The Orioles Need Better Outfield Defense

The Orioles outfield defense was considered poor by defensive metrics. Per Fangraphs, the Orioles outfield had a UZR of -21.1 runs, ranked 29th out of 30 teams. I’ve been known to be skeptical of UZR in the past, but this year UZR has just three teams with an outfield defense worse than 10 runs (1 win) and six with an outfield better than 10 runs. This is a significantly different from other years, suggesting a drastic change in methodology. Statcast’s outs above average metric tells a similar story as it ranked the Orioles outfield defense as worth -15 outs above average, tied for second worst in the majors. According to its sprint speed metric, the Orioles outfield was very slow and this helps explain its ineffectiveness.

Adam Jones has been the foundation of the outfield defense for the past ten years. He’s been fast enough to play center field while having above average offensive production. But good things can’t last forever and Jones has finally faded defensively. Statcast ranked Adam Jones as being worth -7 outs above average, 201st out of 210 outfielders. The reason why he was so ineffective was because he’s now slow. Per Statcast, his sprint speed was only 27.1 feet per second ranking 53rd out of 58 center fielders. It isn’t clear whether his defensive positioning had a detrimental impact on his speed, but this suggests that he needs to be a corner outfielder going forward. This could be problematic because his bat isn’t good enough to make him any better than an average right fielder offensively. Depending on his 2018 performance, the Orioles probably shouldn’t offer Jones a qualifying offer, nor should they extend him unless he signs a short-term deal at a significant discount from his current contract. There’s only so much a team should pay for leadership.

Fangraphs ranked Trey Mancini’s outfield defense as being worth -7.9 runs per 150 innings while Statcast valued him at -5 outs above average. Trey Mancini ranked 39th out of 58 left fielders with a sprint speed of 26.9 feet per second. That’s probably fast enough to play left field for the next few years, but it does mean he’ll need defensive help. With Trumbo and Davis on the squad for the next two years, Mancini will be forced to play left field barring an injury or a platoon.

Fangraphs ranked Trumbo’s outfield defense as being worse than -10 runs per 150 innings, while Statcast valued his defense as -5 outs above average. Mark Trumbo was graded as a DH, but had a poor sprint speed of 26.3 feet per second. Trumbo clearly has no business playing in the field, but his inability to hit as a DH suggests that he needs to play in the outfield. A center fielder with good speed and range can make up for Trumbo’s inability to run, but that center fielder isn’t Adam Jones at this point in his career.

Fangraphs ranked Smith’s outfield defense as being worth -5 runs per 150 innings and he ranked 49th out of 51 right fielders with a sprint speed of 26.4 feet per second. Seth Smith is a free agent this offseason and will likely not be a factor in the Orioles’ 2018 plans. However, his limited speed certainly contributed to the Orioles outfield defensive woes.

There is limited help on the roster. Chris Davis, with a sprint speed of 25 feet per second, was the 45th slowest out of 48 first basemen and now is about as fast as Matt Wieters. Davis has played in the outfield before, but can’t do so in the future if he is so slow. It would make sense to use him as a DH at this point. Austin Hays has had limited playing time as a major league outfielder, but had poor defensive results according to both Fangraphs and Baseball Reference as a right fielder. Statcast doesn’t have enough information to have a useful opinion of his speed/defense. He appears to be a defensive upgrade over Mancini/Trumbo but still below average.

The sole bright spots were Rickard and Gentry. Joey Rickard ranked 28th out of 51 right fielders with a sprint speed of 27.5 feet per second and Craig Gentry ranked 5th out of 51 right fielders with a sprint speed of 28.5 feet per second, suggesting that Gentry would be a valuable pickup on a minor league contract. However, Rickard’s .241/.276/.345 line suggests that he’s most valuable as a defensive replacement/pinch runner. In addition, he’s merely bad against left-handed pitching, suggesting that he could even be a platoon outfielder in a pinch. 

Camden Yards isn’t a large outfield, but even the Orioles need some outfield speed in order to play adequate defense and it is unlikely that anyone on their roster can provide that speed with acceptable offense. This will have to be a factor when the Orioles look at free agent outfielders if they want to improve.

The Orioles have been linked to Carlos Gonzalez, and MLBTR predicts that the Orioles will sign him for 1 year and $12 million. This would be a poor decision as Gonzalez’s sprint speed ranks 45th out of 51 right fielders at 26.6 feet per second. Not only is Carlos Gonzalez extremely slow, but he was ineffective last year against left-handed pitching with an .206/.241/.321 line with a 3.6% walk rate and a 30.7% strikeout rate. He was decent against left-handed pitching in 2016, but was terrible against it in 2015. With his limited speed, I’d expect his BABIP to plummet in future years. At this point in his career, he’s a defensively challenged outfielder that can only play against right-handed pitching. This has value to some teams, but the Orioles should probably pass given that they already have speed challenged players like Mancini, Davis and Trumbo on the roster and are lacking a fast center fielder to make up for their inability to cover ground.

Curtis Granderson is another player linked to the Orioles, but his sprint speed ranks 57th out of 58 center fielders at 26.6 feet per second. In addition, his low BABIP of .228 in 2017 and .256 in 2016 suggests that his speed is perhaps slower than it seems or that he’s vulnerable to shifting. In any event, he’s not fast enough to help solidify the Orioles’ defense playing right field.

A number of other free agent outfielders have the same issue. Jay Bruce might be an interesting addition, but his sprint speed is 47th out of 51 right fielders at 26.5 feet per second. Jonathan Jay is an interesting option, but his sprint speed ranks 56th out of 58 center fielders at 26.6 feet per second. Cameron Maybin ranks 43rd out of 58 center fielders with a sprint speed of 27.8 feet per second. Austin Jackson ranks 46th out of 58 center fielders with a sprint speed of 27.6 feet per second.

Maybin and Jackson are potentially decent corner outfield options with the ability to help the Orioles defense improve its range slightly. Neither of the two are considered top 50 free agents by MLBTR, while BORAS thinks they’ll each receive roughly 2 years and $20 million. 

Carlos Gomez ranks a passable 36th out of 58 center fielders with a sprint speed of 28.1 feet per second, but that’s a significant drop from his 2016 speed of 28.7 feet per second and his 2015 speed of 28.5 feet per second. At 33, one needs to wonder how long his speed can hold up. MLBTR projects him to earn 2 years and $22 million while BORAS has him at 3 years and $31 million. Gomez has been better against right-handed pitching than left-handed pitching over the past three years and could be platooned with Rickard. He’s a definitely reasonable free agent option for the Orioles.

At 32, Lorenzo Cain is one of the fastest runners in the majors with a sprint speed of 29.1 feet per second and would almost definitely help the Orioles outfield defense. He’s been above average offensively in the past and would be a strong leadoff option. MLBTR and BORAS are nearly in agreement about what Cain will earn, roughly $65-70 million over 4 years and will likely receive a QO. The Orioles will need to decide whether they can afford to sign him and whether it’s worth giving up the draft pick necessary. They’ll also have to see how long they think Cain can retain his elite speed.

Jarrod Dyson is another fast runner with a sprint speed of 28.8 feet per second. Jon recommended signing him in his final blueprint, and I think that he’d make sense. BORAS projects Dyson to earn a prohibitive 3 years and $32.5 million, but MLBTR has him receiving 2 years and $12 million. Dyson is old, but is above average defensively in center field and would allow the Orioles to use Jones in right field. Dyson historically struggles against left handed pitching, making him a viable platoon option with Joey Rickard. The Orioles almost certainly won’t offer 3 and $30 million to Dyson, but offering 2 years and $15 million would be an offer I could see them make. Dyson should be the Orioles first choice given their payroll situation and the fact that they need three new starting pitchers even if Cain is the better player.

The Orioles outfield defense was poor last year because their outfielders were slow. Their outfielders are only getting older and slower and so their defense will only continue to degrade without adding talent from outside the organization. Signing a player like Jarrod Dyson, Carlos Gomez and Lorenzo Cain would be a definite upgrade to the Orioles’ outfield defense and help them compete in 2018.

How The Orioles Have Performed Against Top Pitching

The Orioles, supported by MLBs best offense in the second half, have pulled off a seven game winning streak (and counting as of Wednesday) while placing themselves in the midst of the playoff race. Don’t look now, but the Os are one game behind the Twins for the second wild card spot and just two and half behind the suddenly slumping Yankees. Playoffs may indeed be in the future for the Orioles.

But this begs the question of how the Orioles hitters might perform in the playoffs. Playoff teams are typically better than the average team, and that means on average that their pitchers are of better quality than usual. How have the Orioles performed against top pitchers? To test this, using Statcast data, I looked at how Orioles batters performed against pitchers in the top third, middle third and bottom third of wOBA. Here’s how they did against pitchers in the bottom third.

On average, the Orioles have over-performed against pitchers in the bottom third of MLB, but Statcast thinks they’ve been lucky. Adam Jones, Chris Davis, Manny Machado, Jonathan Schoop all have above average performance against these pitchers, but Tim Beckham has an amazing .624 wOBA against them. As an Oriole, he has a .550/.571/.900 line against these pitchers in 21 PAs. In addition, Chris Davis is showing some decent plate discipline against bad pitchers with a 16.5% walk rate and a 32% strikeout rate. That’s a potential red flag because it suggests that Davis is able to see pitches when bad pitchers are throwing them. If so, this may be a skill problem and not an overall sight problem. Meanwhile Jonathan Schoop has an 8.3% walk rate and a 21.8% strikeout rate, suggesting that it’s easier to get walks against bad pitchers than good ones.

The Orioles have done about average against pitchers in the middle third of MLB. A number of players are above average against these pitchers (Jones, Schoop, Machado and Smith) but the one who has really gone bananas is Tom Beckham. His .484/.515/.806 line in 33 PAs is making him a terror to all mediocre pitchers. Chris Davis, with a 13.5% walk rate and a 38% strikeout rate, doesn’t have terrible numbers against average pitchers, but it’s clear to see how his performance has gotten worse. His .284 wOBA is below average against these pitchers, and suggests his success has largely been due to his performance against bad pitching. Schoop has a 4.4% walk rate and a 23.2% strikeout rate, showing that he still has plate discipline issues against decent pitchers.

The Orioles have done slightly above average against top pitchers with Schoop, Castillo, Mancini and Gentry leading the charge. Adam Jones has a 1.85% walk rate, a 24% strikeout rate and just a .182 wOBA against the best pitchers. This suggests that we should perhaps expect another quiet postseason to go along with his postseason career line of .155/.206/.207. Simply put, he doesn’t seem to be good enough to go head-to-head with MLBs top pitchers. Chris Davis has a slightly below average wOBA of .256 against top pitchers, but an 8.89% walk rate and a 45.6% strikeout rate suggest that he’s largely been solved by top pitchers. He’s probably not the guy you want to use against an ace.

Jonathan Schoop has gone back to his free-swinging ways against top pitchers, and it seems to be working for him. He may have only a 4.25% walk rate to go with a 20% strikeout rate, but he has a .361 wOBA against the best pitchers. It seems he’s a threat against anyone if he just puts the ball into play.

Manny Machado has struggled with his plate discipline against the best pitchers with a 5.1% walk rate to go with a 25.4% strikeout rate. His actual wOBA is considerably below average against the best pitchers, but Statcast thinks his performance has been above average. It seems clear that Manny need to work on his plate discipline though if he’s going to do well against the best pitching. Meanwhile, Mark Trumbo is showing an ability to perform at the same level offensively regardless of the pitcher. This might make him more valuable than expected to a playoff team, and therefore suggest his value is higher than one might think.

Tim Beckham is taking apart bad and decent pitching, but good pitchers aren’t having any trouble with him. His .181/.250/.273 line against top pitchers in 12 chances is slightly worse than his line against other pitchers. Part of his problem may be a low .222 BABIP.

It’s worth noting that this data is descriptive as opposed to predictive. It could be that knowing the results of a players previous 100 plate appearances against good pitching gives us no insights about his next 100 plate appearances. But that stated, some of these results are what one would expect to see.

This data suggests that the Orioles are slightly above average against top pitching. But it also suggests that the Orioles have largely taken advantage of bad pitching this season and have a number of batters that can hurt bad pitchers. If so, the Orioles may be in for some bad news this October if they make it to the playoffs. A merely above-average offense will struggle to make up for the Orioles weak pitching staff. If the Orioles can’t find a way to pound good pitching, any playoff appearance is likely to be short.

How Pitch Sequencing Can Affect Outcomes

The 2017 Baltimore Orioles starting rotation has been a bit of a mess. Maybe with some data and some advance planning, the starting pitchers can become more effective. If we can identify the two-pitch sequences to end plate attempts and compare outcomes to those sequences, we may find that some pitches work well together, with one setting up the next. This can be considered a proof of concept; the same sequencing can be extended to sequences of three and four pitches for more granularity (at the expense of sample sizes).

To put together these sequences, I first needed pitch-by-pitch data. PitchFX is great for that, if you can get your hands on it. I set up a database of PitchFX records from 2015 to today (and counting!) using the MLBAM Gameday records stored in XML for what seems like perpetuity. From there, finding pitches that end plate attempts is fairly straightforward, as is finding the pitch that preceded it. Because my database only goes back two and a half seasons, data is a little limited, especially for the youngest members of the Orioles rotation.

Consider Dylan Bundy, whose slider is identified as a high-quality pitch by BrooksBaseball.net, noting its high swing-and-miss rate. Fangraphs gives Bundy's slider a much higher value rating than any of his other pitches (his next highest rated pitch per Fangraphs' weighted values is his Changeup). Bundy's slider appears most effective when paired with his four-seam fastball given the triple-slash outcomes of pitch sequences involving a slider (and that end within one pitch of a slider being thrown):

Limited to the 10 most frequent two-pitch combinations to end plate attempts

Bundy has used a four-seam and slider combo nearly 50 times in some order, and the results have been great. Batters are hitting 0.100 off of either pitch when paired with the other. The SL-FF combination produces a slightly higher on-base percentage, which leads me to believe that the fastball is occasionally thrown after the slider goes for a ball and results in some walks.

However, Bundy's slider isn't entirely unhittable. When he goes back-to-back with sliders and the second one ends a plate attempt, they're getting hit well. Batters are slashing roughly .350/.400/.400 when putting a second consecutive slider in play. While this doesn't account for all the times a SL-SL sequence did not result in the plate appearance being terminated, it definitely looks like Bundy should be cautious to throw his slider multiple times in a row - which makes sense, and isn't unique to Dylan Bundy. A batter is expected to get better at identifying a pitch and tracking its movement the more often he sees it.

Kevin Gausman likes to throw heat - and he's good at it. But with sequencing in mind, Gausman might find that the pitch he throws most isn't his best pitch, and that his most frequent pitch sequence isn't doing him any favors. Gausman throws four-seam fastballs over 60% of the time, but they tend to get hit well when batters see them back-to-back. Gausman's split-finger fastball, however, is frequently involved in positive outcomes.

The FS-FS sequence to end a plate attempt has yielded a .180/.260/.270 slash line since the beginning of the 2015 season, and a FF-FS or FS-FF sequence has resulted in a lower batting average and on-base percentage than the more common FF-FF sequence. If Gausman wants to throw hard, and it looks like he does, the pitching staff should encourage him to mix more split-finger fastballs to the mix.

Gausman's full stats show that he throws the FF-FF combination significantly more often than any other pitch sequence, which we should expect given how frequently he throws the four-seam fastball. The positive outcomes on a FS-FS combination come on just 65 instances of that sequence ending a plate attempt, and may be subject to a small sample size. That number of plate attempts is far fewer than the point at which most pitching statistics stabilize. Since the outcomes are so positive, it probably wouldn't hurt for Gausman to test throwing FS-FS sequences more frequently, or just to throw his split-finger fastball instead of his four-seam fastball in some instances.

This type of sequencing can be extended to more pitches to map the value of mixing pitches within a plate attempt, or it can be used to find two-pitch sequences throughout plate attempts that don't result in outcomes. For instance, Gausman's FF-FF sequence might not have the best outcomes when a batter connects with the pitch, but it might coerce more swings and misses or swings outside the zone during an at bat. At the very least, it's helpful for pitchers, catchers, and coaches to understand the value and risk in throwing specific pitches back to back.

Checking in with Trey Mancini

Left fielder Trey Mancini has been one of the lone bright spots in the Baltimore Orioles 2017 campaign. In each of the previous two seasons, Mancini made his way into the top 10 in Baseball America's list of organizational prospects, and so far has fulfilled his promise at the Major League level. While most rookies can be expected to struggle some at the plate, Mancini has put up a slash line for the Orioles similar to what he was doing for the organization's minor league affiliates. His OPS with the Major League club has eclipsed that for all but one year of his time spent in the minors.

Today, Mancini ranks as the 38th best rookie since 2017 in wRC+, a measure of pure hitting ability. His 127 wRC+ indicates that he's batting 27% better than the league as a whole, similar to the offensive performance put up by Francisco Lindor, Mookie Betts, and George Springer in their rookie seasons.

Earlier articles on this very website pointed to Mancini's very high HR/FB rate as a cause for his offensive performance, and a possible area of regression. When Mancini started the season, his 70% HR/FB rate was unsustainable, and it has fallen back to earth - kind of. His current 21.7% rate is still very high, 27th highest in the league among qualified hitters, but well within the range of an excellent power hitter.

However, Mancini hits ground balls too frequently to turn this HR/FB rate into the kind of attention that fellow rookie Aaron Judge is receiving. 50.7% of balls put into play by Mancini are ground balls, the 22nd highest rate in the league and mostly similar to league-average or below-average hitters.

As shown in the above batted ball trajectory chart, Mancini hits as many balls at steep downward angles (ie, into the dirt) as he does flat balls that are likely easily fielded grounders and balls at the 15 to 20 degree angle that are the most likely to be hits.

When hitting line drives and fly balls, the most preferable batted ball types, Mancini's average exit velocity of 96.4 miles per hour ranks 19th in the league this season. Of course, Mancini's average exit velocity is weaker when considering all batted ball types because he hits ground balls so frequently.

Notably, Mancini's power extends to all fields. Observe his spray chart, color-coded by exit velocity:

On balls in play that Mancini gets a solid bat on, he's generally hitting them to all fields. His weakly pulled grounders are not atypical for power hitters (and are the basis for shifting the infield against left-handed ones). That he hits line drives to all fields is notable, and promising for continued batting average success.

Most of the pitches Mancini sees are low and away. Most likely related: Mancini generally hits ground balls on pitches low and away that he puts into play. Fortunately, Mancini appears to exhibit a decent eye, swinging primarily at pitches middle and in:

While he has strong ground ball tendencies against pitches in all locations, Mancini is more likely to hit these middle-in pitches for fly balls, and hits line drives most frequently on pitches in the middle and bottom thirds of the zone. That he does a relatively good job of avoiding pitches that he almost definitely hits on the ground is another good sign for a 25-year-old who will likely rely on his bat to be a successful Major League ballplayer. If Mancini can avoid hitting as many balls into the dirt, he could improve his offensive performance even further.

Mancini is the Orioles' second best hitter this season in wRC+, and showing potential for consistent hitting and clear opportunities for improvement. The latter might not sound as positive, but identifying areas of weakness is a necessary first step toward improvement. If Mancini can reduce his GB% to something resembling the league average, or average among other power hitters, the Orioles might have a very scary hitter on their hands.

If the Orioles knew what they had on their hands in Mancini, they might not have been as eager to sign Chris Davis or Trumbo to longer-term and higher-priced contracts. As it stands, the Orioles have a good, young, controlled power hitter on their hands to fill the role of 1B/DH/OF-only-if-you-have-to.

Should The Orioles Trade For Maikel Franco?

Like it or lump it, the Orioles consider themselves buyers. It appears that they want to take advantage of the next two years before they need to decide which free agents they want to keep. So, the Orioles should be interested in the rumor that the Phillies have made Maikel Franco available. Canfardo argues that Franco has had a poor season, hitting .227 with eight homers and 36 RBIs and his game has really gone downhill after showing so much promise last season when he hit 25 homers and knocked in 88 runs. CSN Philly has also heard that Franco is available, but the price will be high. The Orioles have received minimal production from shortstop, and this is probably Hardy’s last year with the club. Should the Orioles consider trading for Franco and moving Machado to shortstop?

The Philadelphia Daily News had an article last month suggesting that Franco should be demoted to AAA because he’s unable to recognize pitches. He argues that Franco is so strong that he’s able to make contact with horrible pitches, but isn’t able to do much with them and that Franco has a strikeout problem. According to Heyman, the Phillies think that Franco has suffered because he’s paid too much attention to analytics and is focusing overly much on exit velocity and launch angle.

There’s no question that Franco is struggling, as he has only a .220/.277/.389 line so far this season. However, his problem isn’t with his walk and strikeout rate. A walk rate of 7.3% is perfectly respectable, especially when he has a strikeout rate of only 13.4%. Franco is swinging at 71% of pitches in the strike zone, good for 25th out of 165 batters while swinging at only 26% of pitches out of the strike zone, good for 96th out of 165. It doesn’t seem like his problem is pitch recognition and its false to suggest that he has a strikeout problem.

Where he has struggled this season is when he puts the ball into play. Franco only has a .307 wOBA when putting pitches into play this season, good for 159th out of 165 batters. He ranks 155th out of 165 batters when putting pitches in the strike zone into play this season, suggesting that his struggles aren’t due to swinging at bad pitches. He’s simply showing an inability to do damage.

Statcast tells a better story. According to Statcast, Franco only has a .300 wOBA when putting pitches into play this season, but should have a .326 wOBA. If he did have a .326 wOBA against pitches in play, it would improve his performance from a .289 wOBA to a .310 wOBA. League average is .321, so such an improvement would take him from bad to merely below average. This makes him a slightly more attractive trade option.

This is considerably worse than his numbers in both 2015 and 2016. In 2015, Franco had an actual wOBA when putting pitches into play of .396 and an expected wOBA of .369. A .396 wOBA in such situations would give him an overall wOBA of .365 while a wOBA of .369 in these situations would give him an overall wOBA of .344. If he could replicate either of these stats, he would be at minimum above average. Having a wOBA of .365 would make him a star, although that’s probably unrealistic to expect.

In 2016, Franco had an actual wOBA when putting pitches into play of .354 and an expected wOBA of .364. In both 2015 and 2016, his expected results were pretty similar even if there was variation in his actual results. In addition, having a wOBA of .365 when putting pitches into play would make Franco a successful hitter. He would have a .340 wOBA if he had results similar to his expected results and a .333 wOBA if he had results similar to his actual results. Either would be perfectly respectable for a third baseman eligible for arbitration that isn’t yet in his prime.

However, his 2017 numbers are significantly worse. A look at his production based on distance groups shows the reason why.

Franco has a similar percentage from 2015 to 2017 of the type of pitches he puts into play. 70-75 percent of pitches that he puts into play are in the first two categories, which is acceptable. The problem is that he’s struggling against pitches that are more than half a foot away from the center of the plate. This suggests that he’s having issues with his range and that his problems in 2017 could be real. If he’s only able to do damage on pitches that are close to the center of the plate, then pitchers will be able to destroy him by throwing pitches that are still strikes but farther away from the plate. Such a strategy will force him to swing at fewer pitches and make it difficult for him to do any damage offensively. If so, one would expect his strikeout rate to increase significantly. In addition, looking at his actual production versus his expected production makes the case for him look even grimmer.

Franco is doing especially worse than expected against pitches that aren’t close to the strike zone. This could suggest poor luck, or it could suggest that he’s vulnerable to shifting and that his results shouldn’t be expected to improve. It could also suggest that he is focusing overly much on velocity and launch angle and that is impacting his range.

This problem really should define how one judges Franco. If one thinks that this range problem is a fluke, then he probably should be considered an above average hitter. Given his average defense at third base, this probably makes him somewhere between a 2 and 2.5 win player. He’s 24 right now, and will likely be eligible for arbitration as a Super Two next year. This means he’s under team control for the next four and a half years or for a good chunk of his prime. If he improves during his prime, he’d be able to contribute nine surplus wins. If one valued him this highly, then it would take a few prospects in addition to Sisco to make a deal.

On the other hand, if one thinks that this isn’t a fluke, then Franco is probably a below average hitter. If he continues to degrade in this regard, then he’ll quickly become nothing more than a platoon bat against left handed pitching. In such a case, his value would be close to zero.

I'm not fully sure what this means and would want a scout's opinion before making a definite statement. But I would think that this is a worrisome sign, and would lower my valuation of Franco accordingly. Going forward, I would project him to be an average batter and maybe worth 1.5 fWAR per year for the next four years. This wouldn’t make him a star by any means, but it would allow him to be an acceptable regular until he reaches free agency. It is likely that the Phillies are hoping is value is higher.

Franco is a very high risk trade option. Unless the Phillies are in love with one of the Orioles prospects or they’ve actually given up on Franco, there’s too much uncertainty to make a deal. I'd pass.

What Having the Best Record Over 5 Years Earns You

As many know, the Orioles have been the winningest team in the American League over the last 5 seasons. This sounds like an accomplishment! If nothing else, it means that the team was consistently good. Despite this fact sounding like praise, it has always struck me as being both meaningless (a 5 season window of time is arbitrary), a sign of good luck (no MLB-level young arms were blown out), and irrelevant (so what?).

For some reason, the below tweet sent by this site's proprietor felt like something that needed to be addressed:

Orioles from 2012 to 2016 are AL's winningest team.

Delusional response: Duquette is terrible. Never has done anything right.

— Camden Depot (@CamdenDepot) July 6, 2017

I agree with the sentiment. It's difficult to complain about a GM that has steered the team if not into ultimate success, at least toward consistent competency. Considering the 20 years of Orioles baseball that took place prior to Duquette's leadership, that can be considered a positive.

At the same time, being the winningest team over the span of 5 years strikes me as a hollow victory. It may mean that the team was consistently good, but was it consistency or quality that led to the accomplishment? I'm not advocating for the removal of Duquette by saying he did nothing, but I am questioning whether this marker of success is really all that important in the first place.

So I started digging, and generated a list of the winningest teams over rolling 5 year spans from 1997-2016. If you're not a fan of the Yankees, consider yourself warned for what you're about to see:

The first thing I notice when I see this list is that the Orioles have the fewest wins among all winningest teams over a rolling 5 year period. That's not necessarily an indicator of being somehow less worthy of the claim. The AL, and the East specifically, could be more competitive now than it was over the previous decade, making it more difficult to dominate over 5 years and more likely that the winningest team simply avoided disastrous seasons. One the other hand, this potentially points more to consistency being the key to the Orioles' 5-year run than quality of play. As in, the Orioles never dominated, but they never disappeared from the conversation either. "He was around," is more of a statement than a compliment, in my opinion.

But the Orioles were the winningest team over the last 5 years, a feat that we can't take away from them. So what does that earn them? Clearly not a World Series win, and not even a World Series appearance. How common is that?

Among the 32 distinct (I'm treating them a such but obviously many of these teams carry rosters and recent postseason accomplishments over year to year) teams to claim the status of the winningest team over the last 5 years, six failed to make a World Series at some point in their 5-year reign. Only four teams made three or fewer postseason appearances over their 5-year roll without also reaching a World Series. Only three teams made two appearances without a World Series outside of a Wild Card loss (which is hardly a postseason appearance): the 2011-2015 Yankees, the 2009-2013 Braves, and the 2012-2016 Orioles.

In my opinion, this makes being the winningest team over a 5 year span more impressive: most teams that claim the accomplishment also claim at the very least a World Series appearance, and 18 have at least one World Series title in that 5-year period. It also makes the Orioles' inability to get deeper into the postseason more frustrating. Based on recent history, a 5-year run as the winningest team in the league should mean that they run into more postseason success by virtue of trying relatively frequently.

This gets back to the whether this accomplishment is driven by consistency or quality, and starts to look more like the Orioles were either very unlucky or riding a wave of consistency without the added benefit of being really good.

Is that a knock on Duquette? Not particularly. Duquette has done a great job of filling out the roster and not resting when he hits on an unheralded player. He's added marginal wins wherever possible, and that's the job of a GM that has a competitive team - which the Orioles ostensibly did. He did not win a World Series with this team, likely because the team, while consistent, was never a head and shoulders above the competition.

Is the status of winningest team over the last 5 years noteworthy? Sure, maybe moreso than I thought. However, I don't know that I'd be bragging about it if I failed to turn it into any really notable postseason appearances.

Orioles are on Life Support and Need a Transplant

1991 Orioles were so bad that 45yo Jim Palmer
tried to come back and save them.

They are not dead yet.  The Orioles are only four games out of first in the AL East.  Additionally, they are just 2.5 games back behind the second Wild Card slot.  There are caveats to those numbers though.  For the AL East, three teams sit in front of them and the Jays are a game back.  No one really is out of it and that makes the probability of finishing top lower than that four games back sounds like.  The Wild Card is a bit tougher with five teams in front who are staring at the Indians, who currently hold that slot.  Again, the Jays are breathing down the Orioles' neck there, too.

It is a terrible position to be in.  In that, the club is too close to sell off pieces and probably too far (too many teams in between) to really have a great shot at the playoffs.  They are in more of a no man's land than they were in during the 2013 and 2015 seasons where they dealt away solid pitching for not much of consequence.  Added to that is just the brutality the Orioles have faced the past month as they tied the 1924 Phillies with the most games in a row giving up five runs or more.

Outside of their stellar 2014 season, the Orioles have had below average to poor starting pitching performances.  They have used a top notch bullpen and obscene raw power at the plate to erase their rotation deficiencies.  This year, the starting pitching is one of the worst the Orioles have ever fielded so far.  Below is how they compare amongst the 15 teams in the AL and what the median value is.  This hides some information, such as the rotation's ERA is almost an entire run worse than anyone else's.

IP	K/9	BB/9	HR/9	ERA
390.2	6.8	4.15	1.64	5.78
15th	13th	15th	14th	15th
420.1	7.8	3.13	1.42	4.54

To find a starting rotation worse than theirs, you have to go back to 1991.  In fact, when you consider the franchise's entire Browns and Orioles history, this rotation is the second worst all-time.

Year	Club	ERA-
1991	Orioles	132
2017	Orioles	130
2011	Orioles	128
1910	Browns	126
1939	Browns	125
1988	Orioles	124
2008	Orioles
1937	Browns	120
1909	Browns	119
1987	Orioles

This is an awfully large hole to climb out of and it pales in comparison to the humbug of past seasons where the pitching stumbled.  Last year's "headache" of a starting rotation had an ERA- of 110.  This year's rotation is almost 20% worse than that one.  Added to this, the offense, bullpen, and fielding have all been slightly below average this year.  Add that to all the other teams in competition, it looks more and more like a longshot that this club can be competitive even though, in terms of games back, this club is highly competitive.

So, there comes a time in any organization where succession planning becomes that great, big elephant in the room.  The Orioles find themselves in this place.  It has been there for awhile, but Duquette and Showalter have done well squeezing every drop of blood out of what looked like a bit of a turnip year in and year out.

The initial plan was for this club to continue its winning ways and run hard through 2018, but that seems a bit difficult.  Dan Duquette has squandered years of development by maximizing resources to the MLB roster while trading out compensatory draft picks, depth prospects, and continuing a two decade long practice of bare bones international amateur talent acquisition.  What is now left is an aging hulk of a core in Baltimore and the few younger pieces reaching a point of no return where extensions or a friendly wave goodbye is the final action.

There are two extremes as to what the organization can do.  They can live in the moment and forget about tomorrow.  They can keep pushing and hand out prospects that are irrelevant for 2017 and 2018, clawing their way into a Wild Card or, may I say, another AL East title.  Projection models doubt that path and, based on twitter, so fans.  The other extreme is to cash it all in.  It is an idea proposed by FanGraph's Travis Sawchick and some others online.  I think the main flaw to this idea is that this club is actually not that far from being a playoff contender.  I also think that it is always a mistake to let go of a potentially great player before their 30th birthday.  You simply do not willingly let Manny Machado leave.

That leaves us with a commitment to something in the middle.  This begins by deciding where the club should go.  This article is about the general places the front office might take this franchise.  There are four options:

1) Hands the keys to Dan Duquette for complete control over all baseball operations, signing him to a long term deal.
2) Fire Duquette, and force Buck to transition out of the dugout and into a long term vision baseball operations position with a day-to-day GM under him who he choses.  This includes 2018 as a transition year out of the dugout or starting 2018 up in an office.
3) Remove Duquette and hand it all to Brady Anderson to decide what happens.
4) Clean out the front office and let the new guy decide what is what.

Duquette as King
In this scenario, Duquette no longer feels the pressure of a contract ending as he would likely sign a five year extension.  He will be expected to remain competitive, but he would be given a more free hand.  You would likely expect that he would try to get Buck to resign and, in his place, install a mid-40s assistant coach who would implement everything from the front office that Buck ignored.  This would rub many players the wrong way, but it will be accepted.

My guess would be that an attempt would be made to retool for 2018 and, if things go south, a large scale sell off.  I would also expect in this scenario a strong push to sign Machado long term.  If not, then he would likely be dealt mid-season.

Elevate Buck
Buck has been worn down by this latest stretch of terrible baseball. He is also getting up there in age.  He might prefer a less strenuous schedule with more distance from the clubhouse.  The clubhouse would also be keen with this because many are strong supporters of his tenure.  Likewise, some in the club house have spoken out at times about the distance and aloofness of Duquette's tenure.

I would see two possibilies for who Buck would replace himself with.  First, one of his close colleagues: John Russell or Brian Butterfield.  Second option and a smart one, he could install Brady Anderson as the manager.  Why Brady?  Brady will be in the organization as long as Angelos is around.  Putting Brady in as the manager would keep him fully engaged in managerial duties and unable to stick his finger in everywhere.  Another option would be elevating Ron Johnson and putting Brady in AAA on the guise of training him.

A Showalter tenure would also likely involve a scaling back of the analytics department or perhaps a transition into more qualitative data processing.More resources would likely be engaged into the scouting side of things.  Machado is a big question mark.  Showalter was part of the brain trust that found Alex Rodriguez' contract in Texas to be too much of an albatross on the payroll.  Would he see the same thing with Manny taking up 25% of the Orioles' budget.  Such an arrangement with 40 MM to Manny and 120 MM to the rest of the squad would effective be a median payroll team being gifted Manny.  That really does not sound all that bad.

Brady as Teddy Roosevelt
Even though I have written extensively about Brady, I have no idea what a Brady Anderson tenure as General Manager would mean.  He has largely surfed between the waves and found his own niche.  Some guys like him, others tolerate him, and others think he abuses the social structure by insisting on being treated like a player, coach, and front office executive whenever it best suits his needs.  In that way, he has quickly gained a great deal of experience, but by taking what everyone else seems to neglect, he is not defining himself.

Brady comes across as brash, competitive, and a disruptor.  You could say the same thing about Billy Beane, Jerry DiPoto, and a number of other head honchos.  What differs is that contrary to other guys in the game, I cannot think of which baseball people are automatic fits in the Brady regime.  Anderson simply is a go it alone kind of entity right now.  One who tries hard to be player friendly.

I would expect him to try to keep Buck on, but I am unsure whether Buck would want to stay on with someone who seems to apt to abuse privilege.  I am at a loss at who would be showing up at the MLB level, but guys like Lou Montanez and Nolan Reimold would likely be welcomed into the fold if they sought out managerial careers.  Beyond that, I am at a loss.  Brady has done well at being a disrupter (depending on who you talk to), but he has not truly done much work as a head executive.

Brave New World
Every couple of years, word leaks out about Angelos selling the club.  His sons enjoy the presence and interest their connection to the club brings them.  It would be hard to think of one of his kids getting prime time play about his thoughts on President Trump without being able to hypothetically withhold a first pitch.  That said, their eyes seem wider than team ownership and pulling the money back out of the franchise would enable them to be active kingmakers for politicians or for personally meaningful social projects.  With MASN getting tidied up and the future of these deals looking bleaker and bleaker, it appears that maybe it will be easier to put a value on the club (this has been mentioned as the hang up the two previous times Angelos supposedly almost cashed out).

If the club is sold, then it is a safe bet that the house will be purged.  When the walls talk, they talk of misplaced loyalty.  Individuals who have been employed by the Orioles forever and that their aptitude is highly questioned.  Back when Duquette took over (and even MacPhail), it was noted that certain personnel were effectively made men.  Some could be juggled around in less consequential positions, but most were fixed.  An owner without loyalty to existing personnel, would likely mean wholesale changes.

You could easily imagine a Ripken or Buck being included somewhere in the new regime, but likely not as decision makers.  Neither of them may be interested in serving as figureheads.  Likely, a new ownership group would be heavily influenced by Wall Street, as they all seem to be these days.  This would probably mean the club would enlarge their analytics presence and move into a more uniform and modern approach.

What if the Orioles are Actually Terrible?

The 2017 Baltimore Orioles, after a hot start that saw them leading the division through April, have faltered. Since the beginning of May, the Orioles have gone 16-23 and fallen to third in the competitive AL East. The last month and a half of play has included separate stretches of  4 losses, 7 losses, and the active stream of 5 losses. To say that the late spring has not been kind to the Orioles is an understatement; during this stretch the team lost Manny Machado to a hand/wrist injury for a handful of games, Chris Davis was just put on the DL for an oblique strain (he missed time in 2014 for the same injury), Britton and O'Day are both on the DL, Castillo spent time on the DL nursing a groin injury, and starting pitchers not named Dylan Bundy have been downright atrocious.

All teams suffer injuries and setbacks, but the play of the Orioles has not inspired confidence in their ability to compete in spite of them. For one thing, even if the batters are healthy, it's hard to win when giving up 5 or more runs a night as the Orioles have in each of the last 9 games, matching their season average for runs against. As some have noted on Twitter (sorry if you're one of them, I can't find the tweets), the abundance of "not since before 2012" stats is a little frightening - not since before 2012 have the Orioles been a miserable, moribund franchise with so little going for it at the Major League or minor league levels.

We're deep enough into the season that we can start to look at historical performance of similar teams and see where they ended up after 162 games. To keep this apples-to-apples, and to effectively gauge how the Orioles should approach the deadline, I looked exclusively at seasons after 2012, when the second wild card was introduced. In theory, teams hovering around .500 at the deadline after 2012 would be more inclined to consider themselves in the playoff hunt and could improve through acquisitions that make them true playoff contenders (though not all do) thanks to the second wild card. With that in mind, we can come up with a reasonable expectation of the Orioles' end-of-season record regardless of deadline acquisitions.

First, I examined teams within two wins of the Orioles through 62 games from the last five years. That would create a five-game range of 29 to 33 wins; basically, teams that were .500 through a third of the season. The following chart shows the number of teams ending the season with any given number of wins:

Probably not surprisingly, teams that played .500 ball through 62 games were likely to continue to do so and end the season with a record around .500. About as many teams drastically underperformed the 81-win mark as outperformed it. This is fairly promising, considering that 87 wins were enough to punch a playoff ticket in both 2015 and 2016. Not many teams reached 87 wins after playing .500 ball through the first third of the season, but some did and that is enough to inspire hope and maybe a shopping spree before the trade deadline (or as close to a shopping spree as the Orioles get).

However, the Orioles are not an ordinary .500 team right now. As unfortunate as they have been with injuries, the Orioles have also been very fortunate in terms of outperforming their run differential. The 31-31 Baltimore Orioles have given up 43 more runs than they've scored for a Pythagorean win-loss record of 27-35. For all of their warts since 2012, this franchise has never been outscored over the course of a season. This run differential is not the mark of a good team, and the past performance of teams with similar Pythagorean records through 62 games proves it. Consider the per-game win total of teams from 2012-2016 within 2 Pythagorean wins, after 62 games have been played, of the 2017 Orioles:

You may notice immediately that the orange line representing the Orioles is substantially higher than the grey lines of teams with similar 62-game Pythagorean records. This is because the Orioles have pretty substantially outperformed their actual ability so far this season. Pythagorean record also changes by game as more runs are scored for and against. It's plausible that the active 5-game skid is weighting the Orioles' Pythagorean record down, and that they performed closer to their run differential earlier in the season.

You will also notice that very few of teams with similar Pythagorean profiles reached 80 wins to end the season. This is not surprising! Teams that consistently give up more runs than they score are, on the whole, losing teams. If the Orioles continue to play the way they are, they will be a losing team. The end-of-season win totals of teams with similar Pythagorean records inspires much less confidence:

Very few teams with similar Pythagorean profiles reached even 81 wins, and only two have topped the 87 wins that have represented the cheapest ticket to the playoffs since 2012.

If the sad state of the Orioles is to be accepted as reality for the foreseeable future - and really, why wouldn't it? - the team should accept that its window has closed on 2017 and perhaps moving forward. I run the risk of sounding like a doomsday prepper when I recommend the Orioles blow up their current roster and follow the lead of the now-successful Astros and Cubs by playing poorly enough to build through the draft, develop players in low-risk environments, and then reemerge as contenders when the pieces fall into place. In my opinion, it's far more difficult to build a .500 team into a contender due to salaries on the books, fewer positions open for new players, and middling draft positions. .500 is too good to get the best young players in the draft, but too bad to consistently make a run in the postseason.

Free agency will slowly tear this team down over the course of the next three seasons, and there's little to suggest that it's worth keeping together. Why not take the next few months to work out trades that stock the farm system and start the rebuild now while the team can? Why not put ourselves in position to build a solid contender from the ground up (if you believe that the organization can actually do that)? If the Orioles aren't going to compete in 2017, and will slowly lose the pieces they have banked on carrying them to the postseason over the next few seasons, the only reason to hold on to the most valuable pieces of the team is either sentiment or untradeable contracts. Neither have helped any team reach the World Series.

Chris Davis Needs To Swing Smarter

Chris Davis is having a good, but not great year. His .238/.350/.464 line is good for a wRC+ of 119 and has him on pace to be worth 2.7 fWAR. These are good numbers, but not the elite numbers that Davis has put up in the past and that fans perhaps were hoping to see. It is possible to blame his lack of production on his increasing walk and strikeout rates. With a strikeout rate of 36%, Davis is on pace to have the highest percentage of strikeouts in a season for his major league career. His 14.4% walk rate is also the highest of his career, but doesn’t nearly make up for the strikeouts. Remember, Chris Davis crushes the ball when he puts it into play, so he benefits by doing it as much as possible.

A number of people believe that he’s struggling due to his low swing rate. He’s only swung 42.3% of the time in 2017, compared to 49.1% of the time over his entire career. It’s pretty clear that a batter can’t put the ball into play unless he actually swings at pitches. Is Chris Davis’s low swing rate causing him to struggle?

For starters, it is worth noting that his z-swing (swings at pitches in strike zone) is 51.4% while his o-swing (swings at pitches out of the strike zone) is at 35.2%. That’s a difference of only 16.2% between his z-swing and o-swing compared to his difference of 22%. This suggests that not only is he swinging less, he’s also swinging at worse pitches.

I’ve written previously about how batters typically have better results when they swing at pitches in the strike zone compared to when they swing at pitches out of the strike zone. They do a better job putting the ball into play and typically do significantly more damage when they do put the ball into play. In addition, Eli Ben Porat wrote an article awhile back discussing how distance from the center of the strike zone has a correlation with batter performance. This means we can measure Davis’ performance by looking at his swing rate, ball in play rate and wOBA in play rate based on distance to determine whether he should swing more often and where his performance is degrading.

It turns out that distance from the center of the strike zone does have a significant impact on hitter performance. But it’s also the case that it’s easier to understand the effects by putting the data into categories rather than looking at linear models. This is because distance doesn’t have an impact on performance right away. It’s just as easy (and maybe even easier) to hit a pitch that’s .4 feet away from the strike zone than .2 feet. Distance doesn’t begin to really become a factor, at least for Chris Davis, until a pitch is about .5 feet away from the strike zone. After a bunch of testing, I was able to split the data into eight unique bins. These bins are very probably player-specific, so it’s possible that hitters with better range would have different bins. The chart below shows Chris Davis’s performance for 2013-2017.

As the data shows, with the exception of pitches that are between 2 and 2.25 feet from the strike zone (Davis swung at 93 of these, whiffed at 82 of them while putting 2 into play of which 1 was a single), production decreases significantly based on distance. Chris Davis has above average results when putting pitches less than .95 feet into play, average results when putting pitches between .95 to 1.15 feet into play and below average results for anything past that. This suggests that in an ideal world, he would swing solely at pitches in the first two bins and at pitches in the third bin only when there are two strikes.

The data also show that he doesn’t live in an ideal world. While his swing rate decreases based on distance, he still doesn’t always swing at pitches in the first two bins while he does swing at pitches in the last three bins that he’s unlikely to hit or be productive when putting into play. However, he does historically swing at the vast majority of pitches in those two bins. It’s very possible that a more sophisticated analysis that takes pitcher hand, spin, perceived velocity and other relevant variables into account may show that the pitches in those bins he doesn’t swing at are harder to hit than just distance would suggest. It’s also possible that it’s hard for Chris Davis to hit a fastball down the middle if he’s expecting a curveball on the outside corner.

In addition, even when he does swing at pitches in the first two bins, he only puts them into play roughly 35% of the time. Chris Davis may be very successful when he puts the ball into play, but he struggles to do so even when swinging at appropriate pitches. This shows the challenges of putting even clear strikes into play, and hence explains why sluggers may want to be patient and avoid borderline pitches that may be balls. His results have been less favorable in 2017 as the following chart shows.

His wOBA on pitches put into play is actually slightly higher in 2017 than it has been from 2013-2017. His results are worse than expected on pitches that are less than .5 feet from the middle of the strike zone, but he’s doing surprisingly well against pitches put into play from .5 to 1.35 feet. All in all, his production when putting pitches into play is acceptable.

But unfortunately, he’s swinging at fewer pitches in the top three bins. In the first bin, pitches less than .5 feet away from the center of the strike zone, he’s swinging at only 60% instead of 77%. To some extent, he makes up for this due to the fact that he’s putting 46% of those pitches that he swings at into play, but his performance would likely be better if he swung more at those pitches. In addition, his contract rate isn’t significantly up for the second and third bin, and therefore the percentage of those pitches that he’s putting into play is down.

In fact, he’s swinging at nearly as many pitches in the fourth bin as the second and third bin. Historically, pitches in the fourth bin have been a called ball 79% of the time (81.8% in 2017) compared to 17% of the time in the second bin and 54% of the time in the third bin. Ideally, Chris should rarely swing at pitches that are more than 1.15 feet away from the middle of the strike zone.
Obviously, swinging at more pitches far away from the middle of the strike zone and swinging at fewer pitches close to the middle of the strike zone has had an impact on Davis’s performance. This would suggest that his problem isn’t so much that he needs to swing more or swing less, but rather that he needs to swing smarter.

Going forward, this chart suggests a way for the Orioles training staff to get Chris Davis to improve. It’s reasonably clear to see the distances where Chris Davis has success. It should be easy enough to instruct him in batting practice to only swing at pitches that are a certain distance from the center of the strike zone. Improving his eye should help his performance just as much as ensuring that his swing is working properly.

Chris Davis isn’t the type of batter that should be swinging frequently because he’s unlikely to put pitches into play. Rather, he’s the type of batter that needs to develop a patient eye, so that he gets the opportunity to swing at pitches that he is able to hit. With a batter like Chris Davis, it’s less important to swing frequently than to swing intelligently.

Adam Jones is Playing Deeper, but is it Helping?

This offseason, the Orioles somehow convinced Adam Jones to play deeper in center field. It's long been posited that Jones would net better defensive metrics, and therefore the Orioles would be improved, by his playing deeper in the outfield. The theory is that Jones, like most outfielders, is faster coming in on the ball than running away from home plate. Jones, for his part, has resisted this change for at least a little while and relied on his knowledge of hitters and counts before relenting.

Whether Jones' playing deeper has helped his cause is questionable, however. On average, Jones is playing 323 feet from home plate in 2017, compared to 300 feet in 2015 and 307 feet in 2016. According to Statcast, not one of the 65 balls in play to center field have gone for hits so far this season. In 2016, just two of the 402 balls in play to center field went for hits.

Jones' ultimate zone rating per 150 innings (UZR/150) in 2016, one of the stats that suffered in 2016, was -9.9. This followed two years of UZR/150 of over 8.0. Early returns in 2017 are less than ideal; Jones' UZR/150 this season is -7.5 - slightly better than last year but still worse than average.

The Orioles' outfield UZR/150 sits at -7.0 so far in 2017, another slight improvement from -11.2 in 2015. The UZR/150 of the outfield in 2015 was just -1.0. While outfield personnel changes, and the combination of Rickard/Mancini/Trumbo is not helping the overall ability of the outfield, that's not a marked improvement from year to year. At the same time, it's hard to know what would have happened but for Jones playing deeper. Perhaps his playing deeper has like Wayne Kirby told Jon Meoli, allowed for more flexibility in the positioning of the less capable outfielders on the roster and helped the team defense compared to what it would be if Jones played 15 feet in.

More important than any of the on-field outcomes is how this story has played out between Jones and the front office. Per Jon Meoli's excellent article on the rationale and early returns, the decision was less of a conversation and more of an edict. Jones claims to have wanted to further his understanding of the team's defensive metrics and voice his opinion as, you know, the guy who actually had to carry out the change, but was never given the opportunity.

The way this played out is less than ideal. I don't want to be the "never played the game" guy - I never played the game - but it's important for analysts in the front office to understand what such a change means for Jones, the man responsible for following their recommendations. I don't mean to assume that the professional analysts simplified the rationale into aggregates, but "playing deeper" means something different when speaking about averages compared to trusting a player's intuition on individual pitches. While recommendations may have been given for scenarios, Jones is certainly not receiving advice on his positioning in-game. Following general orders to "play deeper" takes away the experience Jones has accrued over years of playing decent outfield defense.

At the same time, trusting Jones to know exactly what's best not only for himself but for his partners in the outfield would be naive. The best situation would have been for the Orioles to have Jones and the analysts to sit and work together, to communicate, and to formulate a plan in a partnership between the subject matter expert and the consultant. Even if the result was identical, the fact that Jones was unhappy enough to say it to the press is less than ideal and instructive for the Orioles, other Major League teams, and all professional organizations in existence. It's important to understand and appreciate nuance, and involve the people carrying out the work in the decision-making process.

What Leveraged ERA Says About The Orioles Bullpen

On April 16th, the Orioles bullpen gave up four runs in three innings. The consequences were drastic – the Orioles Pythagorean expectation dropped from .524 to .504 (as of 5/3/17), costing them .4 of a theoretical win. This game accounted for four of the forty runs allowed by the bullpen this year, inflating their bullpen ERA by .42 runs. And also, anyone who bet on the Orioles to win that day by ten runs or more ended up losing their wager. But the Orioles, who boasted leads of 6-0 and 11-1 ended up winning easily by a score of 11-4.

On a more serious note, this game illustrates the problem with bullpen ERA. The typical way to determine bullpen ERA treats runs allowed in a close game equally to runs allowed in a blowout. But this doesn’t make sense because runs allowed in a close game are far more valuable than those allowed in a blowout and teams make sure that their best pitchers (at least to some extent) pitch in more close games than blowouts.

Consider the following example. For the sake of simplicity, suppose two teams have a bullpen each with only two relievers. For both of these teams, one reliever is the closer who pitches in close games and one is a long man that pitches in blowouts. If one team has a closer and long man that each have a 3 ERA, while the other team has a closer with an ERA of 0 and a long man with an ERA of 6, then both bullpens have the same bullpen ERA. And yet, it’s pretty obvious to everyone that the team with the closer with an ERA of 0 will have a better bullpen than the other club.

At the same time, it’s impossible to just ignore the performance of relievers in blowouts. On April 28th, the Orioles bullpen gave up nine runs in three and a third innings, blowing a game in which they held  leads of 9-1 and 11-4. The inability of Vidal Nuno to get through an inning successfully helped put the Orioles in a save situation which they were unable to convert. Runs allowed in close games are more valuable than those allowed in blowouts, but all runs still have an impact in a game
.
The way to deal with this problem is to use something called leverage index. Leverage index measures which situations are tenser than others and assigns a value to them. The stat is normalized so that on average the leverage is 1.00. In tense situations, the leverage is higher than 1.00 (up to about 10) and in low-tension situations, the leverage is between 0 and 1.0. A metric called gmLI, the leverage index when the pitcher entered the game, can be used to determine which relievers are used in the tensest moments and can quantify the difference in importance between the innings thrown by two different relievers. Once we know about this metric, determining a bullpen’s leveraged ERA is reasonably simple. It’s simply (ERA*Innings Pitched*gmLI)/ (Total Innings Pitched By Bullpen* Bullpen Averaged Leverage).

I was thinking about this when I saw Joe’s article yesterday. Joe noted that the Orioles bullpen “finds itself out of the top 10 in all the statistics in which they had previously been dominant.” With a bullpen ERA of 4.12 so far this season (as of Tuesday), the Orioles’ bullpen hasn’t been impressive. But how does their leveraged bullpen ERA compare with their regular bullpen ERA? Here’s how the calculations look.

The Orioles rank 14th in regular bullpen ERA, but 9th in leveraged bullpen ERA. Their numbers aren’t as good as the elite teams like the Indians, White Sox, Red Sox, Yankees, and Cubs, but they’re definitely in that second tier of clubs. The reason for their improvement can be shown by this second chart.

This chart shows the difference between regular bullpen ERA and leveraged bullpen ERA for all teams in the league. The Orioles, with nearly a one run difference, rank third. The average difference is .46 runs, but for the Orioles its .99 runs. This makes sense because the back of the Orioles bullpen is terrible, but the top relievers have been pretty good.

It’s a similar story when it comes to FIP. The Orioles bullpen FIP is 4.06 and ranks 14th but their leveraged bullpen FIP is 3.49 and good for 12th. The delta between their bullpen FIP and leveraged bullpen FIP is .57 – the tenth highest in the majors and considerably higher than the .35 average.

The reason for the difference between the Orioles leveraged bullpen ERA and their bullpen ERA is because the guys at the end of the bullpen have been poor. Nuno, Drake and Crighton have combined for a 7.27 ERA in 17.33 innings – roughly 20% of the innings that the Orioles bullpen has thrown, but have an average gmLI of about .3. Meanwhile, the heart of the Orioles’ bullpen so far: Britton, Givens, Hart and Brach have an average ERA of 1.58 in 45.66 innings with an average gmLI of 1.78. These four pitchers are performing.

As Joe pointed out, O’Day is definitely a concern with a 5.56 ERA so far this season. He’s been used in crucial situations as his 1.85 gmLI illustrates. His FIP is 3.63, largely due to his avoiding giving up home runs so far this season. If nothing else, O’Day is allowing LHB to hit only .118/.211/.118 this season and hasn’t given up an extra base to anyone yet.

However, Baseball Savant thinks that O’Day has gotten somewhat lucky with pitches into play this season. He’s given up only a .275 wOBA in those situations, but should have allowed a .331 wOBA. This could be bad news for his ERA. Still, either he’ll start pitching better against right handed batters, will be used primarily against left handed batters or will be used in less tense situations. The Orioles have enough good relievers that they can afford to use O’Day as a middle reliever if need be.

For bullpens, not all runs allowed should be considered equal because managers can choose when to use their best pitchers. Therefore, managers can use their worst pitchers in blowouts and their best pitchers in close games. This means that determining bullpen ERA requires a leverage component since a run allowed in a blowout isn’t as damaging as a run allowed in a one run game. This is why it’s a good sign that the Orioles bullpen has a better leveraged bullpen ERA than a normal bullpen ERA. Even if the sixth and seventh reliever in the pen struggles, they can still be sure to use them only in the least crucial situations. That’s why the Orioles’ bullpen looks better than bullpen ERA suggests and why Orioles fans should be cautiously optimistic about the bullpen.

On Patience

One of the most infuriating things for me as a fan is to see Orioles batters take bad swings at pitches early in the count. It's tremendously frustrating to see a rally killed by bad decisions and a lack of plate discipline. That feeling is amplified when I see Orioles starters racking up pitch counts and leaving games early because the opposing batters are willing to work counts.

It appears this frustration is not unique to me. Camden Depot received an email from a reader detailing Statcast rankings for some of baseball's most infuriating events: first pitch swings, outs made on the first pitch, taking third strikes in unfavorable counts, etc. While I've covered some of these frustrations in the past, I think it's worth airing them out frequently. Each time I consider my own feelings toward the aggressive, free-swinging style of play that the Orioles batters employ, I learn something new and frequently come away from it with a (begrudging) acceptance that perhaps things are for the best.

Swinging at the First Pitch

One of the my pet peeves is swinging at the very first pitch of the at-bat. To me, it feels very much like trading significant long-term benefits (favorable counts, a tired starter, early access to relief pitchers, better timing, seeing a whole pitch arsenal, I could go on) for immediate, but potentially smaller, short-term benefits (most first pitches are fastballs and fastballs are easy to hit).

In 2016, 38% of first pitches of at-bats were fastballs. This is pretty standard; pitchers looking to get a quick strike are likely to lean on the pitch that they can throw straight rather than hope for a swinging strike against an off-speed pitch. Most hitters prefer fastballs, since they move less than off-speed pitches, so it makes sense that aggressive batters would want to jump on straight, hard pitches regardless of when they show up, first pitch or not. The top five batters in 2016 that jumped on the first pitch, not filtered for outcome are:

1. Adam Jones
2. Corey Seager
3. George Springer
4. Yasmany Tomas
5. Freddie Freeman

Batting average king Jose Altuve ranked sixth, while Jonathan Schoop and Chris Davis ranked among the league leaders as well. Clearly, excellent hitters take advantage of the first pitch frequently. It helps to make contact with the first pitch, but the batting leaders in whiffing on the first pitch are very similar to the leaders in making an attempt at all. Adam Jones, for as much as I make of his proclivity to swing early and often, ranked 12th in whiffing on the first pitch, well below the other names on the above list.

As frustrating as swinging at the first pitch is when it doesn't work, it seems to be a perfectly reasonable strategy for a batter. It's impossible to know whether another, better pitch will come up later in the at-bat, and frankly, how much difference is there between a hit now and a hit against a "better pitch" later? Unless the pitch later can be swung at with a corked bat, the likelihood that it will yield significantly better results is low, if it yields any results at all.

Further, for accomplished batters who have made their entire career on aggressiveness, asking them to suddenly change their entire approach at the plate - the one that got them to the Majors in the first place - could do more to derail their rhythm than taking a few pitches helps.

Swinging at Straight Up Garbage that Everyone Knows is Coming

Wow, sorry for the language, but this topic gets me so heated. If I pitched to Adam Jones, I wouldn't throw him anything but pitches away and in the dirt. To my eyes, he swings at all of them. I haven't watched every other batter as much as I've watched Jones, but I would venture to guess that he swings at these nearly unhittable pitches far more frequently than others.

Among batters who have seen at least 400 pitches in 2016 low and to the right of the catcher, outside the strike zone, that would be close to correct. The following batters are most likely to swing at these pitches:

1. Salvador Perez (R)
2. Robinson Cano (L)
3. Jose Abreu (R)
4. Paulo Orlando (R)
5. Chris Davis (L)
6. Adam Jones (R)

I added each batter's handedness because pitches in this area are low and away to righties and low and inside to lefties. Depending on swing type and preferences, these might be easier to hit for lefties.

I don't want this to be an Adam Jones hit piece; it's not supposed to be at all. So I'll point out that Chris Davis, when he swings at pitches very low and very inside, had a 0.089 batting average in 2016. You would hope that someone swinging at those pitches often would be able to hit them with some frequency, but Davis is ice cold when he hacks at those pitches.

While I have not yet explored all of my frustrations with aggressive batters (surely I will soon), this article has done well to remind me that aggression can be good, but discernment is required. I hope it has done the same for you. If not... well, everyone's tune changes when the Orioles' free swingers connect for huge home runs.