Base Hits: 8/3/2009

OK, let's cover the big story first. Melvin Mora is angry that he's been benched during 3 of the last 4 games, spouted off about it and may be on his way out of town.

Some Mora quotes:

"I don't appreciate the disrespect, because I've been playing hurt for a guy who won't respect you. I don't deserve it...Whatever he wants to do, he can do it. But like I told you before, I need to have my respect. This is not a guy who just came to the Orioles. This is a guy who's been here for nine years busting his butt for the organization....

"Don't give me the excuse that I cannot beat John Smoltz, that I cannot beat Josh Beckett or I cannot beat [Jon] Lester or I cannot beat Pedro Martinez or I cannot beat nobody here because I've been here for nine years...All those guys in the [American League] East, they know me. They know me and you don't make the All-Star team for nothing. You deserve respect. That's the only thing I can say."

First, I'll continue to beat a dead horse and point back to the Oscar Salazar trade (hi frostking...). On July 19th, the day Salazar was traded away, Mora had a slash line of .272/.322/.333. Salazar was moved due to a need to make room on the 25-man roster. Now, MacPhail got value back for Salazar which was admirable but he got value back at a position that the Orioles have some depth at in the minors. Instead, he could have cut loose Mora, given Wigginton the starting job at 3B and kept Salazar, giving Oscar more ABs between, thirdbase, firstbase and DH. (Mora has been even worse over the past 3-4 weeks...)

Now, they likely find themselves in a position where Mora will be released anyway and there is no chance to find out if salazar could have been a good stopgap at firstbase/DH in 2010.

Second, aside from the Marlins' Emilio Bonafacio, Melvin Mora is the worst third baseman in baseball. The worst. And he feels entitled to play regardless of performance. The Orioles, in some manner, showed respect for his tenure by keeping him on the team and let him play out his contract. They were not bringing him back next year. They threw him a bone by keeping him on the roster.

The Orioles seems to understand the concept of a sunk cost (see Jay Gibbons) and you would like to see them take some non-traditional directions as they move forward in the rebuilding process. Now Mora is forcing their hand. It's timeo for Melmo to go.

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I have little comment on the Boston series except to reiterate that Andy MacPhail did a lousy job at assembling a repsectable starting rotation to start the season. Jason Berken is getting his brains beat out because he was not ready for the majors and is only here because the Orioles had no other options.

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Speaking of guys arriving ahead of schedule, Brian Matusz is set to make his major league debut with a Tuesday start in Detroit.

While this is yet another move that smacks of desperation, I feel OK about this. This is not like rushing up a 20-year-old Hayden Penn or Jason Berken who had very little on his minor league resume to recommend promotion. Matusz is a polished college pitcher and has dominated every level of the minors. He's worthy of a shot, at least for two or three starts. I don't get the impression that he will be in over his head.

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The Arizona Diamondbacks are reportedly pursuing former Oriole hurler Daniel Cabrera.

Cabrera's career 5.09 ERA looks good right about now.

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This is interesting. Liz pitches well for the Tides but Chris Waters has been recalled to Baltimore according to the note at the end of the article. Waters for Berken perhaps?

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Work and personal life will be insane this week...see you next Monday?

Here Comes Brad

Brad Bergesen is coming up to start for Baltimore on Tuesday versus the White Sox.

I suppose they had little choice at this point; it was either him or Chris Waters. But given their strategy as stated in Spring Training, Waters would have been a better choice. If they were all for youth being served this season, wouldn't Hayden Penn have been a fine fit?

Bergesen may be fine but I'm not sure a couple starts in AAA make him any more ready for the big time than he was three weeks ago.

Get ready O's fans; the future is now.

Base Hits: 9/17/2008

I should know better than to get worked up by message board posts but I just had to get this off my chest...

Lots of talk on Oriole messages boards about how this team has quit. They've given up. Mailing it in. 

I'll admit, it's quite difficult to watch the games these days. But the people saying this team has quit are obviously not watching the games. Kevin Millar has not quit. Nick Markakis has not quit. Adam Jones has not quit. Chris Waters has not quit. Melvin Mora, Jeremy Guthrie, Luke Scott and Brian Roberts have not quit. To suggest that the O's have bailed on this season is a complete misreading of the situation. The team is not very good. But they certainly have not quit.

Before the season, when many were predicting 100 losses, I said that I thought this team would be no worse than last year. They have to win three more games to exceed last year's win total. Hardly a slam dunk but I'm still rooting that they make it.

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Although I have been quite against it (and Andy MacPhail says this is against his philosophy as well), I think it is now unavoidable. The O's need to go after a couple of free agent pitchers in the offseason. I'm not saying that The Warehouse should break the bank chasing after C.C. Sabathia or Ben Sheets but a top free agent pitcher flanked by a journeyman would look good for 2009. John Lackey and Paul Byrd. Or Derek Lowe and Jon Garland. Just a couple of guys who can help Guthrie round out the rotation until any of the young arms develop into legitimate starters. We can't go through another season of inflicting emotional damage on pitchers who aren't ready for the big club yet. Just a thought.

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Matt Wieters was named Baseball America's Minor League Player of the Year. No big surprise. The beast slouches toward Baltimore to be born...

Wieters will play this in the Arizona Fall League

 starting next month. Nolan Reimold will make his third straight appearance in the AFL. SS Blake Davis will join them and he will be intriguing to watch. Top pick of the 2008 draft Brian Matusz will make his professional debut in for the Surprise Rafters.

Lots of good baseball going on this fall and winter...

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Grimace of the Week comes from Nick Blackburn:

You'd be grimacing too if you lost to Radhames Liz...

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I should be blogging a bit more regularly now. Look for season wrap-ups and such in the coming weeks.

Base Hits: 8/8/2008

Looking back on the week that was, Rob Neyer of ESPN.com wrote about the improbable performance of Matt Waters. It's part of ESPN Insider so here's the main text:

Waters' masterpiece for O's quite a shocker

I'd like to embrace the utter unlikelihood of what Chris Waters did last night.

As we see in a sidebar here, Waters became just the sixth pitcher in the past 50 years to throw eight-plus innings with no runs and one hit in a major league debut.

--snip--

Waters isn't even supposed to be in the major leagues. Look at the ages for each of those pitchers; before Waters, fellow Oriole Milacki was the oldest to make a similarly spectacular debut … and Waters is more than three years older than Milacki was. And although Milacki might not have been a Grade A prospect when he reached the majors in September 1988, that summer he'd gone 12-8 with a 2.70 ERA for Triple-A Rochester.

Just looking at the ages of the other pitchers on this list, it seems likely that all had done impressive work in the minors. We do know that Marichal's a Hall of Famer, and we know that May won 152 games in the majors and was still pitching at 39.

Waters, though?

He's not built like a pitcher. He's listed as being 6 feet tall, 170 pounds, which means he's probably 5-foot-10 and 165 pounds. The Braves did like him enough in 2000 to draft him out of South Florida Community College in the fifth round. After initially pitching well as a professional, Waters stalled out; four years after being drafted, he was still pitching in Class A, and wasn't pitching particularly well. And after an unimpressive Double-A season (2006), the Braves cut Waters loose.

Last year, pitching for the Orioles' Double-A team, Waters went 8-9 with a 4.49 ERA. Before this season, he wasn't even listed among the Orioles' top 30 prospects, and he shouldn't have been. He is (or rather, was) a 27-year-old Double-A pitcher with yawn-inspiring numbers.
This year? Finally, Waters blew through Double-A: 5-0 with a 1.69 ERA in six starts. Then came a promotion to Triple-A, where he … stunk: 3-6 with a 5.70 ERA in 18 games.
So why did he get the call to the majors, finally? In Waters' last start for Norfolk, last Thursday against Lehigh Valley, he pitched seven innings and gave up one hit.
That's right. In what must be the greatest week of his professional life, Waters has given up two hits in 15 innings.

All of which is unlikely enough. Just as unlikely: Waters already is enjoying a significant major league career. He won't be the best pitcher on that list and probably won't match Steve Woodard's 32 career wins. (Interesting tidbit: After three years out of baseball, Woodard is pitching in the minors again, and you never know.)

However, I do give Waters a 50-50 chance of catching Billy Rohr, who finished his career with three major league wins.

Good stuff. But Neyer rarely disappoints.

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Chad Bradford got traded to the Rays. Hard to evaluate the trade until we see who we get back but Bradford was the only free agent reliever from the 2006 offseason who did not disappoint.

But Dave Cameron at FanGraphs.com reminds us that submariner pitchers are fun. And he's right! Sometimes we get so caught up in the winning and losing, we don't appreciate a guy until he's gone. But it was nice having another submariner on the team. I mean, who didn't love Todd Frohwirth?

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John Sickels reviewed his preseason list of Oriole Top Prospects on his Minor League Ball blog.

It's a mixed bag but Matt Wieters continues to crush minor league pitching and Nolan Reimold looks to be close to the big club as well.

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Song of the Week:

I recently bought the re-issue of Liz Phair's classic 1993 album Exile in Guyville. Reissue. They let it go out of print! Criminal!

It's reasons like these that the major labels deserve whatever is coming to them.

Here's "Stratford-On-Guy" from said album. Enjoy.

Base Hits: 8/6/2008

One of the many great things about baseball is that you never know what you might see on a given night. When the Orioles threw LHP Chris Waters to the wolves last night, you wouldn't have expected that their desperation would yield a baseball rarity.

Waters made his major league debut, threw 8 innings of 1 hit ball and won the game. Before Waters, you could literally count the number of times that happened on one hand. At least since 1960. Other notables on the list include Bob Milacki and Juan Marichal.

But only Waters did it at so advanced an age. And only Waters was a veteran of 9 minor league seasons. Totally unexpected and utterly wonderful to watch.

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Speaking of unexpected pitching performances, Matt has a great post examining Jeremy Guthrie at Roar from 34.

I took a look at Guthrie before the season and could only find three other pitchers that came out of nowhere and had the success that Guthrie did. Guthrie is the only one of them that improved during his sophomore season.

Not bad for a guy who looked like AAA filler when the Orioles picked him up.

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Adam Jones goes on the DL.

The biggest drag about this is that Jones misses two months of development against major league pitching. Hopefully, this doesn't slow his ascent to stardom.

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I talked in my last post about the tough August the Orioles had to face but Buck Showalter on Baseball Tonight had a more positive take on it last night. Out of nowhere, Showalter said that the Orioles would have a lot to say about who wins the division and the wild card because they are better than people give them credit for.

So that's a positive spin on the next two months. Let's play spoiler for somebody. Hopefully the Yankees.

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Time for a Grimace of the Day. Jarrod Washburn from over the weekend wishing he was a Yankee: