Bundy, Myers to begin year in Minors
The Orioles optioned Bundy to Double-A Bowie on Saturday, while the Rays optioned Myers to Triple-A Durham.
Bundy, MLB.com's No. 2 overall prospect, went 1-1 with a 1.13 ERA in four Grapefruit League appearances in his second Spring Training in big league camp. But the Orioles want the 20-year-old right-hander to get more work in the Minors.
"It's time for him to get stretched out a little bit more, and [innings] aren't here for him," Baltimore manager Buck Showalter told MLB.com. "He's going to start the year in Bowie and go ahead and get that mentality, mind-set, adjustment made as soon as possible."
Bundy will return to Bowie, where he was 2-0 with a 3.24 ERA in three starts last summer. The fourth overall pick in the 2011 Draft began his professional career with eight overpowering starts at Class A Delmarva. Over 30 innings, he yielded two unearned runs on five hits while striking out 40. Bundy moved up to Class A Advanced Frederick and went 6-3 with a 2.84 ERA and 66 strikeouts in 57 innings.
The Orioles brought the Oklahoma native to the Majors in September and Bundy worked 1 2/3 scoreless innings in two relief appearances.
"He's in a really good frame of mind and likes where he is," Showalter said. "He had a good spring. ... He's going to be a good one."
Myers was similarly upbeat as he heads back to Triple-A.
"I'm actually kind of excited about it," he told MLB.com. "It was something that I knew was going to come eventually. It wasn't a surprise at all, so I'm really looking forward to getting down there and getting some at-bats. I really enjoyed my time here, it was a blast. But now I'm ready to get down to business, get down there and get my at-bats in."
The bonus for Myers is that he'll play his home games a little more than an hour from High Point, N.C., where he attended high school.
The key piece in last December's seven-player trade that sent right-hander James Shields to Kansas City, Myers batted .286 with three doubles, a triple, an RBI and four runs scored in 17 games this spring. He struck out 10 times in 35 at-bats, but that did nothing to cloud the way manager Joe Maddon views MLB.com's No. 4 overall prospect.
"He was actually better than advertised for me, personally," Maddon said. "Everybody talks about hitting and worries about hitting; I like the rest of the potential in his game. Defensively, he made a nice throw to the plate. He's a better runner than I thought. He truly can be a complete baseball player. The bat can be very special, but the rest of his game can be very good, too. That's what I saw."
Splitting last season between Double-A Northwest Arkansas and Triple-A Omaha in the Royals system, Myers won a handful of Minor League Player of the Year awards. The catcher-turned-outfielder combined for 37 homers and 109 RBIs while batting .314 in 134 games.
Daren Smith is an editor for MLB.com.