In 2013, FA Hitters More Often Hit the DL and Had Worse Injuries than Pitchers

Yesterday, Brewers General Manager Doug Melvin said this on MLB Radio:

Melvin on Garza: "Last year, 67% of all FA pitcher signings ended up on the DL, and you always need to be aware of it, and cautious."
— MLB Network Radio (@MLBNetworkRadio) January 29, 2014

It is an interesting statement.  Two out of every three free agent pitcher signings ended up on the DL.  You always need to be aware and cautious.  However, I would challenge a few things with this statement:

1. I assume all free agent pitchers includes relievers as well as lowly paid starters with enough questions behind them that they have a high fail probability.  If we are talking about a starting pitcher like Garza, do we really want to include all of these other players in the mix.
2. 67% sounds like a lot, but what is the DL rate of position players?  Did pitchers disproportionately wind up on the DL?

Thankfully, these are all things we can count with ease.  I do need to define a few things though.

Population: I included starting pitchers and position players who either signed a multi-year deal in excess of 10 MM or a single season in excess of 5 MM.  This left me with 16 starting pitchers and 23 position players.
Disabled List: This may not really need to be defined, but I wish to be explicit here.  I am only counting trips officially on the DL and I am not counting a player leaving the team for a funeral, a birth, or some other personal reason.  This may be somewhat unfair as some position players may be able to hide on the bench with an injury while a starting pitcher typically needs to pitch or will go on the DL.  One example of a player who misses a lot of games, but does not find himself on the DL is Marco Scutaro.  Last year, he missed 22 games due to day-to-day issues, but never gave up his active roster spot.

2013 Starting Pitcher Free Agents
Below is the list of pitchers we are including in this post:

PLAYER	AGE	TEAM	YRS	DOLLARS	DL	GAMES
Zack Greinke	30	Dodgers	6	$147,000,000	Y	29
Anibal Sanchez	29	Tigers	5	$80,000,000	Y	24
Edwin Jackson	30	Cubs	4	$52,000,000	N	0
Hyun-Jin Ryu	26	Dodgers	6	$36,000,000	N	5
Ryan Dempster	36	Red Sox	2	$26,500,000	N	0
Jeremy Guthrie	34	Royals	3	$25,000,000	N	0
Brandon McCarthy	30	Diamondbacks	2	$15,500,000	Y	57
Joe Blanton	33	Angels	2	$15,000,000	N	0
Hiroki Kuroda	38	Yankees	1	$15,000,000	N	2
Hisashi Iwakuma	32	Mariners	2	$14,000,000	N	0
Dan Haren	33	Nationals	1	$13,000,000	Y	14
Andy Pettitte	41	Yankees	1	$12,000,000	Y	19
Kevin Correia	33	Twins	2	$10,000,000	N	0
Brett Myers	33	Indians	1	$7,000,000	Y	116
Scott Feldman	30	Cubs	1	$6,000,000	N	0
Scott Baker	32	Cubs	1	$5,500,000	Y	141
		On DL	7	44%
		>50 games	3	19%

Among these pitchers, only 44% wound up on the disabled list.  That seems to me to be quite a departure from the 67% Melvin cited.  To be fair, I imagine he also included relievers and pitchers below the 5 MM mark.  I think it might be fair to provide some conjecture here.  I would imagine relievers are injured more often than starters because relievers tend to he hard throwing pitchers with violent deliveries.  Those characteristics tend to mean that mechanics are somewhat poor and that probably leads to a higher injury rate.  Additionally, I imagine starting pitchers who fetch less than 5 MM have significant questions attached to them and health might be one of those.

That all said, Melvin made that comment in context with Matt Garza.  That seems to me to be an unfair comparison.  Pitchers who teams think are worth significant contracts tend not to suffer an injury rate as high as the quote suggests.  But, is it high?

2013 Position Player Free Agents
Using the same contract stipulations, here is the position player list:

PLAYER	POS	AGE	NEW TEAM	YRS	DOLLARS	DL	Games
Josh Hamilton	RF	32	Angels	5	$123,000,000	N	7
B.J. Upton	CF	29	Braves	5	$75,250,000	Y	18
Nick Swisher	1B	33	Indians	4	$56,000,000	N	9
Michael Bourn	CF	31	Indians	4	$48,000,000	Y	23
Angel Pagan	CF	32	Giants	4	$40,000,000	Y	87
Shane Victorino	RF	33	Red Sox	3	$39,000,000	Y	34
Torii Hunter	RF	38	Tigers	2	$26,000,000	N	4
Cody Ross	LF	33	Diamondbacks	3	$26,000,000	Y	56
Adam LaRoche	1B	34	Nationals	2	$24,000,000	N	6
Marco Scutaro	2B	38	Giants	3	$20,000,000	N	22
Russell Martin	C	30	Pirates	2	$17,000,000	N	7
Melky Cabrera	LF	29	Blue Jays	2	$16,000,000	Y	72
Ryan Ludwick	LF	35	Reds	2	$15,000,000	Y	116
Ichiro Suzuki	RF	40	Yankees	2	$13,000,000	N	0
Jeff Keppinger	2B	33	White Sox	3	$12,000,000	N	13
Kevin Youkilis	3B	34	Yankees	1	$12,000,000	Y	132
Lance Berkman	DH	37	Rangers	1	$11,000,000	Y	52
Jonny Gomes	LF	33	Red Sox	2	$10,000,000	N	0
Maicer Izturis	2B	33	Blue Jays	3	$10,000,000	Y	36
Stephen Drew	SS	30	Red Sox	1	$9,500,000	Y	25
A.J. Pierzynski	C	37	Rangers	1	$7,500,000	Y	14
Mark Reynolds	1B	30	Indians	1	$6,000,000	N	0
Mike Napoli	1B	32	Red Sox	1	$5,000,000	N	6
			On DL	12	52%
			>50 games	6	26%

For this season, both the percentage of players who spent time on the DL and the percentage of players who spent lengthy stays on the DL were greater than those for pitchers.  The quote now seems to break down on both of the points I suggested.  Of course, this is with my stipulation of only considering players with large investments being made by the team.  In other words, Melvin is probably being 100% truthful, but he may be altering his population to fit his needs.  For instance, it might be more beneficial when talking to an agent to bring up a statistic that suggests that pitchers are incredibly brittle.

Conclusion
All in all, this might be a situation where the cart might be leading the horse.  What I mean to say is that players who appear healthy wind up get a large salary because teams are confidant they will get proper value out of the player.  That probably is not true all of the time, but it likely is a major factor when teams think about how much money to offer.

A second point not explored in this post is what exactly happens after year 1 in a multi-year deal?  We would need more seasons of data, but it would be interesting to see how much value is retained into year 2, 3, 4, and 5 as a contract progresses.  Is there a higher injury rate for pitchers over several years?  Do hitters tend to retain their performance to a higher degree than pitchers.

Regardless, the take home here is that you might want to reconsider repeating Melvin's quote because it certainly appears misleading.

Kyle Lohse Needs to Wait, But Not for O's

Spring Training has been going on for a while now and Kyle Lohse finds himself still without a team.  Recently, he claimed that he had seen no offers, but that is likely a product of him demanding a certain salary level that teams find prohibitive.  What likely makes the salary prohibitive is that it is tied to the forfeiture of a draft pick.  The Cardinals offered Lohse arbitration salary just over 13 million, which Lohse declined due to him (and his agent) incorrectly assessing his worth.

So what is the situation?

Lohse is worth about 15 MM in 2013 if he falls in line with his projections (mid to upper 3s for ERA).  The value of a draft pick (starting with the Mets at 11 and ending with the Indians 3rd rounder) ranges from around 12 MM to 3 MM (value comes from the probability of a player becoming a starter as well as how much a team saves while having a player under the renewal and arbitration control rules).  For most teams (meaning the most likely teams to acquire him), their picks are in the late teens and twenties, which roughly translates to 9 MM.  I shared some of this approach back in December.

The following contracts are based on his worth with expected 0.5 WAR decreases due to aging and an increase in cost per win of 5%:

1 yr 15 MM
2 yr 28.1 MM
3 yr 39.2 MM

With the draft pick value attached we get the following deals:

1 yr 6 MM
2 yr 19.1 MM
3 yr 30.2 MM

However, I think there really is another option.  What if Lohse simply waits?  If he signs after the draft in early June, then he can sign without a draft pick associated with him.  That would be a cost savings to a team of 9 MM.  Of course, with him signing in June and needing a couple weeks to get back into MLB playing shape...he will be able to give whatever club signs him only 18 games to start.  That value would be about 8.4 MM or a loss of 6.6 MM.

This would be a net gain of 2.4 MM for Lohse.  Turning the contracts into:

1 yr 8.4 MM
2 yr 21.5 MM
3 yr 32.6 MM

I think this is actually a conservative perspective on how much Lohse could earn.  By waiting it out, you may wind up with teams becoming more needy in terms of arms and more willing to sign Lohse to a backloaded deal.  Of course, it would be prudent for him and his agency to put in for insurance in case he somehow injures himself before he is able to sign a deal, but, at this point, I think Lohse can wait.

So what about the Orioles?

Well, a common refrain is that Lohse is a flyball pitcher who would be crushed at Camden Yards.  Busch Stadium is actually rather kind to flyball pitchers by depressing homerun rates by 9% while Camden increased them by 31%.  That sounds to many as a recipe for disaster, but I question that perspective.  Lohse is indeed a flyball pitcher, but not by much.  The average pitcher induces groundballs 44% of the time while Lohse does so at 42%.  Lohse's 19 home runs given up would go up to 27 if he played only at Camden Yards.  Wei-Yin Chen gave up 29.  Lohse does not strikeout as many batters as Chen, but he also does not walk as many.

To me, that is not the issue.  To me, the issue is really about what kind of team this is and I think the Orioles are a 4th or 5th place squad.  I think spending market rate for a 2 or 3 win improvement over whoever our 5th slot pitcher becomes is not incredibly useful when this team will be fighting hard to finish above .500.

Dan Duquette's Grand Pitching Plan: Its Jurrjens Time!

Last year, Dan Duquette disappointed many an Orioles fan.  I will not go through most of the transactions, but here is a subset involving acquisitions of pitching talent:

November 22, 2011 - Signed P Miguel Socolovich
December 8, 2011 - Traded P Jarret Martin and UTL Tyler Henson for P Dana Eveland
December 13, 2011 - Signed P Tsuyoshi Wada
December 16, 2011 - Signed P John Link
January 4, 2012 - Signed P Willie Eyre
January 9, 2012 - Signed P Ross Wolf
January 10, 2012 - Signed P Wei-Yin Chen
January 18, 2012 - Signed P Armando Galarraga and P Oscar Villareal
January 20, 2012 - Signed P Dennys Reyes
January 21, 2012 - Signed P Chris George

So...how inspiring is that list?  Faced with a mess of a rotation at the end of 2011, Duquette decided to keep Jake Arrieta, Chris Tillman, Brian Matusz, Tommy Hunter, Brad Bergesen, and Zach Britton.  At this point, he was also far along in sending Jeremy Guthrie to the Rockies for Jason Hammel.  Duquette decided to collect additional bottom tier arms in Eveland, Wada, Wolf, Chen, and Galarraga.  What this does is that it allows you to play the entire field to figure out your actual rotation.  If you collect a bunch of bottom fringe arms, it enables you to cast away players who do not perform well with those who might be doing well in spring training or in the minors.  That gives you a lot of freedom by not hindering the Major League club with big money deals on players who will not agree with being sent to the minors.

The key though is looking at this group and being able to discern which players are the useful ones and which are the ones the team should feel free to expose on waivers.  It can certainly be argued that the Orioles made mistakes by designating Alfredo Simon instead of releasing Kevin Gregg or designating Brad Bergesen instead of releasing Kevin Gregg when the team acquired Omar Quintanilla.  Both Simon and Bergesen were lights out coming out of the bullpen for the Reds and Diamondbacks, respectively.  Their loss was not felt much by the Orioles because they had a massive amount of relief arms that could fill in any role.  However, again, the bulky contract given to Kevin Gregg probably is a big reason why he stayed instead of the lower cost pitchers like Simon or Bergesen.  But, yes, they were not big losses and the team, with a large stable of fringe arms, was able to find effective replacements.

The point is that if you acquire a great deal of low end talent, you provide yourself with cheap opportunity to find talent or performance that was overlooked.  It can be argued that signing a half dozen sixth starters is much more useful than signing someone like Joe Saunders to a three year deal when he likely represents 4th or 5th slot performance for a first division team.

Why bring all of this up?

February 15, 2013 - Orioles sign starting pitcher Jair Jurrjens and designate for assigment.

Jurrjens is familiar with many an Orioles fan due to his appearance in many a Adam Jones to Atlanta deal.  Based on what information there is available it seems an impasse arose when the Braves offered Martin Prado, who was recently a big piece in a deal for Justin Upton, Jair Jurrjens, and a couple fringe low minor arms for Jones.  The Orioles balked and demanded that two of the following be added: Brandon Beachy, Randall Delgado, Mike Minor, Julio Teheran, and Arodys Vizcaino.  Unfortunately for the Braves, they broke off talks as 20/20 hindsight shows that offering Jurrjens, Teheran, and Vizcaino would have been a steal for them.  The value of those three has tanked.  Beachy wound up going under the knife and won't be much of a contributor until 2014.  Delgado is going West in the Upton deal.  Mike Minor is healthy and looks like a good mid-rotation arm.  In other words, it is probably a good thing the Orioles kept Jones.

Why did Jurrjens' value drop even though he was dominating the NL halfway through the 2011 season?  Injuries have led to Jurrjens coming over the top more in his release.  Changes in his mechanics have led to a higher release point, poorer command, and reduced velocity.  He used to sit around 91 mph and creep up to 96 mph, but injuries lowered that to 89 mph, topping out at 91.  That may not seem like a major drop in velocity, but you can consider Chris Tillman here.  Tillman, of course, uses a different repertoire, but losing two or three mph results in a lot less swing and misses.  He saw an increase in batter contact from 83 to 90% with much of that, amazing, coming on contct with pitches out of the zone.  If players are connecting, then it increases the likelihood that they will be getting on base.  Based on Jurrjens velocity at the end of last year (before a groin injury ended his season), he was still an upper 80s pitcher.

Ok, so why did Duquette signed a low end pitcher with three seasons upended by leg injuries and continued reduced velocity?  Well, he is cheap and he can be optioned if he makes the 40 man roster.  Jurrjens can be optioned to Norfolk this year, go through arbitration next year, and be optioned again in 2014.  That maneuverability make Jurrjens a player that you can shuttle back and forth between Baltimore and Norfolk, hoping he gets back on the right track.  This would be similar to how Tillman and Matusz were treated. Hoarding and moving fringe rotation talent does seem to be a characteristics of this regime.

Here is a probably starting pitching depth chart:

Jason Hammel
Wei-Yin Chen
Chris Tillman
Miguel Gonzalez
Zach Britton
Jake Arrieta
Steve Johnson
Brian Matusz
Jair Jurrjens
Tommy Hunter
Dylan Bundy
Tsuyoshi Wada

I would group Hammel and Chen as locks.  Tillman would have to do something awfully wrong to get bumped.  Gonzalez, Britton, and Arrieta are likely in some measure in a fight for two positions.  Johnson will have a hard time finding an in while Matusz will be given an opportunity if he is dominant in Spring Training.  Of the rest, Jurrjens and Bundy are the two who could race up the chart and nestle in behind Hammel and Chen.  On April 2nd, Jurrjens has a better probability to have done that.  On August 1st, Bundy would be the one with the better probability.

Arrivals and Departures (2/10/12)

A short primer on options was provided in an earlier post found here.  If you have any further questions about this issue or other baseball related issues, feel free to email us at CamdenDepot@gmail.com.

40 Man Transactions since 2/8/2013:

February 9, 2013 - The Orioles avoided two years of arbitration with Darren O'Day by agreeing to a two year deal worth 5.4 MM and a 2015 club option worth 4.25 MM with 0.5 MM buyout. 

There is a significant number of baseball analysts who view any long term commitment to relievers to be anathema.  The idea behind that is that relievers are a volatile commodity that can be difficult to measure by performance.  For instance, 60 innings pitched informs us to a limited extent how good a pitcher actually is.  For instance, you may remember Kurt Ainsworth's 3.82 ERA over 66 IP with the Giants before the Orioles acquired him in the Sidney Ponson deal.  You may also remember short stretches where John Parrish, Eric DuBose, or Chris Waters might actually have a solid place in the rotation for years to come.  For relievers, an unrepeatable performance level is more likely to occur because a reliever can be limited to a few batters with a handed advantage.  Pitchers, such as Chris Britton, Jason Berken, and Jorge Julio demonstrate that.  Part of the mentioned failings are due to exceptionally lucky performance while others relate to injury issues.

For followers of the Orioles, there are also some shallow wounds.  Money was directed from other potential assets and forced toward players like Jamie Walker (3 years, 12 MM), Danys Baez (3 years, 19 MM), and Chad Bradford (3 years, 10.5 MM) all in 2007.  It was a relatively decent idea in concept.  The Orioles had the worst bullpen in baseball in 2006.  The bullpen actually had a negative fWAR of 1.5, meaning that they gave up about 15 runs more than an abstract team composed of generically available AAA relievers.  That is awful.  The following season saw an increase to 1.4 fWAR for the pen, which is what you expect when you sign three pitchers who are worth about 3 wins.  Unfortunately for the rest of the team plan, the Steve Trachsel addition did not provide much and neither did Daniel Cabrera or Adam Loewen break out to be average or better pitchers.  For the offense, Aubrey Huff struggled in his first season with the team and Corey Patterson, Ramon Hernandez, and Melvin Mora all entered into spirals.  So, yes, relief investment is a tricky thing when it is part of the larger plan for a team to compete.

However, Darren O'Day's contract seems like a good deal to me.  It buys him out of his last two years of arbitration and sets up an option year for the value less than what a win will go for in the market place.  Essentially, the Orioles are securing a player at a price roughly equivalent to 1 win value (when considering arbitration) for three years.  If you like fWAR (pitchers are not wholly responsible for batted balls), then 3 fWAR looks pretty spot on for the next three years.  If you like bWAR (pitchers are more responsible for balls in play), then he is worth about 6 bWAR over the next three years.  In other words, he appears to be something between a good to great reliever.  Not too shabby for a waiver wire pickup.

However, you may have some concern about his 2011 season, which saw horrible performance coupled with a labrum injury.  For comparison, here are his run rate stats over his career:

	ERA	SIERA	FIP	xFIP	HR/FB
2008	4.57	3.82	3.64	4.29	4.9%
2009	1.84	3.18	3.03	3.80	4.7%
2010	2.03	3.45	3.50	3.89	6.8%
2011	5.40	2.97	7.59	3.86	30.4%
2012	2.28	2.75	2.96	3.40	8.2%

ERA and FIP are none too fond of the 16 and two thirds innings O'Day pitched in 2011.  A major reason for that is neither of them regress the contribution of home runs in their formulation.  Both SIERA and xFIP are descriptive metrics that try to measure player ability during a certain year with the assumption that weird things happen outside of a player's ability.  There also appears to be a tendency for sidearm pitchers to, on average, outperform their SIERA, FIP, and xFIP values with respect to ERA.  O'Day, of course, is a little different than traditional sidearmers in that he enjoys living up in the zone and does it quite effectively by inducing infield flies consistently above 15% of the time.  That combined with a track record of consistently allowing fewer than 10% of flyballs out of the park is something that is quite special and effective.

Injury issues may be another concern with O'Day:

	Injury	Days Lost
2008	Labrum (shoulder)	Offseason
2009	None
2010	Elbow Bone Bruise	Spring Training
	Back Soreness	13
2011	Labrum (Hip)	66
2012	Groin Tightness	Spring Training

With pitchers, the major concerns are in the throwing arm, lower back, and legs.  Any recurrent or major injury in those players is something to throw up a red flag.  Although O'Day has had noted injuries all over, really only the cartilage issue in his shoulder in 2008 and the hip labrum of 2011 are of concern here.  The shoulder labrum injury does not appear to have affected him since it occurred.  It makes me feel comfortable that it is improbable to be an issue going forward in the short term.  Surgery was required for his hip labrum in 2011 and he was not the same pitcher when he returned, based on performance.  Last spring, further concern about his hip arose when he suffered a groin strain, but was somewhat relieved when he was able to pitch without incident for the entire year.  From that perspective, I see that more as a yellow flag: something that would prevent me from paying first division money for a reliever (>5 MM).

As is, I find the deal to be agreeable, but not exceptional.  If O'Day stays healthy and the Orioles assume the 2015 season, then it gives them about a million or two savings for a middle reliever or perhaps four million in savings for a closer if he takes over from Jim Johnson.  Not every extension can be expected of accruing a massive amount in savings and this one, like Adam Jones', fits in as a reasonable slightly cost saving maneuver.  My guess is that the Orioles signing Jones last spring probably saved the team about 5 - 10 MM over six years if they had taken him to free agency.  I think someone would have valued him similarly to B.J. Upton if not slightly more so if they believed in Jones' glove.  In that case, maybe the Orioles saved 15 - 20 MM, which would be a major cost savings though an ultimate value that probably is not reflective of Jones' actual worth.

	Options Remaining
	*	3	2	1
Pitchers
Jake Arrieta		7/6/2012	O	O
Luis Ayala		X	X	X
Mike Belfiore		O	O	O
Zach Britton		7/9/2011	6/6/2012	O
Dylan Bundy	3/11/2012	O	O	O
Wei-Yin Chen		|	|	|
Zach Clark		O	O	O
Miguel Gonzalez		O	O	O
Jason Hammel		X	X	X
Tommy Hunter		8/16/2008	4/1/2009	5/7/2012
Jim Johnson		6/3/2006	3/12/2007	5/1/2010
Steve Johnson		6/3/2012	O	O
Brian Matusz	3/14/2009	6/30/2011	7/1/2012	O
TJ McFarland		1/5/1900	1/5/1900	5
Darren O'Day		5/13/2008	O	O
Troy Patton		3/14/2009	3/15/2010	3/11/2011
Todd Redmond		3/16/2009	3/18/2012	O
Pedro Strop		3/10/2008	3/24/2010	5/4/2011
Chris Tillman		3/30/2010	5/29/2011	3/31/2012
Tsuyoshi Wada		X	X	X
Catchers
Luis Exposito		3/17/2011	3/23/2012	O
Taylor Teagarden		7/21/2008	4/27/2010	3/29/2011
Matt Wieters		O	O	O
Infielders
Wilson Betemit		X	X	X
Russ Canzler		3/30/2012	O	O
Alexi Casilla		3/23/2007	3/14/2008	5/6/2009
Chris Davis		7/6/2009	4/23/2010	3/29/2011
Ryan Flaherty		O	O	O
J.J. Hardy		X	X	X
Manny Machado		O	O	O
Yamaico Navarro		3/17/2011	5/29/2012	O
Brian Roberts		X	X	X
Jonathan Schoop		O	O	O
Danny Valencia		3/19/2010	5/9/2012	O
Outfielders
Xavier Avery		5/29/2012	O	O
L.J. Hoes		O	O	O
Adam Jones		X	X	X
Nick Markakis		X	X	X
Nate McLouth		X	X	X
Nolan Reimold		3/20/2009	5/12/2010	3/28/2011

A "|" denotes an understanding that the player must agree to being sent to the minors.

"Rule 5" denotes that the player cannot be sent down without being offered back to his previous parent club.

Arrivals and Departures (2/5/2013)

A short primer on options was provided in an earlier post found here.  If you have any further questions about this issue or other baseball related issues, feel free to email us at CamdenDepot@gmail.com.

40 Man Transactions since 1/7/2013:

February 5, 2013 - Corner infielder and corner outfielder Russ Canzler was claimed off waivers from the New York Yankees with catcher Luis Martinez, claimed in December from the Texas Rangers, was designated for assignment.

When Luis Martinez was acquired, we suggested that he was a "kick the tires" sort of addition.  He profiled as a contact oriented hitter with good plate discipline and defense along with a paucity of power.  Martinez was also attractive because he had one option remaining.  However, time passed and the Orioles found a better 40th man in Russ Canzler.

Whereas Martinez provided additional depth at catcher, Luis Exposito already fulfills that role.  Canzler, on the other hand, can stand at first, third, left field, and right field.  He also has options (two) remaining, so he can be shuttled back and forth between Norfolk and Baltimore as the need arises.  At first glance, one might think that Canzler would be an excellent solution as a DH against left handed batters with an MLB OPS split of .526/1.086, but that performance has been collected over 102 plate appearances in total.  In AAA, he has a split of .863/.866.  This suggests that Canzler's prowess against lefties at the MLB level is not what it seems to be.

Regardless, Russ Canzler is the new tire to be kicked.

	Options Remaining
	*	3	2	1
Pitchers
Jake Arrieta		7/6/2012	O	O
Luis Ayala		X	X	X
Mike Belfiore		O	O	O
Zach Britton		7/9/2011	6/6/2012	O
Dylan Bundy	3/11/2012	O	O	O
Wei-Yin Chen		|	|	|
Zach Clark		O	O	O
Miguel Gonzalez		O	O	O
Jason Hammel		X	X	X
Tommy Hunter		8/16/2008	4/1/2009	5/7/2012
Jim Johnson		6/3/2006	3/12/2007	5/1/2010
Steve Johnson		6/3/2012	O	O
Brian Matusz	3/14/2009	6/30/2011	7/1/2012	O
TJ McFarland		1/5/1900	1/5/1900	5
Darren O'Day		5/13/2008	O	O
Troy Patton		3/14/2009	3/15/2010	3/11/2011
Pedro Strop		3/10/2008	3/24/2010	5/4/2011
Chris Tillman		3/30/2010	5/29/2011	3/31/2012
Tsuyoshi Wada		X	X	X
Catchers
Luis Exposito		3/17/2011	3/23/2012	O
Taylor Teagarden		7/21/2008	4/27/2010	3/29/2011
Matt Wieters		O	O	O
Infielders
Wilson Betemit		X	X	X
Russ Canzler		3/30/2012	O	O
Alexi Casilla		3/23/2007	3/14/2008	5/6/2009
Chris Davis		7/6/2009	4/23/2010	3/29/2011
Ryan Flaherty		O	O	O
J.J. Hardy		X	X	X
Manny Machado		O	O	O
Yamaico Navarro		3/17/2011	5/29/2012	O
Brian Roberts		X	X	X
Jonathan Schoop		O	O	O
Danny Valencia		3/19/2010	5/9/2012	O
Outfielders
Xavier Avery		5/29/2012	O	O
L.J. Hoes		O	O	O
Adam Jones		X	X	X
Nick Markakis		X	X	X
Nate McLouth		X	X	X
Nolan Reimold		3/20/2009	5/12/2010	3/28/2011
Trayvon Robinson		3/18/2010	3/14/2011	3/17/2012

A | denotes an understanding that the player must agree to being sent to the minors.

"Rule 5" denotes that the player cannot be sent down without being offered back to his previous parent club.