Arrivals And Departures: Improving The 25th Man

There was a great deal of roster juggling this past week, so I will only list when players arrived or left the organization.

      8/4/15 - signed RHP Andrew Robinson to a Minor League Deal
     8/7/15 - recalled LF/DH Junior Lake and DFAed OF Travis Snider
     8/8/15 - released RHP Bud Norris
     8/9/15 - signed LHP Nick Additon to a Minor League Deal

To provide enough information to be dangerous on the smaller deals, Additon and Robinson are likely only to be expected to provide pitching depth.  You may remember Additon from last year when he signed with the Orioles system after leaving the Cardinals organization.  He found success in Bowie with a nice run of five games, but found it difficult to replicate that performance in Norfolk and was relegated to the bullpen.  This year he signed with Milwaukee and was brutalized pitching at Colorado Springs.  What kind of pitcher is he?  Additon maxes out around 88, but is able to play that off of good feel for a changeup and excellent control.  He has never tasted the Majors even though he has logged 108 games at AAA with 73 starting.

I cannot make you dangerous on Andrew Robinson.  I have nothing on him either than him being released after having a successful 34 game stint in the bullpen for the Braves AA team.

This past week also saw the Orioles throw the towel on Travis Snider.  They acquired Snider for Stephen Tarpley and Steven Brault.  Tarpley has solved A ball with a 2.32 ERA and an 8.8 K/9 over 14 starts.  However, he is regarded by some in the industry as still not being among the Pirates top 20 prospects.  Brault has risen to AA and has a 2.80 ERA and a 9.7 K/9 over 10 starts.  He also is not regarded as a front line prospect despite the dominating performance.  In other words, these two still appear to be on a path to being somewhat meaningful middle relievers, which would be worth more than what Snider was worth for the Orioles this year.

Snider was acquired to increase the odds that the Orioles would have right field resolved after the departure of Nick "Two Home Runs" Markakis.  As we all know, corner outfield has been a major issue for the club this year and is now being largely addressed with Chris Davis pretending to be an outfielder and deadline acquisition Gerardo Parra.  Snider's 237/318/341 bat was relegated to the bench, which marked the beginning of the end.  He showed poor contact, poor power, and a marginal walk rate.  It was reminiscent of his performance when he suffered from bone spurs in his foot a couple seasons ago.  This year there has been no word about any foot injury, so that might simply be a convenient narrative without any truth to it.

With Snider's departure, in comes what might well be a bit of a merry-go-round.  Junior Lake is politely described as a "post-prospect."  Lake raged through the minors, showing off flashes of basepath brilliance and big power.  These tools were particularly interesting as the Cubs kept trotting him out at shortstop.  Eventually, they gave up on that defensive experiment and shifted him to the corner outfield where he also has shown little aptitude.  He also lost his baserunning prowess along the way.  What remains is a 25-year-old who has 646 plate appearances over several cups of coffee in the Majors and a slash line of 241/283/381.  Maybe the club sees something in Lake that Snider did not have or maybe Lake is simply not Snider or, more cynically, they felt they had to bring Lake up for a cup of coffee to explain away why they dumped Tommy Hunter.

Over the next week, it would not be surprising to see Lake drop back down to Norfolk.  Others following the team have offered outfielder David Lough as a DFA candidate.  The argument goes that Gerardo Parra provides the team with a backup centerfielder, which was the main function Lough served.  This year Lough has seen his hitting crater with a 213/256/336 slash.  He appears to be more willing to swing early in the count.  Also, echoing sentiment from what Buck has professed Lough to do, he is putting the ball on the ground more with softer contact and is no longer trying to pull the ball.  My suggestion here is that the Orioles have tinkered with Lough, making him into something that is unworkable for him.  He needs to go back to focusing on driving the ball and stop slapping.  If he can somehow perform similarly as he did last year, he could be worth about 0.6 wins over the last two months.

Your 40 man roster with options:

Arrivals and Departures: Sorting Out Last Week (8/3/2015)

There was a great deal of action for the Orioles leading up to and after the deadline:

July 31st
Zach Davies (RHP) traded to the Milwaukee Brewers for Gerardo Parra (RF)
Tommy Hunter (RHP) traded to the Chicago Cubs for Junior Lake (LF/DH)
Bud Norris (RHP) designated for assignment
Chris Parmalee (1B/COF) designated for assignment
Mychal Givens (RHP) recalled from Bowie
Mike Wright (RHP) recalled from Norfolk
August 1st
Mike Wright (RHP) placed on the 15 day DL
Sean Bierman (LHP) signed to a minor league contract
Jorge Rondon (RHP) recalled from Norfolk
August 2nd
Jorge Rondon (RHP) optioned to Norfolk
Tyler Wilson (RHP) recalled from Norfolk

As was discussed last week, the Orioles were on the fence with respect to attempting to make the playoffs.  A week ago, they were generally projected as having a 1 in 8 shot of making the playoffs.  A successful homestand later, they find themselves today with a 1 in 4 chance.  My general rule of thumb is anything above 20% you go for it and anything below you sell off impending free agents.  In other words, I probably would have been selling off items even though the club was only a couple games behind the play-in wild card.  That is how it is when a club is on the threshold, the needle can certainly slide in either direction.

Anyway, the Parra addition slightly strengthens the corner outfield.  The initial look has the Orioles putting Parra in left, which does not solve the outfield's main problem: range.  Parra has lost a few steps and would benefit by having Adam Jones range into left.  However, pushing Chris Davis into right field means that Jones has himself occupied by giving Davis some coverage.  The club would be better off with Davis at first, Parra in right, and then maybe Lough in left.  I still believe in Lough's value in his defense, but that candle certainly burns less bright than it used to.

The Hunter-for-Lake deal was a ledger move.  By dealing Hunter, the money taken on with the Parra deal is almost completely cancelled out.  From what I have been told, this was not the original plan.  The hope was that another club would be interested enough in the Orioles' fringe second tier prospect pool to throw money in.  From what I can tell, that did not happen.  Concurrently, the club was entertaining several teams on potential deals for Tommy Hunter, a serviceable 7th inning righthander.  The team eventually found itself deep in talks with the Cubs and managed to squeeze out Junior Lake.  A past-prospect who keeps sliding off the defensive spectrum and has yet learned how to put himself into good counts at the MLB level.  I hate to use the term failed prospect, but it is safe to say that the Cubs no longer planned on him providing much of anything to their future success.  It is likely that the Orioles feel somewhat the same with Lake immediately transferred into the farm system.  In the end, the Orioles saved some money and, along with Bud Norris' DFA, are now able to run a Norfolk shuttle to help keep the bullpen fresh with optionable arms.

The other name that popped up these past couple days is Sean Bierman.  Bierman was a 10th round selection by the Tampa Bay Rays back in 2012 out of the University of Tampa (his college career was derailed a bit by needing Tommy John surgery).  Perennially old for his leagues, Bierman used a high 80s two seamer to induce groundballs and perform rather well by pitching to contact.  He was enough of a fringe prospect to be included in a deal where the Rays acquired the ailing Jesse Crain in 2013.  After half a season with the White Sox, Bierman was let go and found himself playing in the CanAm independent league.  He dominated over 16 starts as polished lefties are wont to do in those leagues and found himself in the service of the Atlanta Braves.  After the season, the Braves let him go and Bierman signed with the Atlantic League which he also dominated, allowing 23 earned runs over a 115 IP.  The Orioles signed him and he will likely provide some depth in the Minors with the entire system being bumped up two with the departures of Hunter and Norris.

Below is the current 40 man roster with options:

Orioles Deal Tommy Hunter For Outfield Depth

In a last minute deal before the 2015 trade deadline, the Orioles sent right-handed relief pitcher Tommy Hunter to the Chicago Cubs for outfielder Junior Lake. Hunter was acquired with Chris Davis in 2011 from the Texas Rangers, and after the “Tommy Hunter: Starting Pitcher” experiment failed to yield productive results, the Orioles sent him to the bullpen for good towards the end of the 2012 season. It was there he found a few extra ticks on his fastball and was generally an effective reliever at a modest price, although his outings could sometimes be stressful. As an Orioles reliever, Hunter had an ERA of 3.11 in 211 innings pitched, while striking out 19.2% of batters and walking 4.9%. Hunter’s time in Baltimore as a reliever could be described as solid, if unspectacular, and he contributed positive value to the organization, contributing a total of 2.9 bWAR during his time in Baltimore (that number includes his time starting as well).

However, over time his relative value to the club diminished due to his rising salary through arbitration (Hunter is making $4.65 million in 2015) and the fact that he no longer had any minor league options remaining. As anyone who follows the Orioles knows, the Dan Duquette led front office values these options greatly, especially in the bullpen where they shuttle relievers back and forth between Norfolk and Baltimore depending on matchups, performance, health, etc. Hunter was due to become a free agent after the season, so having several relief pitchers on the 40 man roster with minor league options remaining (who could provide similar production) available made it an easy decision for the Orioles to deal Hunter and get something of value in return.

That something of value returning is Chicago Cubs outfielder Junior Lake (personally I was hoping for Mike Olt). Lake is a former prospect who topped out as the Cubs 8th best prospect prior to the 2012 season according to Baseball America. He’s lost some luster since then and is better suited as outfield depth. In Lake, the Orioles are getting an outfielder with plus power and a very strong arm (Baseball America rated it the best infield arm in the Cubs system from 2008 to 2012). Unfortunately, he he has a lot of trouble with breaking balls and lacks a sound approach at the plate, so he’s not likely to hit enough to get to that power. His arm is less of an asset than it should be as well, as his overall defense in the outfield generally isn’t well regarded. In a limited sample, advanced metrics love him in left field (where is arm is less useful), but find him well below average in center and right.

Overall, Lake has a career batting line of .241/.283/.380 in 642 PA’s. He strikes out more than 30% of the time and walks less than 5% of the time. All of this has added up to roughly 0.2 wins above replacement (according to Fangraphs) in approximately a season worth of at-bats, the very definition of a replacement player. This does not mean that he doesn’t have value. Lake could be productive as the light side of a platoon, as he’s a much better hitter against left-handers, putting up a 118 wRC+ in 185 career plate appearances. Additionally, Lake is still just 25 years old, so while it’s very unlikely, there’s an incredibly small chance things click for him at the plate (though I wouldn’t hold my breath for that to happen). He also has minor league options remaining and won’t be arbitration eligible until 2017, and as discussed before the organization values that flexibility.

Overall, this trade doesn’t really move the needle on the 2015 season. The Orioles gain additional flexibility in the bullpen and the outfield in one move by dealing a quality (but easily replaceable) reliever who is about to become a free agent for a player the Chicago Cubs didn’t really have much use for anymore. Ultimately, Tommy Hunter was not going to bring back much, and the Orioles did well to get back a player who could at least help in a limited capacity at a position of need.

Oh, and the Orioles also save the remaining salary owed to Hunter as well in this deal, which conveniently works out to be approximately the same amount they will owe to newly acquired Gerardo Parra, which I highly doubt is a coincidence.