Should the Orioles Rush to Extend Nelson Cruz?

I have a friend who is an Orioles fan (crazy, I know). Before the season started, he did not want the Orioles to sign Nelson Cruz to a multiyear deal; he was not alone. But with April nearly over and Cruz putting together a great first month of the season, my friend recently tried to persuade me on the O's extending Cruz's contract as soon as possible. This isn't a divisive topic just yet -- I've seen a few people on Twitter calling for an extension, but that's about it -- but it may become one if Cruz continues to mash the ball.

As a refresher, the Orioles signed Cruz to a one-year, $8 million contract that includes $750,000 in incentives. (Per Cot's, Cruz will receive $150,000 each if he's on the roster for 60, 90, 120, 150, and 180 days.) Also, because the O's had already signed Ubaldo Jimenez -- meaning they will sacrifice their first-round pick in the upcoming MLB draft -- they had to forfeit their second-round pick to sign Cruz.

Any argument in favor of keeping Cruz around long term must be centered on his offensive skills. And so far, Cruz has been fantastic at the plate, with a .284/.376/.580 batting line and a .410 wOBA. He's walking a lot (11.9 BB%) and hitting for plenty of power (.295 ISO). He has been exactly what the Orioles needed at designated hitter, although because of players' various injuries and David Lough's offensive woes, Cruz has played in the outfield for 12 games and at DH for 11 games. In 50 DH plate appearances, Cruz is hitting a ridiculous .357/.460/.714. That won't continue, but it's both impressive and a far cry from how Orioles' designated hitters have fared the last several seasons. (Led by Cruz, O's DHs currently have a collective wOBA of .393. O's DHs haven't had a combined wOBA above .332 since 2010 (.356 wOBA), when Luke Scott had a .387 wOBA in 517 plate appearances.)

Right now, according to both FanGraphs and Baseball-Reference, Cruz has been worth 0.6 wins above replacement. So, depending on how he keeps hitting and if he's able to stay on the field, he could very well exceed the 1.5 WAR mark that would be about the break even point for his contract (assuming that 1 win = $6 million). If he maintains anything close to his current numbers, he'll be worth much more than that. Still, though, that's not factoring in the O's loss of their second-round pick (the value of which varies among writers like Dave Cameron, Dan Szymborski, and others from a few million to much more than that).

But I'm not really sure what the hurry would be to extend Cruz, because things can certainly change quickly. Cruz turns 34 in July, and he's a player who only adds value with his bat. He has been brutal defensively so far while mostly playing left field (-3.2 UZR, -3 DRS). And regardless of how fans feel about them, Cruz was suspended 50 games last season for using performance-enhancing drugs. If he happens to fail another test, he could be suspended for 100 games or potentially an entire season. He is also relatively injury prone, as he has battled both hamstring and quad injuries in the past. On top of all that, there are still other red flags to keep an eye on. These issues matter less because the Orioles have Cruz inked to a one-year deal. But a long-term contract for Cruz would mean taking on substantially more risk.

Cruz has a career wOBA of .355, so it's unlikely that he will maintain his .400+ wOBA April numbers going forward. It's also worth pointing out that besides July (.398 wOBA), Cruz has done his best hitting in March/April throughout his career (.372 wOBA). He is not getting lucky on balls in play (.305 BABIP; .302 career mark); however, he won't be able to keep hitting a quarter of his fly balls out of the ballpark (though he has had a few seasons above 21%).

It's worth wondering how much interest Cruz would have in signing an extension right now. Presumably, his goal is to put up solid numbers this season to build his value back up and find a multiyear deal on the open market. The Orioles potentially offering him a qualifying offer -- which would make sense if they don't plan on re-signing Cruz -- could limit his value yet again, but he also (likely) won't be dealing with another PED suspension. But Cruz won't be getting another five-year, $75 million offer, which he apparently turned down, for some reason, and he will be a year older.

If Cruz does want to avoid another qualifying offer situation, he may be willing to give the Orioles some type of discount. Maybe he likes Buck Showalter or playing in Baltimore, or both. But I find it hard to believe he'd lower his price significantly enough to make the Orioles willing to work out a deal during the season. Also, the O's could wait until the end of the season and still have the luxury of not having to forfeit a draft pick (again) to sign Cruz. I find it hard to believe that they would bid against themselves right now, unless they somehow believe the current version of Cruz is the one that would still be playing for them in a year or two.

Cruz may very well put up monster numbers in an effort to reestablish his value in the open market next offseason. But because essentially all of his value is tied up in his offensive performance -- his power, in particular -- his upside is limited. And even though the O's farm system is essentially devoid of top hitting prospects (other than the currently promoted Jonathan Schoop), it wouldn't be wise for the team to paint itself into a corner with a multiyear deal for an aging DH. Not every DH ages like David Ortiz, and a multiyear deal for Cruz could get ugly in a hurry.

Stats via FanGraphs and Baseball-Reference. Photo via Keith Allison.

A Historical View of Prospect Value

Recently there have been articles written that have quantified the retrospective value of a win purchased in free agency. Before these articles were written we could only estimate the value of a win based on amount paid for expected production. As a result, there are multiple articles discussing the projected current value of prospects but none looking at the historic value. Now that we have a better understanding of the historic value of a win I wanted to determine the historic value of a Baseball America Top 100 Prospect.

I created a dataset with each Baseball America ranked prospect from 1995-2006. I counted each occurrence of a prospect in each years’ list in order to ensure that each year had the same number of prospects ranked. I determined the amount of years that each player was under team control, the amount of Wins above Replacement (fWAR) he produced and his salary over his cost controlled years. I then put prospects into groups based on the year they were ranked, whether they were position or pitching prospects and how highly they were ranked.

I attempted to quantify the amount of time that each player was under team control instead of presuming it would be the first six years of his career. Consider a player like Chris Tillman. Chris Tillman first entered the league in 2009 when he threw 65 innings. Given that this is a reasonable amount of innings for a reliever, most methods would count that year as his first in the majors. Thus they would also count 2010 as year 2, 2011 as year 3, 2012 as year 4, 2013 as year 5 and 2014 as year 6. Given that Chris Tillman didn’t break out until 2013 (before he was arbitration eligible) such a method could potentially severely understate his value whereas this method would not. This method is more complex but also more accurate.

Some players sign extensions before they reach free agency that include years in which the player would be eligible for free agency. Other players are designated for assignment by their team and therefore become eligible for free agency. For this study, each season that a player had fewer than six years of service time was considered under team control while each season that a player had more than six years of service time was not considered a year under team control. This is regardless of whether the player had signed an extension or was designated for assignment. My reasoning is that as a general rule prospects are eligible for free agency after they have six years of service time even if individual prospects may give their team more years of control in return for an extension or that a team may cut prospects before they reach six years of service time.

The Lehman Database stores salary information from 1985 to 2013. With this information it is possible to determine how much money a player earned during his career and specifically during his pre-arbitration and arbitration years. Players typically make close to minimum wage their first three years in the league and then are arbitration eligible for their next three years. In theory, all that is necessary to determine when a player was pre-arbitration or arbitration eligible is his salary history.

In practice, it isn’t anywhere near that easy. I attempted to automate this process by writing code to indicate that a player reached arbitration when his salary increased by 300% from the previous year and reached free agency three years later. By the time I realized that this method wasn’t very accurate I had already fixed a large number of quality control errors by hand with the help of the player pages on Baseball Reference. At that point it was easier to just determine when all relevant prospects were eligible for free agency based on a visual examination of their salary history and looking at their page on Baseball Reference.

I determined the value of a player by determining how many fWAR he produced for each year that he was under team control, multiplying that by the value of a win for each year and subtracting his salary while under team control. I used the cost per win formula developed by Lew Pollis because his method determined the retrospective value of a win as opposed to expected and didn’t include players that signed extensions or the value of draft picks. I include the value of some players that have signed extensions in the value of a prospect if they were still under team control and didn’t want to double count them. It is important to note that the value of a free agent win is considerably greater than the value of a win. I use the value of a free agent win in this article because that is what teams have to pay for a win on the market.

Unfortunately, his table only has the value of a win from 1996 to 2013. For 1996 and earlier, I used the value of a win in 1996. I don’t believe this will be problematic because the prospects in this dataset had limited production before 1996. Even if the value of a win in 1995 was significantly different than that in 1996, the impact is minimal because prospects ranked in 1995 produced few wins in 1995.

As discussed with Chris Tillman, it may take some players considerably more than six seasons to become eligible for free agency. I discount the value of a players contributions by 8% per year starting in his eighth season in the majors. Once a prospect fails to establish himself in the majors then his trade value decreases. His team needs to decide whether to keep him on the 40 man roster or whether it should cut his losses and cut the player. They need to decide whether to keep giving the prospect more chances or whether they need to sign a free agent to fill his position. This is unideal for the team and therefore deserves a slight penalty. I do not discount the value of a players contributions for his first seven seasons in the majors.

Now that I’ve explained my methodology I’d like to look at the data. The table below shows the value of an average ranked top 100 Baseball America pitching prospect by year ranked.

From 1995 to 2006, the average value of a ranked pitching prospect has gone up by 625% while total value has increased by over 700%. As free agents have become more expensive so to have pitching prospects become more valuable. Here’s the same table for offensive prospects.

The average value of position prospect has increased by about 300% over the twelve year time period and total value increased about 280%. Position prospects are still more valuable than pitching prospects but the gap is decreasing. This makes sense because in previous articles I’ve noted that the gap in production between position and pitching prospects has narrowed in recent years.

This table shows the value of pitching prospects as a function of time based on when they were ranked. The four time periods refer to prospects ranked from 1995-1998, prospects ranked from 1999-2002, prospects ranked from 2003-2006 and prospects ranked from 1995-2006.

It appears that top pitching prospects provided limited value until 2003-2006 at which the value of a top 1-30 pitching prospect tripled. It appears that while some pitching prospects are more valuable than others there is very little difference between pitching prospects ranked between 41 and 100.

This table shows the same data for position prospects.

This table shows a more gradual increase in position player value. While position players ranked from 21-30 show a large increase in value in 2003-2006 this is likely due to poor luck in 1999-2002. Likewise the large increase in value in 2003-2006 from 1999-2002 for position players ranked 41-50 is likely due to poor luck in 1999-2002 and good luck in 2003-2006. For the most part it appears that position players can be split into four groups, those ranked from 1-10, those ranked from 11-20, those ranked from 21-60 and those ranked from 61-100.

The tables do show that from 2003-2006, the value of a pitching prospect ranked from 1 to 30 was greater than that of a position prospects ranked from 1 to 30. It will be interesting to see whether this trend continues or if it was merely coincidence.

Pirates Prospects grouped prospects by ranking in a different way when they attempted to determine prospect value. They used five prospect groupings; 1-10, 11-25, 25-50, 51-75 and 76-100. When I use these groupings the value of pitching and position prospects look like this.

This method seems to do a good job of quantifying prospect value but it appears that prospects ranked from 51-75 and 76-100 have about the same value. When Pirates Prospects did their analysis they discovered the same results. The next tables show the value of prospects with those two categories merged together. I believe that these two tables do a good job delineating prospects based on rankings because they clearly show break points in the data.

During the sample time-period, the value of a pitching prospect increased by over 600% while the value of a position prospect increased by over 300%. It is clear that prospects are becoming more valuable over time. It also appears that the increase in prospect value isn’t necessarily linear just like the increase in $/WAR isn’t linear. Top pitching prospects suddenly became far more valuable in 2003 to 2006 than they were from 1995 to 2002 and it will be interesting to see if this trend continues from 2007 to 2010. Any attempt to quantify the current value of a prospect will need to keep these findings in mind. 

The Tides Are Low

The Norfolk Tides have not gotten off to a good start. They've won six of their first twenty-one games, including only two of seven against the Charlotte Knights, who have the second-worst record in the International League.

To start, the Tides have scored 75 runs in their 21 games - 3.57 per game - and have allowed 101 runs - 4.81 per game. (The Tides have yet to play any seven-inning doubleheader games, which removes one complicating factor.) Applying the pythagorean formula to their runs totals, we see that the Tides have scored and allowed runs more in line with a team with a winning percentage of .355 - or seven and a half wins. However, this total is skewed by one truly terrible loss, a 15-0 defeat at Gwinnett on April 15. If we ignore that one game, the Tides expected winning percentage would be .431. And, in the less-regular world of the minor leagues, extreme outlying games are less relevant than in the majors, and so we can safely conclude that the Tides aren't as bad as their record.

Despite the rather high total of runs allowed, the Tides really haven't lost their games on the pitching-and-defense side. The Tides have allowed four or fewer runs in twelve games. The problem has been with scoring runs, as they've scored three or fewer runs in eleven games. So, while they've held their opponents to few enough runs to win games, they haven't been scoring enough runs to win games themselves.

The team offensive numbers are .228/.309/.337, good for a .646 OPS. Some of this is caused by players playing really badly. Henry Urrutia is hitting .230/.244/.297; he's failed to maintain his previous batting average while not increasing his walks or his power. Brett Wallace is hitting an astonishing .167/.197/.208; he has an OPS equal to Ted Williams' batting average when he became the last major leaguer to hit .400 in a full season. While the Orioles have an investment in Urrutia and are likely to give him more time, it's probable that if Wallace doesn't start to hit he'll be released soon.

But another problem with the Tides offense is that they have four players in the regular lineup who shouldn't be expected to do much. The double-play combination of Alexi Casilla and Jemile Weeks, and outfielders Quintin Berry and Julio Borbon, are useful spare parts but not for their offense. Weeks is playing amazingly well, hitting .296/.451/.481 (with sixteen walks in 72 plate appearances so far), but the other three are contributing little but their speed.

The final problem with the Tides offense is that they've grounded into 26 double plays, nine more than any other team in the league. And that reflects another problem with the Tides' offense. In addition to the four speedsters, they have three regular players - Wallace, Chris Marrero, and the catchers Caleb Joseph and Johnny Monell - who are slow. Real slow. The other regulars - Urrutia, David Adams, and Cord Phelps - are more-or-less average runners but who hit the ball hard. If you were to design a lineup to ground into double plays, you'd design the 2014 Tides - four speedsters who don't have extra-base power and other guys who hit the ball hard and who don't have great speed.

So, at this point, the Orioles probably aren't going to get much in the way of offensive help from Norfolk. The Tides' offense is bound to improve, but we'd better hope that the Orioles' offense won't need help in the short term.

On Jonathan Schoop and Plate Discipline

When watching Jonathan Schoop hit, you quickly notice one thing: He is there to swing the bat. He's not in the batter's box to take pitches and hope for a walk. No, he's there to do some damage and he can do a lot of damage if he properly squares up on the ball.

Schoop and his bat (photo: Keith Allison)

So far, in 81 total plate appearances (15 last year and 66 this year), Jonathan Schoop is swinging at 43.1% of pitches outside the strike zone and 56.5% overall. Schoop's approach is not all that different from Adam Jones's. Jones is certainly not looking for a perfect pitch or a walk. In his career, Jones has swung at 40.7% of pitches outside the zone and 54.8% of all pitches. So Schoop both chases more pitches and swings more overall, but Jones is the closest O's regular to him. (He is extremely close to Delmon Young, however. See the lists below.) For what it's worth, Chris Davis has swung at 37.9% of pitches out of the zone and 52.5% overall, while someone like Manny Machado swings often (48.0%) but chases pitches less often than this group (30.5%)

Swinging at pitches outside the zone is something that most hitters try to avoid. Not only does swinging at pitches out of the zone (normally) help keep an opposing pitcher's pitch count down by handing them extra strikes, but pitches out of the zone are generally more difficult to handle and hit with more authority.

Still, while it can be difficult to succeed when swinging as much as Schoop does, it's certainly not impossible. The key for Schoop will be to keep hitting for power with the contact he does make. It's unlikely he'll eventually be a high-swing, high-contact hitter, like A.J. Pierzynski

Here are the top 10 career leaders in both O-Swing and Swing percentages. Players' career wOBA numbers are included in parentheses.

Top 10 O-Swing%
Pablo Sandoval  - - - 45.0 % (.350)
Humberto Quintero - - - 43.0 % (.261)
Delmon Young - - - 41.3 % (.321)
Adam Jones - - - 40.5 % (.338)
Vladimir Guerrero - - - 40.3 % (.390)
Dayan Viciedo - - -  40.2 % (.325)
Chris Johnson - - - 39.9 % (.330)
Mark Trumbo - - - 39.9 % (.329)
Wilin Rosario - - -  39.3 % (.346)
Brennan Boesch   - - - 39.3 % (.319)

Top 10 Swing%
Randall Simon - - - 60.1 % (.319)
Delmon Young - - - 59.7 % (.321)
Johnny Estrada - - - 59.6 % (.308)
Humberto Quintero - - - 59.4 % (.261)
Vladimir Guerrero - - - 59.1 % (.390)
A.J. Pierzynski - - - 58.8 % (.323)
Pablo Sandoval  - - - 57.8 % (.350)
Jeff Francoeur - - - 57.7 % (.312)
Ivan Rodriguez - - - 57.2 % (.344)
Nomar Garciaparra - - - 56.8 % (.376)

(Note: As you'd assume, a limited data size is being used here. FanGraphs' plate discipline numbers go back to 2002. And PITCHf/x data wasn't around for the regular season until 2007. Plenty of players throughout MLB history have frequently swung the bat and still performed well. And many have swung often and not hit that well, too.)

Schoop has a long way to go before appearing on any of these lists, but if he ends up playing regularly and assuming he is moderately successful, it could happen. So, of course, there's still the small sample size qualifier. But Schoop's current O-Swing percentage would place him second, below Pablo Sandoval and just above Humberto Quintero. His overall swing rate, though, wouldn't crack the top 10 (just below Nomar Garciaparra).

Some things to remember: Schoop is only 22, and his approach at the plate could certainly evolve as he plays more. It's also possible that when Machado returns, Schoop will get sent down to Norfolk to play every day and works on all phases of his game. He's far from a finished product, and he could even return to the Orioles later in the season as a somewhat different hitter. Or maybe he keeps a similar approach, keeps getting bigger and stronger, and improves his low on-base percentage/high slugging percentage skillset (basically what Jones does). That doesn't mean he'll transform into Vladimir Guerrero (he won't), but something in the .330-.340 wOBA range in the future is not unreasonable.

Schoop did have a quasi-trend when playing in the minors. The Orioles have always been aggressive in promoting Schoop, throwing him into the deep end of the pool when he showed the slightest competency in the level before. At each step up, his walk rate would crash while his strikeout rate remained relatively flat.  In other words, while he will swing hard at every level, he is less selective and more willing to put bad wood on the bat. That this trend appeared to exist in the minors does not mean it will continue to exist as he transitions into the majors, but it does provide a silver lining because his current performance is not acceptable. He needs to improve. He should, but he might not.

Stats via FanGraphs and as of April 24.

Reviewing Up, Up, & Away

Jonah Keri's Up, Up, & Away is a memoir about love for the Montreal Expos.  The book weaves in Keri's own nostalgia while anchoring it to well researched moments in time.  It is more or less what one could call a hybrid baseball book in that it deals with bits and pieces of baseball trivia and events while also communicating a person's journey through those events.  The result is a work where baseball is merely a vehicle about obsession and adoration over a beautiful, yet flawed, entity and a wishfulness that such a love can be found again.

For those who want the nitty gritty of the of the creation, maintenance, and destruction of the club.  Most of the story is here.  The Expos began as an abstract idea that was shoehorned into reality in a slap dash way resulting in difficult early seasons and a greatly misguided stadium that should have been replaced as soon as it was built.  The team continued on with poor management and dwindling funds even as a rock solid farm system churned out star after star and made the Expos perhaps the most underrated team of the early 80s.  The book then, humanely, draws the franchise to its end and softly blames the local businesses, Jeffrey Loria, and Major League Baseball.  Softly.

Memory is one of those interesting things and three aspects of this book jump out at me.  One, how baseball has been concerned about parity for decades now, but has never ever been truly committed to parity for incoming franchises.  MLB wants new franchises to suffer.  With the Expos, they had one year to pull an organization together and was punished for being new by having draft picks withheld from them.  Two, how in the early eighties, the Expos were considered by some to be the best team in baseball and were an amazing draw in Montreal, putting more fans in the seats than the Yankees did.  Three, Jeffrey Loria as presented in the press may have a kernel of truth, but was largely an exaggerated heel concocted by the media and his fellow owners after they did something similar to the man he essentially replaced.

For the Oriole fan, a few recognizable players flash through the pages.  A few pages are used to talk about Ken Singleton and him being dealt to the Orioles after being underappreciated by the Expo front office.  An interesting section includes the story of El Presidente Dennis Martinez whose career was derailed in Baltimore with alcohol, was resurrected in Montreal, and whose perfect game resulted with him being doused in beer by Larry Walker and toasting (but not drinking) champagne.  Dan Duquette gave an interview for the book as well and discussed putting some finishing touches on the team before heading off to his home turf in Boston.  Randy Milligan even makes and appearance.

All in all, Up Up & Away is a nostalgic look on the Expos franchise from a somewhat data science aware writer.  You will not be bombarded with advanced metrics.  You will be handed short game plays and those events being placed in a larger emotional perspective of the game, of the Expos, of Montreal.  Where this book probably fits best is as a strong showing to dispel many of the myths laid out upon the city (e.g., that Montreal cannot support a team) as well as delivering hard truths (e.g., local businesses saw the team more as a charity than as an organization in need of spending money).

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Up, Up, & Away by Jonah Keri
416 pages
Random House Canada

Tillman Has a Need for Speed

Velocity is not all: it is not movement nor control
Nor deception nor repeatability of a smooth delivery

Velocity cannot alone confuse the batter
Nor take the place of a well thrown curve
So, one may be tempted to trade velocity
For a pitch on the black or to hit the lower third
It may well be, but I do not think I would

--A horrible bastardization of an Edna St. Vincent Millay poem

The above is a poem that was originally about love. It is about how love is not an essential thing, but it is highly valued.  Similarly, I think we could think of velocity quite similarly.  A high 90s fastball is thrilling and majestic.  It is rock star.  It is bacon.  It is what adds the zero to an amateur's signing bonus. Or as William Carlos Williams once said, "So much depends on velocity." Or maybe he did not.  That said, the point is simply that a great deal of success depends on how little time a hitter has to react to a pitch as well as how little time a pitch travels through the zone where the bat can reach.

Photo by Keith Allison

Chris Tillman is someone who has dealt with velocity issues. He has always seen a great deal of success when he is able to pound the ball in the lower mid 90s.  Tillman suffered a near collapse in 2010 and 2011 where may a start he had struggled to get above 90 miles per hour.  In 2012, a revitalized Tillman helped lead the Orioles to the players with an explosive fastball.  Last year, saw a little erosion of that initial velocity, but it played well around 92 or 93.  This year, his opening day start saw him gunning around 94 mph. Since then? 91, 89, and 90 as averages. Those last two starts were two of the three lowest average velocity he has had in a game in the past two years.

Why is that velocity drop such a concern? Eno Sarris discussed things in a Sports on Earth article about pitcher aging while referencing Mike Fast's work, which was a better study than the brief one I did the year before in relation to Aroldis Chapman. Anyway, both studies found that a loss of one mile per hour of velocity was on average likely to result in about a third of a run more given up by the pitcher.  That is pretty frightening given Tillman's regression with respect to velocity.

That all said, Tillman sports a 1.71 ERA.  He has been incredibly successful and many a person wonder if he has hit ace status.  What might be ignored is that he current enjoys the highest left on base percentage of his career, which is a metric that is not associated with any perceivable skill.  Second, his home run rate is half of what we would expect it to be, indicating that he has been lucky that fly balls have not been spilling out of the park.  Third, balls thrown into the strike zone are not missing bats as they were the past two seasons.  In those years, Tillman was about to send about 14% of baseball in the strike zone past swinging bats.  In the troubling years before his recent success he was able to only get 9% by batters.  This year he is sitting at 10%.

However, nothing bad has happened yet even though several signs point to an eventual collapse.  I think the trouble with increased contact is largely related to that decrease in velocity.  Teammate Ubaldo Jimenez also suffered a major drop in velocity in the past few years from being a 97 mph burner to a 92 mph chugger. Jimenez' velocity is not the only trouble he has faced. His high maintenance mechanics often have spelled trouble for him and have certainly done so this season. Similar, with great command, control, and sequencing Tillman might also be able to have continued success.

Still, I would be more comfortable if I saw him flash more velocity on a consistent basis. He is too hittable otherwise and his extreme flyball tendencies likely means many a ball may be destined for Eutaw Street.

O's Weathering Difficult Early Season Stretch

Despite a difficult early season schedule, the absence of Manny Machado, and a couple of nagging injuries that have occasionally kept J.J. Hardy out of the lineup, the Orioles currently have a record of 9-9. They have a positive run differential (by a grant total of one run), are 4-3 in one-run games, and have a .500 record both at home (4-4) and on the road (5-5).

So far, the O's have played seven games against the Red Sox, three against the Yankees, three against the Blue Jays, two against the Rays, and three against the Tigers. Most of those opponents are American League East foes, who the O's will battle all season long. The Tigers are also very good. (It's worth noting that the Orioles have arguably the most difficult schedule in all of baseball.)

So the O's have faced some good teams, but the scheduling quirks have been unusual as well. After a night game against the Red Sox on the third game of the season, the Orioles flew to Detroit for the Tigers' home opener (an afternoon game). They didn't get to Detroit until about 3 a.m. The O's then played four more afternoon games in a row, one of which happened to be the Yankees' home opener (in Derek Jeter's farewell season). And just recently, the Orioles finished up a four-game series in Boston with the following start times: 7:10, 1:35, 7:00 (ESPN Sunday Night game), and 11:05 (Patriots' Day/Boston Marathon). (For some reason, a couple of Red Sox players spent Sunday night in the clubhouse.) Here's Keith Law on that Sunday/Monday scheduling combination:

Lost in all the Boston talk today is how the next 24 hours are like the scheduler giving a giant middle finger to the Orioles.
— keithlaw (@keithlaw) April 20, 2014

But at least that stretch is done. At 9-9, the Orioles haven't been great but have certainly been treading water, which is notable because of how important Machado and Hardy are to their success. Position player wise, Matt Wieters and Adam Jones have played well so far -- both offensively and defensively -- but that's not really the case with anyone else on the roster. Nelson Cruz has hit well, as has (surprisingly) Delmon Young, but neither has added anything defensively (Cruz has been particularly awful). Chris Davis has been very effective at getting on base, but his power numbers are not there yet. And no one else, other than backup catcher Steve Clevenger, has a wOBA over .299.

Pitching wise, Chris Tillman has pitched very well, Wei-Yin Chen has been all right, and the bullpen, led by Zach Britton and Evan Meek (of course), has been fine. Ubaldo Jimenez and Miguel Gonzalez have both had their struggles, as has Brian Matusz.

But this isn't a full early season rundown of the roster, and it's still too early to start breaking down everyone's numbers. The Orioles haven't even played 20 games yet. The point is that they have played OK, kept things afloat after an early four-game losing streak against the Red Sox and Tigers (two each), and are still in good position to go on some kind of run if Machado returns as his old self and Hardy is able to stay in the lineup for more than a couple games at a time. Assuming Jimenez starts to pick things up, along with Markakis and Davis, the O's should be just fine.

The Orioles Have an Average Defense

There has been a storyline that has been trumpeted a bit on air and in the media that has not actually been true. You often hear about the club being proficient at fielding and this centering on their ability to avoid errors. At the time of this writing (after a particularly gruesome Sunday), the Orioles had the second-fewest errors in baseball. Only the Houston Astros had less.

On the surface, this looks great. On the surface, our old friend Henry Chadwick (the guy who invented the box score a century and a half ago) would say that errors do not give you the entire story of a player’s or team’s defense.

The problem with only looking at errors, or even the slightly more sophisticated fielding percentage, is that you are only considering batted balls that the player can actually get to. In a previous article, I mentioned the fallacy here as being the Rubbermaid paradox. To restate, if you put a Rubbermaid trashcan out on the field, that trashcan would have no errors and would have cleanly caught a few pop ups giving it a wonderful 1.000 fielding percentage. The paradox here is in the perception. Someone who only considers fielding percentage and errors would be under the impression that the trashcan is a Hall of Fame worthy defender while in actuality, it would be the worst defender that baseball has ever seen. This awareness of the deficiencies in traditional statistics plants a recognized desire to find better quantitative ways to evaluate defense.

Last year saw the Orioles have the fewest errors in baseball history with 54. The team also had the highest fielding percentage at .991. That led people to say that the Orioles had an elite defense. They were right, but the numbers that provided that foundation were not the best ones to use. A better argument would have leaned on more advanced statistics like Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR), which can be found at FanGraphs. How does UZR work? The field is cut up into 64 squares and each batted ball is defined by which square it lands into as well as whether it was a ground ball, line drive, or fly ball. How these scenarios play out provides a baseline or average defensive expectation for each fielder along with the number of runs expected when a certain balls lands a certain way in a certain square.

In other words, Manny Machado plays third base. A number of batted balls come through the zones he covers on the field. MLB as a whole has a certain probability of making plays on each of those balls hit. You then compare Machado’s performance against what the average major leaguer does. For the balls that skate through the hot corner, we know from the MLB database how many runs wound up scoring on average. We then can associate a run value lost for each play Machado misses as well as a run value gained for each he makes. This tells us how many runs saved or lost his performance last season was worth. With respect to 2013, Machado was first with 33.6 runs saved over what an average third baseman would have been expected to save.

How did the team stats look last year? The Orioles ranked third (48.6 runs saved) and were outperformed by only the Diamondbacks (49.7 runs saved) and the Royals (87.6 runs saved). The team also performed well in UZR’s throwing arm (eighth), double play (fifth), range (12th), and error (eighth) metrics. You perform that well on all of those individual measures, you wind up with an elite defensive club.

However, this year’s club currently sits 15th in all of MLB in UZR. They are showing well for throwing arm (eighth), double play (seventh) and error (fifth) metrics, but are 23rd for range. The main problems have been the continued erosion of Nick Markakis’ range, Nelson Cruz’s expected poor coverage, and, surprisingly, J.J. Hardy’s performance. Of those, we should only expect Hardy to get better due to his performances in years past and the likelihood that his range troubles are related to his nagging injuries. In general, things should improve when Machado returns as well. The current Orioles third basemen, Jonathan Schoop and Ryan Flaherty, are performing on a projected value of minus-18 runs or about 50 runs worse than Machado over a full year.

For the Orioles to compete, the defense needs to be elite. Right now, it is not.

Paper Orioles (4/21/14): A Brand New Season

Orange Phoenix from the Ashes

In the previous installment of Paper Orioles on April 8th, we talked a number of Orioles' fans down off the ledge.  Some were questioning their faith that on Opening Day was kept afloat by the Depot's projection of Baltimore taking a Wild Card this year.  We noted then that no one was doing anything exceptionally different from what we would expect on the team, so this was probably just a simple bump in the road.  Two weeks later, our metric as well as Baseball Prospectus' has basically erased the previous three weeks.  In fact, the Orioles now sit at their highest playoff percentage on BP's Playoff Odds system at 15.1%.

Here is how the projection models have performed so far (before the games on 4/21):

	mJS	PWE	mBP	Parcells	fWAR	Mean
3/31/2014	85.7	81.0	78.0	81.0	81.0	81.3
4/8/2014	84.8	52.3	76.9	54.0	47.3	63.0
4/14/2014	84.6	65.4	76.9	67.5	61.0	71.1
4/21/2014	85.2	80.5	78.0	76.2	71.4	78.3

Perhaps even more exciting for the club is that Manny Machado is getting closer to being ready to play in a MLB game.  His bat was largely uneven and is a rather large question mark, but it is hard to think his performance would be worse than what Ryan Flaherty and Jonathan Schoop have done so far.  However, his glove is light years better than either of theirs at the hot corner.  With him in the lineup, you should start to see the PWE, Parcells and fWAR models to nudge higher by a few games.

Once Through the Norfolk Rotation

The Norfolk Tides opened the 2014 season with a scheduled eight-game homestand, April 3-10. The first four games were against Charlotte, the White Sox' AAA affiliate, and the second were against Gwinnett, the Braves' AAA affiliate. Because Kevin Gausman might have had to start a doubleheader game in Detroit, and because the April 7 game was rained out, and because an illness forced me to cancel a previously-scheduled trip, I was able to work (either as the milb.com GameDay datacaster or as a BIS contract data gatherer) six of the seven games, and to see all five members of the Norfolk rotation make one start. I'll be discussing my observations in the rest of this article.

Before you prepare your comments implying I'm an idiot for generalizing off the limited sample size of one appearance, I'll tell you that I know this is only one appearance and that my observations probably do not accurate reflect these pitchers' true abilities. I also know that these pitchers have made appearances since I saw them and there's at least one more start to evaluate. Nevertheless, if nothing else, these comments may explain a start that may prove to be anomalous.

Courtesy of Christopher McCain / Norfolk Tides

April 5 - Steve Johnson vs. Charlotte 

During spring training, Steve Johnson had been a candidate for a spot in the Orioles' bullpen, and when he didn't make it was assigned to the Norfolk rotation. Johnson hadn't pitched as a starter in the spring, and so for at least his first start he was on a limited pitch count. He lasted only three innings before being relieved, and although his line was superficially good he didn't really pitch that well:

IP	H	R	ER	BB	K
3	3	1	1	2	4

Johnson began the game very well, but began to struggle in the second inning. The difference in his performance against the first first five batters he faced and against the last nine batters he faced is quite striking:

	Batters 1-5	Batters 6-14
Called Strike	5	7
Swinging Strike	2	4
Foul Strike	5	5
Ball	2	18
In Play	3	5

 (Yes, the breakdown is ex post facto; he walked batter number 6 on five pitches and didn't recover.)

Johnson was having problems keeping the ball down in the strike zone, as indicated by the breakdown of balls in play - five fly balls, three line drives, and zero ground balls.

It wouldn't be unreasonable to conclude that Johnson had been working as a relief pitcher, possibly limited to one-inning stints, in spring training. He wasn't used to the demands of starting. Because of this, we should probably note this start as an exception and discount it when evaluating his season.

Courtesy of Elaina Ellis / Norfolk Tides

April 6 - T.J. McFarland vs. Charlotte

As with Steve Johnson, if T.J. McFarland was going to make the 2014 Orioles out of spring training, he would do so as a relief pitcher. So, like Johnson, McFarland spent spring training as a relief pitcher, and also like Johnson, was on a limited pitch count in his first start. McFarland pitched better than Johnson did:

IP	H	R	ER	BB	K
4	4	1	1	0	5

Unlike Johnson, McFarland didn't noticeably tire at a specific point; he did give up his run in his last inning on back-to-back doubles but recovered to retire the next three batters. McFarland also showed better control than did Johnson:

Called Strike	14
Swinging Strike	9
Foul Strike	11
Ball	24
In Play	11

Although what's more interesting, and perhaps easier to appreciate, is that McFarland was consistently ahead in the count:

0-0	16
1-0	7
0-1	9
2-0	4
1-1	5
0-2	5
3-0	1
2-1	3
1-2	9
3-1	0
2-2	6
3-2	2

This is the number of pitches he threw at the counts, not the number of batters he faced with the counts; he may have thrown multiple pitches in an at-bat with the same count if the batter fouled off a two-strike pitch. Notice how few times he got far behind (2-0, 3-0, and 3-1). McFarland can't overpower hitters, it's important that he both control and command his pitches if he's going to succeed. This game was encouraging; the question is whether or not he can build on it.

Courtesy of Christopher McCain / Norfolk Tides

April 8 - Suk-min Yoon vs. Gwinnett

Suk-min Yoon signed with the Orioles relatively late, in mid-February. That gave him little time to adapt to American baseball, and little time to work himself into condition. April 8 was his first start, and it went terribly:

IP	H	R	ER	BB	K
2 1/3	11	9	9	1	0

Substantially more of Yoon's pitches were put into play than were those of the other starters:

Called Strike	11
Swinging Strike	4
Foul Strike	6
Ball	20
In Play	17

Comparing the percentage of Yoon's pitches that were put in play to those of the other starters in the games I saw:

Johnson	14.3 %
McFarland	18.6 %
Yoon	29.3 %
Wright	19.8 %
Gausman	17.4%

Obviously, there are a number of reasons why this shouldn't be representative of Yoon's ability. If he continues to struggle, then we might conclude that Yoon was assigned to too high a level for his first North American season, and that, like Henry Urrutia, he would have been better served with a transitional assignment to Bowie.

Courtesy of Christopher McCain / Norfolk Tides

April 9 - Mike Wright vs. Gwinnett

This was Mike Wright's second AAA start for Norfolk; his first was the last game of the 2013 season. And, just as in that game, Wright pitched effectively without being dominant:

IP	H	R	ER	BB	K
5	5	1	0	1	4

The interesting thing about Mike Wright is that closer looks at his performance don't reveal any unusual tendencies; he's close to normal in just about everything. His pitch breakdown:

Called Strike	10
Swinging Strike	10
Foul Strike	14
Ball	28
In Play	15

And the trajectories of his pitches put in play:

Grounder	8
Line Drive	1
Fly Ball	6

I'm gradually becoming more optimistic about Wright's future. I still think his most-likely career path is that of a Brad Bergesen or a Jason Berken, someone who has about 100 good major-league innings. But I think it's becoming more possible that he can develop into a #4 starter on a good team.

Courtesy of Elaina Ellis / Norfolk Tides

April 10 - Kevin Gausman vs. Gwinnett


This was Gausman's second start of 2014. He was very unlucky; the key hit in a two-run first inning was a bloop double that fell between the left fielder, third baseman, and shortstop. The unearned run in the second inning scored when Jemile Weeks threw the ball into the dugout trying to complete an impossible double play. Gausman could easily have pitched four scoreless innings, and so his pitching line is a little misleading:

IP	H	R	ER	BB	K
4	4	3	2	3	4

Even though Gausman could easily have pitched four scoreless innings, he again failed to deliver a dominant performance. Every AAA game he pitches without having a dominant performance makes it just that much less likely that he will develop into the Hall-of-Fame caliber, perennial Cy Young Award contender Orioles fans are hoping for. Right now, he's looking more like a solid #3 starter on a championship-caliber team - in the range of Homer Bailey, Anibal Sanchez, or A.J. Burnett. That's still a valuable pitcher and Gausman remains a very good prospect. He just may not be the pitcher to carry the Orioles on his back to a championship.