Belfry week is always a stimulating time of renewed friendships, watching baseball, lots of discussion ranging from pop TV, music history, topics suited for the Weekly World News (including A-Rod/Madonna) and, of course, all things Orioles.  If you missed it, you missed a lot.

On the afternoon of July 3, Bob, Kerry, Meg and I met up with Mike Flanagan, Executive Vice President of Baseball Operations, in his Warehouse office to chat about the Orioles for more than an hour.  This is the fourth time we have talked with Mike over the years and the second time this particular quartet of Belfryites has met in his office.

As always, Mike was gracious and welcoming.  But this year he seemed more relaxed, candid and forthcoming than during our last visit during the waning days of the ill-fated Mazzilli era in 2005.

At the onset of our conversation Mike talked about what a good job he feels manager Dave Trembley is doing and was clearly happy to have been responsible for bringing him into the organization.  When speaking of him and pitching coach Rick Kranitz, the word “preparation” kept popping up.  Responding to one of our questions, Flanagan compared Kranitz with Leo Mazzone, and felt that Kranitz was working hard at reviewing film and evaluating multiple ways that specific pitchers could get hitters out.  Leo seemed to be locked onto “the one way to pitch” while Kranitz is more approachable and flexible in utilizing the various strengths of each pitcher to gain an advantage.  Mike mentioned he’d been in the clubhouse earlier in the day and found Kranitz reviewing film of the recently completed series with the Kansas City Royals and making notes so that he’d be prepared for the next meeting with this club and/or these hitters.  This approach is particularly important today compared with when he played because there is so much more instruction necessary now than then.

I also asked about Ray Miller whom I know is a personal friend of Mike’s.  He showed us a promotional keychain that Ray had sent him from Ray’s business in New Athens, Ohio called Diamond Cuts – a lawn care service.  It was good to hear that Ray seems to have recovered well from his aortic aneurism surgery a few years back.

Based on the enthusiasm of his conversation, it is clear that Flanagan’s favorite topic is pitching.  Kerry asked about Jim Johnson, relating that he’d seen Johnson’s big league debut a few years back against the Chicago White Sox and the difference between now and then is that “he’s added about a foot” to his fastball.  Kerry queried if there was an identifiable reason for the improvement.  Flanagan mentioned that Dave Schmidt (roving minor league pitching coach) had worked with Johnson to change his arm slot slightly and lengthen his stride.  The former adjustment added movement to his pitches and the later improved his velocity by more than 5 MPH. 

Mike mentioned too, that he still has the opportunity to work with Kranitz especially as it relates to the left-handers on the staff.  He told the story that most southpaws have never had a left-handed pitching coach in their lives and therefore haven’t had anyone who could specifically address the unique approaches of left-handed pitchers.  He talked about many coaches he’d had who took the approach of working on details with the right-handers and just saying to the lefties, “you just go over there and do what you do, and I’ll be here working with the righties.”  He also mentioned that the common thought that lefties and righties need to master location to different parts of the plate is not really true.  Though each must take a different approach, both left-handers and right-handers are trying to locate to the same portion of the plate, away from right-handed hitters. 

Our conversation took place prior to the injury to Adam Loewen, but even so Mike felt that the pitching depth was starting to get thin (though he also mentioned that he felt that the O’s organization today is as deep in pitching as it’s been since he was in the minors himself).  He pointed to the number of pitchers already up from AAA this season (Johnson, Garrett Olson, Radhames Liz, and several relievers) and mentioned the recent struggles of Ryan Bukvich (who had been designated for assignment the previous day) as evidence of the thinning depth.  He also mentioned that he felt that Chris Ray and Randor Bierd had been progressing well and that he expected to see both back with the big club later this year.  (Sure enough, Bierd was recalled on July 19.)  He mentioned that Ray had been working particularly hard to get back ahead of his original schedule.  Mike also made a telling comment about what he looks for with regard to dominance in a minor league pitcher.  He said that he likes to see a 4-1 K/BB ratio for minor league pitchers because that tends to translate to a 2-1 ratio when they start pitching to big league hitters.  Few of the O’s recent call-ups have shown that kind of minor league dominance and that’s why we see so many of these young guys struggle to throw strikes at the big league level.

We talked about injuries to pitchers and the emphasis on pitch counts in today’s game.  As during past conversations, it is quite clear that he does not believe in rigid pitch counts and feels that the relative difficulty of innings and the number of pitches thrown in difficult game situations are a greater indicator of fatigue than raw pitch count alone.  He related a story about how Earl Weaver would look down the bench and ask how many pitches the current starter had thrown.  The next day’s starter would chart those pitches and keep track.  If the current pitcher was struggling and the charting pitcher felt he was spent for the day, they’d count warm-up pitches, throws to first and intentional walks toward that pitcher’s total.  If, on the other hand, the charting pitcher felt the starter was cruising, they wouldn’t count any of these “marginal” pitches and they’d subtract pitches from 1-2-3 innings and look for ways to fudge the total to allow the starter to stay in the game.  The moral of the story was that they each wanted to complete their games and they had one another’s backs to make sure it happened whenever possible.

We discussed the Bedard situation in Seattle this season and Flanagan mentioned that he and Erik have a pretty good relationship.  His impression is that Bedard is now realizing that he had things pretty good in Baltimore where coaches understood his rather enigmatic personality and tried to put him into situations where he was most likely to succeed.  Bedard spent a fair amount of time in the O’s clubhouse during Baltimore’s trip to Seattle earlier in the season.  Mike indicated that he felt Seattle naming Bedard the opening day starter this year was a questionable decision given the lefty’s reticence for the spotlight.

On the topic of pitch-counts, Mike talked about a time when he was the pitching coach and went to the mound to talk with Mussina late in a game.  When he arrived at the mound, Mussina asked Flanagan how many pitches he’d thrown.  Owing to his disdain for that kind of question, Mike said something to the effect, “well let’s see, you threw about 80-90 in the bullpen warming up, you’ve thrown eight between each inning and you’ve thrown a hundred in the game, that’s about 250 – how do you feel now?”

We also talked about this year’s First Year Player’s Draft.  Mike felt that it was a very good draft and was happy about the number of players already signed.  But reading between the lines, I didn’t feel as though Mike was overwhelmed with the talent available in this draft.  He mentioned Brian Matusz specifically and gave every indication that they’d get him signed.  He said that most of the agents of first round picks feel they have to wait until late in the process for fear of being accused of not working hard enough for their clients.  He also mentioned the toolsy guys selected in this draft and said that Joe Jordan was particularly excited about adding this kind of talent to the organization.  Kerry joked about how he always thinks of Keith Reed when he thinks of toolsy guys the O’s have signed in the past.  There was a smattering of nervous laughter in the room after the comment.

Mike was preparing to go on the road with the team on the July trip to Boston and Toronto.  Mike explained that there is always someone from the front office that travels with the team on every road trip.  That person’s role is primarily administrative keeping all the league paperwork straight in the event someone goes on the DL, is called-up, gets traded or released or gets suspended, etc.  The front office divides these trips up largely on the basis of who wants to go to certain places.  Since Mike is from the northeast, he likes to take those trips, while MacPhail enjoys going to Chicago.  Other front office staff like Scott Proefrock also share in these trips.  Mike mentioned one such difficult road trip task he had to perform this season was informing Steve Trachsel that he’d been released.  Though Mike’s public role with the club has clearly changed, he remains intimately involved in the day-to-day operations of the club and routinely puts in at least 12-hour days.

As you might expect, Mike did not comment with specifics regarding our questions about trades and specific needs of the club.

Mike mentioned Sidney Ponson in one of his musings about pitching and we took the opportunity to query about the status of the pending lawsuit regarding his loss of pay for violating the morals clause of his contract.  As expected, there was nothing new to report.

There were other stories, laughter, personal anecdotes and statements that we’re not at liberty to share.

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