What if the Orioles Just Want to Cut Payroll?

All off season, including here on Camden Depot, it's been assumed that the Orioles have money available to spend on free agents as a result of clearing multiple large salaries off their books. Specifically, the O's no longer have to pay a combined $45 million to Ubaldo Jimenez, Wade Miley, JJ Hardy, and Chris Tillman. Given that the O's payroll has increased every season for almost the past decade, it made sense that at the very least they would maintain a payroll number similar to that of 2017. Of course, the problem with the 2017 payroll (which was the highest in club history) is that the team crashed and burned, finishing below .500 for the first time since 2011.

The Orioles have, in both their actions and their rhetoric, repeatedly shown that the current brain trust has little interest in rebuilding. It was therefore natural to assume that the Orioles would sign several free agent pitchers to bolster what was the worst starting rotation the team has ever had. Of course, there has only been the barest of hints that the Orioles are even interested in any free agent starters, much less being close to signing one. Even in a glacially slow off season, the O's have been less active than their normal selves. This raises obvious questions about what the goals of this off season actually are.

From a non-cynical perspective, perhaps the O's are just engaging in their time honored method of waiting for the market to shake itself out and then picking up whatever is left. In an off season with a relative dearth of impact talent, this might even make sense. The problem is that the team is desperately in need of pitching talent and there have been multiple reports that the Orioles have been turned off of the starting pitching market by contract demands, health concerns, or both. There is certainly still time for moves to be made, and it seems likely that the Orioles will bring in at least one or two MLB starters, but the idea that the team would sign multiple higher end pitchers is rapidly becoming unrealistic.

A less generous interpretation, however, would be that the Orioles may just not want to continue spending at the level they have over their recent run of success, especially since they have spent well above their market over the past half decade. Baltimore is the 21st largest metro market in America with about 2.7 million people. There are six other franchises that operate in markets with 600,000 more or fewer people than Baltimore: San Diego, Saint Louis, Colorado, Tampa, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Kansas City. 600,000 is, admittedly, an arbitrary number, but I mostly picked it to show the types of teams that the Orioles are clustered around in terms of market size.

Note: All payroll data provided by Cot's Contracts.

It's clear that the Orioles are at the top of the class among this group, with only the Cardinals having a higher average payroll since 2012. The Orioles also have the highest single season payroll ($164 million in 2017) and outspent each of these teams in 2016 and 2017. If you go back only to 2014, the differences are even more stark, with the Orioles having the highest average payroll of the group.

Clearly, this kind of analysis ignores any number of factors. I didn't take into account regional television network revenue, ticket sales, team record, or a host of other potential reasons for the disparity in payroll among these teams. That said, if we accept the idea that the total number of people living in a particular market is a decent proxy for how much a given team should spend, this data is fairly striking. Within their market peer group, the Orioles have been easily one of the highest spenders over the past half decade.

So, maybe there's a simple explanation for the lack of activity from the O's this season: they've realized that their market cannot sustain this level of spending and are attempting to bring the payroll down to more reasonable levels. Even if they do very little in terms of adding to the rotation, it is likely that the 2018 payroll will at least be in the $130 million range, still well above their average spending since 2012. While the team isn't doing what most fans, and even players, seem to want, they will still be spending a significant amount of money on the team in 2018.

Of course, the biggest issue isn't necessarily that the Orioles are cutting payroll, but rather whether the brain trust has a clear idea of where the franchise is going in the next several years. Undergoing a payroll correction in the service of a rebuild may result in a couple of lean years at the major league level, but at least there would be a plan in place. Cutting payroll while also holding onto and/or not seriously engaging in contract extension discussions with the team's most talented players seems much less like a plan and more like a front office that is in disarray.

If God Invented Baseball

E. Ethelbert Miller is a name that you have heard of.  You have heard him on the radio, perhaps on television, perhaps at some even here or there.  If you are not of the world of poetry, then perhaps that is a name that whispers to you at such a distance that you can just quite make out what is being said yet still remain unsure.  The world we usually walk in is the baseball world and that world does in fact overlap with Miller's in ways that should be readily known to us as if a part of us has always known, but never quite said.

If God Invented Baseball is a collection of Miller's poetry that utilizes the familiar knowledge we share of baseball as a way to communicate that reaches down into our soul.  Baseball lets your guard down and enables the author to reach in with his message before your natural walls come up or your filters lock into place.  Baseball provides a construct and an even ground to offer up personal truths about life.  And that is what the works in this book is about, I think.  I think it is about life.

The book opens with a poem, Ball Four, about Jim Bouton.  A meeting between the poet in his youth and Bouton as a young hurler with enormous potential.  Miller grew up in New York City and focus on a Yankee team that was not as shiny and clean and damily friendly as today's incarnation was.  However, Bouton was always known as a kind soul.  He was someone who would line children up and spend a moment with each as he signed a few autographs.  As an opening poem, the collection asks us to think back to our childhood; the innocence, the naivete.  The truth about that point in life, the narrator's and perhaps your own.

As the collection progresses, we find that not only is this a work that speaks of the author's own experiences, it is a work that tries to expand that message and broaden it.  Later in the book, Miller pens The Trade.  The Trade tries to communicate an incident where part of childhood dies when the greater world opens up.  The narrator speaks of when his parents come to tell him he is being bused across the city to a predominantly white school.  How it was the first time he realized there was a discerning aspect to himself that he did not fully comprehend before: his blackness.  The narrator summons Curt Flood, the baseball player who sacrificed himself to bring about free agency.  With that inclusion, the narrator communicates that there can be loss when forging something new, something that attempts to be better.

The collection continues to wind through ruminations about life as one would progress through it in time.  It ends with two poems.  One about the changing of the guard.  It is about the passing of the elders.  The other is maybe a rebuke to the preceding poem in that life should be lived in the moment as opposed to calculating what has been lost or gained.  The one should give themselves to the moment and fully embrace it with your senses.

The collection was eye opening to me.  I come from a liberal arts education, but veered right into the sciences.  In the sciences, I have been for 17 years.  Poetry is not my normal feed.  I devour biographies, technical writing, and what not.  And perhaps that is where these poems touched me in that it effectively is a biography.  A biography that is stripped, reduced to a familiar syrup at least until about halfway through when the poems began taking me into my future.

Beyond me, the works charge into a political arena as well as into how race connects to many issues.  I found the use of baseball as a metaphor, a construct for these issues to be rather effective.  With that in mind, I would like to leave you one poem to consider.  One aspect you might find interesting is the impression former Oriole Hoyt Wilhem had on the author and how it was a defining moment in his youth that he uses to relate to you something else.

The Knuckleball  

Every black man should be born
with a big mitt.
How else can one catch the world
that flutters in unpredictable ways.  

The sound of a knuckleball
is Parker on his horn.
When Ella scats don’t try
to copy her.  

Oriole Hoyt Wilhelm in 1958 threw
a no-hitter against the Yankees.
It was like Douglass being Lincoln
for a day. It’s impossible to dance
to slavery anymore. It ended with
the hangman’s swing.  

The knuckleball is Bebop.
Don’t be baffled by its strange beauty.
Just keep hitting it with your ears.

-----

If God Invented Baseball
E. Ethelbert Miller
72 pages
City Point Press

How Did The Orioles Fare In 2018 Top 100 Prospect Lists?

While fans continue to wait for free agents to sign, many have focused more on the various 2018 prospect rankings released over the last few weeks. After not rating well for a couple years, the Orioles' farm system is on the rise.

Austin Hays, Ryan Mountcastle, and Chance Sisco all appeared on at least one of the major lists (including top 100/101 lists for MLB.com, Baseball America, Keith Law, Baseball Prospectus, and FanGraphs).

Here's where they ended up:

Player	MLB	BA	Law	BP	FG
Hays	23	21	79	72	90
Mountcastle	98	71	n/a	65	n/a
Sisco	n/a	68	53	n/a	n/a

Hays appears on all of the lists, while Mountcastle is a new addition (except on BP's midseason list, surprisingly at No. 41). Sisco, meanwhile, fell off of the lists of MLB.com, Baseball Prospectus, and FanGraphs after making it last year. He was 57th on BA's list last February and then jumped to 29th in July. Now, at No. 68, he's fallen back a bit. Only on Keith Law's list, where Sisco went from 69th in 2017 to 53rd in 2018, did he improve.

Other O's prospects like Hunter Harvey, D.L. Hall, and Tanner Scott also received praise by FanGraphs and, in Harvey's case, Law. Plus, if you're interested in the 2018 KATOH top 100 rankings on FanGraphs, D.J. Stewart, Scott, Hays, Zac Lowther, and Sisco all appear in the bottom half of the list. Even the Orioles shared the list, which maybe shows that they're desperate for good news.

As always, Jon would like to inject some nuance into this topic. As Matt Perez demonstrated in his Death to TINSTAAPP (there is no such thing as a pitching prospect) posts (found here and here), top position player prospects are still more valuable than pitching prospects, but the gap isn't as large anymore. Position players are more dependable in reaching a successful wins above replacement level, but the baseline for a pitching prospect may be a useful reliever who, under WAR calculations, has a more difficult time accumulating WAR.

Besides Harvey, who despite a slew of injuries and not pitching above A-ball hasn't slowed the O's expectations for him this season -- with the possibility of pitching in the majors in 2018 -- the O's don't have another starting pitching prospect who's near the majors to get excited about yet. Much of the team's current hope is on position players panning out and making up for soon-to-be departing talent.

Dan Duquette's First Orioles Free Agent Signing (2011): Matt Antonelli

On November 21, 2011, Dan Duquette made his first addition to the 40 man roster by signing Matt Antonelli.  At one point, Antonelli was a highly regarded infielder who could play third or second and racked up a 307/404/491 line in his second professional season.  It led to him exploding onto the prospect lists and catapulted him into the struggling San Diego Padres lineup in 2008.  His career derailed at that point.  His performances were poor at both the AAA and MLB levels.  It was suggested that the game was simply moving too fast for him.  He reached non-prospect status and an injury ended his career with the Padres.

He signed as a MiL free agent with the Nationals and proceeded to get his career on track.  He slashed a 298/390/457 line primarily in AAA as a second and third baseman.  Several teams were intrigued that he might have figured things out.  The Orioles were the only club that offered a 40 man roster arrangement and a clear path to the Majors on a team that was struggling to fill both second base and third base positions.  Injury and performance were contributing factors that kept Antonelli behind Robert Andino, Ryan Flaherty, and Wilson Betemit.

He was released in May after a terrible stretch in Norfolk to make room for Lew Ford.  He was picked up by the Yankees off waivers, struggled, and shut it down for the year.  The following season he signed with the Indians on a MiL deal and his career did not bounce back.  Since then, he has been providing services as a coach as far as I am aware.

A year after he had signed with the Orioles, I interviewed Antonelli for a column that I wound up never running.  I am dusting it off here for you all.

Camden Depot: On the internet there has been a proliferation of scouting sites that predominantly use video to evaluate players, but do not actually go to the games.  On your youtube channel, you have provided your opinions of hitting mechanics on the game's stars.  What can video do and what can it not replace with in person assessments?

Matt Antonelli: I think video is a great tool to use when looking at mechanical aspects of the swing, the delivery, etc. I know it is something that I use heavily when working on my own mechanics, and have found it very useful when doing lessons during the off-season. I make sure to videotape every single session and the players I use it with find it extremely helpful. I always say that "feel" and "real" are never the same, and the only way to really get a player to understand the adjustments that need to be made is by watching video. As far as scouting goes, I think you can use it in a very similar way to understand a players mechanics, but obviously there is a lot more that goes into breaking down a players ability than strictly mechanics. Video definitely has a role in scouting, but it can't be the only thing you rely on.

CD: I know you recently discussed your views on batting donuts.  At the Depot, we have noted similar studies showing the negative impact of used weighted bats before getting into the box.  Can you elaborate on your thoughts.

MA: Well I have read different studies that they have been done in both baseball and golf showing the affects of using a heavier instrument when warming up and then going to your game bat or golf club and in most cases it shows to have no affect or a negative affect on bat and club head speed. It also has shown to have a negative affect on bat and club head accuracy. Again, I didn't perform these tests but it was just something I have read.

CD: There was a lot of interest in your review of how Alex Rodriguez' batting mechanics have changed over the years.  How do players respond to your online analysis?

MA: I typically don't analyze many player's swings online. I just happened to receive a bunch of questions on A-Rod's swing so I threw something online very quickly noting a few things he has done differently over the years. It was more showing what has changed with his swing, not what type of swing I believe he should have or what he is doing wrong.

CD: What are your thoughts on minor league salary scales? What are the difficulties players face? What should be done about the system?

MA: I think there are certain things that should probably be changed. Salaries for most minor leaguers, especially your first few years is very low. I believe my first year in pro ball I made around $6,000. By the time you pay for housing, food, dues, etc. most players are losing money to play, especially if they didn't receive a signing bonus. Obviously if you one day make it to the Major Leagues you are rewarded with a huge pay raise, but the percentage of players that actually make it to the MLB is extremely low.

CD: What are some of the more interesting superstitions you have run into during your time in professional baseball?

MA: I've seen a lot of superstitious things throughout my career. It's mostly seeing guys go through the same routine over and over again if they are successful. Things like eating the same food, wearing the same clothes, riding to the park with the same people, etc. Baseball is really a game of routine so guys end up doing things over and over again, especially when things are going well.

-----

Below is a video that Antonelli put up last November on his training regime with Brady Anderson.

-----

Update: I think this is a video of Brady doing part of his workout routine.

In Praise of Shadows: Or Living to Learn with Uncertainty

This off season frustrates writer and fan alike.  A talent log jam continues to impede the off season.  Early on, this was a pretty wondrous thing.  No longer were hopes and dreams dashed to bit during and shortly after the winter meetings.  Free agent signings were allowed to dance in our heads over the winter holidays, but those dances have grown stale and reporting dates for Spring Training are almost here.  What once was a wondrous discussion of how the Orioles would fill up their starting rotation has instead turned into a dreadful pondering about what if the music ends without the a chair to sit on.  To put it succinctly, the Orioles have some uncertainty and uncertainty is a friend of few people.

We all have a familiarity with uncertainty; be it with the outcomes of baseball active roster construction or with our daily commute.  How we handle this varies from person to person, but in general there are three schools of approach.  Two of the major ones are optimistic aggression and defensive pessimism.  Yes, these are extremes, but they are two of the major tent poles that house everyone.

Positive aggression has an allure.  It reminds me of Billy Beane talking about Lenny Dykstra in Micheal Lewis's Moneyball.  Beane was the athletic wunderkind while Dyskstra was  one the thin side of tools.  However, Dykstra saw every failure as an event to forget; as simple bad luck.  He was always sure that he would kill the pitcher with his next opportunity.  Where doubt entered into any decision making process, he overwhelmed that with imaging pure and utter success.  What is alluring about it is to be free from self-doubt, hesitation, and crippling concerns.

How we can do this can range from pure wish casting to imagine preferable outcomes to pushing the thumb down on the projection spectrum.  Science does validate this approach as beneficial.  Being optimistic about your world around and your place in it tends to mean that you do much better being successful in that world.  So, at the plate, optimism helps the final score, but perhaps not so much optimism on your couch in February.  There are limits to its application, but optimism will probably make your life better.

However, defensive pessimism can be a useful approach as well.  The idea here is that you prepare for the worst and enjoy anything above that expectation.  In general, defensive pessimism seems just as successful as optimistic outlooks.  Though, it seems that pessimism is probably poor for your well being.  The studies do not appear to measure the positive impact of being pleasantly surprised, but it appears that the chronic condition of expecting the worse increases certain health risks (e.g., heart disease).  Now, of course, these studies are about overall life perspectives and how those impact the ability and well being of an individual.  It may well be that people who are pessimistic about the Orioles are simply highly compartmentalized and that these studies have no true application to their lives.

Now, there is a third perspective: acceptance of uncertainty.  Twenty years ago, I read Junichiro Tanazaki's In Praise of Shadows (avid readers may recognize that I wrote about this wocolumn for MASN).  It is a quick read, an essay measuring in at 56 pages.  The work was published in 1933, a period of dramatic changes for Japan.  The country was transitioning from one that was very inward looking in terms of practical life and aesthetics into a society that was steadily embracing Western perspectives from Europe and North America.  It was a difficult and frustrating time for many whether they were invested in retaining their past or whether they were busily embracing their concept of progress.  You could draw many comparisons to that time as you could to baseball in the early 2000s if you are ever so inclined.
rk when I had a

The passing of the familiar to the uncertainty of a supposedly progressive future is something we all can relate whether it be to a new school, career path, marriage, kids, or the loss of a loved one.  Sometimes the uncertainty is exhilarating and sometimes it is debilitating.  Humorously enough, one of the sixteen explorations of competing applications of philosophical thought that Tanazaki puts forth is a comparison between the Western design of toilets and traditional Japanese monastery lavatories.  The Western ideal--harsh brightly lit spaces, glaring white, with no corner left without illumination--intends to offer complete transparency and fully define everything into a strong measure of certainty.  The process never accepts the craft of proper restroom maintenance, but to ensure the caretaker makes great effort to show you how well they keep this area.  In contrast, Japanese aesthetic tradition is extolled as a great virtue and surmised as where all great haiku are born.  This aesthetic embraces the outside world, incorporates shadows and rich lacquered surfaces, and highlighting the grain and imperfections of wood.  It encourages you to accept uncertainty.  To place that part of existence away from your mind and to focus or maybe even enjoy that with which you can actually perceive.

Evolutionarily speaking, being certain about the uncertain can render benefits.  By defining the world around us, we can establish a range of possible occurrences.  For instance, if your tribe expects all outside tribes to be dangerous then your tribe may be well prepared for particularly catastrophic interactions by reacting strongly and violent to all outside tribes.  That expectation or stereotype may be wrong, but it may be beneficial to a critical degree when it would actually be an accurate assumption.  That false sense of knowing can be useful.  It probably is why we are so conditioned to fit into one of those first two groups: optimists and pessimists.  You can plan to that.  You can square those part of the world away.  Devise applicable protocols for infrequent incidents.  Your life seems more in control.  Even if the long term nature of pessimism may have adverse health effects, perhaps it is better than to be stuck in the void of wanting to know without being able to know.

To me, when I read In Praise of Shadows twenty years ago, I recognized how firmly I had to know things.  How much I needed the world to be defined.  It was not necessarily that I was liberal in taking the shortcuts that stereotypes provide, but I certainly was less interested in methodology of determining correctness than I was in being able to perceive that I was correct.  What I took forward with me though was that I need to strive into something I referred to as practiced indifference.  In other words, we can plan and ponder what the world is or will be, but not spiral when my knowledge starts thinning out.  Instead, I practiced to accept that some aspects of my own knowable world will open when they open whether there is a reason for when that happens or even if there is no reason for when it happens.

So, it worked for me.  I let go of the need to know things in life and replaced that with the open and interested exploration of what I was able to look at.  And it may be something that might not work for others.  Some have grown frustrated with me for my lack of extreme disapproval for Dan Duquette's tenure and others have become frustrated that I do not speak about his greatness.  Some claim that my goal is to be measured without true assessment of the positives and negatives.  Rather, I would say my outlook is one where I require a certain amount of clear facts before I become committed to a certain outlook.  Yes, conclusions should be fluid entities that can alter based on new information coming in, but we should acknowledge the uncertainty in a given scenario to ensure that our conclusions are meaningful.

This in no way means to be paralyzed by inaction.  If the facts are not clear and presentable to determine the ability of the current front office to bring success to the Orioles, then we fall back to different ways to assess the club.  We can look to exhibited philosophies, of actions, of expressed desires while noting that this information is often not an actual representation of the objectives of the front office.  Some of it is intentionally misleading.  Some of it is a product of constraints put into place by ownership, by occupying one of the smaller markets in Major League Baseball, or simply a matter of logistics.  While I am reserved in my declaration of where Dan Duquette stands on the spectrum of GM aptitude, I can say that the style he exhibits would not be my own or what I would prefer to see with the club.  However, I can say that perhaps his style may well be best for the context this club exists in.  Ultimately though we are left with fairly uncertain terms to provide a judgement, so I think it is appropriate to acknowledge that uncertainty.

And that is where we are.  We simply do not know what the Orioles are doing.  We simply do not know what the rest of MLB is doing.  There is very little movement anywhere.  Yes, the Orioles have needs, but so do others.  For me, it is difficult to get upset or irritated because there are shadows everywhere.  We have no clarity.  In those shadows, you can envision great, wonderful things happening.  You might also be able to extrapolate and conjure truly catastrophic outcomes.  Or you can just sit and wait until something more clear comes through while you may or may not gently infer about just what might well be happening..

So, I ask you not to lecture me about "What does pessimism ever get you?" or "You are deluding yourself with Orange Kool-Aid."  Both of those perspectives have merit.  For me, I find the required dogma of those outlooks to be a bit exhausting, unproductive, and fraught with unneeded surprises.  Just leave me in the shadows until the light naturally breaks through.

The Andrew Susac Trade And Dan Duquette's Derek Lowe Mistake

On Friday, the Orioles announced that they acquired catcher Andrew Susac from the Brewers for a player to be named later or cash. As with most fringe roster moves -- and especially during a painfully slow offseason -- the news was met with the usual amount of fan responses like, "So what?" and "Can he pitch?" and "Print those playoff tickets!"

Susac was picked up as a depth move, and likely nothing more. The O's don't seem to be thrilled with their current options at backup catcher because maybe Chance Sisco hasn't progressed enough defensively to their liking, and maybe they don't think Austin Wynns is ready yet. Who knows? It's February. Susac is simply another choice at catcher, he took very little to add, and he has a minor league option remaining. It's not a move anyone should be upset about.

The more interesting part of the trade, though, is perhaps Dan Duquette's statement about Susac. In a text message to reporters, Duquette said:

Duquette: “Susac is a switch hitting catcher with over 100 games ML experience who adds depth and ML experience to Os at the position” #orioles

— Roch Kubatko (@masnRoch) February 2, 2018

The other beat writers quickly shared Duquette's statement. Susac, however, is a right-handed batter only. The mistake was described as both a "typo" and an "autocorrect issue." Now, while prefacing that this is more amusing than a big deal, it seems that the most logical answer is Duquette, either being momentarily confused or just unsure, texted the wrong information to reporters.

Anyway, it doesn't really matter that Susac isn't a switch-hitter. Backup catchers are usually not acquired for their bats, and Susac has had decent (but not great) success at the plate in parts of four major league seasons and 274 plate appearances (96 wRC+ overall, 168 wRC+ against LHP but just 60 wRC+ vs. RHP). If the bat were the only consideration, Sisco would have the backup job locked up right now. Susac is at least competent defensively; the same cannot be said of Sisco yet.

But let's go back to the error in Duquette's statement, since it's the primary reason for this post. Back in 2013, Derek Lowe revealed that, in the 1997 trade when the Red Sox acquired Jason Varitek and Lowe from the Mariners in exchange for Heathcliff Slocumb, then-Red Sox general manager Duquette thought Lowe was a left-handed pitcher. As Lowe recalled:

"I tell this story all the time -- it's funny -- Dan thought I was left-handed. ...When we got back to the hotel the day we got traded, I'm on the phone with Dan, and he says, 'Yeah, we hear you're a tall, left-handed pitcher' and you're a young kid and I'm like, whoa, wrong guy. I didn't have the gumption to say, 'And by the way, I'm right-handed.'"

Jon, who put forward the idea for this post, noticed the similarity on Saturday:

It reminds of the 1997 trade when the Red Sox got Derek Lowe and Jason Varitek. Dan Duquette thought Lowe was left handed.

No autocorrect then.

— Camden Depot (@CamdenDepot) February 3, 2018

It's not surprising for a GM to not know something about an acquired player, but it's a little odd to not know if a player is right- or left-handed. Still, in trades, lots of players are discussed, and it could be easy, perhaps, to get one minor part of a deal confused for another. That doesn't mean it's not entertaining. Regardless, if Susac even has a smidgen of the success Lowe had, the O's will be over the moon.

The Case Against Re-Signing Chris Tillman

Here's the case FOR the Orioles signing Chris Tillman. He's a starting pitcher -- the end. Considering the current makeup of the roster, that might be a large enough bone to throw a hungry, restless fanbase for now.

But, well, there's more to it than that. For a few years, Tillman was pretty good. He never performed well in the fielding independent pitching department, but he threw over 200 innings a couple times. From 2012-2016, he accumulated an ERA of 3.81. In that span, his ERA was lower than his FIP by 0.46 (14th highest among qualified starters). That's a lot, but it's nothing ridiculous. The leader, Chris Young, outperformed his FIP by over a full run (1.06). Miguel Gonzalez's ERA-FIP was 0.70 (fifth best). A pitcher outperforming his FIP significantly indicates a measure of luck, but doing so over time also hints at an ability to limit hard contact, pitch more efficiently with runners on base, induce a lot of fly balls, etc.

Overall, Tillman's production was decent, and the O's could use someone like that because they only have two starting pitchers fans can maybe feel good about. Maybe that MASN promo is right. No respect for Tillman, huh? What gives?



As misleading as that video is, unfortunately, then 2017 happened. Or, to be more precise, the end of the 2016 season and 2017 happened.

For most of 2016, Tillman was having another Tillman-like season. He was on pace to throw 200 innings again, but in late August, he was placed on the disabled list with bursitis in his right shoulder. Before that injury, he had only been on the disabled list one time -- at the beginning of the 2013 season, with a strained left abdominal. He was activated a week later. When Tillman came back in mid-September in 2016, he was able to make four more regular season starts and the results were normal. Tillman put up a 3.79 ERA (and a FIP under 4). Buck Showalter also selected him to start the O's wild card game against the Blue Jays, and he did well enough (4.1 IP, 2 ER) in a crushing, maddening loss.

Some cracks were showing, though. Tillman's four-seam fastball velocity dropped nearly every month during the season:

He also started to move away from the pitch even more. Before 2015, Tillman typically threw his four-seamer about 60% of the time. In 2015, he threw it about 52%. That number then dipped again to about 40% in 2016, while he started to mix in more sinkers and cutters. Tillman's sinker is thrown a tick slower than his four-seamer, and his cutter is in the 86-87 mph range.

Despite being able to finish the 2016 season, the 2017 offseason didn't go well for Tillman. He still felt some discomfort in December, and he received a platelet-rich-plasma injection to help with the rehabilitation. By the time spring came around, he was still feeling soreness in his shoulder and wasn't able to pitch in any spring training games. He was prescribed a cortisone shot in March, and any chance of him being ready for opening day went out the window.

He began the season on the newly installed 10-day disabled list and wasn't activated until May 7. In his return, he threw five innings, allowed six baserunners, and didn't allow a run. It seemed promising, and the O's could certainly use the starting rotation help. Unfortunately, things quickly went south, and that outing ended up being Tillman's only start of the year when he didn't allow a run.

Opponents put numbers on the board against Tillman, many of them crooked. His performance -- 93 innings, 7.84 ERA, 6.93 FIP -- was historically bad. According to Baseball-Reference's Play Index, Tillman became just the fourth player since 1901 to pitch at least 90 innings and post an ERA over 7.80. Another O's pitcher, Scott Erickson in 2000, is also on the list.

In May, Tillman's four-seamer velocity started out even lower than at the end of 2016. In April, his average fastball clocked in at 90.4 mph. That number inched upward through August (aided by Tillman's demotion to the bullpen), but it dipped back down in September. At the end of the year, he finished with an average four-seamer velocity of 91.2 mph -- his lowest since 2011 (90.4), when he made 13 starts.

He also threw even fewer four-seamers, about 34%, while increasing his cutter usage to about 23%. Was he going to ditch the pitch anyway? Was throwing too many four-seamers putting extra stress on Tillman's shoulder? His fluctuating fastball velocity is a constant concern, but this was the first time it seemed tied directly to an injury.

Interestingly enough, Tillman also started taking much longer between pitches in 2016. FanGraphs has a stat called Pace, and it simply measures the time (in seconds) between pitches for hitters and batters. On average, 20 seconds is fast, 21.5 seconds is average, and 23.5 seconds is slow. From 2009-2015, Tillman was average to below average in Pace, ranging from 21.5-22.9 seconds. In 2016, he took over 24 seconds between pitches. In 2017, it jumped to nearly 27 seconds.

What does that mean? Maybe nothing. Maybe, for whatever reason, Tillman has just developed into a slow worker. But besides it being frustrating to watch, perhaps it could be argued that he needed more time in between pitches to recover. Could that be tied to a shoulder that possibly isn't 100%? It's a stretch, but it's worth noting.

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The Orioles need starting pitching. But even more than that, they need quality starting pitching. By the end of last season, the O's had six starting pitchers. Four of them were awful.

If Tillman is truly healthy and back to form, of course the O's should want him back. But even on a low-risk, one-year deal, there's no way of knowing which Tillman is going to show up. The hope is that he's had a normal, pain-free offseason, and that he'll be able to benefit from a full spring of workouts and pitching appearances.

No one knows Tillman like the O's, and maybe that's why they'll eventually bring him back. But considering it wouldn't take that much to sign him, it's a little surprising they haven't done so already. Still, there are other starter choices available, and the O's should go in another direction.

2018 Orioles: Historically Bad or Pretty Good

Every year around March, it seems, social media is doused in gasoline and a match is struck.  The gasoline is made up of the feelings of fans and the matches are an array of projection models.  Every year, Orioles fans groan about how the models fail to live up to reality.  Buck Showalter's Orioles have routinely exceeded reality, well, except for 2015 and 2016 and 2017 was a bit too optimistic of an expectation.  And, let us not discuss 2011.  In general though, Buck seems to get about three wins more than the average model projection and our work has been roughly validated by slightly different methods elsewhere.

With the beginning of February upon us and a languid free agency process that has impacted nearly all teams, the Orioles find themselves under the FanGraphs projection as a 75 win team.  Personally, I do not use FanGraphs' projections as I think their defensive considerations are too conservative at times and too willing to extrapolate on small MLB sample sizes.  I also think whoever is in charge of divvying up playing time does not consider how willing certain teams are at replacing players or limiting their time.  The Orioles for instance have for the most part been very willing to reduce playing time of established players when merited.  It may not feel like that after you see Ubaldo Jimenez, JJ Hardy, Chris Davis, and Mark Trumbo struggle for an eternity, but in general, yes, they do move players around a bit more than a typical team when performance dips.  Anyway, when it all gets boiled down though the systems are pretty similar in how accurate they are.

How accurate are they?  They are accurate with a typical standard deviation of about 9 wins.  So a 75 win team would generically find themselves between 66 and 84 wins about 68% of the time.  Go to two standard deviations (57-93 wins) and you cover generically 96% of the time.  Go another standard deviation and you cover all generic possibilities with a range of 48-102 wins.  What that says is that basically the Orioles are almost assuredly not a historically great team, but no one needed to actually tell you that for you to know.  I should also note that I use the term generic quite a bit there and the rationale for that is that in baseball we actually have to deal with effective asymptotes for production.  It is incredibly hard for a team to be worse than 48 wins, which is basically replacement level.  On the upper end, it is difficult to be better than 120 wins.



If we look at teams who have been projected in the past to win between 74-76 games, we get the following distribution from the data set I have at hand.  My data set covers 2003-2013 and 35 teams have been identified as 74-76 projected wins through a variety of different projection models.  As I noted before, projection models are typical all pretty much the same in accuracy when it comes to populations, but a little different when it comes to projecting certain types of teams.  As we are interested in population projections it won't be too much of a concern here.

What we see is that a team that is projected to win 74-76 wins on average out performs the projection by 1.7 wins.  However, median is probably a better way to look at it as the teams are more impacted by the replacement level performance baseline.  The median is similar, but comes out at an expected lower 1 win above projection.  The range goes from -13 wins to 19 wins.  So in terms of our historical data understanding, we are looking at the realm of 62-94 wins.  If we consider 93 wins to be the division winner mark, then we see a 2 in 35 (6%) showing of a club going 93 or more wins.  If we consider 90 wins to be the home wild card base line, that nudges up to 3 in 35 (9%).  If we consider 88 wins as the second wild card, that nudges up to 4 in 35 (11%).  So while that range looks mighty expansive, it is a reasonable anchor to acknowledge when looking at how a season might turn out.

When you look at the FanGraphs projections, there are a few areas of improvement.  Left field, right field, designated hitter, and four starting pitcher rotation slots all fall below your basic goal of 2 fWAR per position.  However, several of those position will be static.  Dylan Bundy will be in the rotation, so that projection is not going to change.  With the downturn of the all bat, no glove market, it is becoming increasingly more difficult to see Mark Trumbo changing teams, so his value at designated hitter (thought likely inflated) will remain there.  Mancini is likely to see a lot of time in left field.  Austin Hays comes off as replacement level due to a rather negative view of his defense, but his offense is not projected all that well anyway.  Basically, the club has some outfield plate appearances to cover as well as three rotation slots.

As it stands, there are nine free agents who rate as two wins or better.  Unfortunately, eight are at positions the Orioles do not need to fill or have already concluded to be out of the running due to cost.  However, there are still improvements that could be made.  Below I look at a few scenarios based on cost.

Scenario #1: Lean Days
Under this scenario, the Orioles have only 20 MM to add onto their roster.  One easy fix would be to add on Jarrod Dyson at 6 MM a year. That would add 1.7 wins to the club by replacing what would be expected to be replacement level performance from Joey Rickard.  On top of that, Ricky Nolasco at 8 MM a year would replace -0.2 fWAR (Alec Asher, David Hess, Yefry Ramirez, Tanner Scott) with 1.4 fWAR.  The medical red flag Brett Anderson looks to be available for around 5 MM at 1.7 fWAR and would replace about 0.3 fWAR put up by Gabriel Ynoa and Mike Wright.  And that ends the 20 MM.

This would add about 5 wins to the projection, so the club would sit at 80 wins.  The 2003-2013 data set contains 61 teams.  That five win bump up results in generic expectations to rise.  The median club is expected to hit their projection, so it appears that the performance baselines and upper realm are not exactly at play here.  The standard deviation sits at 9.6 wins, which would suggest home field wild card or better 15% of the time.  Historically, you also get similar results.  Win totals 93 or better only happened 3 out of 61 times (5%).  Our home field line of 90 wins was hit 8 out of 61 times (13%).  Our road wild card line was hit 12 out of 61 times (20%), which is almost double what it was at 75 wins.

Scenario #2 A Bit More Money
Under this scenario, we are looking at a payroll slightly below last years, which gives us 30 MM to play with.  Under this scenario, we will follow everything listed above and start out with 80 wins.  With the remaining money we could target Jaime Garcia who is projected as a 2.2 fWAR player.  This performance would replace 0.1 fWAR put up by Miguel Castro and Michael Kelly.  It would place the team at 82 projected wins.

How would 82 wins changes the playoff odds?  The 81-83 grouping has some terrible underperformers, but more often a group of overperformers.  The median is 1 win and the standard deviation wobbles down to 11.  The 93 win mark would be hit historically 8 out of 41 times (20%).  The 90 win home wild card line would be achieved 14 out of 41 times (34%).  The 88 win road wild card line would be passed 15 out of 41 times (37%).  It is amazing how much better a position being projected to 82 wins is over a 80 win projection.

Scenario #X Trade Machado
So what if the unthinkable happens?  Let us say a deal happens where Manny Machado and Tanner Scott were dealt to the Arizona Diamondbacks for Pat Corbin, Tony Banda, and Brandon Drury as well as the club having the payroll in Scenario 2.  Corbin has one year left at 7.5 MM, so the Orioles see another 10 MM added to their free agent money pile with Machado's salary going out.  Corbin's 1.9 fWAR replaces Miguel Castro's 0.0 fWAR.  Drury is related to non-descript backup with no fWAR impact.  And let us sit on Banda for a moment and figure out what to do with the 40 MM in our hands.

Beckham would shift over to shortstop and retain his value with his dip in defense being matched with the positional adjustment at shortstop.  The Orioles could then use 13 MM a year to snap up the 2.8 fWAR projected for Mike Moustakas.  The club could then sign Dyson for 6 MM a year and see a 1.7 win raise covering for Rickard.  Brett Anderson could be signed at 5 MM and his 1.7 fWAR would replace the -0.3 fWAR put up by Alec Asher and Devid Hess.  Finally, the club would spend on Jaime Garcia and his 2.2 fWAR replacing the 0.4 fWAR put up by Ynoa and Scott.  Now, back to Banda.  He provides decent starter depth.  He is projected to throw a 1 fWAR over 66 innings, which would eliminate the 0.3 put up by Wright and Scott.

So what does that add up to?  Machado leaving takes the Orioles down to 70 wins.  Corbin and Banda add back three wins (73).  Using the money saved on Moustakas gets the club up to 76 wins.  The other moves get the club back to the 82 wins.  Under this scenario, trading Machado did not impact the overall production of the club, but spread it out a little bit more among players.

Conclusion
To be frank, there is still hope that the club can put a competitive team on the field.  As it stands right now, the team looks like one that has maybe a 20% chance to steal a wild card.  That might translate into a team that has a one in three chance of being somewhat arrested at the trade deadline and unable to deal out a big piece like Machado or maybe Zach Britton.  Pushing up payroll modestly appears to be able to get the club into a projection level that considerably improves their chances to be a competitive club.  That scenario requires just the right players in the Orioles range, which is a range where they likely will face stiff competition from other clubs who are looking for bargains.  The club could even field a very competitive team if it gets a suitable replacement value for Machado in a trade.  Yes, a deal whose major component is a one year deal for a mid-level starting pitcher is a harsh deal to make, but it would put the club in a position to resolve some other issues.

All in all, there is no reason to get upset about what has happened this off-season.  Though, by the end of February, I may not be able to say that.

How Does A Gausman/Bundy 1-2 Punch Stack Up?

Let's assume the Orioles actually plan to begin the 2018 season with Kevin Gausman and Dylan Bundy as their top two starting pitchers. It can't be stated enough times that the Orioles need major starting rotation help, but forget about that for a minute. How do just Gausman and Bundy stack up against the top projected starters of other American League teams?

Not well, as it turns out. Here are the Steamer projections (in fWAR) for the top two starting pitchers on each AL team:

Indians: Corey Kluber (5.2)/Carlos Carrasco (4.2): 9.4
Red Sox: Chris Sale (5.4)/David Price (3.3): 8.7
Yankees: Luis Severino (4.4)/Masahiro Tanaka (3.3): 7.7 
Astros: Dallas Keuchel (3.8)/Justin Verlander (3.7): 7.5
Rays: Chris Archer (4.3)/Blake Snell (2.4): 6.7
Blue Jays: Marcus Stroman (3.8)/J.A. Happ (2.3): 6.1
Mariners: James Paxton (3.8)/Felix Hernandez (2.0): 5.8
Angels: Shohei Ohtani (3.1)/Garrett Richards (2.6): 5.7
Tigers: Michael Fulmer (2.8)/Daniel Norris (1.5): 4.3
Twins: Jose Berrios (2.1)/Kyle Gibson (2.0): 4.1
Rangers: Cole Hamels (2.3)/Doug Fister (1.5): 3.8
Orioles: Kevin Gausman (2.3)/Dylan Bundy (1.2): 3.5
Royals: Danny Duffy (2.1)/Jakob Junis (1.4): 3.5
Athletics: Sean Manaea (2.0)/Kendall Graveman (1.4): 3.4
White Sox: Carlos Rodon (1.4)/Lucas Giolito (0.8): 2.2
Source: FanGraphs

There are some unknowns on this list. It's unclear what role Ohtani will have for the Angels. The top free agent starters have yet to sign, so perhaps they could be added to one (or more) of these teams. And maybe you quibble with a pitcher who isn't listed above because his fWAR projection isn't high enough.

Really, though, you get the idea. Gausman and Bundy are fine pitchers. Both the Orioles and their fans are hoping they develop into more, even if they are nice mid-rotation options. But relying on them as front-line options is extremely risky. They need help.

The Orioles, as they keep saying, are trying to win now. But winning now with Gausman and Bundy at the top of the rotation seems like an impossible feat.

Whose WAR is Whose? Duquette vs. MacPhail and others

If you have traveled the provincial lands surrounding Baltimore you get a general feeling that people believe the Orioles' success derives from Dan Duquette riding on Andy MacPhail's coat tails of talent.  You will hear how with the Adam Jones deal or the Chris Davis deal or drafting Manny Machado that the Orioles would have been toiling at the bottom of the Al East instead of being one of the most winningest teams in baseball during the Duquette reign.  However, when one looks at the MacPhail era that feeling seems more like a glass is half full perspective of MacPhail; or, more likely, a glass is half empty view of Duquette.

One of the difficulties is assigning responsibility for a team's well being is that so much falls outside of the control of the general manager.  For instance, you only have so many Billy Beanes who have been the main caretaker of a club for nearly two decades.  Whatever happens with the Athletics, you can place that at the feet of Beane.  With the Orioles, Duquette inherited a franchise that was largely tended by MacPhail with a lingering presence of Mike Flanagan and a wisp of Syd Thrift.  It is a hard line to cut because inheriting those players also means deciding what to do with them.

Below we present the proportion of fWAR by players drafted or acquired by each General Manager:

2012: 29.1 fWAR
2013: 38.2 fWAR
2014: 42.8 fWAR
2015: 32.7 fWAR
2016: 35.3 fWAR
2017: 21.4 fWAR

So what was Duquette handed?  He was handed a team with a strong partial starting squad and gaping wounds at starting pitcher.  MacPhail's group could not figure out how to develop guys like Brian Matusz, Chris Tillman, Zach Britton, and Jake Arrieta.  Duquette's record in continuing their development is mixed, but he knew the area was a weakness and supplemented it as best as he could.  He turned the fading career of Jeremy Guthrie into a solid performance by Jason Hammel and a useful piece in Matt Lindstrom that led to an essential September performance of local product Joe Saunders.  In addition to that, Duquette added on Wei-Yin Chen and Miguel Gonzalez.  Tinkering with Tillman saw his velocity return and his pitchability.  It cannot be denied that 2012's playoff run was built on Duquette's ability to take a ruinous starting rotation and find the pieces to create a passable one.  That was a remarkable accomplishment and it cost the club relatively nothing in terms of money and prospects.  It is perhaps the greatest series of moves he has made while with the Orioles.

In 2013, the MacPhail portion of the club boosted the team into playoff contention with strong performances from Davis, Machado, Jones, and J.J. Hardy.  Duquette once again put together a decent collection of role players headed by Nate McLouth, Ryan Flaherty, Danny Valencia, and Steve Pearce.  The pitching floundered again.  Duquette products in Chen and Gonzalez as well as mid-year pickups Scott Feldman and Bud Norris did well, but not well enough.  Duquette was unable to find solutions for the dearth of talent in the minors, particularly on the pitching end.

In 2014, Duquette reaped all that he had sewn in the years prior with the club pushing strong on the shoulders of Chen, Gausman, and Norris as well as Pearce, Nelson Cruz, David Lough, and Adam Jones (on his first year outside of his team controlled years).  This team ran away with the AL East, but there were some worrying aspects of it.  Long-term, there seemed to be an issue with pitching.  The club did not have a group of high minors arms that looks like significant pieces.  The only one, Eduardo Rodriguez, was traded out for a vanity piece by the name of Andrew Miller.  The team did well to avoid injuries, outside of Manny Machado, and almost made the World Series.  It was a type of performance that would elevate most general mangers to a long term status and a fan favorite.  That said, the minor leagues were in a wreck and a major reason why many analysts, including us, would say, "Yes, but..."

From 2015 through 2017, we see the extinguishing of Flanagan's fingerprints on the Orioles as well as the end of MacPhail touch on the team.  MacPhail's minor league talent will likely all be gone in a couple seasons.  What we are left with is Duquette's decision making.and what we have seen is a cratering of talent.  MacPhail did not produce much minor league talent with an uneven first round history and a pretty dreadful track record past the first round.  Duquette's decision to focus on the MLB squad and decimate talent influx by signing players on Qualifying Offers hurt the talent level on the team.  Additionally, decision making in the early part of the Duquette draft era was not especially fruitful with only the past few drafts resulting in a good influx of position player and relief talent.  Starting pitching remains an issue throughout the organization.