At the trade deadline, nearly everyone expected the Baltimore Orioles to be sellers. And it would have been a prudent move. On July 31, the team was in 4th place of the AL East with a record of 51-54, 6.5 games behind in the division and 4.5 games out of the second wild card. While that doesn’t seem like a lot, they were behind 3 other teams fighting for that second wild card. As we’ve discussed before on this site, it’s difficult to leap frog that many teams, even if the overall games behind seems surmountable.
Instead of selling, they bought at the deadline by bringing in Jeremy Hellickson to improve the starting pitching and Tim Beckham to fill a void at shortstop left by J.J. Hardy’s ineffectiveness and (eventually) his injury. Who knows how close the team actually were to selling. It did seem for a while that Zach Britton was close to being dealt, along with possibly Seth Smith. But that didn’t happen.
Even though neither of those moves were what anyone else expected, they were defensible. The 2017 starting rotation was so bad that they needed someone just to pitch innings to finish out the season. This was needed not only so they could provide Dylan Bundy some rest as the season closed, but also because there were no viable options in AAA to call up. Bringing in Hellickson was an upgrade that helps the team finish out the season at the cost of a non-prospect and Hyun-soo Kim (and international bonus money, of course). It wasn’t necessarily buying at the deadline, it was survival.
As for the deal that brought Tim Beckham to Baltimore, there wasn’t much to analyze. The Orioles brought in a capable shortstop that could hit for some power, who was controllable through the 2020 season. And this able to be done for the measly cost of a pitcher in short-season A ball. Again, it was a perfectly defensible trade, even if it wasn’t what was expected.
Regardless of the actual reasons, the front office stated that those deals were made because they were still going for it in 2017. And I get why they have to say that. The Oriole players don’t need to hear that the front office has given up on the season, and the fans don’t need to hear that the front office has given up on the season. Furthermore, it’s entirely probable that many members of the team's management believe that they’re a playoff team, but their actions don’t show it.
The Orioles have since fallen 11.5 games behind in the AL East. And while they’ve nudged nominally closer to the second wild card (4 GB), they are tied for that spot with Tampa Bay, and now have 4 additional teams ahead of them (not to mention one more team just a game behind). It’s a big hill to climb, and that’s reflected in their current odds of making the playoffs, which dropped to 1.9% according to Baseball Prospectus. Is there a chance they make it? Sure! But to put this into perspective, since 2013 (that’s as far back as the playoff percentage data goes at Baseball Prospectus), no team has made the playoffs with odds at this point in the season. The worst odds a team overcame were the 2016 New York Mets, who were at 13.4% by August 21.
So yes, there is a chance, but there are at least two things the organization is doing that indicate that they are not taking that chance seriously (not that they should). The first is the declaration that J.J. Hardy will be the starting shortstop when he returns from the disabled list (although Showalter seems to have taken a step back from that initial statement). The second is by giving a roster spot to Rule 5 Draft selection Anthony Santander.
Santander had spent the entire year on the 60 day disabled list with shoulder and forearm injuries. Prior to this season, he had yet to reach AA, although he had performed well in High-A in 2016, hitting .290/.368/.494 in 574 plate appearances. Before the start of the season, Eric Longenhagen at Fangraphs rated Santander as a prospect with a future value of 40 (a below league average player), with future hit and game power tools grading out as average (he rated both in their present state at 30 out of 80, well below average). Since Santander hasn’t played much in 2017, I’d expect that his scouting report has remained unchanged (Eric’s report can be found here). Despite that, Santander hit very well this year in AA during his rehab assignment, with an excellent line of .380/.458/.780 in 59 plate appearances. After using the full extent of his rehab assignment time, the Orioles had to place him on their active roster or offer to return him back to Cleveland. They chose to keep him.
While I believe that keeping Santander and putting him on the roster was the right decision, it’s another reason that the front office doesn’t take their playoff chances all that seriously. As I mentioned, the odds of them making the playoffs are not good, and in order to make the playoffs, the Orioles will need to squeeze every remaining win out of this roster they can. By putting Santander (another corner OF/1B I might add) on the active roster, Baltimore is either going to give extremely important playing time to someone who hasn’t played meaningful baseball above single-A, or they’ll bench him and essentially play with a 24 man roster. Neither is a good option if you’re trying to make the playoffs in a race that leaves little room for error. And while having Santander on the roster at the expense of someone more capable will only be for a 2 to 3 week stretch until rosters expand in September, the Orioles don’t have the luxury of waiting a couple of weeks.
Who knows, maybe Santander will continue to hit the ball well in the major leagues and this will not only help the Orioles but look like a stroke of genius. Stranger things can happen. But I would not bet on it. This seems like a situation where the Orioles want to have their cake and eat it too. And while every once and a while that is possible, most times it is not.
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You can find Playoff Percentages for previous seasons below:
2013
2014
2015
2016
Showing posts with label 2017 Playoffs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2017 Playoffs. Show all posts
21 August 2017
25 July 2017
Games Back: It's Kind of Complicated
Yesterday, I asked the site's followers for their opinion of when the probabilities are high enough to reach out and start buying at the trade deadline. Overwhelmingly, they choose 50% with the caveat that some had others ideas like 40%, but 50% was closest to their perspective. In turn, I wanted to compare those preferences to the Orioles' situation and how we think about playoff likelihood in a more traditional way.At what probability for playoffs should a team be buyers?— Camden Depot (@CamdenDepot) July 23, 2017
Over the past few weeks, feverish attention has been placed on how many Games Back the Orioles are of either the AL East crown or, more often, the second Wild Card slot. This attention often appears to coincide with a demand that the club is not out of the hunt and should not scatter players into the transaction wire wind. However, Games Back as simple as it sounds is actually a rather difficult metric to comprehend. If you think of each club as a particle moving through space, the distance between and the speed of both your particle and the particle you wish to overtake is needed, but also every other particle in the mix. Just focusing on you and the leader gives you an incomplete view.
But what exactly is that incomplete view? In this column, we will ignore probability metrics. Those are probably the best way to figure out whether or not the club you root for is alive. And, well, if you have resisted looking at them for perceived faults in their talent assumptions, then, well, I doubt this column will change your mind. Instead, I will show you a different metric, This one is called summed Games Back.
Summed Games Back is literally what it claims to be. You simply add the number of Games Back the club is to the number of Games Back every club ahead of them is. For instance, here are the standings from July 21, 2017:
| Tm | W | L | GB | GBsum |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TBR | 51 | 45 | +1.0 | -- |
| NYY | 49 | 45 | -- | -- |
| MIN | 48 | 46 | 1.0 | 1.0 |
| KCR | 47 | 47 | 2.0 | 3.0 |
| SEA | 48 | 49 | 2.5 | 4.5 |
| LAA | 47 | 50 | 3.5 | 8.5 |
| BAL | 46 | 49 | 3.5 | 8.5 |
| TEX | 45 | 50 | 4.5 | 14.5 |
| TOR | 44 | 51 | 5.5 | 21.5 |
| DET | 43 | 51 | 6.0 | 25.5 |
| OAK | 43 | 52 | 6.5 | 30.0 |
| CHW | 38 | 54 | 10.0 | 65.0 |
| Avg | 47 | 47 |
You will notice that the Orioles are shown as 8.5 GBsum vs. 3.5 GB. That 8.5 summed GB number is the sum comes from adding the Orioles (3.5), Mariners (2.5), Royals (2.0), and Twins (1.0) Games Back values. It is certainly a number that can fluctuate wildly. For instance, if the Angels were a half game better, the Orioles would go from 8.5 to 11.5. That inability to account for equal records certainly is a drawback (one that playoff probability metrics account for), but it is also a weak point in traditional Games Back approach.
So, let us compare GB vs. GBsum. For this, I decided to look at all Wild Card races from 2012 until 2016 on July 25th. I only looked at clubs who were five games or fewer Games Back. I compared that placement with where they were at the end of the year. That way we can decide what the probability of a placement is in getting a playoff entry. I will do the same for those clubs, but use summed Games Back (regardless of that value for those teams that are 5 GB). If GBsum is a better metric, then we will find that it will more accurately identify competitive teams.
When we batch numbers for Games Back from the second wild card from 2012-2016, something sticks out:
| GB | % PO | GBsum | % PO | |
| 0 | 50 | 0 | 50 | |
| 1 and 2 | 21 | 1 to 3 | 21 | |
| 3 and 4 | 9 | 4 to 9 | 13 | |
| 5 | 11 | 10 to 14 | 0 |
Where are the Orioles now, as I write this, they are 3.5 Games Back (suggesting ~10% likelihood) while they are 12.5 summed Games Back (suggesting 0% likelihood). The larger take home would be this: 3.5 Games Back is a tough struggle to climb and a lot of data can be hidden in that number as you do not know how well other teams are doing. Summed Games Back gives a better indication of who else is at play. It suggests that the Orioles are in a situation where things are impossible. If the Orioles do come back from 12.5 GBsum, it will be something no club has been able to do in the 2012 to 2016 window.
When it comes to that Twitter poll question, it seems fairly clear that maybe only about 1 in 20 Orioles fans think it is prudent for the club to buy and go for that Wild Card slot. Most appear to think a club should only buy if it is sitting in the second wild card slot at the end of July. A few more consider it practical to buy as long as a club is no more than two games back. Then again, it may well be that most people and their perceived tolerance for probabilities are not in line with actual probabilities as they relate to Games Back.
Update: The Orioles won last night after I scheduled this for publication. They currently are still 3.5 games out, but are now 9 summed Games Back. This would put them squarely in the ~10% bracket.
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