Shorebirds of the Year - a 2023 season wrapup
Here's where I summarize the recently-passed season and select a Shorebird Position Player and Pitcher of the Year.
Summary:
While our 2023 edition of the Delmarva Shorebirds had some exciting moments and players, their overall level of talent lagged the rest of the Carolina League. The team was nothing if not consistent, though: they came out with 28-37 records in both halves, with their 56-74 record ending up worst in the league because Salem (who was tied with us at 17 games under .500 but two games in arrears, meaning we were a percentage point ahead of them) ended up being rained out in both of their final two games. Our loss to Fredericksburg a week ago Sunday sealed our last-place fate, a half-game behind a Salem team who lost to the rain, but not in the standings.
Yet if you consider our job being that of feeding players to the advanced-A Aberdeen Ironbirds, well, we did that fairly well. Among those who moved up the chain after finding success here were fan favorite Creed Willems, Douglas Hodo, Juan Nunez, Yaqui Rivera, Elio Prado, Jared Beck, Samuel Basallo, Carter Young, Edgar Portes, and newly-drafted collegiate players Matthew Etzel, Mac Horvath, and Orioles #1 draft pick Enrique Bradfield, Jr. And then you had Jackson Holliday, who was here for all of 14 games in April before eventually ending up WAY up the chain in Norfolk. All these guys met varying levels of success in the South Atlantic League (and beyond) but we had a lot to do with it.
And help may be on the way. While the Orioles’ entry in the Florida Complex League was only 22-32, that wasn’t last in the league as they beat the Cardinals and Blue Jays. Even better, their Orange team in the DSL just missed a division title (and would have won or tied in two other divisions) with a 35-19 record. Since much of the Shorebirds’ early-season talent comes from players developed through the DSL, the Orioles’ overall record of 55-54 between the Orange and Black teams shows their international pipeline is now competitive.
Record:
As noted above, we finished 56-74. But we had varying success against the other teams in the league. From best to worst:
Augusta 3-2 (.600)
Lynchburg 14-10 (.583)
Salem 13-11 (.542)
Columbia 3-3 (.500)
Fredericksburg 9-14 (.391)
Carolina 4-8 (.333)
Down East 4-8 (.333)
Charleston 3-9 (.250)
Kannapolis 3-9 (.250)
Total: 56-74 (.431). We did not play Fayetteville or Myrtle Beach this season, which may have been good given we were only 12-23 against the South. We held our own against the “cluster” of Virginia teams we played, finishing with a solid 36-35 record.
By month: April 12-7, May 11-16, June 8-17, July 9-14, August 12-14, and September 4-6. Started out good but fell apart over the summer - most of the 18 games under .500 came in June and July.
By the Numbers - Offense:
The Shorebirds finished fifth in the league in overall batting average, hitting .241 as an aggregate. In most of the categories, the Shorebirds checked in around the league average, with a few interesting exceptions.
One would have thought that a team with speedsters like the aforementioned Bradfield and Etzel - who combined for 36 stolen bases in 38 games between them - would have pulled our team up the stolen base standings, but the Shorebirds were only 9th in stolen bases with 198, yet were 2nd-worst in being caught with 79. Their ineptitude on the basepaths meant that only Salem had a worse success rate.
The other anamoly was that the Shorebirds had the second-most doubles in the league (203) and tied for fourth in triples with 36. Combine that with being fifth in the CL with 88 home runs and the Delmarva squad was second in the loop with a .369 slugging percentage, meaning even a league-average .334 on-base percentage gave them a .703 OPS, good for fourth in the loop.
We had a few top 10 qualifiers sprinkled within our ranks: Adam Crampton was tied for 7th with 111 games played, Anderson De Los Santos was tied for 8th with 20 doubles, Stiven Acevedo tied for fourth with his 14 home runs, with Samuel Basallo tied for eighth with 12 (as well as tying for fourth with 60 RBI despite a late-season promotion). Acevedo also finished in the top 10 in slugging percentage (sixth at .411) as well as a more dubious category, finishing with 11 caught stealings, tied for sixth. Basallo actually achieved more: per milb.com, qualifiers need 2.7 PA per team game played and his 352 plate appearances were one more than required for 130 Shorebird games played. Based on that, Samuel had the top slugging percentage in the league with .503 and OPS with an .887 mark. He also would have been third with a .384 on-base percentage. No wonder he was promoted!
By the Numbers - Pitching/Defense:
For a time during the 2023 campaign, the Shorebirds were dead last in the loop in ERA, but better pitching at the end improved them to 10th with a 4.56 aggregate ERA. Unlike the batters, who were generally league average, the Shorebirds hung around in the bottom third of the league in pitching stats. One asset they had was not allowing home runs, as just 77 dingers left the park against them. But their WHIP of 1.488 was the worst in the league, meaning the Shorebirds gave up over two baserunners per game more than the leader in that category, the Down East Wood Ducks. Perhaps that’s why they were in the league championship finals and we were last.
As for top 10 mound qualifiers, Deivy Cruz finished tied for fifth in the league with eight wins. Deivy was also one of four pitchers with a complete game, thanks to a rain-shortened game, and his 97 innings was good for 10th. (He even tied for eighth with 10 hit batsmen.) Unfortunately, Juan De Los Santos was tied for first in the CL with 10 losses and tied for 10th with 90 hits allowed. (He was a pitcher who was just good enough to lose.) By the same token, Moises Chace allowed the sixth-most walks with 53.
The Shorebirds had the seventh-best defense in the league, with an overall fielding percentage of .966 - this despite having the third-highest number of errors with 158. The batteries caught a third-best 78 runners, with the 28% coming in fourth. That percentage came down slightly after Basallo was promoted, since he had a 33% caught-stealing percentage.
The important part:
As I noted on my monthly report, the Shorebirds finished seventh out of the twelve teams in attendance with 189,749 fans. A half-dozen rainouts cost them a shot at 200,000 fans for the first time since 2019.
Awards:
In previous years, this was a summary of my players of the week or month, but now I have just a Pitcher and Position Player of the Year to consider, and both have been mentioned already. (Hint, hint.)
Pitcher of the Year:
For the first half of the year, this was a battle between Yaqui Rivera and Juan Nunez. But as both were eventually called up, the next wave of talent moved to the fore, making this competition a standoff between Deivy Cruz and Edgar Portes. Since the latter was promoted late in the season, he couldn’t hang on in the competition, but it turned out Portes was lagging in most of the key categories anyway.
So this year’s first-ever Pitcher of the Year is Deivy Cruz. Cruz led the team in wins with 8, had the best ERA of those who qualified to be Pitcher of the Year by being here 2/3 or more of the season with a 3.62 mark, and had the best WHIP with a 1.28 figure.
Deivy was one of the youngest pitchers on the team, and among those who qualified is the only 2021 signee - all the others but one were signed by the Orioles in 2019.
Position Player of the Year:
On the other hand, the Position Player of the Year was really no contest. It was figured that the initial leaders Jackson Holliday and Creed Willems were not long for this team, so by the time the season reached its halfway point the only question was whether the player who was now dominating the team’s offense would be around long enough to qualify by being here 2/3 of the season. In late July Samuel Basallo qualified, and a week later was whisked off to Aberdeen himself.
Had it not been for a late power surge by Stiven Acevedo to grab the Shorebirds’ home run crown, Basallo would have been a Triple Crown winner on the 2023 edition of the Shorebirds despite missing the last month-plus of the season. Given the fact he hit 8 more homers with Aberdeen before yet another last-minute promotion to Bowie, Samuel certainly would have hoisted the Shorebirds’ Triple Crown and contended for a CL one. Pretty good for another of those 2021 international signees.
So there you have it, the 2023 version of the Delmarva Shorebirds. Next week is picks and pans, and then we wait until next April with only the Shorebird of the Week Class of 2023 induction to break the monotony. I’ll have to come up with some other baseball history and rantings to keep The Knothole going.