SEASON SUMMARY

Sean Douglass turns 23 in December of this year, and his age may be his best asset.  Douglass started the year with AAA Rochester and spent what amounts to the entire season there before being recalled to Baltimore after the September roster expansion.  In 27 starts covering 162.1 innings with the Red Wings and posted the following numbers:  160 hits, 13 homers, 61 walks and 156 strikeouts.  Those are pretty good numbers, and they're particularly pretty good numbers for a 22-year-old.  Cut the walks down by, say, 10 and the hits by 10-20 and you have a Grade A prospect.  

As it is, Douglass is pretty close; one step forward and he'll clearly be ready for the big time.

Douglass' pitching profile is pretty encouraging as well.  He has a fastball, sometimes with excellent movement, that consistently hits the low 90's and he also reportedly has a plus breaking ball--a slider--though I must confess that I saw little of that in evidence in the one start of his that I witnessed.

Command and control are the key issues for Douglass, but as stated above, he's not far off the mark as it is.  Given that he's already spent a full season at AAA, if Douglass pitches well in spring training next year, he has to be given a shot at a job with the big club.  If he stumbles in Florida next March, he'll undoubtedly return to Rochester where he'll still have an opportunity to pitch his way onto the big league staff.

TO CONTRIBUTE SIGNIFICANTLY NEXT YEAR, HE MUST:

1) cut the baserunners allowed down a bit

2) pitch well in spring training

NOTES

Actually pitched pretty well for the Orioles after getting hammered in his first start against Texas (3.2 IP, six earned runs); in the remaining 16.2 innings over three starts he allowed 12 hits, eight walks and struck out 15, posting a 3.24 ERA...had a substantial platoon split:  held right-handers to .209/.277/.349 in 43 ABs but allowed lefties to hit .316/.426/.553 in 38 ABs...first-pitch strikes were a key...in 33 ABs after reaching 0-1, held opponents to .212/.270/.333, but in 41 ABs after falling behind 1-0, opponents managed .293/.420/.561.