Is Bundy The Next Bedard?

I normally believe that it’s hard to judge a baseball team until about 100 games have been played. At that point, teams have had enough time to show whether their record is due to a lucky or unlucky start, and they’ve added players via the trade deadline. The one exception to this rule is teams that do terrible to start the season. It’s safe to say that those teams are likely not going to make the playoffs. At 8-20, the Orioles aren’t going to make the playoffs and are a threat to lose 100 games this season.

Baseball Reference’s “AL Wins Above Avg By Position” tool tells the story.

AL Wins Above Avg By Position Table

Rk	Total	All P	SP	RP	Non-P	C	1B	2B	3B	SS	LF	CF	RF	OF (All)	DH	PH
1	BOS 6.2	BOS 5.2	BOS 3.9	TOR 1.7	NYY 3.4	HOU 0.6	OAK 0.5	OAK 1.5	OAK 1.4	NYY 2.0	TOR 0.7	LAA 1.7	BOS 1.2	NYY 1.9	BOS 0.4	TBR 0.2
2	HOU 5.4	HOU 3.5	HOU 2.8	BOS 1.4	OAK 2.6	TOR 0.4	BOS 0.2	TBR 1.2	CLE 1.1	BAL 1.2	LAA 0.4	TOR 0.9	NYY 1.2	LAA 1.4	NYY 0.3	NYY 0.1
3	NYY 3.4	CLE 2.7	CLE 2.6	TEX 0.9	HOU 1.9	TBR 0.4	TOR 0.2	SEA 0.9	DET 0.5	LAA 1.2	OAK 0.3	NYY 0.5	SEA 1.1	BOS 1.1	LAA 0.2	LAA 0.1
4	OAK 2.6	TEX 1.6	MIN 1.3	HOU 0.7	LAA 1.9	DET 0.1	MIN 0.1	CHW 0.8	CHW 0.4	HOU 0.9	BOS 0.2	DET 0.1	KCR 0.5	TOR 1.1	CHW 0.1	OAK 0.0
5	CLE 2.1	TOR 0.9	TEX 0.8	SEA 0.5	BOS 1.0	CHW 0.0	CHW 0.1	HOU 0.8	TOR 0.2	CLE 0.8	NYY 0.2	MIN 0.0	HOU 0.4	SEA 0.4	OAK 0.0	KCR 0.0
6	LAA 1.4	OAK 0.0	DET 0.4	CLE 0.2	TBR 1.0	CLE 0.0	DET 0.1	MIN 0.2	NYY 0.1	BOS 0.6	TBR 0.1	OAK -0.2	DET 0.2	HOU 0.2	TBR 0.0	HOU 0.0
7	TOR 1.1	NYY 0.0	KCR 0.4	LAA 0.2	TOR 0.2	NYY -0.1	LAA 0.0	KCR -0.2	TEX 0.1	OAK 0.5	HOU 0.0	CLE -0.2	MIN 0.1	DET 0.0	HOU -0.1	DET 0.0
8	SEA -0.6	MIN 0.0	NYY 0.4	BAL 0.2	SEA 0.0	SEA -0.2	CLE -0.1	LAA -0.4	KCR 0.1	SEA 0.4	CLE -0.2	HOU -0.2	TBR -0.2	MIN -0.1	TEX -0.1	MIN 0.0
9	DET -0.6	DET -0.2	OAK 0.3	CHW -0.1	DET -0.4	OAK -0.3	TEX -0.1	BOS -0.4	BOS 0.1	TEX 0.2	CHW -0.2	KCR -0.3	TEX -0.2	KCR -0.3	SEA -0.2	TOR -0.1
10	TEX -1.0	LAA -0.5	TBR -0.5	OAK -0.3	CLE -0.6	LAA -0.3	NYY -0.3	DET -0.5	TBR 0.1	CHW 0.2	MIN -0.2	BOS -0.3	CLE -0.4	TBR -0.7	TOR -0.2	CHW -0.1
11	TBR -1.1	BAL -0.5	BAL -0.7	NYY -0.4	CHW -0.9	KCR -0.4	HOU -0.4	TEX -0.5	HOU -0.1	TBR 0.2	SEA -0.3	TEX -0.4	TOR -0.5	CLE -0.8	BAL -0.3	BOS -0.1
12	MIN -1.1	SEA -0.6	LAA -0.8	DET -0.5	MIN -1.1	MIN -0.4	TBR -0.4	BAL -0.5	SEA -0.3	DET -0.2	BAL -0.3	SEA -0.4	BAL -0.6	OAK -1.0	MIN -0.4	TEX -0.2
13	CHW -1.9	CHW -1.0	CHW -0.9	MIN -1.4	KCR -2.2	BAL -0.6	KCR -0.7	NYY -0.6	MIN -0.3	MIN -0.2	DET -0.3	TBR -0.6	LAA -0.7	TEX -1.3	KCR -0.4	SEA -0.2
14	KCR -4.2	KCR -2.0	TOR -0.9	TBR -1.6	TEX -2.6	TEX -0.7	SEA -0.8	CLE -0.7	LAA -0.3	KCR -0.3	KCR -0.5	BAL -0.7	OAK -1.1	BAL -1.6	DET -0.4	BAL -0.2
15	BAL -4.2	TBR -2.1	SEA -1.0	KCR -2.4	BAL -3.7	BOS -0.9	BAL -1.0	TOR -0.9	BAL -0.7	TOR -0.5	TEX -0.7	CHW -1.1	CHW -1.1	CHW -2.4	CLE -0.6	CLE -0.3
AVG	0.5	0.5	0.5	-0.1	0.0	-0.2	-0.2	0.0	0.2	0.5	-0.1	-0.1	-0.0	-0.1	-0.1	-0.1

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 4/29/2018.

As you can see (if I got this tool to work right), it ranks the Orioles the worst in the AL at 4.2 wins below average. The Orioles pitching ranks 11th at .5 wins below average, with the starters contributing .7 wins below average (good for 11th out of 15th) and the relievers at .2 wins above average (good for 8th).  But the problem is offense, where they are 3.7 wins below average and are the worst in the AL. They’re ranked second in total shortstop production with 1.2 wins above average. Their next best showing is at DH where they’re ranked 11th with .3 wins below average. They’re ranked worst in 1B and 3B production, second worst at CF and PH, third worst at C and forth worst at 2B, LF and RF. Basically, if the Orioles can find another six starters on offense, they’ll be ready to turn things around. Otherwise, it’s time to think about 2019. As Matt K wrote, it’s time to make a plan.

2019 is looking like it could be worse than 2018. The Orioles are set to lose team leader Adam Jones, long time closer Zach Britton, long time setup man Brad Brach, and of course potential hall of famer Manny Machado. Machado has been one of the two bright spots of the Orioles season so far. According to Fangraphs, Machado has been worth 1.8 fWAR so far this season. He has a legit shot to earn 10 fWAR over the entire year. How many teams that have lost 100 games have had a ten fWAR player?

The Orioles have $56M allotted in guaranteed contracts to Chris Davis ($17M), Alex Cobb ($9.5M), Mark Trumbo ($12M), Darren O’Day ($8M) and Andrew Cashner ($9.5M) in 2019. None of these five players are particularly good at this point, and it’s likely the Orioles would drop each of these contracts if given the opportunity. Some of these deals, like Trumbo, O’Day and Cashner’s will potentially end after 2019. But the Cobb and Davis signing are going to haunt this club for roughly the next twenty years. Sure, they may end in 2021 and 2022 respectively, but the Orioles are likely to be paying deferred money to these players until 2035 and 2037. That $56M is likely to be at least a third of the Orioles payroll in 2019 and could be more. After all, how much should the Orioles invest in a team that has minimal talent, tanking cable ratings, and attendance that is on pace to drop by 7,500 fans per game (a loss of roughly $25M in revenue)?

The Orioles do have some young talent that could lead a future contender. Presuming that Machado isn’t in an Orioles jersey in 2019, the Orioles still have some talent on the roster. Schoop was good in 2017 although he’s a free agent in 2020, and Mancini promises to be a league average LF/RF for the next few years. Chance Sisco looks decent until you realize that he has a 40% strikeout rate, a .458 BABIP, a wRC+ of 110 and almost certainly a trip back to Norfolk in his future. The Orioles rotation is in better shape with a potential top of the rotation pitcher in Bundy, and a few legit back of the rotation starters in Gausman and Cashner. They also have Alex Cobb. Without a decent rotation or starting lineup, the Orioles bullpen is completely irrelevant.

Keeping Machado would go a long way to rebuilding this Orioles franchise, but there’s no reason for him to sign a long-term deal to play with a team that’s a threat to lose one hundred games even with him putting up awesome numbers. Instead, the Orioles will have to reload by trading him at the trade deadline, along with Adam Jones, Brad Brach and any other potential free agents with value. Jonathan Schoop, a free agent in 2020, should be traded at the offseason if he bounces back from his poor start.

But there’s only so much the Orioles are going to get in exchange for rentals. Machado may be the prize of the trade deadline if he keeps this performance up, but teams are only going to offer so much to get half a season of his services. And while players like Gausman, Mancini and Givens will still have multiple years of control remaining, there’s only so much teams will give up to get players that aren’t particularly special. If the Orioles are going to add a lot of young talent, they’ll need to trade Bundy.

Dylan Bundy will enter his first year of arbitration in 2019, and will be under team control until the end of 2021. At the same time, Bundy showed an ability to pitch most of a season in 2017 when he threw nearly 170 innings and is looking like he might have an excellent 2018. If so, he’ll compare reasonably similar to Erik Bedard. Bedard had a decent 2006 campaign in which he threw nearly 200 innings, before having a dominant 2007 where he was a Cy Young candidate. With two years of control remaining, the Orioles traded Bedard after 2007 to the Mariners in return for Adam Jones, Chris Tillman and a few other pieces that helped the Os have a successful run from 2012-2016. If Bundy can continue to have a strong 2018, perhaps he can net a similar return.

The Orioles do have decent pieces in their farm system, but there’s a reason why it was ranked 23rd out of 30 teams by Keith Law this offseason. It isn’t going to help that top prospects Sisco and Hays aren’t having good starts to the season, while Mountcastle has been injured. Bottom line, the Orioles don’t have enough in the minors to support their major league team in the near future.

The Orioles are looking at a pretty bad 2018. They’re looking at an even worse 2019. And they’re likely in a situation where they’ll require a long rebuild that will cost them considerably in fan interest and attendance. Still, they are where they are, and denying the facts will only lengthen the time it will take for them to build a new winner.

It’s almost certain that the Orioles won’t be able to build a winner in 2019 to take advantage of having Schoop under control. It’s pretty likely that they won’t be able to rebuild by 2021 to take advantage of having Bundy and Gausman under control. It’s questionable whether Mancini and Givens will still be effective in a few years. In short, the only sane plan at this point is to treat all their players on the current MLB roster as expendable and rebuild. A few years of high draft picks (which they’ll get whether or not they commit to a full rebuild) is what they’ll need to try and build a winner.

Which means that it’s fun to watch Bundy and see if he’ll turn into an ace. But the real question is whether he can become the Orioles’ next Bedard and bring back enough in a trade to help the Orioles rebuild.

The Time Has Arrived For Something Crazy: A Plan

Through their own way of reloading, the Orioles headed into this season intending to compete. They signed Andrew Cashner, brought back Chris Tillman, added Colby Rasmus, and surprisingly added Alex Cobb in late March. While far from perfect, those signings, along with a handful of other minor moves, addressed some of their issues, and it wasn't hard to paint the picture of the O's finishing close to .500 and gunning for a wild card spot.

So far, all the free agent signings above but one (Cashner) look like disasters. On top of that, the Orioles, for some reason, decided to begin the year with three Rule 5 picks on the active roster. That didn't last long, with Nestor Cortes Jr. being returned to the Yankees soon after. Now Pedro Araujo and Anthony Santander remain, with Santander surely to be optioned in mid-May when he satisfies his Rule 5 requirements.

But the Orioles haven't started 6-19 and been outscored by more runs than any other team simply because of a poor offseason approach. Nearly every player not named Manny Machado, Trey Mancini, Dylan Bundy, Chance Sisco, and Richard Bleier has had a rough start to the year. Jonathan Schoop, Mark Trumbo, Zach Britton, and Tim Beckham are on the disabled list. Caleb Joseph, Chris Davis, Santander, Rasmus, Cobb, Tillman, and Cortes have posted an fWAR of at least -0.2.  This horrible start, the worst through 25 games since 1988 and the second-worst in franchise history, can't be pinned on a few players. It's a group effort, and things seem broken beyond repair.

The Orioles have scored the third-fewest runs per game (3.28) among all teams while allowing the fourth-most runs (5.60). They have the worst on-base percentage in baseball (.289), the fifth-lowest slugging percentage (.366), the second-lowest wOBA (.289), the third-lowest wRC+ (78), and the second-highest strikeout percentage (26.9%). They have one player with a wRC+ over 110: Machado (192). Tillman and Cobb each have an ERA over 9.80, and the supposedly dependable arms in the bullpen have been disappointing. The list could go on and on, but you get the point.

So what now? Fans are calling for firings and accountability. Someone must be blamed for this embarrassment, and it's not like the Orioles can get rid of Davis and some of the other underachievers. Predictably, fans want to get rid of the hitting and pitches coaches, or to fire Showalter, or to kick Duquette to the curb. But it's too late to fix anything for 2018, and maybe that's hard to stomach. The Orioles went into the season with Showalter and Duquette as lame ducks. There was uncertainty then, and things don't look any better now. That's why it's time to start planning for what's next. What matters is 2019 and beyond.

My opinion is I'd like to see the Orioles go outside the organization to find an up-and-coming GM candidate to take over for Duquette. I don't know who that person would be, but I think it's time for something new. It's not hard to see the O's building around some of their young players - Bundy, Mancini, Sisco, Austin Hays, Hunter Harvey, Tanner Scott, Cedric Mullins, Ryan Mountcastle, and more - by adding intriguing prospects to their current crop of minor leaguers. That new GM would also be able to hire the manager he wants, hopefully allowing things to fall into place as smoothly as possible.

That's surely a pipe dream, of course. If I had to guess, Brady Anderson will be the team's next GM (if he wants the job) and Showalter will stick around in some capacity. I'd guess that won't be in the dugout. That setup would not inspire confidence. Duquette may end up falling on his sword for the current disaster, but Anderson played a heavy role this offseason and should face some of the same criticism. He also helped bring back O'Day and Trumbo in previous seasons, with neither of those signings performing as well as expected either.

The Orioles need some new voices. They need to start operating differently and bringing in different kinds of players. They need to improve player development and get more out of their prospects. They need to draft better. They need to actually spend in the international market to bolster their farm system. And they need to do all of these things soon.

But again, pipe dream. The Orioles, with this current ownership structure, are still maybe not a desirable landing spot for intriguing GM possibilities despite the recent run of success. Don't forget how the Orioles ended up with Duquette in the first place.

The time for decisiveness has long past. After 2018 was always going to be the cliff, and the O's barely did anything to prepare for it. They tried to win, in the only way the Orioles could. But it's over, and real plans need to be made. Who will be making decisions going forward? What happens if Anderson isn't the next GM? How would Showalter in a front office role actually work?

The Orioles will likely punt on all these decisions until the last minute, as usual, but it's time to start asking these questions, and hoping for new voices.

Polls Suggest Fans Growing Less Enamored with Dan Duquette

A lot can happen in the few months.  That is particularly true in baseball as the airiness of the off-season is replaced by actual performance when the season begins.  In those heady times this past January, so much was possible.  Several free agents had yet to sign.  The Orioles were waiting for players to slip through the cracks like they have in the past.  You could either be smitten with possibility or smiting with the lack of movement.

At the time, I asked on Twitter what people wished for (yes, this is unscientific polling).  Do they want Dan Duquette to remain as GM?  Or, perhaps move on to Brady Anderson.  Or, maybe elevate Buck Showalter to the top of the Warehouse.

If these were the only choices what would you prefer for GM / Manager?

— Camden Depot (@CamdenDepot) January 12, 2018

It was fairly even.  54% of respondents desired Duquette to remain in his role with 50% desiring the status quo of Dan and Buck.  It certainly has been a recipe of success over the years.  The club was the winningest American League club from 2012 through 2016.  The success from this pair has elevated Duquette to being the third most winningest general manager in Orioles history.  He will likely finish 2018 as the second most as he only needs about a dozen wins to overtake Lee MacPhail.

Anyway, since that poll was taken some things have happened.  Several free agents were signed and the players who were signed noted how great Brady Anderson was to work with.  By all optics, it appears that this off-season was dominated by the Brady plan.  Andrew Cashner applauded Brady when he signed.  He has done well, but his peripherals look frightening.  Chris Tillman was re-signed and noted working with Brady on it and he has been...well, he has been.  Let us not talk about that.  Alex Cobb was signed and noted Brady.  Cobb has, surprisingly, been the worst pitcher on the team based only on performance.  On the offensive end, Danny Valencia and Colby Rasmus have been at best uninspiring.

So the club has cratered and the folks who seemed to have been brought in by Brady to make the club competitive have not really worked out yet.  How did that change the poll numbers?

If these were the only choices what would you prefer for GM / Manager?

— Camden Depot (@CamdenDepot) April 17, 2018

The blame appears to have fallen fully on Duquette with respondent preference dropping from 54% to 19%.  Even though Brady's moves have been at best a mixed bag, he has overwhelming support to take the reins among these options.

Given these choices, what you do think?
I still must say that I would prefer Duquette leading things.  To me, he has shown to be successful in this absurd organization and that means something.  Several have tried and failed.  And, no, I don't think a consolidation of power behind Buck or Brady would be a good thing because their impact on player development has been, to be kind, curious.

Has The Orioles' Rule 5 Draft Fixation Helped?

The Orioles have been rightfully scolded for their Rule 5 strategy in 2018. It never made sense to begin the season with three Rule 5 players on the major league roster in a must-win season. Still, it is possible to add impactful players through the Rule 5 draft, even though the difficulty has increased as front offices have gotten smarter and done a better job evaluating their players and protecting the right ones.

Before Dan Duquette joined the organization, the Orioles did take players in the Rule 5 draft, but not every year. Some of their notable, relatively recent draft picks before Duquette include Jay Gibbons (2000), Jose Bautista (2003), and Alfredo Simon (2006).

With Duquette in the fold, the Orioles have drafted at least one Rule 5 player in the major league phase every season:

• Ryan Flaherty from the Cubs in 2011.
• T.J. McFarland from the Indians in 2012.
• Michael Almanzar from the Red Sox in 2013.
• Logan Verrett from the Mets in 2014. Also purchased Jason Garcia from the Astros.
• Joey Rickard from the Rays in 2015.
• Aneury Tavarez from the Red Sox in 2016. Also drafted Anthony Santander from the Indians. 
• Nestor Cortes Jr. and Jose Mesa Jr. from the Yankees; Pedro Araujo from the Cubs in 2017.

With five selections in the last two years, the O's have been more bold lately. But out of all the players above, the Orioles kept Flaherty, McFarland, Garcia, Rickard, Santander, and Araujo (so far). Almanzar, Verrett, Tavarez, Cortes, and Mesa were all eventually returned, though the O's were able to trade for Almanzar to keep him in the organization.

In their time with the Orioles up to this point, Flaherty (1.5), McFarland (0.5), Garcia (-0.2), Rickard (-0.1), Santander (-0.4), Araujo (0.1), and Cortes (-0.3) have combined for a collective fWAR of 1.1. One win in seven-plus years! Flaherty is far ahead of the field, though the O's are still hoping to play the long game with Santander and Araujo. (It's also worth noting that Verrett joined the O's in 2017 and briefly posted a -0.2 fWAR.)

The Rule 5 draft makes sense for some teams, in theory. It's a way to add an interesting player or two to a team's roster in order to hopefully keep them around for future years. And it's hard to be too critical of the O's for trying to add some talent to both their roster/farm system since they're always near the bottom in international spending. It's another avenue to explore. Plus, many of these players are the 25th man on the roster or close to it, so the expectations are low.

Still, it's a delicate balance because a team like the Orioles that has been a playoff contender in nearly every year under Buck Showalter usually tries to keep one of these players around while also trying to win. In addition, Rule 5 players limit roster flexibility since they cannot be optioned. Winning is tough enough; it's an extra challenge to do so while keeping someone around who maybe doesn't belong in the majors.

If you want to label the Rule 5 obsession a failure, that's not a stretch. But what matters is it hasn't helped much. The Orioles have really only added one or two minor contributors in Flaherty and (maybe) McFarland. Perhaps Santander and Araujo change things and make everything look better. In Santander's case, it's interesting that the Pirates are trying what the Orioles did with him: acquiring an injured Rule 5 player (in this case, Nick Burdi) and seeing how things progress to hopefully keep him around.

In the future, perhaps the Orioles will spend more internationally and rely less on the Rule 5 draft. For now, that's only wishful thinking.

Photo via Keith Allison. Stats via FanGraphs.

Book Review: Once Upon a Team: the Epic Rise and Historic Fall of Baseball's Wilmington Quicksteps

Baseball in the late 1800s is rather foreign to us.  The game was different.  Teams may have had 15 or fewer on the roster, but the club mainly got by with nine players and a second pitcher.  Contracts were largely doled out on a monthly basis and major league level clubs in the 1880s often only lasted a few seasons before disbanding or even falling apart mid-season.  One of the major issues of the time, if you ran a league, was exactly how to backfill teams that dropped out in order to fill out a schedule.  Indeed, baseball as a speculative venture is something that we only get hints of these days with the drawn out process of expansion clubs.

Once Upon a Team is a marvelous book by Jon Springer that explores the primordial ooze from which our current game of baseball emerged. The book investigates the 1880s when the reckless speculative nature of baseball investment was still quite strong.  It is a snapshot of baseball around 1884 with the focal point being the rocket ride that was the Wilmington Quicksteps.  The Quicksteps were a club that lasted for less than a season and were a major investment by John West, who had made his money off a sporting goods store and a gambling house.  His intent was to succeed in Wilmington with baseball where others had failed.  Although his payroll was meager compared to those in the three major league levels (i.e., National League, American Association, Union Association), it was large for the Eastern League, which was a step down from the others.

To give a sense of how unstable the game was, the Eastern League started the season out with eight teams.  By the end of the year, five of those eight had disbanded.  The major leagues fared better in-season with only the American Association and Union Association losing an entry apiece.  This led to the rather amazing fact that the St. Paul Whitecaps (2-6) are the only major league team in history that never played a home game.  Anyway, that is the backdrop.

The story itself follows the trials, tribulations, and success of a Wilmington team consisting of fringe stars like Oyster Burns, the Only Nolan, and Dan Casey.  The team ran roughshod over the Eastern League with those and a mix of colorful players.  However, the fans never really came and West was getting deeper into debt, so when the Union Association's Philadelphia Keystones disbanded, the Quicksteps took up their schedule.  That event resulted in a few players abandoning the club for better deals, such as Oyster Burns signing for a small fortune with the Baltimore Orioles, and the Quicksteps spiraling into terrible play as they entered a league with far more talent.

What really came through in this book though were the personalities and antics of the players.  The behind-the-scenes events that would shape the season and provide great context to the primordial ooze from which our current game emerged.

-----

Once Upon a Team: the Epic Rise and Historic Fall of Baseball's Wilmington Quicksteps
by Jon Springer
240 pages
Sports Publishing

At Least Manny Machado Is Hitting

It's almost amazing how inept the Orioles' lineup has been in the season's first month. Through April 23, the O's offense ranks in the bottom five among all MLB teams in the following categories: runs scored per game, batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, wOBA, wRC+, hard-hit percentage, and strikeout percentage.

Only two everyday players have a wRC+ over 72: Manny Machado (208) and Trey Mancini (113). Pedro Alvarez (109), Chance Sisco (91), and Danny Valencia (78) don't play every day, but they've been fine. Things get ugly for everyone else.

But instead of focusing on that, let's get back to Machado and that 208 wRC+. He needed to have a bounce-back season, and so far, he's been incredible. After consecutive 6+ fWAR seasons in 2015 and 2016, Machado's 2.5 fWAR 2017 was a disappointment. But in almost 100 plate appearances in 2018, Machado already has an fWAR of 1.6, which is tied for second best in the majors.

After posting a career low .265 BABIP last season, Machado has been much more fortunate on balls in play this year (.359 BABIP). Still, he's doing more than getting a few singles to drop in here and there. He's walking at what would be a career-best clip (12.1%; career-high 9.8% in 2015), and he's continuing to hit the ball hard:

Avg. exit velocity (via Baseball Savant)
2016: 90.3 (t-79th)
2017: 90.9 (t-16th)
2018 (so far): 91.2 (t-51st)

That ranking is low in 2018 because it's still relatively early in the season, but it shows that Machado is still making solid contact. And not only is he hitting the ball hard, but he's getting loft. His current flyball percentage of 52.8% is about 10% more than last season and would easily be a career high. Naturally, so would his average launch angle:

Avg. launch angle (via Baseball Savant)
2016: 19.7
2017: 18.4
2018 (so far): 21.7

It's too early to know if Machado is finally making his move to become one of the best hitters in baseball. Even though he's only 25 years old, he's seemingly had the tools for years but wasn't able to put everything together. But if he's getting on base, hitting the ball hard, and launching the ball over infielders' heads? He could be ready to have a monster year at the plate... in what will almost certainly be his final season in Baltimore. Better late than never.

Photo via Keith Allison. Stats via FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.

Chris Davis Is In Trouble

Orioles fans were hoping that Chris Davis would bounce back from a lackluster 2017. Once an elite bat, Chris Davis now has just a .164/.274/.274 line good for a wOBA of .252. According to TruMedia, this means he ranks 165th out of 180 qualified batters. Unsurprisingly, Davis’ contract has been ranked the worst in the majors by Joel Sherman. Naturally, Orioles fans are wondering if Chris Davis is finished with 4+ years remaining on his contract.

It doesn’t appear that his ability to control the strike zone is his issue. Davis has always had an issue with strikeouts, but it seems he’s improved slightly in that aspect this season. Davis’s 31% strikeout rate is within norms. His 3 to 1 strikeout to walk ratio is roughly in line with other seasons, so it doesn’t appear as if walks and strikeouts are causing him issues. In addition, his called ball and in play rates from this season are in the same range as they were from 2013-2017. It doesn’t appear that his issue is plate discipline.

That stated, he’s had 19 plate appearances against left handed pitchers and has struck out 12 times. His BABIP of 0 is not a good sign, but he’s only put the ball into play four times (one home run). He does have a high foul percentage, but he also has three times more swinging strikes against lefties than pitches put into play. It’s early, but this type of performance potentially shouts either terrible slump or platoon bat and that his days as an effective player in MLB are nearly finished.

Aside from his complete futility against lefties, his other issue is that he’s been able to put pitches into play, but hasn’t hit them hard. Matt K noticed that his exit velocity has gone from 90 mph in 2016/2017 to 82.4 mph in 2018. Pitches really need to be hit with at least an exit velocity of 95 mph for them to likely be hits, so a seven mph drop in exit velocity is terrible news for a batter. In 2018, he’s hit 13 out of 44 balls in play (29.5%) with an exit velocity of over 95 mph. From 2015-2017, roughly 45% of pitches he put into play had an exit velocity of over 95 mph. His drop in exit velocity has had a bad impact on him.

Of the forty-four pitches that Davis has put into play, fourteen have been less than .5 feet from the center of the plate and another fifteen have been between .5 feet and .95 feet. On the one hand, those are the types of pitches that batters want to put into play. The closer the ball is to the center of the plate, the easier it is to hit them hard. On the other hand, Davis only has a .180 wOBA against pitches that are between .5 feet and .95 feet, with an estimated wOBA of .360. A power hitter needs to be able to crush pitches in that range. Davis has been successful against pitches that are within .5 feet of the center of the plate (.504 actual wOBA vs .585 expected wOBA), but that by itself isn’t enough to be successful.

On the other hand, through 4/14, there have been 10,998 pitches put into play in 2018 and 3,978 of them have an exit velocity of at least 95 mph. That’s a 36% rate and suggests that while Chris Davis has gone from above average to below average in this metric, it doesn’t explain why he’s completely fallen apart. There’s a difference between below average and terrible.

Furthermore, other Statcast metrics are kinder to Chris Davis. Statcast (as of 4/14) thinks that the average pitch put into play in 2018 has a 33.5% chance of being a hit, an expected wOBA of .391 and an actual wOBA of .370. When Statcast rates Davis’s performance, it expects that he would have a .326 batting average on pitches put into play and an expected wOBA of .427. Meanwhile, Davis only has an actual wOBA of .311 on pitches put into play. If he had his expected results instead of his actual results on pitches put into play, he’d have a wOBA of .323 instead of .252. The average wOBA this season for qualified players is .337, so he’d still be below average. But he wouldn’t be one of the worst players in the majors. That's pretty much the realistic optimistic case for Davis at this point.

As Jon has mentioned a number of times, Chris Davis is slow. With a sprint speed of 25 ft/second, he ranks 285th out of 324 qualified players. It isn’t clear that this is impacting him at bat, but it certainly means that he’s not fit to play any position aside from 1B and DH. That’s not what one wants to see from a player that’s struggling to contribute offensively.

Going forward, it seems likely that he’ll improve against right handed pitching. It seems probable that he’s not going to be completely useless especially if he’s benched against lefties. Indeed, both Zips and Steamer think he’s going to bounce back with league-average offense and contribute about 1 WAR over the remainder of this season.

Still, he’s getting to the point where he’s not a fulltime player. Unless he makes drastic improvements against left-handed pitching, the Orioles will have to concede that point this season despite all of the money he’s owed. A platoon 1B/DH is worth at most $10M per year. Given that Davis still has nearly five years and nearly $115M remaining on his contract, that’s not what Orioles fans want to hear. The fact that his effective range is decreasing is also bad news. If he can’t do damage to pitches that aren’t in the center of the strike zone, it will be easy for opposing pitchers to strike him out.

It’s very likely that the albatross of Chris Davis’s contract is going to haunt the Orioles for years to come and make it even more difficult for them to compete in the future. It’s looking almost inevitable that he’ll be released before his contract ends.

Players Don't Need Unlimited Mound Visits

The Norfolk Tides finished their first homestand last week. I was fortunate to datacast three of those games - a 3-1 loss to Gwinnett on Friday, April 6; a 3-1 walkoff win over Gwinnett on Sunday, April 8; and a sloppy 7-1 win over Charlotte on Tuesday, April 10. There's not enough data in three games to draw any conclusions about the Tides players, but there is still something worth noting.

As all of you should know, there are have been some new rules, intended to improve the pace of game play, for minor league games this season. The most discussed has been the rule to start extra innings with a runner on second base, but none of the games I saw required extra-innings (thanks to a DJ Stewart walk-off home run.) Another rule change, one which I believe has been long overdue, limits the total number of mound visits to six, including both visits by coaches/managers and by other players.

This rule change had an immediate, noticeable effect in the first two games I saw. There was a total of one mound visit that did not result in a pitching change. In the Friday game, Gwinnett's pitching coach Reid Cornelius came out to the mound after Evan Phillips walked Joey Rickard to load the bases with one out. Phillips retired the next two batters without allowing a run. Earlier, Tides manager Ron Johnson went to the mound to relieve a struggling Joely Rodriguez. In the Sunday game, the Tides made two mid-inning pitching changes, but otherwise the players on both teams had to go at it without internal discussions or help from their coaches.

And this lack of discussion didn't seem to lessen the quality of play. Players knew where to throw the ball and knew where their teammates were going to be. Catchers and pitchers were in agreement on their signs. In short, players knew what to do without discussions of remote contingencies.

One day, before a game, the official scorer, the Tides radio play-by-play broadcaster, and I chatted about the rule changes. None of us really liked the extra-innings rule, although we all agreed that anything to end five-hour marathons decided by (1) which team first runs out of rested pitchers or (2) which team has a batter who hits a fly ball down the line and into the seats is a good thing. But we all agreed that too much of modern baseball has become dead time, and limiting the number of visits to the mound is a good start. And, at least so far, it hasn't hurt the game at all. I will be interested to see if that remains the case.

There is No Cavalry

As a child, hope sprung eternal for the fate of the Baltimore Orioles season.  Back then, the margins were thinner.  Rich teams and poor teams did not differ all that much from each other.  You could look and see how Alan Wiggins, Don Aase, or Sam Horn would revolutionize the club.  But, times changed.  Media-driven bags of cash have been thrown at clubs, more to the big media markets.  Baltimore was left behind even though they were on the front end of the cash grab.  My knowledge of baseball has also increased and I can see beyond what more pedestrian sources of baseball information report.

This past offseason, we knew starting pitching was an issue.  We knew that three-fifths of the rotation had to be acquired through external means.  We knew that Dylan Bundy and Kevin Gausman were not sure thing starters.  We knew that swingmen in the bullpen and Norfolk would probably be needed.  We knew these things because it happened before.  It happened last year.  It happened before then, too.  It occurred in 2012.

When Duquette took over the Fall before, he knew he had an issue with the starting rotation.  He had several young players who kept getting torched: Tommy Hunter, Brian Matusz, Chris Tillman, Jake Arrieta, and Zach Britton.  The club also did not like the other spots being filled with Jeremy Guthrie, Brad Bergesen, and Alfredo Simon.  This led to a shopping spree.  Guthrie went out and Jason Hammel came in.  Dana Eveland, Tsuyoshi Wada, Randy Wolf, Wei-Yin Chen, Armando Gallaraga, Miguel Gonzalez, Dontrelle Willis, Jamie Moyer, Chris George, Casey Fossum, and Joel Pineiro signed on.  The club also kept Jason Berken and Brad Bergesen around.  All in all, 25 different pitchers started a game in AAA.  Oh yeah, Joe Saunders showed up in August.

2012 began with a rotation of Jason Hammel, Jake Arrieta, Tommy Hunter, Wei-Yin Chen, and Brian Matusz.  2012 ended with a rotation of Wei-Yin Chen, Miguel Gonzalez, Chris Tillman, Joe Saunders, and Steve Johnson (covering for an injured Jason Hammel).  The club went through 12 total starters trying to find the right ones with only Wei-Yin Chen earning more than 20 starts.  For the most part, it was ugly, but it helped the club find useful non-negative value pitching and limited the damage that a full season of starting that Arrieta, Hunter, and Matusz would have done to the club.

In 2017, the club trotted out 11 pitchers to the mound, but had trouble finding anything useful beyond Bundy and usually Gausman.  Wade Miley somehow started 32 games.  The club could not prevent Ubaldo Jimenez from his 25 starts.  The Tillman trainwreck appeared 19 times for a first pitch.  No solutions were found with Jeremy Hellickson (who was highly displeased with being sent to the Orioles in a trade), Alec Asher, Gabriel Ynoa, Miguel Castro, and Jayson Aquino.  The lack of depth prevented the Orioles from mixing around their starting rotation and forced them to keep penciling in arms they knew would not work.

With that experience in mind, one would imagine that the Orioles would then see a massive influx of fringe starting pitching talent on par with the 2012 refitting.  The club was able to snag a decent middle of the rotation arm in Alex Cobb, a backend arm in Andrew Cashner, and a flyer on Chris Tillman.  Rising up in Norfolk were David Hess and Yefry Ramirez.  To beef up MiL options, Asher Wojciechowski, Jayson Aquino, Tim Melville, Eddie Gamboa, Michael Kelly, and David Holmberg were signed.  It simply was not the onslaught of starting talent that they worked through in 2012.

And so the club is in this position now.  They let numerous pitchers go in the offseason.  Last fall, I suggested the club secure pitchers such as Ryan Carpenter, David Hurlbut, and Drew Hutchison.  None of them look particularly interesting, but they would add more fodder for the canons.  You could add Scott Barlow to that list.  And, really, there were fringe starters beyond those who would be of interest.  The Orioles largely sat on their hands and now they are forced to trot guys out to the mound who should not be there.  And so the club repeats the situation they found themselves in last year.

Below are the current crop of Norfolk starters and percentile projections of ERA.

Asher Wojciechowski

Projected	ERA
10th	25th	50th	75th	90th
7.15	6.52	5.77	5.08	4.46
Norfolk
IP	K	BB	ERA
6.2	4	5	6.75

David Hess

Projected	ERA
10th	25th	50th	75th	90th
7.68	6.96	6.29	5.57	4.99
Norfolk
IP	K	BB	ERA
5	7	0	1.8

Tim Melville

Projected	ERA
10th	25th	50th	75th	90th
7.26	6.55	5.81	4.99	4.42
Norfolk
IP	K	BB	ERA
4	6	3	4.5

Jayson Aquino
Projected	ERA
10th	25th	50th	75th	90th
6.57	5.91	5.35	4.73	4.19
Norfolk
IP	K	BB	ERA
9	4	5	6

Yefry Ramirez
Projected	ERA
10th	25th	50th	75th	90th
8.61	8.02	7.07	6.21	5.5
Norfolk
IP	K	BB	ERA
8.2	7	4	2.08

Jimmy Yacabonis
Projected	ERA
10th	25th	50th	75th	90th
7.87	6.89	6.12	5.33	4.78
Norfolk
IP	K	BB	ERA
5	4	3	7.2