4 replies to this topic

[Greg Pappas]

Honest question... does it exist, and if so, what is it?

[You Play to Win the Game]

Good question. I've wondered about this too. I like what we're doing with Peterson... a lot... but I haven't heard of any sweeping changes as far as developing our position prospects are concerned. It would be interesting to see if Kevin Ebert or someone like that on here could dig into this a bit and see what changes (if any) DD has made in this regard.

[Coker]

Mike Boulanger was hired in January to be the Minor League Hitting Coordinator, coming over from the Rangers organization.

Haven't heard jack about him this season though...

"We want a structure (in the Orioles minors) where, from the Dominican and rookie ball through Triple-A, we have the same philosophy and hitting terminology and the same drills. We want to all be on the same page so when a player moves from one affiliate to another they will be doing the same drills with the same terminology," Boulanger said.
The Orioles minor league players will become familiar with the term "productive team plate appearance." Boulanger tracked them in Texas to encourage the hitters to have productive at-bats that always are geared to help the team.

"We've found that winning teams average 17 or more productive team plate appearances per game. That can be an eight-pitch at bat or just moving a runner up. It could be a base hit, a walk or a sac bunt. When you start getting the whole club to buy into it, and you get 17 of those, your winning percentage is like 78 percent."
"PTPAs is something we will introduce in the minor leagues. It is something we can track and come up with at the end of the night. Think about it, with nine guys hitting, I want the team to have 17 so just about every hitter needs to get two. If the whole team buys into it and you get 17 a night, your winning percentage goes up.

http://www.masnsport... ... -bats.html

[You Play to Win the Game]

I must have missed this, that's pretty cool stuff though. Thanks Coker!

[LanceRinker]

Yeah, Boulanger never really got the credit he deserved with the Rangers because Rudy Jaramillo was considered a god within the Rangers organization until he left in 2009. Much in the same way Terry Crowley was with the O's.

I'm glad that we have Boulanger though - a solid approach across all levels that players will remember and know isn't changing from level to level will go a long way in providing us with some much needed offense in a few years when those players trickle up.