Base Hits: 3/25/2008

Luis Hernandez made yet another throwing error in yesterday's game giving him 5 total for the spring.

Brandon Fahey is being handed a the job as the starting shortstop on a silver platter. Much like Hernandez, there is no way that Fahey would have a chance to start for any other team in the league. But the Warehouse traded away Miguel Tejada leaving a gaping hole in this organization at short. They have yet to trade Brian Roberts for any other shortstop prospect and Fahey is latching on to the job that Hernandez is (literally) throwing away (into the dugout).

Fahey has out-hit and out-fielded Hernandez this spring. Time to cut our losses with Hernadez and patch the hole with Fahey until someone better (Blake Davis?) comes along.

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An interesting read over at The Hardball Times as Sean Smith attempts to quantify the best defensive players since 1956. Obviously, many Baltimore Orioles are at the top of this list. (Including the assertion that Mark Belanger was a better defensive shortstop than Ozzie Smith.)

Then the Orioles caused problems for his system in other ways, through something he calls "the Jim Palmer problem".

The Orioles of the late 1960s and early 1970s had incredible defensive numbers. The teams allowed far fewer hits on balls in play than an average team. If we give all this credit to Brooks Robinson, Paul Blair, Mark Belanger and Bobby Grich, then we have to take some credit away from Palmer. Could it be that it was the other way around, that Palmer’s great pitching made those fielders look better by getting batters to hit into easy outs?

Turns out that Palmer was able to induce outs from balls put in play at a rate nearly unheard of by non-knuckleball pitchers. I'll let you sift through Sean's methods but it is fascinating to me and cool to see some of your favorite players showing up on all-time great lists.

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Gibbons Headed to Minor League Camp - I got really excited when I saw this headline but it turns out that the Orioles are just sending him there to workout during his suspension. Hopefully, he'll just stay there.

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As if any of us cared, Nestor Aparicio has decided he's going back to Camden Yards.

I want to make this clear: the Orioles are as shameful and as pathetic as they’ve ever been in virtually every department (from marketing to media relations to dealing with their employees to dealing with the business community and people in general) – it’s actually getting WORSE, not better -- but I’m going back to the games anyway.

Isn't this the guy who didn't know who George Sherrill was a couple of days ago? I wonder if old Nestor would be reversing course if Free The Birds II has gone well and gotten him some of his much craved publicity?

My detractors and those on Mr. Angelos’ extended payroll called me a charlatan and said it was a “publicity stunt.”

Well count me as one of those who consider you a charlatan. Actually, I called you a carnival barker. Somehow my check from Peter Angelos for writing this little blog has been lost in the mail.

Nestor is and remains a blowhard with paranoid delusions worthy of Richard Nixon. And he's an assclown.