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2005 season Player Profile - Adam
Loewen The Oriole with the most to gain in the Arizona Fall League this year is Adam Loewen. A former number one pick, Loewen has a date with destiny in 2007. As a result of signing a Major League contract in 2003, he has to be pitching in Baltimore on Opening Day 2007. Loewen was the fourth player taken in the 2002 draft, the Orioles number one that year. Significantly, this was the highest pick the Orioles had since they took Jeffery Hammonds out of Stanford in the 1992 draft. Loewen is also the fourth Canadian to be picked in the first round since Canadians became eligible for the draft in 1985. Born April 9, 1984 in Surrey, British Columbia, the 6-3, 220 lb Loewen brought an extensive baseball resume to the table in 2002. In 1996, he led Surrey to the Little League World Series in Williamsport. While attending Fraser Valley Christian School (which did not field a baseball team) he played for Team Canada’s National Junior team for three years. During the 2000 season, at age 16, he beat the eventual World Junior League champion team, Korea. His line that day was 6 1/3 innings pitched, six hits, five strikeouts and no walks. What was especially important, he entered the game with his team down and shutdown the Koreans so that the Canadians could catch up and prevail! Despite being the youngest member of the team, he was named Team Canada’s MVP that season. Baseball America ranked him as the fourth best high school prospect in the 2002 baseball draft and Team One had him at number three. Arizona State fans may remember that, prior to the draft, Loewen had signed a letter of intent to play baseball at ASU.
Immediately following the ‘02 draft, Loewen and the Orioles found themselves separated by a mere difference of $1.6 million. The budget conscious Birds had offered a contract worth $2.4 million, whereas Loewen and his advisor felt $4 million was a more reasonable amount to pay a pitcher of Adam Loewen's stature. In perhaps one of the luckiest breaks to happen in recent Oriole history, Loewen gave up his commitment to ASU and became a draft and follow by enrolling at Chipola State Junior College in Florida, where he posted a 6-1 record with a 1.83 ERA in 12 appearances. Additionally, he caused a stirring within the Oriole nation when he came down with a case of tendonitis in his pitching arm which effectively shut down his mound appearances for the first half of the Chipola season. On the eve of the 2003 draft, minutes before the Orioles were set to lose his rights, Loewen and the Birds agreed upon a deal valued at $4.02 million based upon a major league contract which guaranteed Adam Loewen would be pitching in Camden Yards by opening day, 2007. Oriole fans breathed a collective sigh of relief and the stature of new Co-GMs Jim Beattie and Mike Flanagan went sky high. In one fell swoop, they had corrected the many short comings of the previous regime which had been led by Sid Thrift. Instead of showing up to the table with Confederate money, Beattie and Flanagan had shown immediate results. The desperate days of hoping that Beau Hale, Richard Stahl and or Chris Smith could recover from their injuries and become big league pitchers had ended. Baltimore’s farm system finally had a pitcher who could become a top of the order guy and the influx of talent had finally begun. Reportedly, Flanagan convinced Peter Angelos to pony up the money by showing him the results of a psychological test the Orioles had administered to Loewen which showed he had the same mental make up as former Oriole greats such as Eddie Murray! Upon signing, Loewen reported to the Orioles short season team at Aberdeen where he toiled in none other than Cal Ripken's own stadium. At the tender age of 19, he posted an ERA of 2.70 in seven games, pitching a total of 23.1 innings, striking out 25 batters, walking nine and giving up 13 hits. The future ace of the Orioles ended the season with a very respectable WHIP of .94 and displayed his 90-94 MPH fastball, the ability to change speeds and a big league curveball! His next season was split between Low A Delmarva and High A Frederick where his first hints of control problems began showing up before it was discovered he had a partially torn labrum and was shut down. The 2005 season showed mixed results; at one time, Loewen led the Carolina League in wild pitches, but as the innings pitched mounted, so did his control. One of the old axioms about pitchers is, they need to throw more to keep their control sharp. In his first one and a half professional seasons, Adam Loewen threw only 116 total innings. This just-completed campaign was really his first full season, pitching 142 innings. Contrast that with another Orioles first rounder, Garrett Olson, who probably threw over 200 innings between college and his first professional campaign and ended with a much better strikeout to walk ratio. Hopes are high that the additional work in the AFL will improve his control and make it possible for him to keep his scheduled arrival date in Baltimore. --- John Kazlo All photos on the Arizona Fall League Report are credited to Bill Mitchell, unless noted otherwise, and are not to be used for any other purpose without express permission.
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