Orioles' 2014 Offense Appears to Be as Unimpressive as Last Year's

by Daniel Moroz
Camden Depot and Camden Crazies

People seem to be optimistic about the Orioles' offense this year. Really optimistic. I've heard it on the radio and seen it on Twitter. Comments tend to be along the lines of "the offense was really good last year, and they added Nelson Cruz!" Being more detached from the sport than I used to be, I figured I was missing something.

2013 Team A: .255/.327/.420, .328 wOBA, 109 wRC+

2013 Team B: .257/.330/.409, .325 wOBA, 109 wRC+

An Offensive Celebration | Photo by Keith Allison

These teams finished 4th and 5th in Majors in wRC+ last year (excluding pitchers), behind the Red Sox, Tigers, and Cardinals.  Which one was the Orioles?

Trick question, they're the A's and Rays. The O's were 14th with a very average 101 wRC+. 

My guess is that because of the team starting out hitting better, Chris Davis' amazing season, the Major League leading 212 homers as a club, and park effects (the .324 wOBA makes them look about as good as the Rays), people overrated how well the 2013 team hit. Memory can be tricky like that, along with one's lying eyes (but man, there were some impressive home runs).

Davis was indeed great. Adam Jones was good. Danny Valencia and Steve Pearce added a bit off the bench. Then there were Manny Machado, J.J. Hardy, and Nate McLouth each around a 100 wRC+ with pretty much everyone else falling below that. Overall, the O's hit OK last year. Why would we expect a substantial improvement this year?

Matt Wieters posted a .302 wOBA in 2013 due largely to a low BABIP, but ZiPS has him rebounding to .321. Nick Markakis will hopefully be better than the career low .356 SLG and .304 wOBA he posted (ZiPS projects a .322). Manny Machado should improve some (assuming no after-effects from his injury). And Nelson Cruz's .340 wOBA (ZiPS) would be a vast improvement over the .304 the O's got from the DH position last year.

On the other hand, Chris Davis probably isn't likely to repeat what he did (.421 wOBA to .377 ZiPS). David Lough is projected to hit worse than Nate McLouth did last year (.296 vs. .323). Plus 300 PA of ~.365 wOBA off the bench (Valencia and Pearce) isn't expected. 

Throwing all the ZiPS* projections together with some guesses about playing time produces a wOBA in the neighborhood of .325, which is marginally better than 2013 -- the plusses and minuses mostly cancel out. And playing half their games in Camden Yards means that'll translate into a wRC+ that's above 100 again. A little above (maybe 102) -- which can be perfectly fine. If the Orioles are going to make the playoffs though, they'll need the pitching and defense to be sound, as it seems unlikely to me that the offense will carry them the whole way by itself.

* Steamer is slightly higher. Oliver is more positive still, projecting Chris Davis as the third best hitter in the Majors. PECOTA appears to lean the other way.

2012 Orioles Retrospective: Adam Jones

Adam Jones. Above average hitter despite plate discipline issues. Gold Glove center-fielder, even though the defensive stats don't like him. Team leader, who entered the season only 26 years old and approaching free agency. Jones may not have quite lived up to the expectation some had of him when he was acquired from the Mariners for Erik Bedard* in previous seasons, but he sure made up for some of that with how he started the 2012 season.

* Along with Chris Tillman. And George Sherrill, who go the team Steven Johnson. And Kam Mickolio, who was sent to the D'Backs in the Mark Reynolds trade. That Erik Bedard deal ended up having big ramifications for the '12 O's playoff-bound team. And to think, many fans hated it at the time.

The Orioles got off to a hot start, going 14-9 in April, and a big part of that was Jones tearing the cover off the ball - .333/.368/.611 with 6 home runs. And it didn't slow down in May, as a lower batting average was made up for with some extra pop and a few more walks - .298/.362/.623 and 10 longballs. Was the Adam Jones some people always thought he could be finally arriving? Well... no, not really. It was pretty clear even in the early going that his home run per flyball rate was unsustainably high, and would surely come down (dragging his batting line with it somewhat).

That didn't stop the Orioles from giving Jones a 6 year, $85 M contract though. Panned by some due to the obviousness of the first two months being a hot streak and Jones' low OBP, (and obviously loved by most O's fans), I thought it was a solid deal for the club - one which paid him to be the guy he was in previous seasons (good, but not great) as opposed to expecting him to have reached a new level. (And with the increase in salaries we're apparently seeing, the contract might look a little better now.)

Adam rewarded the team by having an atrocious June, combining a power-outage with a lack of patience as he hit just .272/.299/.427. There were ups and downs after that, but from the day he agreed to the contract extension until the end of the year, Jones hit .277/.325/.467. From 2009 to 2011, Adam Jones hit a combined .281/.326/.455. Generally speaking, he was who we thought he was, plus maybe a little bit extra. He still swung at way too many pitches out of the strike-zone (and missed a lot of them), but the additional extra-base hits (not so much the homers, which is what people noticed, but the doubles - Jones hit 39 of them after years of only 21-26) made up for it, as they have in the past.

Overall, Jones ended up getting some MVP votes with his career high 32 home runs and .287/.334/.505 line (and 4.6 fWAR, but I doubt his voters were looking too closely at that). I think he was undoubtedly the Orioles' 2012 MVP, even if his playoff performance was a horror show (.077/.074/.077). Going forward, it seems more likely Jones will settle in more in the 2.5-4 win range than approach 5 as he did (or 7+, as he was on pace for early); and it's at least possible that the increase in doubles portents that an expected drop-off in HR/FB rate might be mitigated somewhat by some of those two-baggers clearing the fence, and he's closer to the higher point in that range.

And that's just fine. An above average hitter (105 wRC+ career, 126 in 2012 due to his hot start) with plate discipline issues (4.8% walk rate career, 4.9% last season) is still an above average hitter (with some upside potential). A center-fielder who the defensive stats don't like (-7 UZR, -16 DRS) is still a guy playing up the middle (so he could be an OK corner outfielder, where his bat would still play - and, to my eye, I thought he looked a little better out there for much of the season). A now 27 year-old team leader who's going to be hanging around for the next few years (and is also a good player) isn't a bad thing to have around for a club that's hopefully going to at least have a chance of being competitive.

Orioles Bring Back Nate McLouth On a One-Year Deal

It was pretty widely acknowledged by the team that they wanted to bring Nate McLouth back for the 2013 season, and today they've accomplished that goal; McLouth will get $2 M, with the potential for another $500 K in incentives.

We've discussed the Orioles signing McLouth quite a bit since the season ended; my opinion was that a $2-3 M contract could be an OK value (apparently the O's agreed), but that it wouldn't do much to actually improve the team for next year. And so it is.

It seems like the team is done looking for outfield help and will go with Nate McLouth and (if healthy, presumably) Nolan Reimold in left-field for 2013. A McLouth/Reimold combo is certainly capable of providing league average (or even a little above) production out there but I wouldn't necessarily consider that the most probable outcome, and so it leaves the O's (who got about 1 win from left in 2012) in a marginally better position than they were. Really, just losing Endy Chavez's -0.8 fWAR is a pretty sizable upgrade all by itself, but the opportunity was potentially there to make it a real jump.

I've had a hard time figuring out this off-season if the Orioles viewed themselves like a 93 win team (and so they were already mostly set to compete in the AL East again) or a 73 win team (and so far away that they're just look to add complementary pieces and wait for the younger guys in improve). The club could have stood to add wins in left-field, second-base, first-base, and third-base. So far it looks like they have Nate McLouth and Alexi Casilla penciled in for the first two spots (and potentially Manny Machado at third). Those are the types of guys who can certainly hold down jobs for second division teams, but unless their record in one-run games was close to 0% luck last season, they're not likely to do a huge amount to help propel the Orioles to the play-offs again.

I would have liked to have seen the O's go after Melky Cabrera on the kind of deal he ended up getting from the Blue Jays (2/$16 M), or looked at Nick Swisher if his contract demands are more in line with some rumors (more like 4 years than 7). If the Orioles started the off-season out as more of an 80-85 win team, then those types of players are ones who can add W's. Going for the cheaper value players can be a fine strategy - one I've recommended often in the past - but if they want to be competitive then that probably isn't going to be quite enough with the pieces they currently have. That doesn't mean that the Nate McLouth signing was bad - the question is just if it will be enough.

2012 Orioles Retrospective: Wilson Betemit

When the Orioles signed Wilson Betemit to a two-year contract, it was initially a little confusing. Multiple years for a part-time player? But the price was low enough ($3.25 M total), and Betemit's adequate production in 2012 has things looking alright even if the O's decide to cut ties with him.

Though he missed a fair bit of time later in the season, Betemit started often in the first four months and still amassed his most plate appearances since 2006 (376). At the plate, he largely repeated his 2011 season, minus over 50 points of BABIP - it fell all the way to .336 (still well above average and around his .341 career mark). Betemit was able to walk (even if his 8.2% rate of drawing free passes was down a bit) and hit for some power though, which kept his batting line of .261/.322/.422 just barely above average (101 wRC+) despite him striking out in over 27% of his plate appearances.

It's been said before, but it might be a good idea for Betemit to give up on the switch-hitting entirely - and 2012 was a new low for the guy as a right-handed swinger. As a lefty, Betemit's .302/.357/.502 is more than worthy of a starting job even if his third-base defense leaves a little to be desired*. As a righty, it was a disaster; .140/.219/.186 and a wRC+ of 10. 10! Almost 30% of the pitchers who had at least 50 PA on the season finished with a wRC+ above 10. Though he might not have always been able to maximize it, Buck did get Betemit in there against righties a touch more often than had been the case for Wilson in recent years.

* Betemit was pressed into service at the position when it became clear that Mark Reynolds was not going to be able to handle it, and was more or less his usual self over there with a -5.5 UZR (-12 UZR per 150 games, compared to -14 per 150 career).

Overall, Betemit's 0.7 fWAR (0.6 rWAR) made him a fine contributor to the team and worth his $1 M (and then some). Having him as a "left-handed" bat of the bench who can fill in various positions (he also played some first and left-field) when needed for 2013 isn't bad, but counting on him to be play almost every day (when healthy) might not be for the best (especially given that 324 more PA would cause his 2013 option for $3.2 M to vest).

2012 Orioles Retrospective: Chris Tillman

When the Orioles acquired Chris Tillman from the Mariners in the Erik Bedard trade, he was considered a top prospect. Mid 90s fastball, big curve, good numbers in the minors at a young age. Tillman continued that minor league success for the O's, before getting called up to the big club in 2009. Since then, it had been a series of disappointments surrounding occasional flashes of upside - largely due to a fastball that declined from 92 mph to 90 mph to 89 mph last year, and didn't have the movement or command to compensate.

This season, Chris Tillman seemed like a different guy. In Triple-A, he posted numbers we hadn't seen since 2009; striking out better than a batter an inning while keeping the walks and home runs down (3 BB/9, 0.5 HR/9). When he was brought up to the Majors in July, he showed us why - his first start, he averaged 95 mph with the fastball, while pitching 8.1 innings against the Mariners and striking out 7 (he gave up 2 runs, both unearned). Hope had been rekindled.

Tillman ended up pitching 86 innings for Baltimore, and though he never again touched those Seattle highs, he was effective enough to keep rotation spot while things were constantly in flux for the O's. His 6.9 K/9 was only about average, but it was a career high. And he managed it while walking only 2.5 batters per nine.

Beyond throwing harder again - his fastball averaged a touch over 92 mph - Tillman also showed a more distinct repertoire, with the cutter figuring more prominently and the slider being its own offering. Here are the whiff rates on his pitches:

	Fastball	Curve	Change	Cutter	Slider
2009	10%	26%	32%	-	-
2010	12%	17%	26%	-	-
2011	10%	18%	19%	24%	21%
2012	14%	27%	28%	14%	25%

The fastball was a bit better, but the curve and change regained their prior success.

Tillman once again had a reverse platoon split in 2012; 3.67 xFIP versus lefties, and 5.39 xFIP versus righties. You can see that the improved whiff rates on his off-speed pitches from this, as lefties missed his change-up 31% of the time they swung at it and the curve 33% of the time. That's more like what happened in 2009, then in the previous two years when he could crack 20% against lefties with either pitch, though in 2011 the slider and cutter picked up some of that slack.

For his career, Tillman has actually handles lefties a fair bit better than righties, striking out almost 2 more batters per nine against them (6.9 K/9 vs. 5.2 K/9). Part of that is the change-up, which he used to throw mostly and now throws almost exclusively to left-handed batters, and which is maybe his best pitch - it not only gets swings and misses, but also some groundballs now (it had a 51% groundball rate in 2012). Right-handed batters were much more likely to see the slider and cutter this year, and as those are Tillman's newer (and, likely, worse) pitches, it's not so surprising that he'd be somewhat less effective with them.

That's actually not a terrible sign for his future, I think. If opposing teams don't pick up on this (or if the disparity goes away, as is possible considering we're talking about less than 150 IP against either side), then Tillman might once again get to face more lefties than righties (60% of the batters he faced in 2012 were left-handed; up from 58% in 2011 and 50% in 2010). And further development of the cutter or slider could help him decrease the split - a 3.67 xFIP against lefties is pretty darn good from a right-handed pitcher. Plus, he's (still) only 24 years old.

Going back to the fastball velocity - though it did take a distinct tumble after his 2012 debut, it still averaged 92 mph (and was more like 91-92 late in the year). That isn't as exciting as seeing him touch 98, but can be perfectly serviceable in a Major League rotation when combined with decent control and some quality off-speed pitches (especially if he can hold mid 90s in the tank for when he needs it). 

There are certainly some less positive signs; Tillman's 2.93 ERA is largely an illusion created by his .221 BABIP. He is a flyball pitcher and does induce more than his share of pop-ups, so a better than average BABIP isn't unexpected, but certainly nothing near that low. On the flip side to that, as an extreme flyball pitcher (and his 2012 groundball rate was a career low 35%) who doesn't suppress home runs like some of the more successful pitchers of that type have, Tillman can be susceptible to the longball - as his 1.3 HR.9 allowed can attest. Also, despite dropping his walk rate to 2.5 BB/9, he didn't really avoid three-ball counts or get ahead of batter much more than he had previously (a little bit, but not as much as one would think given that his previous career walk rate had been 4 BB/9). So some of the old flaws are still around, at least in part.

Overall, Tillman's 4.34 xFIP is probably more indicative of how well he pitched than his ERA (and his FIP of 4.24 leans much more towards the former). That xFIP is more or less in line with what the Orioles got from their starters overall in 2012, and ranked Tillman behind Hammel and Arrieta, and tied with Chen, but in front of Miguel Gonzalez, Brian Matusz, and various guys I wouldn't expect to starting games for the team in 2013. That probably leaves Tillman with a rotation spot heading into next season, but one that he'll need to maintain or improve upon his 2012 season to hold on to. And for the first time in a while, I have at least some confidence that that's possible.

2012 Orioles Retrospective: Tommy Hunter

Quick; who was second on the Orioles in innings pitched this year (pretend you haven't seen the title)?

Right, Tommy Hunter with 133.2 IP. Sometimes you just need a guy to take the ball, I guess.

The O's picked Hunter up from the Rangers last season in the Koji Uehara trade, and moved him from the bullpen (where he spent all of 2011 for Texas) to the rotation. He began 2012 as the O's #2 starter, but that didn't go especially well.

It wasn't totally unexpected; Hunter maintained his excellent control (1.8 BB/9) but continued to not miss many bats (4.7 K/9). The biggest problem - by far - was that batters started to take Hunter deep left and right. Allowing 30 home runs in 20 games (2.3 HR/9) is not a recipe for success, and his ERA (5.71) and FIP (6.09) reflected that.

Of course some of that was poor fortune, as Hunter's 21.3% HR/FB rate was the highest in the Majors for starters with at least 100 IP. That's why his xFIP was a more reasonable 4.52, which still isn't good but is more in line with his career numbers as a back of the rotation starter.

Hunter was used in relief a couple times earlier in the season, but finally moved to the bullpen full-time in September. And that's where he may have finally found his role. Because Tommy Hunter the starter throws a 90-91 mph fastball, but Tommy Hunter the reliever throws a 95-96 mph fastball that he can actually blow by people. Here's the change in whiff rates against his pitches during the year:

	Fastball	Cutter	Curve	Slider	Change-up	Sinker
April-August	11%	10%	20%	13%	20%	10%
September	20%	15%	18%	29%	-	-

As a reliever, he simplified his repertoire and is much more content to let it rip with the heater. It's also possible that the slider compliments things better that way than the curve, but this is a relatively small number of pitches to look at.

In any case, it's working. Out of the bullpen, Hunter pitched to a 3.71 ERA, 3.45 FIP, and 3.39 xFIP. Only Troy Patton had a lower xFIP (and his was just 0.01 lower) of pitchers with more than Tommy's 17 innings out of the pen. Hunter struck out 16 batters in those 17 innings, while handing out just 3 unintentional walks. he also threw the fastest pitch of any Oriole this year, at 100.1 mph.

As nonplussed as I was about the excitement some had when the O's added Hunter to the team as a starter, I can definitely get on board with him as a power-reliever who can potentially throw multiple innings out of the pen (I think I'm more comfortable with him in the 7th or 8th than Pedro Strop, at the very least). This could be one of those not-often-seen situations where a guy is so much better in shorter outings that he's more* valuable despite a somewhat reduced workload.

* More likely he'd be about as valuable; perhaps 1+ win in 80 innings as a reliever versus 1+ win in 120 innings as a starter.

2012 Orioles Retrospective: Lew Ford

Before the 2012 season, the last time Lew Ford played in the Major Leagues was in 2007. The last time Lew Ford had even 300 plate appearances in the Major Leagues was in 2005. So when the Orioles signed him to add some outfield depth to the team, it was largely viewed as a joke by many.

The 35 year-old Lew Ford then proceeded to hit .331/.390/.500 with 11 homers in 62 games in Triple-A. He was called up at the end of July to help fill some in when Nick Markakis got hurt, and ended up hitting just .183/.256/.352 for the Orioles in 79 PA.

Ford actually didn't play that poorly - his walk and strike-out rates (9%, 16%) were virtually identical to his minor league numbers and were both better than average. His .169 ISO was also above average. The main difference after his promotion was the nose-dive his batting average on balls in play took, from .365 to .182. Part of that was bad luck, and part of it was him hitting as many pop-ups as Joey Votto has in the last four years (combined).

Used mostly as a platoon guy, Ford posted an above average .330 wOBA against lefties compared to a .123 wOBA against righties. Part of that was BABIP-fueled, but he also walked twice as often against southpaws and hit all 3 of his home runs off of them (CC Sabathia, Chris Sale, and Francisco Liriano, no less).

Add in some decent defense in outfield corners, and Ford was a replacement level player even with the horribly low BABIP ("freely avialable talent" indeed). It's very possible - maybe even likely - that he showed enough to catch on with some team as a fourth-outfielder and righty bat, which is certainly a pretty neat story.

Given the current roster make-up though, I doubt it's worth bringing him back for 2013 on anything more than a minor league deal. But that doesn't at all take away from the fact that Lew Ford started a playoff game for the Orioles - as the designated hitter! - or that he hit  .375/.375/.500 in the post-season overall.

2012 Orioles Retrospective: Robert Andino

Robert Andino was pressed into duty last year with the loss of Brian Roberts, and acquitted himself relatively well. A solid walk rate and an OK strike-out rate can play at second-base when they come with some defense. Brian Roberts wasn't expected to play much (if at all) this year, leaving Andino as the starter at second again. Things went... less well.

On the plus side, the improvements Andino made with his plate discipline were solidified and extended. He upped his walk rate from 8% to 8.6%, and did an even better job of not swinging at pitches out of the strike-zone. He also showed a bit of pop early in the season, with 3 homers in his first 27 games (after hitting only 5 in 139 games in 2011). As late as May 15th, the home run leader-board read Robert Andino - 3, Albert Pujols - 1. (Pujols then homered in consecutive games, and finished with an impressive - given his start - 30 on the season).

Every else was not so good. Andino's contact rate fell to 80%. That, in and of itself, isn't terrible - it's actually a touch above average. The problem is that pitchers had no reason to fear him (they weren't checking the home run leader-boards, apparently), and just pounded the strike-zone. Of Major Leaguers with at least 400 PA, Andino saw the third highest proportion of pitches in the zone. And on those pitches, he swung and missed more than the average batter. Seeing strikes + swinging and missing them = strike-outs, and Andino's K rate jumped to over 23%.

Often, strike-outs will come with power production. That was, sadly, not so much the case here. Though Andino hit a career high 7 home runs and improved his isolated power from .081 to .094, that second figure is still poor. Of the 39 batters who struck out more often than Andino did, only one had a lower ISO (Everth Cabrera, who was to play half his game at PETCO).

And while more strike-outs will obviously hurt the batting average, Andino's plunged even further with the drop in his BABIP from .311 to .266. That'll happen when you hit fewer line-drives and more pop-ups, I guess.

So at the plate, Andino went from a perfectly respectable .263/.327/.344 to just .211/.283/.305. He couldn't even be platooned that effectively, as he couldn't hit lefties (67 wRC+) or righties (57 wRC+). Piling on even more, he made 13 errors at second (up from 4) which put his UZR underwater (-2 runs; plus another -2 from his time at third).

In a season where he could have established himself as a decent starting position player, it was unfortunate to see Robert Andino go from 1.8 fWAR to -0.6 fWAR and contribute to the black hole that was the second-base position for the Orioles this year. But hey, credit to him for being one of the few players on the team to remember to bring his (or someone else's) bat to the post-season, where he hit .417/.417/.500. He can probably still be a productive bench player, but it might behoove the O's to actually find a good second-baseman if they want to be competitive next year.

2012 Orioles Retrospective: Stu Pomeranz

I had never heard of Stu Pomeranz before I saw him pitch for the Orioles in Spring Training this year. I came away relatively impressed, thinking Pomeranz would be able to contribute to the O's bullpen at some point during the season.

Injuries kept him out for much of the season, but Pomeranz did get into three games in Baltimore in May, pitching 6 innings with 3 K's, a walk, and 7 hits (including a two-run home run) allowed. His minor league numbers - split between Double-A and Triple-A - were slightly more impressive; 23.1 IP, and 35 strike-outs to just 3 walks. And a 0.00 ERA.

A tall guy who averaged 94 mph with his fastball in the Majors, Pomeranz also got a little bit of sink on some of his heaters which helped him keep the ball on the ground pretty well (59% groundball rate). The curve doesn't seem like a knockout offering, but it isn't the worst complement to the fastball (it can at least make the latter look better).

Already 27 years old, there's probably not much upside left with Pomeranz. I certainly wouldn't feel less comfortable going to him in the middle innings than to Kevin Gregg though, and if he sticks around with the O's for 2013 I wouldn't be surprised if he did a fine job in middle relief for the team.

The Camden Highball (Episode 4): Searching for Nate McLouth

On the podcast today, I have finally gotten around to editing the track.  It was originally recorded on October 21st, but the discussion applies to today as well as it did on Sunday.  Replacing Nick Faleris on the podcast for this episode is co-writer of Camden Depot, Daniel Moroz.  We have a prequel discussion on what Nate McLouth means for the 2013 season on the Orioles.  We explore other possibilities for the outfield.  An aside about the misperception (in our opinion) of Mark Reynolds' defense at first base.  Some thoughts about internal and external left field options.  We also discuss the future of the Orioles behind the plate and what a Matt Wieters extension would mean.

Episode 4 of the Camden Highball

00:00:00 Music - Castle on the Cumberland by HooDoo Hounds (written by Matt Huddleston; in full at end of podcast - 01:19:00)
00:00:22 Greetings from Jon (with slight change in sound quality)
00:02:00 Mailbag from Phillip in Plano, TX.  Who earned their place on 2013 team?
00:04:00 Using Small Sample Sizes to Evaluate Players
00:10:19 Rolling into LF talk and Nate McLouth
00:16:48 Internal Options - Reimold, Avery, and Hoes
00:26:09 Perhaps a misguided idea about Mark Reynolds playing left field
00:27:40 Mark Reynolds is not a gold glove first baseman
00:34:32 Nick Markakis' defense is considered and his decline; other internal options
00:41:40 Free Agent Target: Josh Hamilton
00:47:25 Free Agent Target: Nick Swisher
00:54:14 Free Agent Target: Melky Cabrera
01:03:30 Daniel discusses centerfielders to shift to left (i.e., Angel Pagan, Cody Ross)
01:07:25 Orioles catchers and a Matt Wieters extension

We are available on iTunes (though we seem to have some problems with updating there).  It stands to be quite an exciting series of games between now and then.  If you have any question you would like to pose to us, feel free to mail them via CamdenDepot@gmail.com or via the Camden Depot Facebook page.

2012 Orioles Retrospective: Nate McLouth

I've seen Pirates fans complain about Nate McLouth, and I've seen Braves fans complain about Nate McLouth, and I've seen some Orioles fans be confused when the team signed Nate McLouth this year. Many a joke was made by people (including me) about the O's - the contending O's, fighting for a playoff spot - counting on a guy who hadn't done anything in the Majors since 2009.

But it was McLouth and the O's that had the last laugh, as he hit .268/.342/.435 for the team and then .308/.321/.462 in the post-season. There is no doubt that he gave the team a shot in the arm down the stretch.

And yet, it seems very clear to me that - contra* Jeremy's post - counting on Nate McLouth to be the starting left-fielder for the O's in 2013 is not the best move.

* I assume Jeremy doesn't know Nate personally and doesn't have any actual knowledge about his state of mind and the effects thereof, so I'm not even going to address the arguments about how McLouth can be counted on to continuing playing so well in Baltimore because he's happy here. That stuff is malarkey the vast majority of the time, I think.

Projecting a player's production by looking at what he did in the last two months of a season and seasons three years prior, while ignoring everything in between, is generally wrong. Sure McLouth hit pretty well for the Orioles, but his overall 2012 batting line was just .241/.314/.380 and he accumulated 0.8 fWAR (decent in half a season of work, but not all that great).

Just because McLouth was hurt in the intervening years doesn't mean that's wiped away completely - it negatively impacts not only how much we should expect McLouth to play, but it certainly means we shouldn't ignore the generic effects of aging.

Also, McLouth had about as many plate appearances in 2012 as he did in 2011 and 2010 (each). Over the entire span, he hit .221/.320/.340 - which is quite bad for a corner outfielder. He accumulated -0.4 fWAR. Just for comparison's sake, Nolan Reimold has hit .247/.317/.447 with 1.4 fWAR (in like 400 fewer PA). But sure, McLouth is the "proven guy"*.

* Reimold needs to stay healthy, but so does McLouth, right? Counting the minors, McLouth only has like 200 more PA than Reimold over the last three years (1276 to 1067). Why is one a huge injury risk while the other isn't at all?

To expect a player to continue hitting as well as he did in less than 250 PA at the end of a season - a substantially higher level than he has in years - is a mistake that overzealous fans sometimes make, but that GMs should not.

Even beyond that, one shouldn't expect McLouth's Orioles production to continue. His .306 BABIP would have been his best ever, and his career mark is just .277. So even just adjusting that down (and you better believe his career BABIP is what's more likely to show up in 2013 than 55 games if BABIP from this year), Nate's line falls to around .242/.318/.402 - that's a below average batting mark.

There are good parts of his game - he walks at a solid clip (9% for the O's, 10% career), doesn't strike out a ton (18% for the O's, 17% career), and has a bit of pop (.167 ISO for the O's, .173 career). But those are all merely solid, not great, as evidenced by his career 101 wRC+. A batter who's been almost exactly average in his career - with most of his playing time coming in his prime age 25-27 years - is very unlikely to be better than that (or even that good) when playing his age 31 season.

So we've got a slightly below average hitter at best, probably. Defensively, the numbers and the eye-test (to me, at least), indicate an average-ish left-fielder. His career UZR out there is -3 runs per 150 games, which is actually what you'd expect given his -13 runs per 150 games career in center-field (the positional adjustment between center and left is around 10 runs). The Gold Glove he has, like many of those that are handed out, was... not necessarily deserved.

Sure McLouth is a good baserunner - about +5 runs per full season in his career, 99 steals with an 86% success rate - but that isn't enough to turn a below average offensive, below average to average defensive corner outfielder on the wrong side of 30 who can't be counted on to play all year into a player who a team that wants to contend should give a starting spot to. And beyond the overall ability, McLouth probably shouldn't be starting anyway given his platoon splits (.342 career wOBA against righties, but only .292 against lefties).

Signing him to a one-year $2-3 M contract could be OK value (all of the above does add up to a 0.5 to 1 win player), but it doesn't actually make the O's a better team (they accumulated about a win from left-field in total in 2012). It's more promising him a job and then having to rely on him to do what no one should fairly expect from him that's the issue.

I will have many fond memories of Nate McLouth's contributions to the 2012 Orioles, and I wish him all the best in trying to land a starting gig on another (third-tier) team. If he finds those opportunities lacking, then bringing him back as a 4th outfielder isn't the worst (though his inability to play center in anything other than an emergency situation hurts). (This post was more negative on McLouth than I had originally intended, but it serves more as a counter-point to yesterday's decidedly pro-Nate post.)

2012 Orioles Retrospective: Jim Johnson

I've spent years arguing that Jim Johnson could be an effective closer. Years. It used to be taken as an article of faith amongst fans (as well as some people with the team), that JJ just didn't have the "stuff" to close. Not his stuff - the hard sinker, curve, and change-up - but his "stuff". He just didn't have that "closer's mentality". Seriously.

Here's from September 2011:

"Johnson once blew a save (or two), which resulted in some people deciding that he didn't have the mentality of a closer, or something like that. His career numbers in saves are sparkling: an 0.79 ERA, a 2.8 strikeout to walk ratio and a .175/.221/.200 batting line against (batters are hitting .162/.205/.201 against Mariano Rivera in saves in his career). That's only 16 games, though. Let's expand out and look at all save situations versus non-save situations:

Save situations: 2.91 ERA, 114 1/3 innings pitched, 5.4 K/9, 2.4 BB/9, 0.55 HR/9, Fielding Independent Pitching of 3.59

Non-save situations: 3.28 ERA, 134 1/3 innings pitched, 6.4 K/9, 2.9 BB/9, 0.54 HR/9, Fielding Independent Pitching of 3.53

More strikeouts in non-save situations, but also more walks; he's pretty much the same guy overall (check out those FIPs). Batters are hitting .252/.304/.340 against him in save situations and .253/.318/.348 in non-save situations. Johnson can close if the team wants him to - he'd be fine at it."

There's some not dissimilar point here from April 2010.

It was entirely unnecessary to reproduce that passage, but it's a nice reminder of where we were once upon a time. Buck Showalter accepted this argument at the end of last season and into this season (though there was some discussion of moving JJ to the rotation), and so Jim Johnson was installed as the closer. Here are his stats for the last two years in a random order:

Year A: 2.67 ERA, 3.22 FIP, 3.42 xFIP, 5.7 K/9, 2.1 BB/9, 0.5 HR/9, 62% GB
Year B: 2.49 ERA, 3.25 FIP, 3.63 xFIP, 5.4 K/9, 2.0 BB/9, 0.4 HR/9, 62% GB

Ah, but what if I add:

Year A: 1.7 fWAR, 2.5 rWAR
Year B: 1.4 fWAR, 2.3 rWAR

Then it might be easier to guess. Year A - the season where Jim Johnson contributed more wins to the team - is 2011, of course. Year B is 2012. That's because as the closer, JJ was only rarely* asked to go more than one inning, so he finished with 68.2 IP (in 71 games). Last season, JJ had 91 IP in 69 games.

* He only pitched more than an inning twice, both times getting 2 IP against the Red Sox, in Boston, a month apart.

You don't often see a huge amount of consistency from year to year for relievers, but JJ was pretty much exactly the same guy this season that he was last season. You know, other than setting a club record by picking up 51 saves in 54 chances. He was consistent all year too, with two outings accounting for more than half of the total runs he allowed. In 32 of his 71 games, Johnson pitched an inning facing the minimum three batters*.

* No idea how that compares to the average closer, but it seems good. One data point; in 2009, Mariano Rivera pitched an inning facing the minimum 22 times in 66 games. Though he did go more than more inning more often, Mo faced the minimum in 39% of his outings that lasted an inning or less and Johnson did it in 46% of his.

It's a bit of a shame that JJ's sometimes devastating sinker isn't more of a swing and miss* offering. Though he can gets whiffs on his curve (and sometimes his change-up), pounding the zone with sinkers does keep things move along quickly and prevents walks and homer, but can leave Johnson vulnerable to the BABIP gods. Not that that's often been a problem - his BABIP against is just .279 for his career, and was .251 in 2012 - but, especially as a groundball pitcher in front of a sometimes poor infield defense, getting the K can often be better.

* His 5.4 K/9 is easily the lowest strike-out rate for a pitcher with 50 saves in a season. Next closest is 7.1 K/9, and that was back when strike-outs were less prevalent in general. 

The lack of strike-outs keeps Johnson from being one of the elite relievers in the Majors - even going by ERA, he was just 36th this year - but he's a good, usually* dependable guy to have at the back of the bullpen. The 51 saves might make his price-tag go up though (and he'll be a free agent soon), which means that it might actually be in the Orioles' best interests to shop him this off-season to a team in need of help in that area. Not that I'd mine terribly seeing him try to break his own record next year.

* Having the outcome of the ALDS essentially in his hands (though not really - an actual offense would have been nice), seeing Jim Johnson blow two games after the success he had this year was brutal. Luckily we seem to have avoided returning to the "he doesn't have a closer's mentality" stuff but, humorously may have tilted too far the other way in Game One ("he's a closer, don't bring him into a tie game").

2012 Orioles Retrospective: Mark Reynolds

Mark Reynolds did not have a particularly good 2011. Though he hit pretty well, his atrocious defense at third-base ate into his value enough that he ended up being only barely above replacement level. With a dearth of good options coming into this season though, Reynolds was sent right back out to the hot corner. 6 errors in 15 games quickly put that effort to an end; especially since he wasn't making up for his lead glove with his bat (just .143/.260/.206 in April, as he K'ed a ton and hit for no power).

Things started to turn around after that - Reynolds hit .308/.457/.654 in the first couple weeks of May - but a strained oblique landed him on the DL. He came back striking out less (and thus hitting for a somewhat higher average), but the power was still lacking. At the trade deadline, Mark Reynolds - who had hit 44, 32, and 37 homers the previous three years - had just 8 longballs in 79 games and was slugging .367.

From August 6th to September 8th though, Reynolds went on an absolute tear; .320/.431/.773. He homered 3 times in 3 games (twice in the opener) in Boston as the O's won a par. He went to New York and had a two home run game leading to a W, and then did it a again two days later. The Birds went up to Toronto, and we went deep twice more (the O's again took two of three on the road). Then the Yankees came to Baltimore on September 6th (Cal Ripken Jr. Statue Day), and Reynolds hit two home runs again. He added another round-tripper in the third game of that series. 29 games. 13 home runs.

Reynolds fell into a slump again to end the season, and continued it into the playoffs where he struck out 10 times in 25 plate appearances with just 3 hits (all singles) and a walk. Still, that one hot streak was enough to push his season batting line to an above average .221/.335/.429. He struck out less frequently than he ever had before, in (a still high) 29.6% of his times to the dish. He had the best season of his career when it came to working walks, drawing a free pass in over 13% of his plate appearances (excluding intentional walks).

It was pretty much just the power-outage that hurt him. Perhaps Reynolds had re-worked his swing or something, since his line-drive rate (according to FanGraphs) went way up - from just over 13% in the past two seasons (pretty low) to over 20% (a career high) - while his flyball rate was a career low. Fewer flyballs means that even a small drop in power would lead to a more substantial drop on home run production, and Reynolds HR/FB rate was his lowest since his rookie season (though 18% is still pretty good).

One would think that hitting more line-drives could drive up a player's batting average, and though he hit just .221 Reynolds did have his highest BABIP since 2009 at .282 (was ~.260 the last couple seasons). Trading some strike-outs for singles is good, but trading some strike-outs and some home runs for singles isn't especially helpful. Still, at least he made his home runs count; 6 came against the Yankees and 7 against the Red Sox, of his 23 total.

On the other side of the ball, things were perhaps a little more ambiguously interesting. Reynolds shifted across the diamond to first-base, and people began to talk about him being a Gold Glove caliber player over there. It strikes me now that perhaps this is no dissimilar to the story from Moneyball where - in an effort to bolster Scott Hatteberg's confidence as he transitioned to first - he was repeatedly told that he was a "pickin' machine".

Reynolds posted a -3 UZR at first-base this year - better than his -5 at third (in only 15 games!), but still below average. It seems like he often makes plays that look like they're hard, but they only appear hard because he had a tough time with them. The fall-down stretch at first can be a display of coordination and athleticism, or it could be the mark of a guy isn't the best at making a regular stretch (or both). The many sliding stops seem good, but they often just display a lack of range. The numbers didn't get better as the year went on, either, but that gets into some small (or, one should say, even smaller) sample sizes. Plus, when you account for the positional adjustment (allowing for first-base being easier to play than third), Reynolds had the second worst defensive season of his career.

Sure the metrics aren't exact, but all the ones I've looked at are in agreement that he's not a good first-baseman. "Fall-down" range at third-base isn't going to translate into excellent first-base play all that often. Maybe if he keeps working at it he can be adequate over there, but a Mark Reynolds who isn't hitting 30-35 home runs just isn't a useful player for a team looking to be at all competitive (and, perhaps at this point in his career, not even for a team that isn't). Given that, I'm not sure it's really worth bringing him back for 2013, despite his desire to return. Maybe a really cheap contract (definitely not his $11 M option), while not counting on him to start every day. Perhaps even in a platoon role to compliment Chris Davis and Wilson Betemit, as Reynolds has a career 123 wRC+ versus lefties (105 versus righties). That's a lot of all-hit no-field guys to keep on the roster though.

In any case, it was always enjoyable seeing Mark Reynolds hit those long home runs while in an Orioles uniform. The Sheriff of Swatingham indeed.

2012 Orioles Retrospective: Jason Hammel

When Dan Duquette traded Jeremy Guthrie to the Rockies for Jason Hammel and Matt Lindstrom, a lot of Orioles fans were not particularly pleased. "Guthrie's the team's only real starter." "He's the O's #1 guy." And so on. Hammel didn't do much of anything in Tampa Bay, and then followed up two solid seasons in Colorado with a down year in 2011. I thought that Guthrie and Hammel could be expected to be about equally good in 2012, but that Hammel had a better chance of providing the O's with above average production. And I still ended up underestimating Jason Hammel. Boy what a difference one pitch can make.

Hammel added heavy use of a two-seam fastball to his repertoire in 2012, and it proved quite effective. Always a pitcher who could get a few groundballs, he became one of the best in the league at it (his 53.2% groundball rate was 9th in the AL amongst pitchers with at least 100 IP). That improvement allowed Hammel to post the lowest home run rate of his career (0.7 HR/9). When he had gotten groundballs in the past, it was usually with his off-speed stuff. This year though, it was with that sinker; almost 60% of the time that that pitch was put into play, it was on the ground.

Normally there might be some sort of trade-off keeping the ball on the ground and getting strike-outs, but not only did Hammel keep the ball in the yard but he also set a career high by striking out 8.6 batters per nine. After being around 7 K/9 in 2009-2010, that fell off to just under 5 K/9 in 2011 - so seeing a rebound (and then some) was hugely encouraging. Let's compare the whiff rate on his various pitches from this season to that 2009-2010 stretch, which was his previous best:

Year	Fastball	Slider	Curve	Change-up
'09-'10	10%	25%	37%	28%
2012	17%	38%	43%	19%

The "fastball" combines the two-seamer with the four-seamer. Breaking them out for 2012 it's 15% and 20%, respectively. As primarily a fastball-slider guy, it's easy to see why Hammel's strike-out rate jumped so much - he started missing way more bats. The sinker and the slider tend to work well together, and he started going to the slider more often this year as he added the sinker - from ~17% of his offerings to over 22%.

Hammel velocity also improved; the 93.5 mph that his fastballs (both similarly) averaged this year was a career high. The change-up, though he only used it sparingly, was up to over 88 mph. Power pitchers who also get groundballs are pretty rare. Here's the list of guys with at least a 50% GB rate, a 93+ mph fastball, and at least a 7 K/9 from this year: David Price, Edison Volquez, and Jason Hammel.

All that, and his control didn't fall off a cliff either. While a 3.2 BB/9 isn't great (and it's worse than the low-to-mid 2s he posted in '09-'10), it's perfectly serviceable for a guy who brings everything else to the table that Hammel did (and is actually better than the 3.6 BB/9 from 2011). Here's the list of guys with the GB/K/velo numbers from above who also walked fewer than 5 guys per nine: David Price, Jason Hammel. That's it.

It's truly a shame that a knee injury kept Jason Hammel out from almost all of the last month and a half of the season, because he was on pace to have the best season of his career (2.9 fWAR in 118 IP translated to about 4.2 fWAR in 170 IP - he had between 170 and 178 IP each of the three previous years). Hammel came back for the playoffs though, and largely picked up where he left off; 11.1 IP, 11 K, 4 UIBB, 3.18 ERA.

There are certainly some doubts about what Hammel will do next year (he's under team control for one more season - another nice bonus from the trade) given his history, but I think he's just not the same pitcher he used to be. While a 3.43 ERA, 3.29 FIP, and 3.46 xFIP might not happen again, there's good reason to think he can be an above average starter in 2013. And if he's able to stay a little healthier, that might even translate into a more valuable season. It's been a while since the O's have had an Opening Day where they could be pretty comfortable throwing their #1 out against whoever the opposing team has, but that might be the case next year.

The Orioles Had a Topsy-Turvy Post-Season

The Orioles offense was not very good in the post-season - that can't be denied. Almost nobody hit, and they only scored 2.5 runs per game (that obviously didn't get it done). One sort of interesting aspect to the playoffs though, was how topsy-turvy everything went for the O's. Down was up, up was down. To wit:

* This team was largely carried by their historically successful bullpen. That pen had a 2.73 ERA in the playoffs, which is good but (a) not much better than their 3.00 during the regular season, (b) not that impressive given that they had their top guys going (ie, no Kevin Gregg), and (c) against a Yankees team that also stopped hitting. Mostly it was on Jim Johnson - he of the 2-1 record, 51 for 54 on saves, and 2.49 ERA - who went 0-1, with 2 saves in 3 chances and an 8.44 ERA.

* The starting pitching, which was shaky for much of the season, was superb. They had a 4.42 ERA in the regular season, and an ERA of 2.00 in the playoffs. They upped their strike-out rate from 6.9 K/9 to 7.8 K/9, while keeping their walk rate at 3 BB/9 and not giving up a single home run. And Joe Saunders started twice!

* Speaking of Saunders, he struck out 4 or more batters in less than half of his starts for the Orioles (3 of 7). So, of course, he recorded 4 and 5 K's in his two game.

* Offensively, the O's lived by the home run his year - they hit the second most longballs in the Majors, with 214 (about 1.3 per game). In the playoffs they hit just 3 (0.5 per game).

* Who did the hitting also took a decided flip. The worst position for the team this year was second-base, where the assorted players the O's trotted out (mostly Robert Andino and Ryan Flaherty) hit a combined .213/.273/.323 (.596 OPS). In the post-season, Andino hit .417/.417/.500 and Flaherty hit .273/.273/.545 (with a homer) for a combined .870 OPS that was the highest from any position for the team.

* The third worst OPS during the season came from left-field. Nate McLouth hit .308/.321/.462 (with one official homer) to put that position right behind second-base in the playoffs.

* Manny Machado drew just 9 walks during the season, for a 4.4% walk rate. In the post-season he walked twice (8.7% walk rate). He and Matt Wieters were the only Oriole batters to walk more than once.

* Adam Jones had the best offensive season of his career (.287/.334/.505), but did nothing in the playoffs (.077/.074/.077).

It was all pretty weird - and, in many cases, painful - to watch. For most of the season, people were saying "this just can't keep up". And them in the post-season, very few things actually did keep up. But, it should be noted, they were happening in the post-season.

Can we assume Wieters will hit better next time in the playoffs?

Jon Shepherd contributed to this article.

There has been some data that suggests that catchers peak later offensively in their careers than the average player. The narrative often attached to that late boost in offensive prowess is that a catcher has to deal with the mental hardships that come with taking care of a MLB staff and that exhausts a catcher from developing quickly from an offensive standpoint.  A second competing narrative is that a catcher's appearance in the majors is not a product of his offensive game, but of his defensive game.  As such, catchers with under developed offensive skills are more likely to be promoted and learn at the major league level than catchers with under developed defensive skills. 

The former idea of mental adaptation comes up a lot though in a variety of ways.  In a playoffs-related chat at Baseball Prospectus last week, Dan Evans suggested that the first time a catcher goes to the post-season his offensive production can suffer because he's focusing so much on his pitching staff. To put it another way, he is thinking so much about his pitchers that his mind is dulled for handling his own offense. This came up in reference to Matt Wieters, who ended up batting a dismal .125/.197/.167 in the playoffs. Jon was nice enough to provide me with a non-exhaustive list of catchers who had multiple post-season appearances over the last couple decades, so I could preliminary look at how they did their first time there versus their second (counting "first time" as the first year in which they had at least 10 plate appearances in the playoffs.)  The was not intended to be an exhaustive study on the subject, but a quick pilot study to see if there was any indication as to whether this truly is a topic to invest more time.

The list: Javy Lopez, Sandy Alomar Jr., Jason Varitek, Jorge Posada, Dan Wilson, Chris Hoiles, AJ Pierzynski, Yadier Molina, and Carlos Ruiz.

The first time this group of players were exposed to handling pitchers in the playoffs, they had an average OPS of .692. In the season preceding that post-season, they had an average OPS of .784. So, while acknowledged that the playoffs do only provide a small sample size, the catchers fared worse in the playoffs than they did in the regular season by an average of about 91 points or a reduction of 12%. This decrease would be in line with general conventional wisdom about offensive performance decreasing in the playoffs for all players in that pitchers in the playoffs tend to be better as a function of the best teams being in the playoffs. Worse teams with likely worse pitchers are not present for hitters to beat up on. 


The second time the catchers went to the playoffs, they had an average OPS of .674 - so that is a little bit worse than the first time. That isn't that bad though, when you account for their average OPS during the regular season on .742. So their OPS fell by only 69 points, on average, or a 9% decrease in performance.

This is only nine players, of course, likely with different levels of responsibility when it comes to handling their respective pitching staffs and the quality of pitching each of them faced while hitting may not be the typical quality of post-season pitchers. Again, this is a pilot study. A difference between a 12% decrease and a 9% decrease in relation to their regular season stats does not appear to be incredibly significant.  At least, it does not seem to be an interesting enough result to look more deeply into the numbers.  The idea is interesting and likely merits greater study, but nothing immediately emerges from this pilot study to indicate there is something really meaty here. A major problem for many statistical-minded folks is to be at arms with established lines of thought.  Where this has made sense in order for this approach to gain a strong foothold in every front office, it can sometimes overlook great ideas and concepts that statistical analysis has difficulty in assessing.  Perhaps there is truth to the mental hardship being placed on a playoff newbie catcher or maybe there is a general narrative that is being forced on catchers who happen to do poorly in a handful of plate appearances.

The work done here is largely inconclusive.  Maybe someone else can find much more merit to the idea than we did.  Our personal opinion is that Matt Wieters' line during the playoffs this year will not mean much to what he will do the next time he gets into the post season, fingers crossed, in 2013.

The full data (with an extra year for some catchers who were fortunate enough to see October over and over):

Javy Lopez:

1995 - .315/.344/.498, .842  OPS
1995P - .300/.302/.525, .827 OPS, 43 PA

1996 - .282/.322/.466, .788  OPS
1996P - .365/.426/.625, 1.061 OPS, 61 PA

1997 - .295/.361/.534, .895  OPS
1997P - .125/.207/.250, .457 OPS, 29 PA

Sandy Alomar:

1995 - .300/.322/.478, .810  OPS
1995P - .220/.233/.366, .598 OPS, 43 PA

1996 - .263/.299/.397, .696  OPS
1996P - .125/.125/.125, .250 OPS, 16 PA

1997 - .324/.354/.545, .900  OPS
1997P - .274/.303/.507, .809 OPS, 76 PA

Jason Varitek:

1999 - .269/.330/.482, .813  OPS
1999P - .220/.227/.512, .739 OPS, 44 PA

2003 - .273/.351/.512, .863  OPS
2003P - .294/.351/.706, 1.057 OPS, 37 PA

2004 - .296/.390/.482, .872  OPS
2004P - .245/.295/.472, .767 OPS, 61 PA

Jorge Posada :

1998 - .268/.350/.475, .824 OPS
1998P - .227/.414/.500, .914 OPS, 29 PA

1999 - .245/.341/.401, .752 OPS
1999P - .182/.217/.409, .626 OPS, 23 PA

2000 - .287/.417/.527, .943 OPS  
2000P - .204/.353/.278, .631 OPS, 68 PA
 
Dan Wilson:

1995 - .285/.330/.3444, .774 OPS
1995P - .061/.114/.061, .175 OPS, 35 PA

1997 - .270/.326/.423, .749 OPS
1997P - .000/.000/.000, .000 OPS, 13 PA

Chris Hoiles :

1996 - .258/.356/.474, .830 OPS
1996P - .158/.292/.316, .607 OPS, 24 PA

1997 - .259/.375/3419, .794 OPS  
1997P - .143/.280/.286, .566 OPS, 25 PA

AJ Pierzynski:

2002 - .300/.334/.439, .773 OPS
2002P - .344/.371/.500, .871 OPS, 35 PA

2003 - .312/.360/.464, .824 OPS
2003P - .231/.333/.462, .795 OPS, 15 PA

2005 - .257/.308/.420, .728 OPS  
2005P - .262/.313/.571, .884 OPS, 48 PA
 
Yadier Molina:

2005 - .252/.295/.358, .654 OPS
2005P - .286/.286/.371, .657 OPS, 35 PA

2006 - .216/.274/.321, .595 OPS
2006P - .358/.424/.547, .971 OPS, 59 PA

Carlos Ruiz :

2007 - .259/.340/.396, .735 OPS
2007P - .333/.400/.444, .844 OPS, 10 PA

2008 - .219/.320/.300, .620 OPS
2008P - .261/.346/.391, .737 OPS, 52 PA

2009 - .255/.355/.425, .780 OPS
2009P - .341/.474/.591, .1.065 OPS, 57 PA

The 2012 Baltimore Orioles

Couldn't bring myself to write something up about the Orioles losing Game Five of the ALDS. Instead, a look back (in no particular order) at some favorite memories from 2012 (with some help from O's fans on Twitter):

* The best moment of season for me - the one that was the pinnacle of the "is this even real?" feeling that permeated everything - was Chris Davis on the mound in Boston. Not only did he pitch 2 scoreless innings, but he struck out 2 - including Adrian Gonzalez, on three pitches! For a long while, Davis had more pitcher wins than Cliff Lee. And not to be forgotten, it was an Adam Jones three-run homer that gave the O's the 9-6 win.

* There was the September 6th game against the Yankees in Baltimore - Cal Ripken Jr. Statue Day - when New York scored 5 runs in the 8th to tie the game at 6-6 (after the O's went ahead on homers by Wieters, Andino, and Reynolds). And then the Orioles countered with Adam Jones, Mark Reynolds (again), and Chris Davis each going deep in quick succession to make it 10-6 and get that W.

* There was Manny Machado coming up as a 20 year-old, when the O's needed a third-baseman, and hitting two home runs in his second game in the Majors.

* Then there was Machado with a - I dared to say - Jeter-ian play against the Rays, faking a throw to first on a grounder before spinning and catching the runner rounding third.

* There were the packed houses in the home games of the ALDS, as the play-offs finally came back to Baltimore. And the Orioles coming back after a tough lose in Game One to get back into the Win Column (!) in Game Two.

* There was the return of the cartoon Oriole Bird.

* There was Chris Davis being strong enough to hit a broken bat home run. And strong enough to destroy a baseball against James Shields, who struck out 15 on the day, to give the O's a 1-0 win.

* There was Miguel Gonzalez, who no one expected to do anything (and most had never heard of), pitching like a top of the rotation starter for stretches - especially in Yankee Stadium.

* There was Adam Jones hitting a walk-off home run in the bottom of the 12th against the Phillies. And hitting the game-winning home run in the top of the 11th in Seattle. Starting the year scorching hot. Signing a contract to keep him in Baltimore for years to come.

* There was the previous day's game in Seattle that went 18 excruciating innings, before Taylor Teagarden drove in the winning run in the wee hours of the morning (for us watching on the East coast, at least).

* There was JJ Hardy hitting a game-tying home run in the bottom of the 13th against the Tigers after the O's fell behind, and then Teagarden sending everyone home happy with a two-run bomb three batters later. 

* There was the joyous celebration in the locker room after the O's beat the Rangers in Texas in the Wild Card game.

* There was Joe Saunders pitching well in helping the team win elimination games in the play-offs. Twice!

* There was Nate McLouth walking the O's off with a single against the Rays (driving in Manny Machado), and then Chris Davis carrying him around on his shoulders.

* Heck, there was Nate McLouth in the ALDS, being the best position player on either team, after months of jokes about the Orioles actually playing Nate McLouth.

* There was that crazy finish in Baltimore against the Yankees, where Mark Teixeira grounded into a game-ending double play (but not really). Mark Reynolds, Lew Ford, and JJ Hardy all took CC Sabathia deep in that one.

* That came shortly after the Orioles took two of three in New York, with Mark Reynolds hitting two home runs in each of those victories.

* There was Ryan Flaherty capping a six-run first inning against the Red Sox in their final series in Baltimore by hitting a grand slam.

* There was Matt Wieters capping a six-run 10th against the White Sox with a grand slam earlier in the year, giving Flaherty the idea.

* There was Nick Johnson going 0-26 in April, but getting hit by pitches three times and stealing a base.

* There was Omar Quintanilla doubling his career home run total (from 3 to 6) in the span of about two weeks.

* There was Mark Reynolds patenting his "fall-down" stretch at first-base.

* There was Darren O'Day throwing funny but almost always effectively, Pedro Stop never giving up runs early in the season (and his hat), Jim Johnson saving oh so many games with a dirty sinker, Tommy Hunter touching 100 mph as a reliever, Brian Matusz being almost untouchable out of the pen, and even Kevin Gregg sometimes not being awful (or it not mattering given the O's were behind when he came in). Also Troy Patton still paying dividends from that Miguel Tejada trade.

* There was Steve Johnson making his father - and a lot of other O's fans - proud, somehow throwing a 90 mph by people (and that 65 mph curve!).

* There was Jason Hammel adding a new pitch and potentially turning into a top of the rotation type starter.

* There was Chris Tillman finding some of the velocity we thought was lost forever, and bringing hope back for his career.

* There was Buck getting ignored by Mark Reynolds when looking for a high five.

* There was the Orioles somehow, someway, winning yet another one-run game.

* There was extra-inning win after extra-inning win after extra-inning win...

* There was Orioles Magic. There was a lot of it. Maybe more than we'll ever see in a season again. And it was awesome.

Catching Up on Players Discarded from 2011

Certainly you have to say that a part of the Orioles' success this year can be attributed to some of the players that Dan Duquette brought in in the off-season. What's a little more interesting, is that as of yet, there are no real regrets over players the O's lost from 2011.

Gone are:

Jeremy Guthrie. Sent to the Rockies in the Jason Hammel trade, which many people panned at the time (incorrectly, in my opinion). Not only has Hammel been quite good with the O's, but Guthrie has posted a 4.80 ERA for Colorado and (after being traded for Jonathan Sanchez and his 7.76 ERA) Kansas City. His vaunted base-hit suppression skills were no match for Coors Field (.318), though they did return to normal in the AL (.273 BABIP). Also seeing a big split was his home run rate; 2.1 HR/9 for the Rockies, and 0.8 HR/9 for the Royals. A Jeremy Guthrie doing what he's done for KC (3.00 ERA, 3.61 FIP, 1.6 fWAR) would have been a nice addition to the Orioles' rotation, but there's no guarantee of that - taken altogether, his 1 fWAR would rank just 5th amongst O's starters (and that's despite having more innings than anyone on the team but Chen).

Luke Scott. He hasn't done much more with the Rays (.227/.279/.438, 0.2 fWAR) than he did with the Orioles last year (.220/.301/.402, -0.1 fWAR). Pretty much every conceivable alternative the O's used this season (Betemit, Reynolds, Davis, Thome, Nick Johnson!) has out-hit him.

Derrek Lee and Vlad Guerrero are out of the Majors (Vladdy played a few games in the minors for the Blue Jays).

Josh Bell (traded to Arizona in May) could theoretically have blocked a Manny Machado call-up when the O's needed a third-baseman, but Machado has outplayed him (Bell's hit .173/.232/.269 in the Majors with -0.5 fWAR, though he has done a nice job in Triple-A as a 25 year-old; .311/.372/.509). Bell still has a chance to turn into something (only 282 career PA in the big leagues), but it's possible that having him in the organization in 2012 could have ended up costing the Orioles a win or so.

Felix Pie is hitting well in the minors for the Braves (.285/.338/.459), but Nate McLouth hasn't been much "worse" than that in Baltimore (.267/.339/.413) and I'm pretty sure the O's are fine with the guy they have of those two at the moment.

Cesar Izturis has been a replacement level player this year (and pretty much the last couple years), though he can still field a little bit and has been better than Omar Quintanilla (-0.4 fWAR for the Orioles) or Robert Andino (-0.3 fWAR). Having an actual second-baseman this season would have been pretty nice, though I doubt there are any fans pining for Cesar in particular.

Craig Tatum has hit .179/.258/.286 in Triple-A for the Yankees, while Taylor Teagarden has approximately 57 game winning hits.

Brandon Snyder took it to the Orioles when the Rangers came to town early this season, but he's been a slightly below average hitter this year (.277/.309/.446, good for a 98 wRC+) and that's with a .417 BABIP. Similarly in the minors, minus 55 points of BABIP (73 wRC+).

I miss Koji Uehara out in the pen, and he's done a nice job in relief for the Rangers; 2.15 ERA, 10.3 K/BB ratio (still has the best mark of all-time at 7.55 K/BB, min. 100 IP). I'd gladly swap out Koji for Kevin Gregg, but it's hard to complain about the O's missing a quality bullpen arm given how things have gone in that area for the team this season.

Similarly, Alfredo Simon is doing well in Cincinatti; 2.48 ERA, 2.95 FIP, and 0.8 fWAR in 54 relief innings. I think Simon is better than Luis Ayala, but - again - don't want to mess with that magical bullpen.

As far as non-Major Leagues players, the O's shipped off Jarret Martin (4.40 ERA, 9 K/9 but 5.6 BB/9 in A-Ball) and Tyler Hanson (.284/.374/.468 in Triple-A) for Dana Eveland (4.73 ERA, 0 fWAR) which was not a well received trade at the time (by me, at least) and has turned out about as expected (not disastrously, but certainly not well).

They also sent Randy Henry (3.38 ERA, 2.1 K/9 in High-A) and Greg Miclat (.275/.350/.394 in Triple-A) to the Rangers for Taylor Teagarden, which is probably not very good in the abstract but fine for the O's when you consider the big hits Teagarden has had.

So overall, the Orioles didn't lose a great deal of talent from the organization since 2011. Maybe they'd take a do-over on a move here or there, but it's hard to think that they're missing a piece that could have actually done much to improve the 2012 club.