Chris Tillman's Unfortunate, Historic Run

Chris Tillman was placed on the 10 day disabled list on May 11, and there’s no guarantee he will ever pitch in an Orioles uniform again. This is sad, because from 2012 to 2016 Tillman was one of the better pitchers in the American League, winning 63 games and posting an ERA of 3.81 in that time frame while throwing the 10th most innings of any American League starter. Of course, if you’ve been alive and an Orioles fan since the end of 2016, you know that Tillman has, for lack of a better word, been absolutely terrible.

Since 2017 began, Tillman has thrown 119.2 innings. He has posted an ERA of 8.42 and a WHIP of 1.964. He has (this is almost mind boggling) struck out only 76 hitters while walking 68. In 2018, he has more walks than strikeouts, and has gotten swinging strikes on only 5% of his pitches, which is about half the league average and one of the worst marks in all of baseball. While you may have been able to deduce this from the ERA, he has nearly given up a run an inning.

Matt Kremnitzer detailed Tillman’s woes relative to the current environment, but unfortunately what Tillman has done since the start of last season is actually historic. Since 1899, no pitcher who was given 19 starts in a season had a worse ERA in those starts than Chris Tillman did in 2017. Add in the disaster that has been 2018, and Tillman has arguably had the worst 26 start stretch of all time.

Without question, some of this is injury-related, as the shoulder issues Tillman dealt with in 2016 seemed to precipitate this incredibly rapid decline. Despite repeated denials about his health being a major factor in his struggles, it is obvious that something hasn’t been right for over two years. That said, it has become truly hard to fathom what utility the Orioles see in continuing to throw Tillman to the wolves. As recently as May 16, Buck Showalter had this to say regarding Tillman’s rehab from his latest injury issue:

“As soon as we get all the soreness and physical stuff behind him, then we’ll start, so we haven’t really set up that schedule yet until we know that he’s pain-free. After that it will move pretty quickly.”

It’s possible that this is simply normal Buck-speak and that it’s unlikely Tillman returns to the roster anytime soon. On the other hand, the Orioles saw Tillman go through one of the worst seasons ever for a starting pitcher and still brought him back, and then ran him out for seven starts of 10+ ERA pitching, so who knows?

Either way, this is a depressing coda to what had once been a solid career. I don’t think anyone would have considered in, say, 2014, that we’d be here in 2018 talking about Chris Tillman being historically bad.

I was somewhat on board with the Orioles signing Tillman to be the fifth starter, and even said: “I think it's unlikely that Tillman's skill erosion is so extreme that he's now the worst pitcher in baseball at age 29, and more likely that 2017 was simply an extremely terrible and unlucky season.” My defense was that he would earn $3 million even if he was well below average and simply pitched like he did in 2015. Now, giving me that $3 million and asking me to put it all on black at the Horseshoe Casino seems like a far more sane and safe bet.

Colby Rasmus is a Perfectly Average Baseball Player

"Average" gets a bad rap in sports. Saying someone is average seems to imply that, actually, they are not just not good, they are bad. Being average means you don't do anything well, you're not exciting, and a team can, and should, have someone better. Being average, though, is far from being bad. In fact, one of the hallmarks of the Orioles run since 2012 was that the team avoided having bad players. They didn't have a ton of great players, necessarily, but the team was stocked with average to good talent that avoided having several spots on the field manned by below average scrubs.

This changed in 2017, as just six position players put up more than 1 fWAR, matching 2015 as the low mark since 2012. Not only did the Orioles not have a great deal of high end performances last season, they also had more low end performances than we are used to seeing.

Enter Colby Rasmus, left handed hitting outfielder, who signed a minor league deal prior to the start of Spring Training. Rasmus made headlines after walking away from the Tampa Bay Rays (and, at the time, baseball in general) last season, despite posting an outstanding 132 WRC+ in 37 games. Rasmus has had an odd career, going from one of the most highly touted prospects in baseball to being a bust and then becoming a solid regular before growing a crazy beard and quitting the game. The idea of him being a five tool player never quite came to pass, but Rasmus has had a pretty...well, average career.

Generally, 2 WAR is considered average. Rasmus has played nine seasons in the big leagues and has generated 19.7 fWAR. That's an (wait for it) average of 2.2 fWAR per year. WRC+ normalizes production and weights it to 100, with players being sorted based on how much better or worse they are than the average. Rasmus' career WRC+? 103. wOBA, or weighted on base average, is an attempt to measure overall value and the average player will have around a .320 mark. Colby Rasmus has a .324 wOBA in his career. How about defense? I know defensive stats have issues and shouldn't necessarily be relied upon fully, but Rasmus has a 2.9 UZR/150 games played mark in his career. An average player puts up between 0 and 5 UZR.

This is, honestly, kind of remarkable. Since 2009, the only players to have similar offensive stats and basically the same WAR output as Rasmus are Austin Jackson, Russell Martin, Denard Span, Carlos Gomez, Jhonny Peralta, and Yunel Escobar. I don't know about you, but if I was asked to name some average big league baseball players that would be a pretty comprehensive list. None of those players are great, though like Rasmus some have had great seasons, but in general they have been solid, more or less every day players over the past decade.

It's not often you see a player as average as Colby Rasmus. If he's not the Platonic ideal of averageness, he's certainly up there. And this, I think, is where the problem may lie. While being an average player isn't bad, Orioles fans were almost certainly hoping for something more. Not only that, Rasmus hasn't played a full slate of games since 2012 and is an obvious platoon candidate. Given the revolving corner outfield door since Nick Markakis left after the 2014 season, it seems more than a little underwhelming that the starting right fielder on Opening Day could well be Rasmus.

It's far from a lock that Rasmus even makes the team, of course. He's competing against multiple guys with similar skill sets, Austin Hays may force his way onto the roster, and there's every indication that the O's will keep at least two Rule 5 picks counting Anthony Santander. There's also the (lessening by the day) possibility that the team goes out and signs someone like Carlos Gonzalez. If Rasmus does make the team, however, there's a good chance he puts up some pretty average numbers, and that's just fine!

Chris Tillman is Back and I Feel Fine

The Orioles re-signed Chris Tillman on Monday to a one year contract, guaranteeing him $3 million while offering incentives that could bring the total commitment to $10 million for 2018. This was a widely expected move, given the apparent slowness of Tillman's market and the fact that the Orioles are the only team he has pitched for in the big leagues. Tillman has pitched over 1100 innings for the Orioles since 2011, winning 73 games and acting as the de facto ace of the staff, and given the holes in the rotation, a one year deal for not much money always seemed like an obvious one.

The problem, of course, is that Tillman has struggled for the better part of three seasons. Excluding his excellent first half in 2016, in which he put a 3.41 ERA and struck out nearly 8 batters per 9, Tillman has been mediocre or worse since 2015 began. In fact, in total from 2015 to 2017, he has pitched to a 5.12 ERA, a 4.89 FIP, a 1.454 WHIP, 6.6 K/9, and 3.7 BB/9.

That's...not great. In fact, not great would be an improvement over whatever this is. This is bad. Really, really bad. Since 2015 began, Tillman has the 7th worst ERA , the 9th worst FIP, and the 13th worst WHIP among all qualified starters in baseball. He is also in the bottom 25 starters in fWAR, putting up just 3.2 wins in that time period.

It's easy to write off Tillman's mind-boggling 2017 as injury-related or simply an extreme outlier, but  his decline was not as drastic or dramatic as maybe it seems. One of Tillman's defining traits during the years he was good, or at least solid, was an ability to get of jams. In 2013, 2014, and 2016, he was well above average in strand rate, and not coincidentally had three of his best seasons. Last year, he allowed over a third of his baserunners to score, which, I'm here to tell you, is incredibly bad. 

Maybe this was a fluke, but his stuff may also be in significant decline. In 2015, he threw his fastball 65% of the time. In 2017, it was down to just over 50%. He gave up by far the most hard contact in his career, had his worst strikeout rate, walked an insane 4.94 hitters per 9 innings, and generated the fewest swings at pitches outside of the strike zone in his career. He also got crushed in the strike zone, with hitters making contact with over 90% of pitches in the zone (side note, Andrew Cashner gave up contact on 92% of all swings on pitches in the zone, so that should work out just fine).

But, take a look at this.

Tillman's strikeout, walk, and home run rate were all generally trending in the wrong direction even prior to his disastrous 2017. What immediately seems possible is that Tillman was always a borderline pitcher who leaned on his defense and slightly above average stuff to generate contact and get outs. Once the defense and stuff declined, however, yikes. It is certainly tempting to blame 2017 on the shoulder injury that limited him to under 100 innings pitched, but these numbers indicate that the injury (unless it's been with him for years) is not necessarily the only factor driving the decline. 

All that said, we're talking about $3 million. I think it's unlikely that Tillman's skill erosion is so extreme that he's now the worst pitcher in baseball at age 29, and more likely that 2017 was simply an extremely terrible and unlucky season. If he even "bounces back" to his 2015 numbers, he'll earn that guaranteed money. With Tillman is almost certainly penciled in as the number 4 starter, though, the Orioles are taking a fairly big risk that 2017 was an aberration and not simply the culmination of a longer-term trend. If they somehow end up signing one of the better free agent pitchers left on the board, this move will probably look better overall than it does now. Even if that doesn't happen, though, there's a modicum of upside here, and I'd certainly like to believe Tillman is a better option than, say, Mike Wright. On February 19, with a rotation spot still open, that's about as good as you can hope for.

What if the Orioles Just Want to Cut Payroll?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Quick Rebuild

It appears as though the Orioles are admitting what many have suspected for several years: Manny Machado will not be an Oriole long term. Indeed, the chatter during the Winter Meetings has begun to make it clear that, rather than sticking with their original plan to run it back for one more year in 2018, the team is considering a rebuild, with trade rumors concerning Machado, Zach Britton, and Brad Brach dominating the offseason headlines.

This is, sadly, the correct choice. Even with Machado, it seems unlikely that the Orioles were going to be legitimate contenders in 2018, and Machado could still command a good haul in prospects even as a rental. If Machado goes, there's not much reason to keep around guys like Britton, either, and as a result the Orioles could improve their farm system fairly dramatically in the course of one off season.

Total rebuilds are very much in fashion in MLB these days. Both the Cubs and Astros went through multiple miserable seasons before their young cores coalesced and won championships, and teams like the Yankees, Twins, and Padres are looking to follow in those footsteps. It seems logical, given the budgetary constraints under which the Orioles operate as well as the team's declining performance, that the Orioles would go this same route. Of course, Peter Angelos has long been opposed to a complete teardown, and before this week there was little indication that Dan Duquette would execute one.

Now, though, that calculus seems to have changed, but in a pretty interesting way. At the same time they are discussing trading one of the top 10 players in franchise history, there are also rumors that the Orioles are pursuing Royals starting pitcher Danny Duffy. This would, certainly, be an odd move to make under the circumstances, as you generally don't trade for a veteran starting pitcher in the middle of a rebuild. 

Of course, maybe they don't HAVE to tear it all down. In fact, an interesting path would be to punt on 2018 while gearing up for a big run in 2019 and beyond. Let's assume that Machado, Brach, and Britton are all dealt, and they bring back at least 1-2 MLB ready players along with higher upside prospects that aren't likely to be immediate contributors. The Orioles would certainly prefer that one of those players is a starting pitcher and if they somehow acquire Duffy, the 2018 rotation looks already a good deal better than 2017, with all the major components under team control until at least 2020.

You may have heard, but the 2018 free agent class is potentially the greatest ever, and even if the Orioles aren't competing for guys like Machado, Bryce Harper, and Clayton Kershaw, there are plenty of good to great players left over. If the team has a solid rotation in place and prospects like Austin Hays, Chance Sisco, and Ryan Mountcastle are ready to make a big impact, there's a real case to be made that adding a second tier, but still big name, player like Josh Donaldson or Charlie Blackmon and pairing him up with a Gio Gonzalez/Garett Richards/Patrick Corbin type could push the team into immediate contention. These players would obviously be very costly, but with over $30 million coming off the books in the form of Chris Tillman, Ubaldo Jimenez, and Wade Miley, the Orioles could save up and make a big splash next winter.

This would be somewhat predicated on the Orioles signing Jonathan Schoop to an extension, hopefully moving Mark Trumbo's contract, and determining what to do with Adam Jones, but given the improving farm system and the jolt it would receive by trading Machado et al., as well as much lower payroll commitments, this seems like a viable path. It will certainly be hard to watch Machado playing anywhere but Oriole Park, and there's no guarantee that the young players will progress enough to make this plan viable, but it certainly beats the alternative of Machado and Britton leaving in free agency and receiving only comp picks in return. Rebuilds are always painful, but maybe this pain wouldn't have to last more than one year.

Trading for Stanton and Other Half-Baked Notions

Let’s get this out of the way right now and say that the Orioles are not going to trade for Giancarlo Stanton. The reasons for this are as obvious as the no doubters Stanton blasts with regularity: His massive 10 year, $295 million contract, his opt out provisions, his cost in prospects, his extensive injury history, and his no trade clause. Any one of these would be enough to tank a deal, but all of them, combined with the the fact that the Orioles front office regularly loses sprints to snails, makes it an utter and complete impossibility.

Having said that, let’s make a deal!

First, let’s consider what Stanton is. An MVP winner? You bet. An elite power hitter? Sure. An injury prone, not super young guy with a lot of mileage and whose team is seemingly desperate to move him? Well, yeah, that too. You know, there was a guy the Orioles traded for once. An “old 30” kinda guy. The kind of guy that, if he played now, would probably be in Stanton’s position; an older, highly paid player on a team going nowhere that has the ability to take a new team to the next level. I’m not saying Stanton is Frank Robinson, but let’s take a look at their numbers through their age 27 seasons, just for fun.

Stanton: .268/.360/.554, 146 OPS+, 267 homers, 672 RBI, 34.1 WAR
Robinson: .303/.389/.557, 148 OPS+, 262 homers, 800 RBI, 47.4 WAR

The biggest difference between the two players is Robinson’s durability. Through his first 8 seasons he played in 1190 games, while Stanton has played in a relatively paltry 986. Robinson was also a more complete hitter and player, but Stanton gets the edge as a power guy. The point here is not to say that Stanton is as good as Frank Robinson, because he’s not, but that adding a player like him would be in the same realm of magnitude as when the Orioles acquired Frank before the 1966 season. MVP’s don’t get traded in their prime very often, yet that’s exactly what is likely to happen this offseason. Stanton is a great player when healthy, and none of his injuries are of the chronic variety, so there’s at least a chance he has gotten over the health hump and can consistently play 150+ games. If that happens, you’re talking about a top 5 or so player in baseball.

So Stanton is great. We know that much. Why would the Orioles make this deal? Well, other than the fact that they wouldn’t, they’d do it because they have decided to throw caution to the wind and try to win a World Series in the next few years. They’d also do it because (bear with me, here) they’ve just signed Manny Machado to a ten year, $300 million extension, and Alex Cobb, and Tyler Chatwood, and Mike Minor, and, you know, a couple more pitchers! What an offseason they’ve had in my fevered brain.

Realistically, this would be far out of the realm of possibility for the Orioles at their current payroll level, but let’s say they’ve gone as crazy as I have and will commit to running a $180 million payroll for the foreseeable future. Suddenly, there’s room in the budget not only to sign Machado but to bring in another huge piece. And, since Stanton is the craziest one of all, he’s decided that he wants to play in Baltimore and be the modern day Frank Robinson. It’s all coming back around, folks!

Under a $180 million budget we can make this happen. In our offseason blueprint series, we set a budget of $155 million, and within that, the team would be able to pay guys like Cobb and Chatwood. Stanton will make $25 million this season, and assuming Cobb and Chatwood sign for their BORAS projections, they're already at the $180 million cap. But! Since the Orioles are going to deal Austin Hays, Hunter Harvey, and Ryan Mountcastle to the Marlins for Stanton, Miami is also going to take Mark Trumbo and be grateful for it. Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention, we’ll be needing to trade those guys to get Stanton. We subtract Trumbo’s $12.5 million salary and add it onto Machado’s projected $17 million arbitration deal and, bingo! $180 mil on the dot.

Easy enough? Ok, obviously not. Trading the team’s best two position prospects and arguably the most talented pitcher in the organization is a very steep price, though shedding the Trumbo deal makes it sting a bit less. But, if we assume that Machado bounces back to his pre-2017 level and the pitching improves with the additions of Cobb, Chatwood, and whoever else, adding a +7 WAR bat suddenly makes this team look like a legit contender. Even if the Orioles only sign one of the better arms on the market (which, let’s be honest, they’d basically have to do if they went this route), the addition of Stanton itself might be enough to get this team back into the playoffs.

Also, come on. Are you telling me you’d rather have Austin Hays than this:

I mean, really. Adding Stanton to a team with Machado, Schoop, Jones, Davis, and Mancini would, if nothing else, be incredibly fun. While I know that it's not going to happen, and that there are pretty good arguments for why it shouldn't happen even if it could, Stanton could hit 70 in Camden Yards. For late November, in an off season that hasn't exactly been a rip roaring joyride, that's not the worst dream in the world.

Dan Duquette, I've laid it all out. The rest is up to you. Godspeed, sir.

Blueprint For The 2018 Orioles (Option #3): Shake It Up

Before we get going, be sure to check out the rules of the game, the BORAS contract numbers, and the blueprints my fellow Depot residents have already posted. Did that? Ok, good. So let's talk about this off season for the Orioles. In many ways, 2018 already feels like the end of an era. It is possible that, after next season, Manny Machado, Adam Jones, Zach Britton, Buck Showalter, and Dan Duquette (among others) will no longer be a part of the Orioles' organization. Those men have been integral, in one way or another, in turning around a team mired in 14 straight losing seasons with little reason to think there wouldn't be a 15th. Though the Orioles have not attained the ultimate goal of winning a World Series, and indeed have only won a single playoff series during that time, that the team became even highly competitive is an outcome O's fans would have yearned for around, oh, 2008. It has been a very good run, but barring some sort of dramatic shift in organizational philosophy the team is almost certain to look very different in 2019 than it has for the past half-decade.

In my mind, this should actually be considered a good thing. My template for the Orioles would be to start a rebuild this off season while attempting to sign Machado and Jonathan Schoop to long-term contract extensions. That is problematic for this exercise, however, because trades are the only way to actually complete a rebuild. More to the point, however, I know that the Orioles are not going to do this. Every single thing the team has said has been with an eye on competing in 2018, so unless all of that is just a major smokescreen it is more than safe to say that the Orioles will likely approach this off season in the same way they have approached pretty much every off season under Dan Duquette: avoid huge money free agent deals for pitchers, work around the edges of the roster to build depth, and sign one-dimensional sluggers for triple what anyone else is offering. Ok, that last one might not happen this year. While I don't think this is necessarily the correct path forward for the franchise, I'm very certain that it is the path the team will take. I also do think that it is possible to make this team a contender next season, if probably not a serious threat to win it all. 

Contract Extensions and Options

As a reminder, we have set the projected payroll at $155 million. The Orioles have $53 million committed in 2018, but the big money is tied up in arbitration with seven players being projected to earn a total of $55 million. Given the relatively tight budget after arbitration and the need to significantly upgrade the rotation, major contract extensions are basically out of the question at this point.

The two easiest calls on the roster are the player options on JJ Hardy and Wade Miley. Hardy has a $2 million buyout, but there's just no way the Orioles can pick up his $14 million deal. Miley, who was in the conversation for worst pitchers in the American League last season, has a $12 million option with a $500,000 buyout, so enjoy that cool half a mil, Wade.

Controversies

Nate outlined the case for non-tendering Zach Britton, and in principle, I agree. The preferable course would obviously be to trade him, but given that the Orioles didn't find a suitable package in July and his price has almost surely only gone down since then, it seems likely that Britton will be on the team in 2018. If I were running the team I'd probably non-tender Britton and maybe even attempt to re-sign him, but I highly doubt the O's will consider this. As a result, I am going to tender Britton his deal for his projected $12.2 million. 

Where I will break with orthodoxy is with Mark Trumbo. The no-trade rule hurts me here, though that would be an avenue I would aggressively pursue if it were available. Trumbo was really, really bad this season, producing a nearly incomprehensible -1.2 fWAR and seeing his power evaporate. Trumbo was 20% worse than the league average hitter and provides negative value defensively. While it's certainly possible that he will bounce back to being around a league average hitter again it also seems possible that he's just done. 2017 was the second season in the last four in which Trumbo produced a negative WAR, and even in his "good" years he's barely a league average player. Additionally, he clogs up the DH/corner OF spots that would be better served by other players.

So, my hot take: DFA Mark Trumbo. I know this is very unlikely to happen and it flies in the face of how the Orioles operate (see Ubaldo Jimenez for more information) but sometimes you need to just admit you made a mistake and move on. Trumbo's contract, in a year in which the market for sluggers cratered, was such a mistake and having him on the roster limits flexibility in addition to having to play him almost every day. This doesn't save any money, of course, but it does open up a needed roster spot.

With all that out of the way, our total payroll left is $42.6 million.

Starting Rotation

What, you thought I'd start with backup catcher? Obviously, the rotation was the biggest issue facing the team in 2017, as it posted the worst ERA of any Orioles team in history. Most of the main culprits will not be coming back in my blueprint, as I bid farewell to Jeremy Hellickson, Ubaldo Jimenez, Chris Tillman, and Miley. This does mean, though, that three rotation spots need to be filled. The big fish are Jake Arrieta and Yu Darvish, but I think it's very unlikely the Orioles pursue either for a variety of reasons. What I think is more likely is that the Orioles go after slightly better than average guys that can provide solid innings in the 3/4 spots in the rotation. The big acquisition here should be Alex Cobb, with a BORAS projection of 3 years, $31 million. Cobb has had trouble staying healthy during his career, which should limit his salary upside, but he is a very good to elite groundball pitcher that consistently beats his mediocre peripherals. He doesn't strike out many hitters and his home run rate spiked in 2017, but the price and fit work well for the O's.

In addition, the Orioles should make a run at Tyler Chatwood, with a BORAS projection of 4/42. This is a more significant commitment than Cobb despite Cobb having the bigger name recognition, but Chatwood is in many ways a younger, healthier version. His 2017 numbers certainly wouldn't predict this kind of contract commitment but there are some pretty good arguments that those numbers don't represent his true talent. First, he pitched in Colorado. At home, he was basically what Chris Tillman was this year: a tire fire. On the road, however, Chatwood was excellent, posting a 3.49 ERA in 77 road innings. While Oriole Park is not exactly a pitcher's haven, it is certainly no Coors Field, so I'd expect a stronger performance in 2017 as long as he gets out of Denver. Second, his walk and homer rates spiked but he didn't give up harder contact and he generated similar swing rates to the rest of his career. While I don't know if I'd call this a fluke I also don't think it's necessarily something that will automatically repeat. Like Cobb, Chatwood excels at generating ground balls, and at age 27 there is potentially room for growth in the strikeout department. This is a somewhat risky move, but there's a lot to like about Chatwood outside of Colorado.

Finally, I'd take a flyer on Derek Holland (BORAS 1/1.5). Holland is a lefty starter, and the Orioles have consistently said they really want one (which is a whole other discussion, but maybe another time). Holland was, well, bad as a White Sox this year, but that works in our favor as his market will probably not be robust. Additionally, there are some things to like, as most of his rate stats other than walks and homers (this is becoming a disturbing thing) stayed mostly constant. I don't think Holland is good, but he can be a 5th guy making a tenth of what Wade Miley would have made so I'll call that a win. The Orioles do have other internal options like Gabriel Ynoa and Miguel Castro, but I'd give Holland a shot to win that job out of spring.

Amount Remaining: $22.6 million

Bullpen

The bullpen was good last season, if not quite as good as it's been in the past, and better health from Zach Britton could be a huge improvement on its own. I leave the bullpen essentially unchanged from 2017, with Ynoa as a long man/swing starter. I personally do not believe in Miguel Castro and think he's in for serious regression in 2018, but the Orioles very clearly like him and I doubt they would send him to AAA, so he stays as the 6th inning guy. The one change I'd make is to replace Donnie Hart with Tanner Scott. Scott had a nice year in Bowie in 2017 and he brings a big-time strikeout arm to the pen, something the Orioles lack outside of Mychal Givens. I'd also take a look at non-roster guys, but there are no major bullpen additions in my blueprint, with Givens, Ynoa, Castro, Scott, and Richard Bleier making a combined $2.7 million.

Amount Remaining: $19.9 million

Infield

Most of the infield is set, with Machado, Schoop, Tim Beckham, and Chris Davis all returning. At catcher, we are assuming that Wellington Castillo will not pick up his 2018 option, and as a result will leave as a free agent. Castillo was solid enough, but there are too many holes to fill on the club to spend anything significant at the catcher position, especially because I'll be calling up top prospect Chance Sisco. While there are still some questions about his defense, his bat has the potential to be above average for a catcher, and it's not as though Castillo was a defensive whiz either. This will probably mean that Caleb Joseph sees more significant playing time this season, but with his offensive improvement in 2017 and his generally solid defense that seems fine.

My big acquisition for the infield will be Eric Sogard, with a BORAS projection of 2/17. Ryan Flahery has been the utility infielder since the dawn of time, but his usefulness to the team has declined dramatically, culminating in just 23 games played in 2017. Sogard brings a decent bat and above average defense and played second, third, short, and left field for the Brewers last season while racking up 1.9 fWAR. He probably had a career year offensively, but you don't need your utility infielder to post a .393 OBP like Sogard did in 2017. If he only produces his career average of .245/.341/.348 that would a huge bonus, and his left-handed bat gives the Orioles more flexibility as well. Given that there was some discussion about how various players may have run out of gas in September, Sogard playing 4-5 times a week at different positions could be huge.

Amount remaining: $11.5 million

Outfield

Given my "this will definitely, totally happen" release of Mark Trumbo, there are a lot of interesting options in the outfield. Adam Jones will obviously be a big part of that, but given his defensive struggles in center and overall concerns about losing a step it may be time to move Jones over to a corner. While I don't doubt he would be resistant to this on a personal level, he could be sold on it as a way to save wear and tear on his body as he looks to get his last significant contract after 2018. Jones was actually quite good offensively this year and I think he would be at least average in left field defensively, so I'm making the move. Trey Mancini had a nice year and was better in the field than many thought he would be, but the metrics hated him and improving the outfield defense should be a priority this season. With Trumbo no longer on the team, I'll move Trey over to full time DH.

Right field was manned by a rotating, mediocre at best crew in 2017, but the Orioles have a top 50 prospect who tore up the minors who happens to play in right. So, yeah, maybe let's give Austin Hays a shot. Anthony Santander has to be on the team for at least the first 44 days of the season, and once he goes down the O's could bring up Joey Rickard to replace him, though perhaps Santander does enough to stick around.

This leaves a pretty big issue in center field, of course, which I will solve by signing Jarrod Dyson to a 2 year, $16 million deal. This is clearly below his BORAS projection of 2/25, but given that he is a platoon guy whose main value comes from defense I'm comfortable lowering the projection a bit (look to Luis Valbuena and even Pedro Alvarez last year to see how being a platoon player impacts your market). Indeed, Dyson got a paltry one year, $2.8 million deal last off season despite coming off an arguably better 2016 than 2017.

The big draw, here, is Dyson's defense, which consistently grades out as elite, as well as his speed and baserunning ability. Both defense and baserunning prowess were in short supply in the Oriole outfield last year, and Dyson's skill set would work well in an offense that desperately needs some diversification. Since he is a platoon player, however, I think the O's need one more piece in the outfield, so I'll bring in Peter Bourjos to serve as the right-handed side of the center field platoon. He made $1.5 million in 2017 and I'll give him that same salary for 2018. Bourjos was having a decent season for Tampa Bay before an awful September and brings a similar profile to the table as Dyson, so he is worth a little more than a league minimum type guy. In combination, there's a possibility of +3 WAR center field platoon.

Amount remaining: $0

2017/2018 Off Season Moves

Tyler Chatwood, SP: 4 years, $42 million
Alex Cobb, SP: 3 years, $31 million
Eric Sogard, IF: 2 years, $17 million
Jarrod Dyson, CF: 2 years, $16 million
Peter Bourjos, OF: 1 year, $1.5 million
Derek Holland, SP: 1 year, $1.5 million

2018 Roster

C:  Caleb Joseph
1B: Chris Davis
2B: Jonathan Schoop
3B: Manny Machado
SS: Tim Beckham
LF: Adam Jones
CF: Jarrod Dyson
RF: Austin Hays
DH: Trey Mancini
Bench: Chance Sisco, Peter Bourjos, Anthony Santander, Eric Sogard

SP: Dylan Bundy
SP: Kevin Gausman
SP: Alex Cobb
SP: Tyler Chatwood
SP: Derek Holland

Bullpen: Zach Britton, Brad Brach, Darren O'Day, Richard Bleier, Miguel Castro, Gabriel Ynoa, Tanner Scott

Final Thoughts

In a vacuum, this would be a fairly underwhelming off season for a team that finished in last place in 2017. That said, what the Orioles have long thrived on is the ability to avoid playing really bad players. They may not have had stars at every position, but the successful Orioles teams of this era rarely gave replacement level guys significant amounts of playing time. In 2017, the Orioles had five offensive players who played relatively significant roles that posted fewer than 1 fWAR. On the starting pitching side, there were four. Simply bringing in players with decent floors would improve the team, and subtracting Trumbo, Miley, Hellickson, Jimenez, and Tillman gives the O's a good chance of enduring fewer of the disastrous outcomes we saw this past season.

I'm not sure this restructured team would be a legitimate World Series threat, but if you squint, you could imagine Machado bouncing back to his +7 WAR self, Chris Davis getting back to being at least somewhat of a threat, progression from Gausman and Bundy, better health for Zach Britton, and suddenly this could be a team with legitimate playoff aspirations. Even if this isn't the off season I'd want if I had my way (and, really, everyone should just listen to me all the time) I think it's about as good as one could expect given the budget constraints facing the team.

The Real Tim Beckham

Tim Beckham, Photo via Keith Allison

Not to go all Charles Barkley on you, but just exactly who IS Tim Beckham? Post-hype sleeper breakout guy? Adequate big league shortstop? A guy who got hot for a month and is still the big draft bust he always was? The man who will play shortstop for the Baltimore Orioles in 2018? I think we can be somewhat safe in assuming that he is, at the least, probably that last one. The rest is a bit murkier, as is often the case with players like Tim Beckham.

Beckham was drafted number 1 in the 2008 draft by the Tampa Bay Rays, ahead of future MVP Buster Posey and future All Stars like Eric Hosmer and Gerrit Cole. Beckham was seen as an elite level athlete and was ranked as the number three prospect in the draft by Baseball America (who also ranked Pedro Alvarez and Brian Matusz one and two, so take that for what it's worth) , and as such it's not like the Rays went way out on a limb. Beckham projected as a five tool star in the big leagues, and given his age and position, the Rays made an easily defensible decision.

Fast forward to mid-2017, though, and the bloom was certainly off Beckham's rose. While he had finally become Tampa's starting shortstop and put up decent numbers in 2016, apparent attitude problems and other issues led the Rays to trade for Adeiny Hechevarria and thus to look to deal their former number 1 pick. Enter the Orioles, who saw J.J. Hardy's time in Baltimore running out and were in need of an upgrade at short to pursue their short lived playoff hopes. The Birds acquired Beckham at the trade deadline, and he immediately became Babe Ruth. In 132 plate appearances in August, Beckham hit a ridiculous .394/.417/.646 with 50 hits (second most hits in a month ever by an Oriole) and 6 homers, en route to nearly winning AL Player of the Month. This, it seemed, was the guy everyone had been waiting for. Matt Cassidy wrote a post looking at a possible extension and/or trade for Beckham in the off season, and he argued that while Beckham probably wasn't as good as he had shown in August, he also wasn't likely to totally crash and burn and that a long term deal could work out for both sides.

As Matt predicted, Beckham wasn't actually a .400+ hitter. Unfortunately, he's done worse than simply regress back to his career norms. Through September 18, Beckham was hitting just .183/.266/.394 in September with 4 homers. His defense has also left something to be desired, despite grading out fairly well in advanced metrics, committing 9 errors in a month and a half.

So, is this a slump or something more? Well, here's a few metrics for August and September. Try to figure out which month is the slump!

Month	K%	BB%	LD%	FB%	Hard Hit %	HR/FB
A	26.6	10.1	14.6	31.3	34	26.7
B	18.9	2.3	20.6	33.3	34.3	17.6

Kinda hard, right? In general, the numbers look pretty similar. What would explain the huge difference...oh, right, maybe BABIP.

Month	K%	BB%	LD%	FB%	Hard Hit %	HR/FB	BABIP
A	26.6	10.1	14.6	31.3	34	26.7	.196
B	18.9	2.3	20.6	33.3	34.3	17.6	.458

Obviously, month A is September and month B is August, but the biggest difference between the two months is that Beckham hit 250 points higher on balls in play in August than September. Now, he did have a higher line drive rate and lower K rate in August, but he has walked much more in September and has hit the ball just as hard. Now, we could look at this a few different ways. Either he got lucky in August, he got unlucky in September, or neither month is his true talent level. I'm gonna go with door number 3, here.

Beckham may very well be a late bloomer, but it was always very unlikely that he all of a sudden figured it all out and was becoming a superstar. By the same token, he certainly isn't the Paul Janish-esque player he's been so far in September. Beckham's 2016 numbers seem to a good approximation of his truth as a player: low walk, high K guy with some pop who can run a bit and hit the ball hard enough to put up an above average BABIP. Even in the September slump, the power he flashed in August has been maintained, and it's not at all unreasonable to view him as a 20-25 homer bat in a full season. With slightly more solid defense, that's a very valuable player.

It seems very likely that Beckham will be the starting shortstop for the O's in 2018. He's entering his first year of arbitration, but given that he has only had one full MLB season of at-bats, he will probably not be in line for a huge salary increase. Under those parameters, Beckham could be a very valuable player next season. A 2-3 win shortstop on a low money deal and under control through 2020 is a fine thing even if he isn't establishing himself as the player the Rays thought they were getting in 2008. It's not clear if the Orioles should invest real money in him or simply ride out his arbitration years, but it is clear that that the real Tim Beckham probably isn't a superstar. He might, however, be the shortstop of the future in Baltimore.

Mark Trumbo and the Career Year

Everyone knows that Mark Trumbo was pretty great in 2016. He led the American League in home runs with 47 after being traded for a backup catcher and was a key cog on a playoff team. He was rewarded with a three year, $37.5 million contract extension in the off season, and everyone lived happily ever after. Well, ok, not really. Trumbo has struggled mightily in 2017, posting career lows in wOBA, ISO, and SLG, and will likely fall short of 30 homers, much less 40. He's also been sub-replacement level by fWAR and continues to be a DH-only option. With the rise of Trey Mancini and the continued presence of Chris Davis, Trumbo's reasonable-seeming deal now looks like a minor albatross.

So, what happened? First and most obviously, Trumbo's home run power from 2016 evaporated. 47 home runs was always going to be difficult to replicate, but a lot was made of Trumbo's supposed launch angle changes that took him from being a good power hitter to a great one. In an age in which launch angles have become a major focus for a lot of hitters, this made sense and tracked with the idea that Trumbo always had elite power but didn't take enough advantage of it. The problem, here, is that the only thing that really changed in 2016 was Trumbo's home run output. By measures like fWAR and WRC+, Trumbo had one of the least productive 40 homer seasons ever. This doesn't mean he was bad, of course, but it does show that, aside from the homers, Trumbo just didn't do much of anything else better than he'd done in the past. Consider:

Career BABIP: .288
2016 BABIP: .278
Career K Rate: 24.8%
2016 K Rate: 25.5%
Career BB Rate: 6.8%
2016 BB Rate: 7.6%

You get the idea. The one thing that did change was Trumbo's home run to fly ball rate. A ridiculous 24.6% of Trumbo's fly balls resulted in home runs, up from a career norm of just over 18%. This essentially explains the difference between Trumbo's 2016 and the rest of his career. This season, that number is all the way down to 14%, accounting for the worst isolated power and slugging percentage numbers in his career. Other than that? Things really don't look that much different. He's hitting the ball somewhat less hard than last season but is not significantly off from his career average, and his walk and strikeout rates are both better than his career.

The second thing that's happened is likely related to the first, and it's his dramatic decline in ability to handle inside pitches. The heat maps below are from 2016 and 2017, and we can clearly see that Trumbo demolished inside pitches last year but has struggled mightily this season.

The differences are stark. Trumbo has been able to effectively handle pitches on the outer half of the plate this season, but simply hasn't been able to turn on the inside pitch like he did in 2016. Worryingly, this looks similar to his career worst year of 2014.

Trumbo did rebound after 2014, but by now it should be clear that 2016 is a pretty big outlier in his career, at least in terms of his surface numbers.

Trumbo has been a bit better of late, posting an .806 OPS since the latter part of August, but even then has only hit a couple of homers. Perhaps he will buck his normal trend of having poor second halves and save his season in September, but there's still the issue of Trumbo being owed over $25 million over the next two seasons. It's fair to wonder what the Orioles saw to reward him with a relatively lavish deal, especially given that power hitters with no defensive value went extremely cheaply last off season. One has to wonder what the Orioles lineup could have looked like with a Mancini/Pedro Alvarez/other cheap lefty bat platoon situation at DH that would have cost about 1/10 of Trumbo's overall deal.

The contract was not a massive overpay at the time, but given that Trumbo is having (at best) a replacement level season means it is going to be difficult for him to live up to even a modest deal at this point. With Mancini establishing himself as a legitimate big league hitter and Chris Davis not going anywhere, the O's are somewhat stuck. It's hard to imagine that Trumbo has much trade value, and he's clearly making too much money to release or move into a part time role. At the worst, he can serve as a cautionary tale (because Bud Norris and Travis Snider didn't, apparently) about the pitfalls of paying for career years. At best, maybe he rediscovers some of that fly ball magic and powers the O's to another playoff appearance.

The Future of Zach Britton

In case you hadn't heard, the Orioles didn't trade Zach Britton. Despite what seemed like strong interest from multiple teams, most notably the Astros, the non-waiver trade deadline passed and Britton stayed in Baltimore, gaining a save and win in the week since. Details surrounding the deal have begun to leak out, with multiple reports saying that the Astros may have been a bit stingy with their prospects, and as such the Orioles decided to keep their dominant closer.

But, for how long? While the Orioles have played well since the deadline and find themselves in the midst of the wild card hunt despite what remains a sub-.500 record, it seems Britton's future with the club is still very much in doubt. MASN's Roch Kubatko has repeatedly questioned the likelihood of the team agreeing to a substantial raise for Britton in arbitration, which brings up inevitable speculation that the team may yet end up dealing him before the 2018 season.

The issue seems to revolve around the fact that Britton, who is making $11.4 million in his second to last year of arbitration, may be in line to make as much as $12-13 million next season. This would track with raises for guys like Aroldis Chapman ($3 million raise in his last arbitration season), Wade Davis ($2 million), Greg Holland (nearly $4 million, but was non-tendered leading into his last arbitration year), and Kenley Jansen ($4 million). Given the number of holes the team is facing in the rotation as well as other arbitration raises to players like Manny Machado, Jonathan Schoop, and Brad Brach, there may be concern that spending top dollar for one year on Britton doesn't quite fit into the budget. Indeed, spending potentially 10% of the payroll on a closer may be unpalatable, especially if the team fails to make the postseason this year.

The choices, then, are: tender Britton a deal with an almost certain salary increase and keep him, tender him a contract and trade him, or non-tender him. Kubatko's reporting hasn't explicitly entertained the notion that Britton will be non-tendered, but if front office misgivings about a salary increase for Britton are public knowledge it could torpedo any leverage that the club would have to make a deal immediately after the season. Given the repeated insistence by the front office that the Orioles are attempting to compete in 2018, however, it also seems unlikely that the team will want to move Britton for less than they could have gotten at the deadline.

That said, it is almost certainly the case that Britton's injury plagued season had something to do with the less than stellar trade offers. Over his last four outings as of August 6, however, he's been his usual fantastic self, throwing 3 1/3 perfect innings. His velocity has returned and he looks like the Britton of old, just maybe a couple of weeks later than would have been ideal. If he really is back, there is going to be some serious regret on the part of contenders that could have had him if the offer had been better.

Continued outstanding performance will certainly keep his trade value up, even though relievers historically have been valued more highly at the deadline than in the off season, but anything less than a dominant August and September will raise very interesting questions. Certainly, the idea that the Orioles would simply non-tender Britton and get nothing in return seems totally insane, but the fact that there isn't an iron clad commitment to pay Britton an expected arbitration raise opens up the remote possibility that it could happen. If teams sense that Britton may be non-tendered, the likelihood that the Orioles would get anything approaching the return they were offered at the deadline seems implausible. What both Britton and the Orioles really need is for him to continue to pitch well, which would open up multiple options in the off season, maybe even including signing him long term.

Even if he doesn't pitch great down the stretch, however, it isn't impossible to imagine that teams will be interested in him on a one year deal worth something like $14 million. Zach Britton, even at that price, surely does not have negative value. The Orioles wouldn't have much trouble moving him regardless, but of course the return could be much, much lower than someone with Britton's talent level deserves. So, the solution is: Pitch great and things will be fine! Maybe I should just send the whole team a memo...

Trade Retrospective: Wade Miley vs. Ariel Miranda

When Wade Miley was acquired at the non-waiver trade deadline in 2016 for Ariel Miranda, there was legitimate reason to believe the Orioles had not dramatically improved their pitching situation. Miley had not posted an ERA under 4.34 since 2013 and was mired in, frankly, a poor season in Seattle. Miranda, on the other hand, had progressed quickly through the Orioles' farm system after coming over from the Cuban leagues and had put up solid, if unspectacular, numbers at every level. As we know, Miley has been (to be charitable) a low grade tire fire as an Oriole while Miranda has quietly been pretty decent in Seattle, despite a certain blogger arguing that Miley had figured things out in April and May.

It seems to be yet another ill-fated deadline move made by General Manager Dan Duquette, whose history at the non-waiver deadline has been checkered during his time in Baltimore. He infamously traded Jake Arrieta and Pedro Strop for Scott Feldman, dealt away Zach Davies (who has become a relatively decent back-end starter himself) for two months of Gerardo Parra posting a .671 OPS, and got 20 lights-out innings from Andrew Miller in exchange for top pitching prospect Eduardo Rodriguez. This is... not amazing, to say the least. His overall best deal was probably getting Bud Norris for LJ Hoes and Josh Hader in 2013, though Hader is off to a decent start to his career in Milwaukee and Norris had an epic, $8 million meltdown in 2015 after a solid 2014. 

But was this move as bad as it seems? If you go by straight results, the answer is an unequivocal "yes, good lord, yes." Miranda has put up a 4.16 ERA to go along with a 1.145 WHIP for the Mariners, while Miley has countered with a ghastly 5.79 ERA and 1.733 WHIP during his time in Baltimore. If you could do a straight-up swap of those numbers, it wouldn't be hard to imagine that the Orioles would feel significantly better about their 4th starter slot right about now.

Of course, a straight swap is unrealistic for any number of reasons, but most notably that Baltimore and Seattle are not exactly the same in terms of being run environments. Historically, Camden Yards has been a hitter's haven (say that five times fast) while Safeco Field has been more forgiving to pitchers. This may explain the differences in xFIP between the two: Miley has put up an acceptable 4.66 xFIP this year, with Miranda posting a 5.33. 

xFIP grants pitchers a league average home run rate, arguing that year-to-year fluctuations are essentially noise, and in Miley's case this may be accurate. Before coming to Baltimore, Miley was pretty good at limiting home runs. This year, however, Miley has one of the worst HR/9 marks in baseball at 1.43. So, we've solved it! Miley went to Baltimore and gives up a ton of homers, while Miranda got to go to a better park and gives up fewer homers. Done and done.

While that's a convenient narrative, it turns out to perhaps not be so simple. Miranda has somehow been worse than Miley this season, with a shocking 1.73 HR/9 rate. So how is Miranda even above water this season? Well, for one thing, he does a good job of limiting hard contact and having pretty good command. He gives up homers, to be sure, but he doesn't put a ton of baserunners on which limits the overall damage. Miley, on the other hand, is more like Oprah: "you have a walk, and you have a walk!" Wade is walking an almost unfathomable 5.4 hitters per game, which is both far and away the highest in baseball this year and the worst mark of his career. So, Miley lets guys get on base all the time while also allowing lots of homers. That is not a recipe for success. On the other hand, Miley has a better than league average strikeout rate while Miranda prefers to pitch to contact.

So, did Duquette screw up? Yes, but not necessarily because Miranda is actually a much better pitcher than Miley. I think the numbers indicate that, while Miley has better peripheral stats without question, it may be the case that those stats do not tell the whole story. Miranda is, ironically, a guy that seems to have the ability to outperform his peripherals while Miley does not. Miranda would actually fit in perfectly with the O's overall philosophy of "we literally do not care about ERA estimators," while Miley's stat sheet on Fangraphs indicates that he is an okay pitcher getting unlucky. Watching him pitch this year, however, throws about 500 gallons of cold water on that theory. Additionally, Miley consistently underperforms his peripherals and, really, does nothing particularly well other than generating ground balls. So, it's not that Miranda is so much better, it's that Miley is bad, has been bad for a while, and has gotten worse since the Orioles traded for him.

In the case of Miley vs. Miranda, we find in favor of (drum roll)....getting better pitchers! But seriously, folks, those pining for the Miranda who got away probably wouldn't be much happier if he was still here and Miley was not, though he also doesn't cost $10 million. Miranda probably wouldn't be a sub-4.50 ERA guy in Baltimore, but there's also nothing that necessarily indicates he'd be a plus-5.50 guy, either. Miley, unfortunately, is. That's reason enough to say that this deal isn't something Duquette should lead with in his next job interview.

The Orioles and Blowouts

It's not just your imagination: the Orioles are getting blown out a lot. So far this season, the Orioles have had losses of 5 or more runs 15 times, good for 18% of their total games played. More disturbingly, though, is that fact that 11 of those losses have come since June 1, meaning that the Orioles have gotten blown out in a whopping 35% of games in the last month. That, unsurprisingly, coincides with their long and painful skid to a sub-.500 record and increasingly bleak playoff chances.

For context, while 15 total blowout losses isn't horrendous by MLB standards this season, with the average team getting blown out about 12 times, it is the worst mark in the division. Toronto has 13 such losses, Boston 11, Tampa Bay 10, and the Yankees an impressive 6. The O's also have the fourth most blowout losses in the American League, trailing only Minnesota, Oakland, and Kansas City.

The trend looks even worse, however, when you look at recent history for the club itself. The 18% blowout mark would represent the worst such season since 2010, in which the team suffered blowouts in 19% of its games.

Year	Blowouts	% of Total Games
2017	15	18
2016	21	13
2015	20	12.5
2014	15	11
2013	11	7
2012	23	14
2011	28	17
2010	31	19

While it is not necessarily the case that getting blown out in a high number of games means that a team will miss the playoffs (they all count the same, after all), it is certainly illustrative of the overall problems that the Orioles are facing. The pitching staff has largely imploded over the past month, and even the formerly stalwart offensive attack has been mediocre at best. Blowouts are also surely psychologically difficult to deal with and tax an already depleted bullpen. 

The best teams in baseball, simply, do not get blown out very often. This is perhaps an obvious point, but the Orioles are still hanging onto playoff hopes as we head into the break. Strangely, 4 of the top 5 most blown out teams in the AL are within 2 games of the second wild card and the overall mediocrity in the AL means that it is possible that the O's can survive the recent rash of blowouts. Still, maybe a couple closer games wouldn't be the worst?