Minors

Talking O’s trade chips and life as a scout in this week’s ‘Minor League Podcast’

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This is always a big week for the minor leagues, no matter how the teams do on the field.

Monday is the non-waiver trade deadline, the last time this season when big league teams can deal whomever they like without passing the players through trade waivers.

And though the headlines will go to the big-leaguers that get dealt, these trades often disrupt the minor leagues because prospects are uprooted from their original organizations and sometimes have to move across the country to a new organization.

Under executive vice president Dan Duquette, the Orioles have repeatedly delved into the minor leagues as a way to acquire big-league talent from other teams.

In this week’s podcast, Adam Pohl digs into that trend with BaltimoreBaseball.com’s minor-league reporter Dean Jones Jr. They look at which players may be drawing interest from other clubs and why those prospects would be intriguing.

This week’s podcast goes beyond just speculation, though.

Pohl also talks with Orioles’ special assignment scout Wayne Britton about what the life of a scout is really like. Britton, who has been in the business for more than four decades, takes us way back to what it was like when Mookie Wilson became the first player he signed to make the majors.

Britton has been a trusted confidant of Duquette for years, and he talks a little bit about that relationship and how he ended up joining Duquette in Baltimore.

Give it a listen – it’s a great way to prime yourself for a week of trade – and scouting – talk.

Dan Connolly

Dan Connolly has spent more than two decades as a print journalist in Pennsylvania and Maryland. The Baltimore native and Calvert Hall graduate first covered the Orioles as a beat writer for the York (Pennsylvania) Daily Record in 2001 before becoming The Baltimore Sun’s national baseball writer/Orioles reporter in 2005. He has won multiple state and national writing awards, including several from the Associated Press Sports Editors. In 2013 he was named Maryland Co-Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association. And in 2015, he authored his first book, "100 Things Orioles Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die." He lives in York, with his wife, Karen, and three children, Alex, Annie, and Grace.

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