Maybe it wasn’t above-the-fold news, but Mets fans probably took notice: the San Diego Padres hired Omar Minaya last week. After interviewing with the Angels for the once-open general manager job, this might seem like a step back for Minaya. The fit might also seem strange, considering current Padres GM Josh Byrnes‘ pedigree in statistics-based analytics.

In the end, though, the move might be a great fit for Minaya. The hiring also represents a step forward for baseball.

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Teams roll the dice on former top prospects all the time, but it’s not often you see one get a guaranteed Major League contract. That’s exactly what the Orioles officially gave infielder Matt Antonelli this week. The former first round pick of the Padres will compete for a job in Spring Training after passing his physical on Monday.

Antonelli spent this past season in the Nationals’ organization, posting a .377 wOBA in 359 Triple-A plate appearances after having surgery for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. He missed all but one game of the 2010 season thanks to left wrist surgery (hamate), and his 2009 campaign consisted of just 59 games due to various sprains (ankle) and strains (thigh). It’s been a bumpy few years for Antonelli, who Baseball America considered the 50th best prospect in the game prior to the 2008 season.

You can understand why the Orioles would add a guy like this. Antonelli’s always shown very strong walk rates in the minors, including 13.1% this year and 13.9% for his career. He also does a nice job of putting the bat on the ball, striking out just 16.4% of the time in 2011 and 15.1% of the time in his minor league career. A .163 ISO (.142 career) is a decent number as well, particularly for a guy capable of playing the middle infield. Antonelli was drafted as a third baseman but shifted to second by San Diego, and he spent the 2011 season bouncing between the three non-first base infield spots as well as left field. The problem in recent years has been injuries, not performance.

The Major League contract is a little odd, just because you don’t normally see players with three straight years of injury trouble and zero big league track record land such deals. For what it’s worth, Antonelli did say on his blog that a dozen or so teams had been in contact with him earlier this month, so perhaps it’s the guaranteed 40-man roster spot that put Baltimore over the top. The O’s are woefully thin on the infield thanks to Brian Roberts‘ continued injury problems, with Ryan Adams and Robert Andino projected to start at second and third, so they did add some much needed depth.

Dan Duquette’s first real move at the helm of the Orioles was a little interesting, not because of the player but because of the contract terms. That’s not to say it was a bad move, just a curious one. Antonelli is exactly the kind of player a non-contender should take a flier on, a middle infielder with a knack for working the count and putting the ball in play. It doesn’t take much for a guy with that skill set to be worth two wins, but Antonelli’s got a lot to prove first. The O’s clearly think he’s worth the risk given the investment they’ve already made in him.

The Baltimore Orioles minor league system definitely lacks depth and the talent starts to erode after the first three prospects on the Top 15 list. With that said, the first two prospects in particular have monster ceilings and could develop into elite players at the MLB level. With a new front office and a new direction, it will be interesting to see what changes are to come for Baltimore’s minor league development system in 2012.

1. Dylan Bundy, RHP
BORN: Nov. 15, 1992
EXPERIENCE: High School
ACQUIRED: 2011 1st round (fourth overall), Oklahoma HS
2010-11 TOP 10 RANKING: NA

SCOUTING REPORT: Bundy was arguably the best pitcher available in the 2011 draft but the right-hander slipped to the Orioles at No. 4, joining his brother – and fellow Top 15 prospect – Bobby Bundy in the organization. The younger Bundy easily has the better stuff with a mid-to-high-90s fastball, curveball, cutter and changeup. He has above-average pitchability and command for his age. He definitely doesn’t have the biggest frame but also has a smooth, effortless delivery that should help him stay healthy.

YEAR IN REVIEW: It was a huge year for Oklahoma with two prep pitchers – Bundy and his friend Archie Bradley (Diamondbacks) – being selected within the first seven picks of the draft. Fellow prep pitchers Michael Fulmer (Mets) went in the supplemental first round and Adrian Houser (Astros) was nabbed in the second. Even Bundy’s catcher at Owasso High School, Drew Stiner, was selected and signed with the Giants as a 43rd round pick. The Orioles first rounder signed too late to make his pro debut in 2011.

YEAR AHEAD: Bundy is probably advanced enough to open his career in high-A ball but the organization won’t be that aggressive with him; he should start out in low-A ball. Baltimore pushed top offensive prospects Manny Machado and Jonathan Schoop with mid-season promotions from low-A to high-A in 2011 but it remains to be seen if the minor league staff would be willing to push a young arm through a similar timetable. It’s important to keep in mind that the club lacks pitching depth in the system but, at the same time, it will be at least a few years before the big league club is anywhere near ready to compete for the AL East division title.

CAREER OUTLOOK: Because he’s such an advanced pitcher, Bundy may need no more than two to three years in the minors before making his MLB debut. The teenager has all the necessary ingredients to develop into a No. 1 starter at the MLB level. The only thing he really lacks is premium size/pitcher’s frame at 6’1” 200 lbs.

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On Tuesday, we took a quick look at the competitive balance in the MLB, and I made the claim that baseball may have more parity than most leagues, but it also has want of greater balance. During the course of the piece, I made this statement:

The NFL has decided it wants payroll to have essentially no impact on winning, so teams basically trot out the same amount of money every Sunday and hope their money was better-spent. Is that what the MLB wants?

Aft’wards, Paul Swydan pointed out to me that indeed NFL salaries are not flat. Despite their hard cap, their hefty revenue sharing, and their tight spandex pants, the NFL still exhibits nearly a $77M gap between the biggest and lowest payroll — impressive, but still nothing compared to the MLB:

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October is the month. October is the month you have to survive if you are a general manager of a losing team. Survive that month and your chances of making it through another season skyrocket. In fact, looking through the prism of past firings, the distance between October (Andy MacPhail) and November (Bill Smith) is greater than a mere sum of the days.

Comb through the Baseball America executive database and add in the missing information, and you’ve got something like 59 general manager firings since 1950. That might not seem like a large sample, but a firing is a rare occurrence. Many general managers come to the end of a contract on a flagging team and are allowed to leave. Most others resign if the writing is on the wall. A firing suggests a difference in opinion about the team. It’s a jarring, rare moment, born of conflict.

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By now most baseball fans realize that the majority of bunts decrease the bunting team’s run-scoring. However, we also know that bunting also makes sense in some situations, even for non-pitchers who can hit a little bit. It makes sense from the standpoint of game theory (keeping the fielders honest), can increase run expectancy in some situations, and in some situations in close games, it is better to play for just one run. As I did after last season, I would like to look at the three most successful bunts of the 2011 regular season as measured by Win Probability Added (WPA).

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MLB’s Awards Week, with all of its attendant celebrations and arguments, is in full swing. It is also a good time to see just how bad the worst players in the league were. But, as always, the players in the middle get left out. Why not celebrate them, as well? Like my elementary school counselor used say: “everyone is special.” Who were 2011’s most average players?

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In a Hot Stove season that generally focuses on organizational acquisitions, multiple league sources reported yesterday that Tony LaCava has turned down the general manager position with the Baltimore Orioles and will remain the assistant general manager with the Toronto Blue Jays.

The intriguing aspect of this development, however, is not that LaCava turned down Baltimore in favor of Toronto. It’s more that nobody in the baseball community believes he made the wrong choice. In fact, national writers immediately took to Twitter with snide comments such as: “Nobody blames him.”

So, why does no one seemingly covet the GM job in Baltimore? After all, only 30 GM positions exist in baseball.

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With a classic World Series — the most exciting in a long time, if not the best-played or best-managed — now over, it is time to hand out individual awards for the 2011 regular season. Sure, some people are anticipating the Cy Young, MVP, and Rookie of the Year announcements, but I bet true baseball fans really pumped for stuff like today’s award, which attempts to measure how much a hitter has contributed to his team’s wins beyond what traditional linear weights indicates. Who is 2011’s King of Little Things?

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Near the beginning of last night’s World Series Game Four, which ended up being the Greatest Game in World Series History Pitched by a 14-year old, Joe Buck and Tim McCarver were discussing Lance Berkman, specifically his status as one of the most productive switch-hitters in major-league history. Now, I usually believe everything people on TV say. For example, when Tim McCarver asserts, as he has during this season’s Fall Classic, that “Michael Young didn’t complain” when asked to change positions for Elvis Andrus and Adrian Beltre, or that “Tony La Russa doesn’t lie,” I just take it at face value. However, while I agree that Berkman is and has been an excellent player who may have even have Hall of Fame credentials, I thought I should both trust and verify. How does Berkman compare to the other great switch-hitters in major-league history, and who exactly are they?

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