Opening day is just a day away! With the Orioles' (not very flexible) roster basically set, all that's left is for the weather to cooperate and for the season to get underway.
Still, if the O's are going to have any chance to compete for a playoff spot in 2018, they'll need to improve in plenty of spots. Obviously, that includes several veteran players.
The following group of key, returning players all had what would widely be considered down years for each:
- Manny Machado (2.8 fWAR, 102 wRC+)
- Chris Davis (0.2 fWAR, 92 wRC+)
- Mark Trumbo (-1.2 fWAR, 80 wRC+)
- Kevin Gausman (2.5 fWAR, 4.68 ERA)
- Chris Tillman (-1.0 fWAR, 7.84 ERA)
(You can throw Darren O'Day (3.43 ERA) in there if you want. I wouldn't, and there's a strong case that he's as effective as ever.)
So here's your task: Rank those five above in terms of how much confidence you have in each returning to form. Maybe that means for a couple of them to simply be effective again, as there's a big difference from Gausman's disappointing but far-from-useless season and what Trumbo and Tillman contributed.
Here's what my five would look like: Machado, Gausman, Davis, Trumbo, Tillman
Agree? Disagree? Let us know what you think.
11 comments:
Agree completely.
Davis will not bounce back, he doesn’t show progress in spring. Trumbo going to have a rough start of the season, statics show that him is great always in the first half.
Machado, Gausman and Tillman all will bounce back in that order. The big sluggers, less so. Trumbo, particularly, I have little faith in.
I basically agree with your order - Davis and Trumbo may be reversed (I think about equal chances). I hope Tillman is actually higher although his spring performances don't show a lot of hope.
Your order is about right. I agree with Roger.
I would toss O’Day in there. He could really boost this team.
Agree with your ranking
I think Chris Davis has one more monster season in him - hoping batting lead off might be the spark that lights the fire that'll burn the AL East down. Sorry, headed to the store to pick up the Last Jedi blueray...
Lefty pull hitters like CD have been hurt by the shift but do much better with risp. A base stealer often on 2nd would really help him. Otherwise, simulations give a quality answer and the traditional order is just a relic of old times.
2017
Chris Davis
Runners On 184/308/308
Bases Empty 236/310/502
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