armas Jr. for Pedro Martinez.

A scout is not only judged by the future big leaguers he signed, but by his commitment to evaluation of all players and devotion to the game. Buzz Bowers got high marks in all these areas.

A long-time high school teacher and coach, Buzz liked being around young people. He was not one of those nay-sayers he thought the "good old days" were better.

He was a firm believer that the measurement of talent had improved immensely since he was a player. He also was impressed by how many young pitchers starting in high school realized the importance of the changeup.

I was fortunate to spend an afternoon with Buzz Bowers on my first visit to the Cape Cod summer league five years ago. I will never forget his insight that he picked up from Bill Enos: “You don’t have to be drafted to play in the big leagues.”

Well, that’s all for now. I will be making my second trip to Cape Cod baseball next week and will be back to you with more stories from that legendary league next time.
In the meantime Always remember: Take it easy but take it!
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“The only reason to play baseball is to keep winter away,” is one of my favorite sayings, exact origin unknown. On Wednesday October 15 the Orioles joined the sidelines with 27 other major league teams as the streaking Kansas City Royals swept them in four straight in the American League Championship Series. (As of this posting, the San Francisco Giants have three chances to send the St. Louis Cardinals to the sidelines in order to meet the Royals in the World Series.)

The identical 2-1 scores in the last two games at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City meant that one pitch could have turned each game around. But these games were psychologically never that close. The Orioles had a lead for only two and a half innings in the entire series. Fans felt the team was playing uphill the entire time and I sense the players were experiencing similar feelings.

The Royals’ victory was no fluke. They had been a sleeping giant in the American League with three young former number one draft picks not even in their prime years peaking at the right time: first baseman Eric Hosmer, third baseman Mike Moustakas, and left fielder Alex Gordon.

The Royals’ bullpen arms from the seventh inning on were virtually unhittable: Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis, and closer Greg Holland. Davis came from Tampa Bay in a trade along with ace starter James Shields to bring their experience and fierce competitiveness to a team needing to learn how to win.

Some observers saw in the Orioles’ loss an analogy to the 1969 World Series when after an opening victory over Tom Seaver, the Birds were beaten four in a row by the Miracle Mets. In this analysis center fielder Lorenzo Cain played the role of Tommy Agee.

Cain was deservedly voted the MVP of the ALCS for his all-around play. A one-time third baseman and Milwaukee Brewers farmhand who didn't play baseball until high school, Cain bunted on his own to sacrifice two runners into scoring position in the first inning in Game 4. Both scored on a tough error charged to Oriole catcher Caleb Joseph who couldn’t quite catch the ball thrown by first baseman Steve Pearce after Hosmer’s ground ball.

Why players rarely bunt these days is a good question to ask about today's baseball. The explanation, though, is really simple - salary arbitration awards are not bestowed on bunts and sacrifices. That’s pretty sad because well-placed bunts can win games as in Game 4 and in Game 2 when Moustakas, who had homered earlier, laid down a sacrifice to set up the winning run.

The finality of the end of a season is always stark. And a sweep is one of baseball’s more painful indignities. However, in the long view the Orioles’ season was a success. They played virtually all season without all-star catcher Matt Wieters – who had Tommy John elbow surgery. Third baseman Manny Machado, last year’s platinum glove winner as baseball’s best defender, missed the first month of the season recovering from knee surgery and then in August had surgery on his other knee.

In early September first baseman Chris Davis, who turned out to be an adequate replacement for Machado at third base, was suspended for 25 games for using the amphetamine Adderall without a prescription. That suspension will end the day after Opening Day 2015.

Despite these key losses, the Orioles ran away with the AL East flag and swept the favored Tigers three in a row in the AL Division Series (ALDS). That was an improvement over 2012, the rebirth year of Buck Showalter-Dan Duquette’s Orioles when the Yankees won a very competitive five-game ALDS over Baltimore.

In my opinion, the outlook for 2015 became brighter when just before the start of the post-season, the Orioles signed shortstop JJ Hardy to a three-year contract worth reportedly $40 million. This contract makes a lot of sense because Hardy is the quiet but effective captain of the defense, someone who makes everyone better. It also suggests that Machado, hopefully fully recovered by spring training, will remain at third for the foreseeable future. That’s fine by me.

The fate of other key Oriole free agents won’t be known for a while. Steady right fielder Nick Markakis has been an Oriole all his career and wants to return and probably will.
Left fielder/dh Nelson Cruz was the one-year steal in free agency in 2014 and he’ll want a long-term contract that the Orioles may not want to offer. Ditto for southpaw reliever Andrew Miller who bolstered the bullpen immeasurably after his arrival at the July 31 trading deadline.

We’ll see what happens. There will likely be a bevy of trades as the Hot Stove League picks up. I hope the Tampa Bay Rays, my second most favorite team, can bounce back from their sub-.500 season. The Rays’ presence is, of course, felt on the World Series-bound Royals with James Shields as the ace and Wade Davis as the almost unhittable eighth inning specialist.

When they fell out of contention in July, the Rays traded another ace pitcher David Price to the Tigers but it seems like they found an able replacement in southpaw Drew Smyly. It remains to be seen how they adjust to the departure of their youthful general manager Andrew Friedman who recently became the president of baseball operations for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

FINAL NOTE: Congrats to Jeff Banister, new manager of the Texas Rangers who overcame the threat of amputation as a teenager to become a minor league baseball player and more recently a longtime coach for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

That’s all for now. Always remember: Take it easy but take it.
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