Pedro Alvarez is Living My Dream

Joe Reisel's Archives

One of the biggest surprises of the Norfolk Tides 2017 season – last season – was that Pedro Alvarez didn't exercise his contractual opt-out to become a free agent. Alvarez is a power hitter, whose best position was designated hitter, in a system loaded with defensively-limited power hitters. It seemed obvious to us in Norfolk that Baltimore may have been his worst opportunity for major-league time, so why not try to move elsewhere? But he chose to stay in Noforlk

Flash-forward to 2018. Pedro Alvarez re-signed with the Orioles, and made the opening-day roster. He played in 45 games. At that point, the Orioles realized that he wasn't helping the team win now and, at age 31, wasn't likely to help the team win in the future. So, on June 19, the Orioles designated him for assignment and the following day outrighted him to Norfolk.

We would like to think that every team has nothing but major-league prospects at every level of its farm system. But in reality that's the exception. Almost every AAA team has a player like Pedro Alvarez – well, not all that much like Pedro Alvarez, a one-time all-star and #2 overall draft pick – but a 30+ year old with no real chance to play in the major leages (again). Gwinnett (Braves) has Sean Kazmar; Charlotte (White Sox) Jake Elmore; Durham (Rays) Brandon Snyder; Louisville (Reds) Hernan Irribarren, So while we in Norfolk are disappointed that Pedro Alvarez may be taking a Norfolk roster spot from a promising player, his presence with the Tides has virtually no effect on the Orioles' future.

The more surprising thing is that Alvarez accepted his minor-league assignment. At least last season the Orioles were a pretender; there was a chance that they would need his power in the chase for a wild-card berth. But this year, the Orioles are a non-contender; they're unlikely to (be able to) trade a veteran whose spot Alvarez could fill. Again he could have become a free agent with the chance of finding a better organizational fit. He didn't do it and again, it made no sense.

Until I learned a few things about Pedro Alvarez, the specifics of which I am choosing not to share to respect his privacy (other than to say that none of these things are negative.) I can state some generalities. According to baseball-reference.com, Alvarez has made over $21 million in his baseball career. I do not know if he has squandered his money, but I have reason to believe that he has not; if he has been even moderately prudent with his earnings he should have enough to live on for the rest of his life. The Norfolk – Williamsburg – Virginia Beach area is a nice place to retire to – reasonably nice weather, a fairly low cost of living. I don't know Alvarez' interests, but there's the Virginia Beach waterfront, a thriving local music scene, lots of golf courses nearby.

So now I see Pedro Alvarez as someone who might be truly living the dream. Ideally, he's got no money worries. He's living in a congenial environment. He gets to do what he wants – play baseball – and gets to hang out with friends. He even gets paid for his hobby! He's performed at the highest level of his profession. He's almost living my dream, anyway – although instead of playing baseball almost every day I'd settle for datacasting baseball.

Pedro Alvarez, I'm rooting for you. Enjoy.

Chris Lee - Who Knows Best?

Joe Reisel's Archives

Chris Lee - Baseball America's #10 Orioles prospect. Photo courtesy Norfolk Tides / Scott Sears.

If we thought about baseball before the 2017 season the way we did in 1985, most Orioles fans would have regarded Chris Lee as a top pitching prospect. He was left-handed, 6'3" tall (well, he is left-handed and 6'3"right now, too), weighed 180 lbs, and had an above-average sinking fastball and an occasionally-plus slider. More importantly, he had made 14 starts (between 2015 and 2016) at AA Bowie, pitching 89 innings with a 3.02 ERA. He had missed the last three months of the 2016 season with a strained shoulder, but he was considered recovered.

However, baseball fans have become more sophisticated. Beneath the superficially attractive AA statistics were a truly terrible pair of numbers - a 33-45 walk-strikeout ratio and a strikeout rate of 4.53 strikeouts per nine innings. These numbers are well below average, and I - like many other more statistically-oriented fans and analysts - questioned the thinking of prospect raters such as Baseball America, who ranked Lee as one of the top ten prospects in the Orioles system.

So, when an apparently-healthy Chris Lee was assigned to the Norfolk Tides for the 2017 season and put in their starting rotation, I was hoping to see him. To be honest, I was hoping his performance would reflect his strikeout and walk numbers as opposed to his ERA. I admit that I dream of knowing more about baseball than some of the professionals. So I hoped that Chris Lee's 2017 performance would justify my thinking that he wasn't much of a prospect. I emphasize that I had and have nothing against Chris Lee either personally or professionally; the negative effects on his career would just be collateral damage in a clash between my opinion and expert opinion. And, his overall performance in 2017 was almost everything I was hoping for - a 5.17 ERA; 54 walks and 144 hits allowed in 116 innings; only 6.42 strikeouts per nine innings.

(All data relating to Chris Lee's performance come from either baseballamerica.com, milb.com, or from my own calculations from my own scoresheets.)

But there was something peculiar. I saw six of Chris Lee's 2017 games - four (the first four below) starts and 2 relief appearances. And the Chris Lee I saw was a lot better than the overall Chris Lee:

Date	Opponent	IP	H	R	ER	BB	K
April 26 (G1)	Buffalo	6	5	0	0	1	4
May 19	Charlotte	6	4	1	1	3	6
June 3	Rochester	5	8	5	4	1	5
June 30	Durham	6	2	0	0	3	1
July 27	SWB	4	1	1	0	3	2
August 22	Charlotte	2 2/3	4	2	2	2	1

SWB: Scranton/Wilkes-Barre

That's 29 2/3 innings with a 2.12 ERA. His 13/19 strikeout--walk ratio isn't good, nor is his 5.76 strikeouts per nine innings. On the other hand, instead of allowing 11.14 hits per nine innings, in these games he allowed 7.28. It's not a huge sample size - but it does represent over 25% of his season's innings. The games were played at Harbor Park, well-known as a pitcher's park. He did face two of the less-potent offenses in the International League (Buffalo and Rochester), as well as Charlotte (a middle-of-the-pack offense boosted by its hitter-friendly home park) - but also faced the best and third-best offenses in the league. On the whole, other than Harbor Park, there's no obvious reason why Chris Lee was so much better in the games I saw than overall.

Basically, there are three logical explanations - either the four very good games I saw Chris Lee pitch are extreme outliers and in every other game he was poor; or he had a few really terrible starts that inflated his statistics; or some combination of the two.

Looking at his game log for the 2107 season, there are five really terrible performances that skew the rest of his season:

Date	Opponent	IP	H	R	ER	BB	K
April 8	At Charlotte	3 1/3	9	8	8	2	1
May 24	At Toledo	2	7	6	4	1	1
May 29	At Columbus	2 2/3	6	8	8	2	2
June 25	At Gwinnett	3 1/3	9	8	7	2	2
July 5	At Gwinnett	4 1/3	9	7	7	4	1

Those five games - in which he posted a 19.53 ERA - obviously had a major impact on his overall performance. If we throw out the four outstanding games I saw personally (April 26, May 19, June 30, and July 27) and these five terrible games, his performance was 71 innings with a 3.17 ERA. I have to conclude that the Chris Lee I saw is representative of what he's capable of - his 2017 season was overly influenced by five terrible games.

When evaluating Chris Lee, we shouldn't throw those five games out - that's part of what he did. Nor should we ignore his other negatives; his relatively poor control and strikeout rates. But, in 2017, I was watching Chris Lee, expecting a train wreck. If Chris Lee will return to Norfolk for 2018, I'll be interested in seeing him again - but this time expecting someone who, even if not a major-league pitcher, a pitcher who will help my AAA team win a few games.

Jayson Aquino - Former Rockie, Blue Jay, Pirate, Indian, Cardinal, Oriole (?)

Joe Reisel's Archives

In every season Jayson Aquino has spent with a full-season team, he's been charged with ten or more losses. Photo courtesy of Steven Goldburg / Norfolk Tides

In a recent Depot article, Jon dismissed most of the 2017 Norfolk Tides starting pitchers as "a decent collection of AAA workhorses, but not exactly a [group from which]you feel comfortable bringing more than one player up." Having watched 52 Tides games at Norfolk's Harbor Park in 2017, I more or less agree with that statement, although I think it a little harsh. Gabriel Ynoa rebounded from a truly dreadful first half with an impressive second half, and I would like to see what he could do as a fifth starter. Tyler Wilson and Mike Wright have each pitched around 140 major-league innings. While that's probably not enough to prove that they can't be major-league pitchers (see 2009-2011 Chris Tillman), they've pitched poorly enough that they will only get another chance out of desperation (see 2012 Chris Tillman.) Most of the other pitchers the Tides trotted out to start games are, indeed, AAA roster filler.

With one exception. At age 20, Jayson Aquino was a top-ten prospect in the Colorado Rockies' system, upon which he went a combined 0-10 for Tri-Cities (short-season Class A) and Asheville (Class A.) Since then, he's been a fringy prospect, occasionally appearing toward the bottom of top-30 prospect lists and bouncing from team to team, ending up with the Orioles before the 2016 season. He spent most of 2016 at Bowie before getting a late-season promotion to Norfolk; overall, he pitched well enough to be in the 2017 Norfolk rotation.

In the aggregate, Aquino didn't pitch well. Neither his basic stats (3-10 record, 4.24 ERA, 41/89 BB/K ratio in 115 innings) nor more analytical measures (as detailed by Jon in his article) are impressive. However, in the 8 games I saw Aquino pitch I saw enough to suggest that he might be a usable major-league pitcher - not a star, not necessarily even a key member of a staff, but someone who could give a team 20 starts of acceptable performance. It's important to realize that we're not looking for perfection out of Aquino's starts, but merely reasonably good performance.

April 14 vs Charlotte - 6 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 8 SO

There's nothing negative about this performance at all. In the third inning, Aquino gave up two singles with one out but got Yoan Moncada to ground into a double play. The Knights scored their run in the fourth when Logan Schafer committed an error on an inning-ending fly ball that allowed Ryan Raburn to score from first. (The Tides' official scorer is more inclined than I to call borderline plays hits, rather than errors.) Aquino gave up a leadoff double in the fifth inning but stranded the runner at second base.

May 5 vs. Durham - 7 IP, 5 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 3 BB, 4 SO

This game is the first suggestion that there's more to Aquino than is apparent from the year-end summay line. In the second inning, Aquino gave up four runs to the Bulls on a walk, three singles, a sacrifice fly, and a double. .But he retired all nine batters he faced in the third, fourth, and fifth. In the sixth, he did give up a run on a walk, a swinging-bunt groundout, and a single. But in the seventh, he walked the first batter before picking him off and getting two groundouts. It's impressive that he righted himself after a bad inning and ended up with a line that isn't terrible. (That second inning raised his season ERA from 3.96 to 4.24.)

May 18 vs. Charlotte - 5 2/3 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 5 BB, 1 SO

Not a good performance. He gave up a walk and home run to the first two batters and put at least one man on base in almost every inning after that. But only one other run resulted from all those runners, as Aquino (and reliever Paul Fry, who finished the sixth inning) stranded eight Knights. If one is looking for a silver lining, the fact that the Knights had twelve baserunners (one reached on an error) in six innings and only scored three runs at least says that Aquino could work his way out of jams.

June 4 vs. Rochester - 6 2/3 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 5 SO

Aquino pitched six shutout innings before weakening in the seventh. In those first six innings, the Red Wings only had one mild threat, when a two-out double put runners on second and third in the fifth inning. In the seventh, however, the first two batters singled - the second a soft fly ball to right field that fell in, allowing the runner on first to go to third - and the third batter hit a sacrifice fly. One out later, a triple scored the runner from first and knocked Aquino out of the game.

June 18 vs. Louisville - 8 IP, 8 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 5 SO

Aquino didn't pitch quite as well as the line indicates. The Tides' official scorer is overly generous to pitchers when determining if runs are unearned, and the run Aquino allowed could easily have been an earned run. Also, a batter-runner was thrown out trying to stretch a double into a triple. And the wind, at least at the start of the game, was blowing in from center field. Nevertheless, this was a good performance. 

July 25 vs. Scranton/Wilkes-Barre - 6 IP, 9 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 3 BB, 4 SO

Another game in which Aquino wasn't all that sharp, but with the help of his defense (2 double plays and a caught stealing) and his ability to avoid the big inning he was able to keep the opponents in check and his team in the game. The first two batters produced the first run on a double off the center-field wall and a single; the other two runs scored in the third when, with two outs, a walk was followed by a home run. Not a perfect performance, but not terrible either.

July 30 (Game 2) vs. Columbus - 5 IP, 8 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 5 BB, 3 SO

Aquino did not pitch well in this game. In the second inning, a batter-runner was thrown out trying for an inside-the-park home run. The Clippers scored all four runs in the third inning, on two doubles, two singles, a home run, and a walk; they could have scored more except for a fine play on a line drive by shortstop Luis Sardinas. Again, in the two innings Aquino pitched after that four-run third he avoided serious trouble and allowed no more runs.

August 31 vs. Gwinnett - 4 2/3 IP, 10 H, 8 R, 4 ER, 1 BB, 4 SO

The Tides' played a very sloppy last home game of 2017, and Aquino didn't pitch well - although he probably deserved better results than he got. After pitching two scoreless innings, he gave up a three-run home run in the third. He should have gotten out of the fourth inning 1-2-3, but with two outs third baseman Sardinas dropped a routine pop fly. Aquino struck out the next batter, but Francisco Pena was unable to block the third strike and the runner reached on a wild pitch. An infield single followed by a wild throw led to one run, and ultimately four runs scored in that inning. Another run scored in the fifth before Aquino was lifted.

From these eight games, there a two major reasons why I think Jayson Aquino would be capable of handling a low-level position in a starting rotation. First, none of these eight games were true "disaster starts" in which there is nothing positive to report. Indeed, of all his starts - including those I didn't see - in only two did he not pitch at least four innings (in one of which he was pulled early to save him for a promotion.) And second, he was always able to rebound and pitch well after he enduring a big inning.

Again, I am in no way suggesting that Jayson Aquino is going to be a star or even an important major-league pitcher. I'm not even saying the Orioles were wrong to let him explore minor-league free agency while awarding spots to Alec Asher, Stefan Crichton, Chris Lee, Yefry Ramirez, or Jimmy Yacabonis. I am saying that Jayson Aquino deserves a real shot at a major-league job, perhaps in what I would call the T.J. McFarland role; and, if I were a bad team trying to get through the season (such as the Tigers, White Sox, or Athletics), I would offer Aquino a real chance to be the #5 starter.

Actually, I must confess the real reason I like Jayson Aquino as the pitcher. In that April 14 start, Yoan Moncada - the White Sox second base prospect who was seemingly regarded as the greatest prospect since sliced bread - was in the lineup. Aquino's command and control of breaking stuff made Moncada look like an overmatched high schooler. I know that we're suppose to ignore such individual plate appearances when evaluating players, but I won't. Any pitcher who can make a Yoan Moncada look that bad has got something to offer.

What Is a Jimmy Yacabonis?

Joe Reisel's Archives

Jimmy Yacabonis was named to the International League team for the 2017 AAA All-Star game. Photo courtesy of Les Treagus / Norfolk Tides.

Recently, the authors of - and guest contributors to - Camden Depot have provided their opinions on what the Orioles should do this offseason. Every contributor acknowledged that the Orioles need pitching. While the need for starting pitchers is huge and obvious, many commentators (not necessarily on Camden Depot) have speculated that the Orioles could try to meet that need by trading from their bullpen. It is noteworthy to me that none of the commenters have suggested using pitchers from their AAA Norfolk team on the 2018 major-league team, except that Alec Asher and Gabriel Ynoa might be desperation options as long relievers/fifth starters if nothing else works.

Although it's noteworthy, it's really not surprising. The 2017 Norfolk Tides were not a good AAA team and their run prevention was also not good, finishing ninth in the fourteen-team International League despite playing in a pitcher's park. And many of the Norfolk pitchers were expressly acquired by the Orioles to serve as depth options, ready to be promoted if the Orioles needed a long man in the bullpen or if they were hoping to catch lightning in a bottle. While the Orioles did catch a bolt labeled "Richard Bleier" in a bottle, pitchers such as Damien Magnifico, Jordan Kipper, Paul Fry, and Andrew Faulkner were only of interest in our end-of-season game of "Name Those Tides."

But I do wonder if the in-organization options for the Orioles staff are being written off too quickly. There were four Tides pitchers who were considered at least moderate prospects before 2017 and/or pitched reasonably well for the 2017 Tides. It's at least conceivable that - well, I don't know if the fans I'm thinking of would be considered casual or sophisticated - some fans might wonder if relief pitchers Jimmy Yacabonis and Stefan Crichton, or starting pitchers Chris Lee and Jayson Aquino, could play for the 2017 Tides. Over the next couple of months, I'll be looking at these four pitchers based on my observations/data collection from my 2017 work. (Newcomers - I work for the Tides as a Major League Baseball Advanced Media (MLBAM) datacaster and for Baseball Information Solutions (BIS) as a minor league scorer.) First up - Jimmy Yacabonis.

Jimmy Yacabonis was the Orioles' 13th-round draft pick in 2013 out of St. Joseph's University. Although he had control problems, he pitched effectively while rising through the Orioles system - except in the Advanced-A Carolina League (Frederick); he spent parts of three seasons there and so only got to AAA in 2017, at age 25. His 2017 was, at least at the most elementary level, quite successful. With Norfolk, Yacabonis pitched 61 1/3 innings in 41 appearances, with a 1.32 ERA (and no unearned runs); a 0.95 WHIP; and no home runs allowed. In a couple of stints with the Orioles, Yacabonis pitched 20 2/3 innings in 14 appearances, with a 4.35 ERA (again with no unearned runs) and only two home runs allowed. Looking at those stats, he looks like a pitcher who could help in a bullpen role, and has even shown the ability to pitch more than one inning in an appearance.

Of course, those are his most favorable statistics, and other aspects of his performance raise doubts. With Norfolk, Yacabonis walked 28 batters and struck out only 48, unimpressive totals for a relief pitcher. He was even worse in his time with the Orioles, walking 14 while striking out only 8. His WHIP in his 20 2/3 innings with Baltimore was 1.55. It is possible - maybe even probable - that his overall effectiveness was a product of luck, rather than ability.

I saw 14 of Yacabonis' Norfolk appearances, and will look more closely at his performance to see a little more clearly what he is. First, his basic performance data:

Date	Opp	BFP	IP	H	R	ER	W	K
Apr 10	GWI	6	2	0	0	0	0	2
Apr 15	CHA	4	1	0	0	0	1	0
Apr 26 (1)	BUF	3	1	0	0	0	0	0
May 06	DUR	5	1	2	0	0	0	2
May 07	DUR	6	1 1/3	1	0	0	1	0
May 20	CHA	11	2 2/3	0	1	1	3	3
May 31	PAW	4	1	1	0	0	1	0
Jun 03	ROC	8	1 1/3	1	0	0	3	1
Jun 18	LOU	7	1 1/3	2	1	1	2	0
Jun 28	LOU	7	2 1/3	0	0	0	2	0
Jul 27	SWB	7	2	0	0	0	1	3
Aug 19	TOL	6	2	0	0	0	0	3
Aug 22	CHA	3	1	0	0	0	0	0

That's a pretty solid line with a couple of red flags. In 20 innings, he allowed 2 runs (0.90 RA) on only 7 base hits. He pitched at least one complete inning in all 14 outings and at least two in 6. On the negative side, he walked 12 in those 20 innings and struck out only 14. This does appear to be a representative sample of his work, as his rates are completely in line with his full-season rates.

Next, a look at the results of Yacabonis' pitches:

Ball	135
Callled Strike	63
Swinging Strike	20
Foul	48
In Play	54

Although the Ball total may appear high, it's really in line with the counts of most Norfolk pitchers (at least the ones I looked at previously.) What's more distinctive is that batters swung at fewer of Yacabonis' pitches than they did at the pitches of most other pitchers - it's not radically out of line, but the percentage of swings is at the low end. I see two possible reasons for this - either it's known that Yacabonis doesn't have good control, so batters don't swing; or Yacabonis has a deceptive delivery and batters don't see the ball well. (Or both.)

The most interesting data is below, which is the number of pitches Yacabonis threw at different ball-strike counts:

0-0	81
1-0	43
0-1	31
2-0	16
1-1	33
0-2	18
3-0	5
2-1	19
1-2	26
3-1	9
2-2	27
3-2	12

The interesting thing is that over half the time Yacabonis pitched a ball on the first pitch. It's been established that pitchers are more effective when they have an 0-1 count, as opposed to a 1-0 count, after the first pitch. It does seem that, if he does fall behind 1-0, he doesn't have much trouble throwing the second pitch for a strike - he only had 16 2-0 counts.

So, after all this, I still don't know what to make of Jimmy Yacabonis. That he was effective in AAA is undoubted. It's still not clear whether he'll be able to be effective as a major-league pitcher. In general, I believe that a pitcher who's been effective at a level deserves a real chance at the next level, and Yacabonis fits that criteria. But his lack of control, his lack of strikeouts, and his inability to throw strike one give me pause. I can understand why the Orioles, in 2018, would rather use a pitcher with better predictors of success even if that pitcher was less effective than Jimmy Yacabonis.