Orioles announce Shorebirds staff: Minor, Lord, Britton
The skipper is the same, but the Delmarva Shorebirds will have new pitching and hitting coaches for their 2017 campaign.
Ryan Minor will return for his seventh season as the manager of the Shorebirds, and he will be joined by Justin Lord, Buck Britton and trainer Marty Brinker to round out Delmarva's staff for the upcoming season.
“We are excited to welcome the new members of the coaching staff along with some familiar faces as well," said Chris Bitters, the Shorebirds' general manager. "We look forward to this staff being able to lead the Shorebirds to a successful 2017 season on the diamond."
For Minor, this is his fourth consecutive season as Delmarva's skipper and 10th overall as a coach in the Baltimore Orioles' organization. He has racked up a total of 376 wins with the Shorebirds, making him the club's winningest manager. As a player, the 6-foot-7 Minor spent five season playing in the O's organization, including 1997 with the Shorebirds, when he hit 24 home runs and batted .307.
This is Britton's first year in coaching after a nine-season playing career in the minor leagues. He is the older brother of Orioles' closer Zach Britton, and the 30-year-old replaces Kyle Moore as the Shorebirds' hitting coach. Moore is now coaching with Advanced-A Frederick.
Britton was drafted in the 35th round by the Orioles in 2008 out of Division II Lubbock Christian University. He made one brief stop in Delmarva in 2009, playing in three games with the Shorebirds and tallying five hits in 11 at-bats. In 2016, Britton played in 73 games with the Rochester Red Wings, the Triple-A affiliate of the Minnesota Twins. For his career, he had a .270 batting average, 59 home runs, 407 RBIs and a .721 OPS.
Lord returns to Delmarva, where he was the club's pitching coach for it's 2013 campaign. He replaces pitching coach Blaine Beatty, who was assigned to Frederick. For the past three seasons, Lord had been the pitching coach for the short-season Aberdeen IronBirds.
After playing college ball at Florida State and going undrafted, Lord pitched six seasons in the minors with the Royals' and Pirates' farm systems. In total, Lord went 25-22 with a 4.16 ERA in 96 games in pro ball. The 37-year-old Alabama native began his coaching career in 2009.
Brinker enters his first season as Delmarva’s athletic trainer after serving in the same capacity for the past two seasons with the IronBirds.
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Nest Notes:
>>> The Orioles optioned pitchers Parker Bridwell and Jason Garcia to Triple-A Norfolk on Wednesday, March 8. Dariel Alvarez, who has been with the Orioles' organization since 2013 as an outfielder, was also optioned to Norfolk, where the club plans to convert him into a pitcher. Buck Showalter told the Baltimore Sun: “Alvi needs to get down and start the pitching program. He’s going to start on a very similar plan that Mychal Givens was on. We talked to him for about 20 minutes yesterday. We’ve been talking to him off and on for about a year. You can’t go from A to Z with that.”
>>> Former Shorebirds first baseman Christian Walker was waived by the Atlanta Braves and has joined the Cincinnati Reds. Walker was a fourth round pick by the Orioles in 2012 out of South Carolina, and the club waived him Feb. 21. With the Braves, he went two-for-16 with a home run and a pair of RBIs. Walker, 25, played 31 games with Delmarva in 2013. In 2016, he converted to an outfielder for Triple-A Norfolk and hit .264 with 18 home runs. He was the Orioles' minor league Player of the Year in 2014 after tallying 96 RBIs in 139 games between Bowie and Norfolk.
>>> In Team USA's first lineup for the 2017 World Baseball Classic, Orioles' outfielder Adam Jones is hitting second.
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