Today's guest: Frederick Keys manager Collin Woody

Collin Woody, once drafted by the Orioles in Round 38 of the 2016 MLB Draft, is my guest this week on the Steve on Baseball podcast.

It’s a return trip for Woody on the podcast. We first talked late last year when he was the manager of the Low-A Delmarva Shorebirds. This season Woody, age 31, is skipper of the Frederick Keys.

He will lead his team as Frederick rejoins the O’s organization this year as High-A affiliate in the South Atlantic League.

From Tampa, Fla. and a former player at UNC-Greensboro, Woody and the Keys will play their home opener next Tuesday in Frederick.

Before 2026, Frederick’s last year as an O’s affiliate was 2020, but that season was cancelled by the pandemic. So the last time Frederick actually played as an O’s farm team was in 2019.

Next week will surely be a big deal in Frederick, a wonderful baseball community.

Collin provided some great insights for this podcast on the return of baseball to Frederick, managing at the minor league level and also on some of his key players.

We discussed several to include pitchers Joseph Dzierwa and Boston Bateman and position players Nate George and Ike Irish to name a few.

Enjoy the lastest edition of the podcast!

NEW CITY CONNECTS IN BIRDLAND

When the Orioles begin a new homestand tonight versus the San Francisco Giants, the club will also break out new City Connect uniforms.

The O’s say these present a uniform “depicting the beauty of Baltimore, Oriole Park at Camden Yards, and everything in between, from the stoop to the yard. Charm, grit, and pride: every detail brings the spirit of Baltimore’s beloved stoops straight to the one place we all call home.”

They are showing off pride in Baltimore with a “BMORE” written across the front of the jersey.

The O’s say that “reps every neighborhood in Baltimore. The Oriole Bird is perched proudly atop BMORE, front and center. Right where it belongs.”

BIRDLAND TERRITORY UPDATE

We have now recorded three Birdland Territory shows as we’ve had a great first week of our new show available on You Tube, Spotify, Apple podcasts and other outlets.

Click here to get to our You Tube site and please subscribe if you have not already!

Birdland Territory, hosted by the trio of myself, Tim Barbalace of 105.7 FM the Fan and former O’s reliever Brad Brach, will air three times a week during the season. That’s a lot of content to produce, but we are delighted how the first few shows turned out.

The latest show features a discussion about a pretty good collective start for the bullpen, some talk of the rough news about Zach Eflin, we noted Gunnar’s decent start and chance to have a very big year and we discussed ABS challenges and how the O’s struggled to get some correct in recent games.

Thanks for checking out Birdland Territory.

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