Work and family are conspiring against me! Just the normal facts of life but don't expect a lot of posting from me until the middle of September...
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Just wanted to spotlight the great job Jake Arrietta did pitching for team USA against China a couple weeks back. 6 shutout innings while striking out 7? Fantastic!
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Yesterday, the Orioles snapped a 5-game skid and won their 63rd game. It was a foregone conclusion in the minds of many in the media that the Orioles would lose 100 games and be the worst team in baseball. They will not lose 100 and are far from the worst team in baseball. This alone is a small victory for the franchise.
Just for the record, the Detroit Tigers were picked to win close to 100 games and perhaps score 1000 runs in 2008. They have exactly 1 more win than Baltimore.
August has been tough (as I predicted) but Baltimore is only 11-14 for the month which has seen them play some very tough competition. If they could somehow take the Tampa series, you would have to consider August an incredible success.
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This is a bit old but here is an interview with Baysox pitcher Chris Tillman from the guys at Baseball Digest Daily Live. Good stuff.
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Speaking of Chris Tillman, ESPN's Keith Law had a scouting report from a recent Baysox game:
Orioles pitching prospect Chris Tillman started last night for AA Bowie at Reading and easily outpitched his somewhat more highly-paid opponent, Adam Eaton.....
Tillman started out throwing 87-88 mph, but then gradually increased his velo to the low 90s, topping out at 93. The right-hander has good life with tailing action on his fastball, and sinks it at 87-88. At 92-93, it flattens out but still has the same tailing action. His best pitch is his curveball, a very sharp breaking ball with some two-plane break and great depth. It moves quickly with tight rotation and looks a lot harder than its 74-77 mph velocity. He throws a changeup with good tumbling action, but he doesn't use it often or show much feel for it yet.
Aside from a hook at the start of his delivery, he's pretty clean overall, staying over the rubber well and then driving forward with a long stride, taking advantage of his long legs. He gets good downhill plane on almost everything he throws and keeps his head steady through the delivery.
Where Tillman fell short of absolute top-prospect status was in his command. He looks the part, with his clean delivery, but he doesn't locate his fastball welll, not even to a general part of the zone. He misses bats because his curveball is just toxic and because his fastball gets in on hitters quickly, but he needs to be more precise with the latter pitch to succeed in the big leagues.
And a couple comments about Matt Wieters:
Catcher Matt Wieters homered on the first pitch he saw from Eaton last night, an 84 mph nothing-ball on the outer half that Wieters spit on and sent out to left-center (the opposite field, since he was batting left-handed). Wieters, the game's top hitting prospect, has gotten significantly stronger since he was an amateur; at Georgia Tech he was wiry strong, but had room on his frame to add muscle, which he's done fairly quickly. His sheer size, not a lack of skill, might make him a little more questionable behind the plate long-term, but he looks like he's going to hit for 30-plus home run power.
Good news from the farm...
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MelMo batting line for August: .427/.463/.781
That's good for a 1.244 OPS. More on this later but this may be the best month Mora has had in his career....
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Matt Wieters is coming....
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Base Hits: 8/28/2008
Monday, July 21, 2008
Pre-Season Thoughts in Review: Boston Red Sox
Another look back on my thoughts about our AL East opponents. Finally, the Red Sox
1. Schilling Hurts More Than They Want To Admit
I was pretty much wrong on this one. Beckett has pitched well, if not like a Cy Young candidate. Jon Lester has taken a big step forward at age 24. Dice K has been dominant and Tim Wakefield is having one of his best years ever. The only letdown has been Clay Buchholz.
Add all this to the good bullpen performance, they have the staff to contend. They are not really missing Schilling at all…
2. Mike Lowell Falls to Earth
Yeah, this was easy. He obviously wasn’t going to hit .324 again but he’s still having a pretty good season. He didn’t fall far enough to hurt…
3. Some Guys Are Just Plain Getting Old
After a couple of down seasons, Jason Varitek has finally fallen off the table. David Ortiz is banged up. Manny Ramirez has seen a small drop-off but he’s still damn good. A mixed bag on this one but the kids have picked up all the slack.
4. The Ellsbury Enigma
Is Jacoby Ellsbury going to hit .350 and slug .500 this season? Hell no! I would expect something in the range of .290 while slugging something closer to .425 or so.
Ellbury has not even lived up the the reduced expectations I had for him. The pluses are that he has already stolen 35 bases and his defense in center has been better than previously advertised.
He does enough but is only posting an 82 OPS+…exactly the same as the much-maligned Coco Crisp.
5. Will Lugo and Drew bounceback?
Lugo has not. Drew has.
I was hoping against hope that Drew would follow the Kirk Gibson career trajectory and start to breakdown in his early 30’s but history shows that Drew has a good year every other season.
Conclusion
Many of the problems I highlighted have come to fruition but not to the extent I thought. And when they did, the weaknesses have been masked by unexpected success in other areas.
They are a flawed team but they are the best equipped to win the AL East at this point.
Pre-Season Thoughts in Review: Tampa Bay Rays
Another look back at my preseason predictions. This time, the Rays.
1. The Rotation Is a Question Mark After Kazmir
I was dead wrong in this assessment. Shields has improved on 2007 and Matt Garza took a big step forward in his game. It has made them (Kazmire-Shields-Garza) arguably the best starting three in the game. How about the 4th and 5th spots? More on that later.
2. Carl Crawford...and Then What?
Crawford is a star player but he's just about the only sure thing in the lineup. And even he is not the kind of hitter that can carry a team.
This was true.
Rocco Baldelli is injury prone.
That was true.
Carlos Pena came out of nowhere to post MVP type numbers in 2007. Is he really going to repeat that performance?
Pena has done little this season when he isn’t facing Jamie Walker. This is true.
This lineup could score a lot of runs but they're going to have to count on a lot of youngsters make giant strides to do so.
That wasn’t completely true but if not for Evan Longoria this lineup would be severely underperforming. They are winning in spite of their bats. More on that later…
3. The Bullpen Stinks
The Rays bullpen was the worst in baseball last season (yes, even worse than the O’s) but has done a Baltimore style turnaround this season to post the 9th lowest ERA in the majors. (Baltimore is currently 8th…). Dead wrong on this assertion as well.
4. They Can't Catch The Ball
Regardless of the metric you use, the Rays are among the best defenses in baseball. The addition of Lonoria at third, Jason Bartlett at short and the conversion of Aki Iwamora from third to second has stabilized the infiled and the continued improvement of B.J. Upton in center has helped immensely. Again, dead wrong.
5. The Key Contributors on Offense...Will Be Kids
This was true and some contributors have struggled in the first half. But Longoria has not. The offense has been good enough to contend.
Conclusion
Tampa Bay was a chic pick to take a big step forward this season and have been quite a surprise. But the fact that they are doing it with pitching and defense is the real shock. It was supposed to be the bats of Carlos Pena, Crawford, Upton and Longoria that were to lead Tampa to respectability but instead it’s been the glove and the arms. Even bottom of the rotation guys like Edwin Jackson and Andy Sonnanstine are benefiting from the improved glovework by the Rays.
Will the pitching hold? Maybe. Will the bats come around? If they do, they will be a juggernaut.
I was dead wrong about these Rays…
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Pre-Season Thoughts in Review: New York Yankees
Revisiting (and revising) some of my preseason looks at AL East teams. Now, another look at this February post about the Yankees.
1. Like Last Year, the Pitching Staff Will Be a Problem
And it has been.
Andy Pettite has been league average, as I expected. Wang was good but now is injured. Phillip Hughes and Ian Kennedy have already flamed out.
The wild cards here have been Joba Chamberlain and Mike Mussina. I thought Chamberlain would be a good starter but I didn't expect him in the rotation this soon. Mussina has recaptured some skills and is having a hell of a last hurrah in pinstripes. If not for these two, the staff would be tryuly abysmal.
The question will be if these two can continue their good performances. Chamberlain looks strong and I expect him to pitch well in the second half. Mussina has tired late in the season the last couple of years. Moose looks more likely to suffer a setback.
2. Jorge Posada Falls to Earth
Well, he has but who really thought he would hit .338 again?
Since his injury, Posada has hit at rates that you would expect Posada to hit at but time will tell if his 36 year old body continues to betray him this season (Look at Jason Varitek for a cautionary tale...)
3. Derek Jeter is the Worst Fielding Shortstop in Baseball
As much as it pains me to say this, Jeter is having one of the best fielding seasons by an AL shortstop in 2008.
By nearly every measure, he is one of the top fielders in the league. His errors are up but they're not at crazy levels. The only thing I could say is that the competition among AL shortstops is light. Outside of Michael Young and Orlando Cabrera, there are no regular AL shortstops with stellar defensive reps.
Of course, he's hitting more like David Eckstein than his normal self...so it balances out I suppose.
4. Who's On First?
I ripped the Yanks for their personnel at firstbase but Jason Giambi has been better and played more games there than I thought. They're going to be fine at first for now.
5. Melky's the Man?
Before the season, I compared Melky to Corey Patterson and found him only slightly better at the plate. So far, Corey Patterson is looking like a better option.
Melky's OPS number for the last three seasons, including his partial 2008, are .751, .718 and .690. He's regressing. He's an easy out.
Conclusion
I was somewhat correct on the rotation. Only Chamberlain has panned out among the youngsters and outside of the surprising Mussina, it has been decimated by injury and ineptitude. However, the bullpen, outside of LaTroy Hawkins, has been stellar and bailed the Yanks out a lot.
The offense has seen unexpected very good performances from Giambi and Johnny Damon (when healthy) and great numbers from A-Rod (as expected). But the rest of the offense has been lackluster at best. The Orioles are scoring more runs!
Without some continued luck with their pitching staff, the O's could still catch these guys and the Blue Jays before year's end...
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Pre-season Thoughts in Review - Toronto Blue Jays
It's the All-Star break so just a look back at some of my pre-season predictions. I looked at potential problems with the Toronto Blue Jays...
1. David Eckstein is Playing Shortstop
He is the worst fielding shortstop in the AL and is a poor hitter to boot. Hitting .269. Horrible free agent signing.
2. Their Best Offensive Threat Is 46
And they cut him. Good job. Only Seattle has a more pitiful offense.
3. No Legitimate Catchers
Rick Dempsey's Nephew and Rod Barajas have been an adequate pair at catcher. Better than expected and a small bright spot in their offense. Kind of.
4. Injury Prone At The Corners
This has not come to pass but Scott Rolen has missed a few games. Lyle Overbay has been a virtual ironman at first but is only hitting .269 with 6 homers.
5. Legitimate But Injury Prone Rotation
Dustin McGowan and Shaun Marcum are on the DL. Roy Halladay is Roy Halladay and A.J. Burnett has been up and down. Jesse Litsch is regressing toward his FIP form last year. Burnett may now be on the trading block. The bullpen is in good shape but outside of Halladay, there's not much in the rotation for the second half.
Only some bizarre wins and Roy Halladay kept the Blue Jays out of the cellar at the All-Star break. A puny offense and a banged up rotation won't get you through the dog days of summer. I expect them to sink lower in the short term and if they unload Burnett, they could finish below the Orioles in the AL East.
Monday, June 9, 2008
The Continuing Transformation of Daniel Cabrera
Daniel Cabrera continues his remarkable season. Even if you don't find his results remarkable, it is certainly a remarkable season with respect to how he is reinventing himself. With the help of Fangraphs.com, I'm going to take a look what's different and where these changes will lead. The blue lines represent league averages, the green lines are Cabrera's performances.
The important thing you will notice on these graphs are the three year trends. Cabrera's K rate has dropped from more than 9 per 9 innings to just under 5 per 9 this year. For most pitchers this would be a really bad sign but Cabrera's notoriously high walk rate has also dropped precipitously from off-the-charts bad (literally) to right around league average. Ironically, his K/BB ratio is about the same as it ever was.
So Cabrera gave up some K's for improved control. And that has led to fewer men on base:
But fewer K's mean more balls in play. What's happening with all that extra contact? Well, some of that contact is putting balls over the fence:
This is what concerns me the most about the new Daniel Cabrera. He was always excellent at keeping the ball in the park but that home run rate has spiked. It's not as bad as I thought though. Even with the spike, he's right around league average and as long as that WHIP stays down, he should be OK.
But this is the graph that reflects the real value of the "new and improved" Daniel Cabrera:
Note the three-year rise in Ground Ball Percentage from Cabrera and the corresponding three year drop in Line Drive and Fly Ball Percentage. This is the most telling trend and will be the most valuable component to Cabrera's continued success.
Daniel Cabrera has:
1) Sacrificed strikeouts for better control of his pitches.
2) Pitched to contact more and challenged batters to put the ball in play.
3) Has transformed himself from a struggling strikeout king to a groundball inducing innings eater.
The projections for Cabrera once he finally "got it" always pointed towards a Randy Johnson-type development; power pitcher, lots of strikeouts, periods of sheer dominance of opposing hitters. But dramatically and unexpectedly, he has morphed into a pitcher whose projection looks a lot more like Andy Pettite; moderate strikeouts, lots of groundballs, keeping down the walks! Now how many people would have guessed you could have described Daniel Cabrera as a guy who could keep the walk rates low.
Does this mean Cabrera will become a righthanded version of Andy Pettite? No. The low strikeout rate and the homers given up will prevent him from being a star caliber pitcher. But when you see him in the rotation behind Jeremy Guthrie, Garrett Olson and Matt Albers/Radhames Liz over the next two years? A guy with legitimate number two starter talent in the 3rd or 4th spot in your rotation? That's very valuable.
And last season nobody thought that would be possible.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Nestor Is At It Again...
The Orioles had a five game losing streak! Leap from the bandwagon, Nestor!
Orioles go from penthouse to outhouse
How original. How droll. The wit is simply amazing here. Who but a professional sportswriter would think to juxtapose "penthouse" with "outhouse"? That's where that journalism degree comes in folks. Pure genius.
Don’t look now, but the Orioles have gone from an “interesting” spring team with some exciting evenings to quickly becoming a team on a fast course to nowhere.
Let's assume that the Orioles were "falling back to Earth" as Nestor imagines. Is that a path to nowhere? Didn't we assume that rebuilding is good and that it would come with its share of growing pains? Should a few losses change that outlook?
That is, if they can't find a way to start hitting the baseball.This morning, they wake up on a 80-degree Memorial Day again mired in last place of the AL East in the midst of a five-game losing streak....And here come New York and Boston to attempt to kick them while they’re down…
Mired. An interesting choice of language there.
Mired - entangled, entrapped or hindered as if in mire
On the morning this post appeared the Orioles were "mired" in last place...in a division where being one game under .500 will land you in last place. They were a full 5.5 games out of first! How will the Orioles ever get above .500 again?!?! Oh yeah, win a couple of games. We are de-mired.
Before the inevitable (and foolish) "Nestor hates the Orioles" comments start flooding this blog,
Gee, why would anyone think that?
Right now, with seven games coming against the Red Sox and Yankees at home – where their talent will be overwhelmed every day – it’s not looking so good...
Look, outside of the fact that we don't have a true "ace" on this staff, I'll put our pitching staff up against anybody in the AL East save for Toronto. And pitching has been the great equalizer this season. Unless the pitching fails us, we will never be overmatched for a series.
The real problem is very clear to anyone who watches the team on a daily basis: the offense is atrocious and there are very few signs of it improving dramatically any time soon.
Yes, the offense is not good. But no signs of improving? Anyone who watches the game would see signs that the team is hitting the ball hard and catching some bad breaks. Or you could look here. Or here.
This is and will probably remain a poor offensive team, and any hopes that both Luke Scott and Adam Jones would be the next coming of last year’s Nick Markakis are starting to dissipate.
Nick Markakis hit .300 with 23 home runs last year. Nobody thought Scott or Jones were going to do that this year. Nobody Nestor. N-O-B-O-D-Y.
And just so we're clear here, on May 31st, 2006, (Markakis' first year in the majors) his batting line was .219/.301/.314. The Truth is batting .253/.303/.368 with almost triple the number of extra base hits (14) than Nick had (5). And Jones still has 3 games to go this month!
Sure, you’d like to think that Brian Roberts isn’t going to hit .263 this season.
He's not.
Or that Nick Markakis is better than his current .247.
He is.
But the rest of the roster – including a rapidly aging Melvin Mora and a “just glad to be here” Kevin Millar – are what they are: mediocre major league players. And don’t get me started on Aubrey Huff, who’ll make his $8 million this year while hitting his usual .250 with 20 homers.The situational (and specifically late-inning) hitting was superb during the early-season stretches where they won cardiac ballgames in the late innings. And those were on the nights when the starting pitching was outstanding and the bullpen was even better than that.
No argument with the bats in this lineup, although I would quibble about Millar being mediocre. he is better than league average. And Mora can pick 'em over at third.
Daniel Cabrera is 5-1. I have no reason to believe he’ll be 10-2 and 15-3 before it’s all over with. I’m not convinced that we’ll see the same guy every five days once this team inevitably drops well below .500 and goes through the summer doldrums that teams that hit .240 will struggle with.
Two things here: win totals are a poor evaluation of a pitcher's performance (see Guthrie and Bedard last year, far better than their win totals) and batting average is a poor indicator (by itself) of offensive prowess.
First, the offense. The team OPS is .712, 7th among the 14 AL teams. And they are swinging the bats better than the results...but if you've read this blog you know where I'm going with this and I don't feel like proving it again. Trust me, the bats will improve.
And no, Daniel Cabrera would be hard pressed to win 15. I love the guy but he's giving up too many homers to win consistently.
But note that it is "inevitable" that the team sinks far beneath .500. Only a .240 batting average as proof.
It was fun while it lasted – and maybe they’ll go 7-0 this week against the big boys and resurrect their flailing season– but it’s hard watching this team get four and five hits a game and struggle to manufacture runs, especially when Steve Trachsel takes the ball every five days and puts them in a major hole.
That's all folks! Take down the tents, the party is officially over - unless of course it's not over then feel free to stick around. Way to hedge your bets Nestor.
Steve Trachsel. One way or another, a temporary problem.
Maybe they can escape last place before the end of Memorial Day?
Or maybe I'll just want to vomit at the sea of Yankees fans I'll inevitably be forced to endure in my own ballpark for the tenth year running...
Confusing parting shot. A hint of optimism after all the downer talk. Then a reference to the Yankee fans taking over the stadium, 10 years of losing and bodily fluids being expelled. I guess some habits die harder than others for Nestor...
Monday, May 12, 2008
Baltimore Orioles: First Quarter Report
With an off day today, the Orioles have essentially wrapped up the first quarter of the season. So how are they doing?
First, let's discuss the record. The Orioles stand at 19-19. That's .500 at the quarter season mark for a team that was nearly universally thought to be well on their way to losing 100 games in 2008. Some thought it would be worse than the 1988 Orioles or at least in the ballpark. This team now has to go 43-81 the rest of the way to reach that goal. I just don't see it.
I thought this team would be slightly better than the 2007 version but figured they would struggle early and get better. They have been decent early with many indicators pointing to the team getting better still. Is a winning team a reasonable expectation? Maybe not. Flirting with .500 certainly is.
Pleasant Surprises
Brian Roberts remains with the team. He may not be here in August but I didn't expect him to see Mother's Day with the club.
Daniel Cabrera's performance.
George Sherrill. I liked the addition of Sherrill but had no idea he could be a closer or do it so well. Wayward O did though.
Brian Burres holding down a spot in the rotation and doing pretty well.
Jim Johnson, Randor Bierd, Dennis Sarfate and Matt Albers aiding the veterans to give Baltimore a credible bullpen.
Disappointments
The offense as a whole. I have detailed that they are hitting better than the numbers say but it is still pretty frustrating that these guys can't consistently get hits.
Adam Loewen on the DL. He'll be back but you have to wonder if he'll ever be healthy enough to learn how to pitch.
Steve Trachsel. Trax is a placeholder and that was the intent when he was brought in but he has done little to hold on to that spot in the rotation he has.
Shortstop. Turns out Luis Hernandez couldn't field either. He has looked good at second base though.
Luke Scott with only one homer. Leftfield in Camden Yards is cursed. It's the Curse of B.J. Surhoff. Ever since The Warehouse traded Surhoff to Atlanta at the 2000 deadline, nobody has given us consistent play in left. (OK, B.J. came back and did it for a couple of years but he was only a part-timer at that point.) Granted, Scott is still an upgrade from what the O's have trotted out the past few seasons but I expected the guy to slug at least .400.
In my pre-season look at the Orioles, i identified 5 reasons to be optimistic:
Improve Outfield Production
Although I am a bit disappointed with Scott's bat so far, he is OPSing .727 which is a big improvement from the .631 OPS Oriole leftfielders put up last year.
Adam Jones isn't there yet. He's OPSing .631 compared to .713 from Oriole centerfielders last year. But he'll get to at least that production by season's end.
Markakis has struggled a bit with his average but is still OPSing about what he did last season (.852 vs. 847).
Jay Payton? He's been bad overall (.655 OPS) but against lefties is OPSing .792. I really wish Dave Trembley would stop giving him ABs against righthanders.
The outfield isn't there yet but Adam Jones will improve.
The Bullpen Can't Be Any Worse? Right?
Correctamundo. Trembley has handled the pen better and managed to build a pretty effective relief corp.
Rebounds
Aubrey Huff has rebounded a bit. Still waiting for Ramon Hernandez.
A Better Bench
Kind of a moot point with the team carrying 13 pitchers until very recently but no it's not any better than last year. We shall see what Freddie Bynum and Alex Cintron can do.
A Decent Manager
Considering that very few things have been clicking at the same time this season, Trembley has done a pretty good job. He has the team at .500 (which is one game above their Pythagorean Record) while still getting the youngsters the majority of the playing time.
His recent decision to go with a four-man rotation (for the time being) shows he's willing to make unorthodox decisions to mask his team's weaknesses.
The Next Quarter?
They survived the road but now you have to survive the AL East. Over the next month there will be lots of games against the Red Sox, Yankees and Rays. No pushovers (save Washington) until the Pirates come to town a month from tomorrow. The good news is that outside of the Red Sox, all the teams in our division are pretty flawed right now.
It's a tough task but the next logical step for the Baby Birds to get this team back to respectability.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Giving the O's Some PrOPS...and Reavealing the Real Problem With This Team
Last week I wrote a post about Ramon Hernandez and how he is hitting better than his Mendoza-esque batting average would indicate.
It looks like it's catching.
Actual Batting Line PrOPS Batting Line
Roberts .263/.353/.421 .288/.374/.432
Mora .257/.306/.412 .284/.330/.441
Markakis .270/.395/.451 .290/.409/.510
Millar .224/.315/.344 .274/.358/.438
Huff .266/.341/.452 .265/.337/.450
Scott .286/.366/.418 .252/.337/.353
Jones .231/.272/.359 .250/.291/.370
R.Hernandez .202/.234/.364 .302/.330/.465
L.Hernandez .243/.304/.257 .276/.336/.340
So far, only Aubrey Huff is hitting about what he should be hitting based on the batted ball data. Adam Jones is close but he should have slightly better results at this point.
Luke Scott is the only player who seems to be destined for a correction down. Indeed, that may be what this slump Luke's been in actually is, a correction to the kind of numbers he will actually put up.
Everyone else is underperforming their PrOPS scores. It can't last. There is going to be some upswing in the offense barring an injury. Again, look for Ramon Hernandez, Kevin Millar, Brian Roberts and Nick Markakis to come out of this funk pretty soon with modest increases from Melvin Mora and Luis Hernandez. (Of course, you could replace Luis and spell Mora with Scott Moore every so often and goose the numbers up that way...)
The offense is not great but it is not as bereft as it looks right now. Dave Trembley needs to leave these guys in the lineup and it will work itself out.
Their baserunning on the other hand...I haven't found statistical evidence of this but there can't possibly be another team in the majors who has been picked off, thrown out stealing or thrown out trying to take an extra base more than the Baltimore Orioles.
More than hitting, fans should be concerned about the fielding on this team. Brian Roberts is near the bottom in the league for fielding by a second baseman. Ditto for Luis Hernandez. Melvin More has been OK. Millar has been bad. Ramon has been passable behind the plate but leads the league with 4 throwing errors. (The outfield defense, in fairness, is pretty good across the board.)
The Orioles are going to play a lot of close games this year so the team needs to find solutions to it's defensive woes (especially up the middle) if it hopes to be respectable.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Around the Oriole Blogosphere: 5/7/2008
I was going to blog about this myself but two other Oriole bloggers have done it for me. Jonah Keri wrote about "loser dynasties" on ESPN.com (where the Orioles belong) and stated among other things that the Oriole's ETA for a winning season is 2012. Matthew Taylor from Roar From 34 and Ben at Oriole Central both wonder about the depth of Keri's analysis of the past and the prospects for the future.
Dave has started giving me the itch to strap on my pack and start training for a hike again. Not the whole Appalachian Trail but I do miss backpacking and haven't done any since I left Maine. I started training in February but family illnesses put that on the backburner. Time to start again, I've got the bug.
Evidently, Dave has started Enchanting Sunshine's mind to wander to the trail as well.
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Speaking of Enchanting Sunshine, she has split off her Oriole musings to a different blog called Oriole Fanatic, at least for now. (edit: Looks like the new blog is now called Sixteen Gold Gloves...for now)
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Anthony is tired on the same old results from the offense at Oriole Magic.
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Wayward O wants no more "styling" on the basepaths from Ramon on the basepaths and less knee-jerk reactions from Oriole fans. Oh, this post too with a hilarious picture of Melvin Mora vs. the Angels...
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Pressbox Online has an article on Oriole pitching coach Rick Kranitz.
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SC thinks the Orioles have seen the last of .500 this season.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
How The Orioles Can Win The East 2008: The Case Against the Yankees Revisited
We all know that for the Orioles to do well this season that other teams in this division will have to slip up along the way. I figured I'd revisit some of these pre-season predictions (wishful thinkings) along the way to see how the rest of the division is stacking up.
First up, the Yankees
Like Last Year, the Pitching Staff Will Be a Problem
Chien-Ming Wang is pitching like the ace the Yankees need. I thought Pettite would be just average this year but he has pitched very well. Mussina has been inconsistent but has been able to keep his ERA below 5.00. The kids, Phillip Hughes and Ian Kennedy, have struggled mightily.
I'll stick by my pre-season prediction that Wang will be good, Mussina will finish with an ERA closer to 5.00 than 4.50 and that the kids will continue to struggle, at least until the All0Star break. The only wild card here is Andy Pettite as he is fully capable of continuing his current production.
On the whole though, the Yankee pitching staff has been a problem thus far.
Jorge Posada Falls to Earth
Posada has only played in 18 games and has hit rather well (.302/.333/.476) for a catcher. The problem is that he can't actually play catcher right now. Posada just went on the DL for the first time in his career and has made it clear that he will not return to action until he is ready to field his position:
"I’m not playing first base," Posada said. "I’m a catcher. We’ve got seven first basemen."
Posada's shoulder injury is not considered season ending but just the fact that it is being discussed in those terms means the Yankees catcher will be missing a significant chunk of the season.
The old catcher is breaking down, just as I predicted.
Derek Jeter is the Worst Fielding Shortstop in Baseball
Depending on which defensive metric you choose to believe, Jeter is either in the middle of the pack or completely dreadful with the glove. I'll give this one another month to allow the number to draw a better conclusion.
Who's On First?
The batting line for all Yankee first basemen this season: .194/.309/.419
That's an OPS of .728 for what is a premier offensive position. That production puts them in the bottom third of the league...right down with the Orioles (ugh).
Nobody's on first.
Melky's the Man?
So far, yes. Melky is OPSing .852, already has 5 homers and is playing a pretty good centerfield.
Well, they can't all go your way.
Conclusion
Before the season I said:
If things are dicey early in the year, this team could literally implode. Youngsters manning crucial positions in the lineup and the pitching staff, surrounded by fragile old veterans who may not deliver the results their reputations promise.
Yeah, that's pretty much what's happening.
Friday, March 21, 2008
How Baltimore Can Win The East: The Case FOR Baltimore
That's right. The case FOR Baltimore.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
2008 NL Predictions
The AL was yesterday, the NL is today.
Monday, March 17, 2008
2008 AL Predictions
Inspired by The Wayward O's series, I thought I'd weigh in with my predictions for the 2008 season. I won't be as detailed as Wayward O but I wanted to get them on the record.
