Catching up

Sometime in April, for the first time in his career, John Stockstill will board a jet in Baltimore and deplane in Tokyo.

Another small step for the Orioles. Another giant leap for Oriole kind.

At least one can hope.

Stockstill, the Orioles' assistant general manager for pro scouting, will undergo a title change next month when he officially becomes the club's director of international scouting or something to that effect.

He's already been to the Dominican Republic as part of his new role. He'll travel to Taiwan in early March. But the winds of change truly take hold in April when Stockstill makes his first of several trips this year to Japan.

Sure, the Orioles are a day late and a yen short here. It's something teams such as the Seattle Mariners and New York Yankees have been doing for years. But at least it is happening. At least the full-court push for a Japanese player won't be from a fax machine as it was when Syd Thrift pursued Hideki Matsui.

"In the past, we have made offers on [Japanese] players. We know the players, but we have not had a presence, an Orioles presence there, for the level we need to," Stockstill said. "[Asia] is an area where we have not succeeded in signing players, and ultimately, I think what we need to do is finalize the chapter by signing players."

That's the key. The Orioles can buy as many foreign-language tapes and amass as many frequent-flier miles as humanly possible. But what must happen for them to be effective internationally is to open the checkbook and begin signing the best players the world has to offer for 2009 and beyond.

It's in the plans, club president Andy MacPhail said. And, he says, Orioles owner Peter Angelos is on board.

"The thing I have talked to Peter about, and he has been great, is to try to redeploy our assets to some degree," MacPhail said. "Rather than us go out and make another splash in the free-agent market, let's take that money and let's put it in the infrastructure of our franchise. That means scouting and development. Not just scouting and development in the United States. It means scouting and development around the world."

MacPhail said the Orioles' 2008 budget has been approved and the allocation for the international program is "a significant leap from what it has been in the past."

What that means is unclear, but in the past, the Orioles have used their millions almost exclusively on free agents and draft picks. And it shows.