Orioles Trade Jeremy Guthrie to the Rockies

The Orioles have traded workhorse starter Jeremy Guthrie to the Rockies for SP Jason Hammel and RP Matt Lindstrom.

While I am sad to see Guthrie go, he was likely gone at the end of the season anyway and would have commanded somewhere around $9 million in salary through arbitration this season. Like the Luke Scott situation, I'm not sure why Guthrie was still on the team and believe he probably could have brought back more value at the trading deadlines in 2011 or 2010. But unlike Scott, the O's were able to get something of value back for Guthrie. (My Guthrie love letter will come later...)

Jason Hammel, like Guthrie, has always been a bit underrated. Rightly or wrongly, I have always thought they were similar pitchers. Some career numbers for both:

          AGE    G    K/9   BB/9   K/BB   HR/9    GB%   ERA    FIP  xFIP   WHIP
Guthrie    33  177   5.52   2.68   2.06   1.22   40.6  4.19   4.61  4.68   1.29
Hammell    29  169   6.25   3.11   2.01   1.06   45.1  4.99   4.38  4.27   1.47

Hammel walks a few more batters but also strikes out a few more, keeps the ball in the park slightly better and gets a fair bit more ground balls than Guthrie. His peripherals are better. But he's been the anti-Guthrie in terms of outperforming his peripherals; while Guthrie tends to outperform his FIP and xFIP, Hammel has tended to underperform his peripherals. But they both have fastballs that sit in the 92-93 range and fill out hte repertoire with sliders and changeups.

Hammel had a down year in 2011 and I guess the Orioles are looking for a rebound season from him. If he does, he is likely to replace Guthrie's production in 2012 and with a an extra year of arbitration left, Hammel could be flipped to another club or extended for a reasonable price. He is four years younger than Guthrie and is similar enough to him that it makes sense to take a flier on Hammel.

Matt Lindstrom is...an averagish reliever? He gets a lot of ground balls but has had mixed success over his career. He'll make $3.6 million in 2012 which seems like a lot for a reliever of his caliber. But he's cheaper than Kevin Gregg and can't be any worse.

As much as I liked Guthrie as a fan, the Orioles got decent value in return for a league average 33-year old fly ball pitcher. They got a younger pitcher with an extra year of control. It's fine. The only thing the O's did wrong here was to hold on to Guthrie a season too long if they wanted to get prospects in a deal.

Donovan Moore: What is Jeremy Guthrie’s True Trade Value?

Thanks to Donovan Moore for another guest post!

With the trade deadline coming in just a matter of weeks, talks between potential trade partners will almost certainly heat up quite soon. The Orioles have already pulled the trigger on one small deal. With Hardy newly locked up through 2014, and Luke Scott fatally wounded, it would seem as though the Orioles’ only viable trade chips for 2011 are pitchers. Personally, I am a fan of having a fire sale that would have every Oriole that wouldn’t be a part of the next winning team up on the block. The problem with that however is that the MacPhail regime seemingly isn’t ready to go into full rebuilding mode. Andy’s contract expires at the end of the 2011 season, and it doesn’t bode well for his chances of contract renewal if he admits defeat right at the end of his first tenure.

The Orioles are not having a fire sale in 2011. The Orioles will very likely just make a few low risk/low reward swaps such as the one where they parted with dear old Nick Green (who?) for some guy who throws baseballs with his left hand. With that being said however, let’s take a look at just exactly how much the Orioles should be asking in return if they were to wise up and deal Jeremy Guthrie.

Unless Jeremy Guthrie suddenly turns into a 3-4 WAR pitcher (career average of ~2.2 WAR/year), he will never be more valuable than he is right now. He was more valuable yesterday than he is today, and even more so the day before that—but his arbitration years are almost over. Using a trade value calculator put together by Sky Kalkman of Beyond the Box Score, I have effectively estimated exactly how much value Guthrie has as of today.

The 2011 numbers have obviously been halved, seeing that the 2011 season is roughly halfway through. I estimated that Guthrie will post 1.2 WAR in the second half—because he posted 1.2 WAR in the first half. I used a going rate of $4.8M/WAR for 2011, and given the figures, estimated that Guthrie will have an excess value of ~$2.9M for the remainder of 2011. 2012 is Guthrie’s last arb year, meaning that he should command a raise to roughly 80% of his WAR value. For 2012, I used a going rate of $5.0M/WAR, and used Guthrie’s career WAR average (2.2) to estimate a 2012 salary of $8.8M. Given the going rate of $5.0M/WAR, in 2012 I have estimated that Guthrie will generate ~$2.2M of excess value. Add in the fact that I have estimated that Guthrie will be a Type B free agent (+$2.5M in draft compensation value), and his grand total of excess value through 2012 is ~$7.6M.

Notice the number of times I used the word “estimate” in the preceding paragraph. Without owning a crystal ball, it is not possible to know with any sort of certainty what Guthrie’s true value will be through the 2012 season, but $7.6M is very likely a fairly accurate estimation.

So… what type(s) of prospect(s) would come back in a trade where the excess value on one side is $7.6M? With much thanks to Victor Wang’s extensive research on prospect values it is possible to put a dollar amount on the worth of different types of prospects:

Obviously the only way to truly know the value of a prospect is to see whether he pans out or not…but that defeats the whole purpose of obtaining a player while he is still a prospect. The hope is that you have bought cheap and that you will be rewarded handsomely when the prospect pans out—but not every prospect does, and for that reason, Wang’s research has incorporated the possibility of any given type of prospect busting. The dollar amount put to any given type of prospect is an average of future values of all of the prospects in that category.

So in order to break even any potential trade for Guthrie, the Orioles would need to get back a Grade B hitter ($5.5M) + a Grade C pitcher 22 or younger ($2.1M). Given MacPhail’s affinity for pitching prospects, maybe he would look to get back a Grade B pitcher ($7.3M) + a Grade C hitter 23 or older ($0.5). These would be instances where the Orioles set themselves up to break even on a deal for Guthrie—but if offered anything more than these examples, they should definitely jump right on it.

Guest Post on MASNSports.com: Ranking the Pitchers in the Orioles Hall of Fame

The latest guest post on MASNSports.com can be found here. Enjoy.

Guest Post on MASNSports.com: WAR says Guthrie rates among O's all-time best pitchers

My last guest post for MASNSports.com can be found here. Back to regular programming and thanks to MASN for letting me try something new.

The Oriole Rotation Suddenly in Limbo

Brian Matusz was hit by a line drive in today's simulated game and his status for Saturday's start is in jeopardy.

Brad Bergesen was struck in a similar fashion last week, albeit worse, by all reports.

That leaves Jeremy Guthrie, Chris Tillman, Jake Arrieta and Zach Britton as the only completely healthy starters just three days from Opening Day.

Justin Duchscherer is not due back until April 21st at the earliest. The situations for Matusz and Bergesen remain more cloudy. It is not known if either will be ready for their respective starts on Saturday and Sunday.

The fates seem to be conspiring to give Chris Tillman a spot in the rotation. Eliminating Zach Britton from the conversation (if Britton is sent to Norfolk, it won't be due to performance), Tillman has the lowest ERA of the spring and a quick calculation of FIP shows he has the second lowest FIP (4.29) behind Bergesen (4.20).

But Tillman, seemingly, wasn't given a real fair shake coming into Spring Training. He was behind Jake Arrieta in the competition for the rotation from the beginning. And even though he outpitched nearly everybody else, the organization was tyring to find any way to send him back to Norfolk. With Bergesen, Matusz and Duchscherer banged up (to varying degrees), Tillman may sneak into the rotation and get his shot after all.

The team does not need a fifth starter until April 10th. But Matusz and Bergesen would both have to be healthy to push Tillman to Norfolk. Tillman's going north. And he'd better take advantage of the situation if he wants to stay there.

Jeremy Guthrie: All-Time Oriole Great?

Could Jeremy Guthrie soon be considered among the all-time great Oriole pitchers? Not yet, but perhaps soon.

Here are the top ten pitchers in Oriole history in terms of WAR (for these purposes, WAR as calculated by Baseball-Reference.com)



There he is, #10 all-time.

If Guthrie posts his average season in 2011 (3.7 WAR), that will put him above Scott McGregor and Mike Cuellar and right behind Milt Pappas. Another decent season would put him in the neighborhood of Dave McNally.

Obviously, he won't reach the elite heights of Mike Mussina or Jim Palmer but I was quite surprised to see how well he measured up against the likes of Oriole legends Cuellar and Boddicker already.

Guthrie is under team control for the 2011 and 2012 seasons. Did you ever think you would see Jeremy Guthrie in the Oriole Hall of Fame?

Steve Barber, Mike Boddicker, Scott McGregor, Mike Cuellar and Dave McNally are all in there. Guthrie could be too.

The Crystal Ball 2011: Jeremy Guthrie

I don't know how Jeremy Guthrie will pitch in 2011. But I'll wager on one thing; he will outperform his FIP. After all, he's done it for the last three seasons.

When I looked at the 2011 Bill James Handbook last week, I discovered that Guthrie is among the best at keeping opposing batters off the bases, among the likes of Justin Verlander, Josh Beckett and Felix Hernandez.

I decided to pull some data from FanGraphs and see where Guthrie ranked in terms of outperforming his FIP over the past four seasons. The results:

                FIP - ERA
Trevor Cahill      0.97
Johan Santana      0.67
Jeremy Guthrie     0.62
Shaun Marcum       0.61
Matt Cain          0.46

That's good company for Guthrie. Really, those top 4 are head and shoulders above the rest of baseball in this regard.

How do they do it? Three of them have BABIP's under .280 and the other (Santana) only had a .286 BABIP. Those numbers help but they are just results. What do they do to keep the BABIP down? How do they outperform their FIP year after year? What do they have in common?

In short, they have little in common. They don't all have live fastballs, they are not all groundball pitchers, they are not all big strikeout guys. They don't all pitch in front of great defenses, they pitch in pitcher and hitter friendly stadiums, some throw a ton of changeups, others throw a ton of sliders.

The only thing they all do reasonably well is limit their walks but FIP should already account for that.

It's probably not any one thing that these pitchers do but a combination of characteristics. But they all have a knack for outperforming their FIP, however they arrive at it.

My theory on Guthrie? He gives up a lot of weak flyballs and his outfielders have pretty good arms. But that's a weak theory, I'll admit. If anyone else has some ideas, let me know.

Guthrie in 2011 will be a slightly above average pitcher again and go for 30+ starts. Considering the rest of the rotation will be 25 and under, it's nice to have one guy who should be steady, if not spectacular.

Jeremy Guthrie Still Has Value In The Oriole Rotation

With Chris Tillman and Jake Arrieta pitching well for Norfolk, there has been some talk of replacing Jeremy Guthrie in the rotation after his wretched start last night against the Yankees, a game in which he gave up 6 Earned Runs in just 4.2 innings. But I think that's throwing out the baby with the bathwater at this point.

Guthrie's peripheral based stats:

                FIP    xFIP    K    BB    HR
Guthrie '10    3.90    4.45   18     6     3

That is over 30.2 innings (second only to Kevin Millwood's 32.0 innings for Baltimore) and good for a WAR of 0.5 over 5 starts. (Also second on the team behind Brian Matusz's 0.7 WAR.)

The guy is pitching a little better than his ERA would lead you to believe and it's no fluke (a .302 BABIP is actually a bit higher than his average over the past three seasons). Even after last night, and we have to remember this Oriole fans, it was only one game, he is still the second most valuable pitcher on the team. In Millwood and Guthrie, the Orioles have two pitchers who can reasonably be expected to be at least league average and pitch into the 6th inning every night.

Have you seen the bullpen? Guthrie has value if for no other reason that he can eat innings. Hopefully Dave Trembley realizes that even if some of the fans don't.

Help Me, Oriole Rotation. You're My Only Hope.

An Open Letter to the Oriole Starting Five:

Hi guys. It's closing in on Spring Training and Baltimore fans are full of (cautious, admittedly) optimism and hope. Young prospects are on the rise, national media are picking Baltimore to be much improved and even projection systems like PECOTA have the Birds within the margin of error for a winning season.

But I know the truth. This team only goes as far as you five gentlemen take us. The offense is good but not good enough to outslug the Yanks, Sox or maybe even the Rays. No, we need pitching and we need plenty of it to succeed. The good news is, you won't have big shoes to fill. The starting rotation on Opening Day was Alfredo Simon, Koji Uehara, Mark Hendrickson, Adam Eaton and Jeremy Guthrie. Jeremy, you are the only one who remains.

Each of you have a job to do and the Baltimore faithful beg you to do it well.

Kevin Millwood, we know your best days are probably behind you. While you are the de facto ace, nobody expects you to be anything better than league average. We need you to be Rick Sutcliffe circa 1992. You remember the Red Baron, don't you? He came to Baltimore late in his career to help anchor a staff of young hurlers (Mussina, McDonald, Rhodes) and for the first half of the season pitched like the Sutcliffe of old. OK, not like 1984 Sutcliffe but he went 12-6 over the first half of the season with a 4.13 ERA. He finished the season as a slightly below average pitcher in terms of ERA but for half of 1992 (and then some) he was a hero. He helped lead the Orioles, who had lost 97 games in 1991, to an 89 win season in 1992. More importantly, he bought time for the kid pitchers to develop and stabilized the rotation.

You can be that hero, Kevin. I know former Braves have not fared well in Charm City (Javy Lopez, Leo Mazzone, B.J. Surhoff v2.0) but this is a different era, an era of hope and resurrection. Seize the day and perhaps the Orioles will relax facial hair policies for you too.

Jeremy Guthrie, the Orioles claimed off of waivers three seasons ago and you went out of the frying pan and into the fire. 2009 was rough on you. You gave up a league high 35 homers. But that won't happen again because deep down, you are a groundball pitcher with enough of a fastball to strike batters out. Don't give in and keep the ball down in the zone. You finally have help. A veteran to eat innings, kids behind you who will pitch better as the season wears on. You are battle tested, sir. No pitcher in baseball has faced the fearsome lineups you have faced more often over the last three seasons.

We don't need you to try to be the ace anymore. We just need your innings, we just need your experience, we just need your spirit. Just keep the ball in the park and let your defense do the rest.

Brad Bergesen. You were labeled a AAAA pitcher. You were not supposed to have the stuff to pitch in the AL East. You were not supposed to be in the rotation in 2009. But you were and you were the best of the rotation last season.

You're a groundball machine. You walk no one. Nobody's getting a cheap hit off of you. According to The Bill James Handbook, you might just be the best fielding pitcher in the American League. You have the best chance of any of the starters to hit 200 innings pitched like Guthrie did last year. You're a fan favorite already and everyone is pulling for you to succeed. Like it or not, you're the underdog and everyone loves the underdog. Just keep it up. Please.

Brian Matusz, I have not had so much fun watching a guy pitch since Mike Mussina donned the orange & black. You have four pitches and you command them all extremely well. So on any count, you are likely to throw any of them. It reminds me of Mussina throwing his knuckle-curve on a 3-2 count, buckling the batter's knees and ringing up the K. You are that kind of talent. I can see you tying the hitters up in knots, mentally and physically with each successive at bat.

You are to inherit the "ace" tag for Baltimore and become the best Baltimore pitcher since the aforementioned Mussina. The rotation is relying more on your success than on any other individual pitcher. But the scouts love you and I think you may be due for a great leap forward in 2010.

Chris Tillman, it was not pretty during your 12 major league starts in 2009. A 5.40 ERA and lots of walks. But at the age of 21, you had nothing left to prove in the minors. You destroyed the International League posting a 2.70 ERA and 99 strikeouts in 96 innings for AAA Norfolk. It was your time. It is your time.

But just relax. No one is expecting you to be anything more than the 5th best starter for the Orioles in 2010. But I saw you in AAA. Your fastball moved and you mixed you pitches well. In Baltimore, you overthrew and that fastball flattened out. No need to throw through a brick wall. The baseball is an egg. Hold it like and egg. And by the end of the season, you may just start to show flashes of the ace potential you brought with you from the Seattle organization.

So don't believe the hype. If the Orioles are to surprise the league this season, it won't be because they signed Miguel Tejada and Garrett Atkins, it will be because the five of you.

Now let's go O's!

Base Hits: 8/6/2009

Jeremy Guthrie pitched well in Detroit last night but gave up his 27th homer of the season last night. It's the first week of August but Guthrie is only 8 homers short of the club record. Once he reached the top ten, I guess we'll have to put up a Guthrie Homer-meter on the site.

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Quick thought on Brian Matusz: Gnarly.

Matusz looked as polished as Brad Bergesen with better stuff. He had control of all four of his pitches and looks to be here to stay. Yeah, yeah, it's only one start and I'm the king of warning of "small sample sizes" but I'm calling it now. He's here to stay.

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Speaking of Matusz and Oriole rookie starters, FanGraphs has two articles on new Oriole hurlers. Dave Cameron looks at Chris Tillman's fastball location and his propensity for giving up fly balls and Erik Manning uses PitchFx to analyze Matusz's major league debut.

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Melvin Mora's line since his meltdown: .111/.111/.222.

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Almost as encouraging as Brian Matusz's performance on Tuesday night was the performance of Chris Ray in relief. 2.2 IP, 2 Ks, 1 BB, 1 hit, 0 runs.

Ray could be an enormous part of the bullpen in 2010 if he is actually able to come back...

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Some of Matusz's former Keys teammates will be in Baltimore next Monday to heckle the rookie pitcher.

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Erik Bedard is going for an MRI on his shoulder and the fans of Seattle are not too thrilled about it.

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The Bowling Green View interviews one of their alumni, Oriole outfielder Nolan Reimold.

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Former big league outfielder Doug Glanville is a smart guy and make some good observations on some recent steroid revelations in The New York Times.

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Shysterball offers up some good guidelines for ethical blogging.

Oriole Hurlers In Review

Just some random observations about our rotation...

Brad Bergesen

The rookie keeps impressing. He still needs a bit better strikeout rate (something closer to 6.0 K/9 would make me feel better) but he's doing all the other things a pitcher with his skill set needs to do to compete at the major league level. He's killing worms (49.9% ground ball rate), he's not walking guys (2.32 BB/9) and he's keeping the ball in the park (0.85 HR/9). You've got to love the attitude, the guy doesn't quit or get shell shocked. His strikeouts are a bit lacking (4.56 K/9) but he looks to have the skills to be a legitimate back of the rotation starter.

David Hernandez

Another guy who keeps succeeding on pure will power at this point. Hernandez came to Baltimore with a rep as a guy who could pile up the strikeouts but that hasn't happened yet (so far he's only striking out guys at Bergesen levels...). He has kept the ball in the park (0.80 HR/9) but is giving up fly balls at a 55% rate...so that HR rate is bound to rise and his ERA with it.

But give credit to Hernandez. He's not able to strike guys out at a rate that he's used to but he's worked around that, kept his head about him and battled the best he could. Hernanadez may not ultimately succeed but it won't be because of his makeup.

Jeremy Guthrie

Guthrie gave up his 23rd home run of the season on Saturday, one short of his career high...and it's not even August.

Guthrie is on pace to surrender 37 home runs, surpassing Sidney Ponson, Scott McGregor and Robin Roberts for the club record. According to HitTrackerOnline.com, damn near all the homers given up by Guthrie are legitimate, almost none of them are counted as lucky shots.

Here's hoping that Guthrie's just having a bad year. Better for him to return to form in 2010 than in 2009 in my opinion.

Rich Hill/Jason Berken

With the impending promotion of Chris Tillman, the fates of Hill and Berken are linked in competition to remain with the club.

Jason Berken really doesn't have the resume to be in the majors at this point. He was promoted to AAA due to a lack of arms and then promptly to the majors for the same reason. He can be a useful arm in the future but could use some more seasoning in an environment where he's not getting shelled every start. The one plus for Berken...he has a FIP of 4.76 versus his actual ERA of 6.55 which indicates that he may have been pitching better than the surface results. But I'm guessing that's small consolation to Berken.

Hill is not good. There's no doubt about it. A 7.64 ERA and a 5.13 FIP. But there are two guys struggling in the rotation and only one Chris Tillman to call up from Norfolk. If you're asking me to pick a guy for cannon fodder, I'll take the veteran and save the psyche of the kid. Fans can be angry about Hill taking the mound every 5 days but the eye has to be on 2010 and 2011. Let Berken go work things out in Norfolk/Bowie. Hill can fall on his sword for the next two months.

Chris Tillman

His stats in Norfolk:

                W-L   IP    ERA   K   BB   HR
Tillman - AAA   8-6  96.2  2.70  99   26    5

   

His last outing was not good but I imagine he'll be better than most of what we already have.

Could The Orioles Switch Leagues? Please?

Isolated in the mountains of north Georgia all weekend, there is little better than coming back to civilization to find a Oriole sweep of the world champion Phillies waiting for me.

You know, I didn't see any of the games but can we get Oscar Salazar some more at bats? Every time he gets a shot to play, he gets a hit. OK, while Aubrey Huff is still here you can't cut into his playing time but Salazar can play third and Melvin Mora's bat stinks.

Mora's OPS by month:

          OPS
April    .940
May      .647
June     .583
 

I'm not a Mora basher but he's 37, he's in decline and the club is not going to exercise his option for 2010. Time to give Salazar some of his at bats (and Ty Wigginton too, since we're discussing it...).

Big weekend for Brian Roberts:

                     AVG   OBP   SLG   OPS   RBI
Roberts at Philly   .385  .400  .693 1.092    5
 

Where's those people who want to trade him now? Look at our shortstops. Nice gloves but no offense. It's a real luxury to have a good bat at one of the middle infield positions.

Nolan Reimold: another home run, OPSing 1.016 last week and .973 for the month of June.

Jeremy Guthrie gives up another home run but managed to outduel Cole Hamels on Sunday. That's 17 homers surrendered by Guthrie in 15 games and he is on pace to shatter the Oriole record.

Most home runs surrendered by a Baltimore pitcher in a season:

                 HR   GS
Sidney Ponson    35   32
Scott McGregor   35   33
Robin Roberts    35   35
Scott McGregor   34   34
Mike Cuellar     34   40
Kris Benson      33   30
Bruce Chen       33   32
Ken Dixon        33   33
 
 

I was surprised to see Scott McGregor on this list twice. Not really surprised by anyone else (Cuellar had to make 40 starts to make this list.) If Guthrie stays healthy, he should make 33 starts which puts him on pace for 38 homers surrendered.

(I probably don't plug this enough but I compiled this list using the fantastic BaseballReference.com Play Index. Subscribe or sponsor a page today! I use the site nearly everyday and use the Play Index for blog posts all the time...)

But Peter Angleos should lobby Bud Seling to switch leagues; The Orioles would go to the NL East and the Nats would come AL East. Baltimore would actually contend!

Anyway, more NL East play to come, down to Miami for three against the Marlins and back home this weekend for three with the Nats. Enjoy the wins while they last!

Base Hits: 6/17/2009

Technically, it was a quality start for Jeremy Guthrie but sloppy play behind him doomed the Orioles in a very winnable game. What does Ty Wigginton have to do to get off the bench against a lefty pitcher?

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Wanted to give some more draft news since John Sickels put his evaluation of Baltimore's draft up last week:

Baltimore: I don't have a problem with Hobgood at fifth overall. He's signable, and in my opinion the difference between him and the other elite prep arms isn't all that great. He might not be as projectable as some of them, being more physically mature, but I really like his arm and I don't think this is a huge overdraft....Randy Henry in the fourth round and Ashur Tolliver in the fifth provide more live arms, Tolliver in particular being a good value in that round. 8th round pick OF Devin Harris (East Carolina), 9th round pick RHP Ryan Berry (Rice), and 10th round pick RHP Jacob Cowan (San Jacinto JC) all offer very good value for their draft slots. Harris has tons of tools, and both Berry and Cowan were considered possible second or third round picks if not for injury questions. This may not be a spectacular draft class, but I think it is solid.

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Speaking of the draft, a good article in the Sun about top draft pick Matt Hobgood. Some good quotes from Hobgood too:

"I'd like to get to the pros as quick as I can and help the O's start kicking butt in the American League East," he said. "Striking out A-Rod would be a nice way to start."

and


"Call it my alter ego," Hobgood said of his competitive streak. "I'm a nice guy off the field, but out there that'll get you run over. Nolan Ryan once said he was an SOB on the mound, and if it works for him ... "


If this kid was a Scott Boras guy, I would be suspicious that he was prepped; that's how mature and level headed his quotes are. But he seems really genuine and if he really does have his head on straight, that's one less obstacle for him to overcome to get to Baltimore.


Regardless, it looks like he's set to sign with the O's on June 27th and will report to either Bluefield or Aberdeen.


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Ken Rosenthal thinks the future looks bright for the Orioles.

Then he criticizes Nick Markakis for being selfish for not ending his 65 consecutive games played streak and Nick fouls a ball into the press box and shatters Ken's laptop.




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The minor league hurler shuffle...

Over the past few days, Brian Matusz has reported to Bowie, Jake Arrieta moved up to Norfolk, so did Troy Patton and Tim Bascom came up to Bowie from Frederick.

Keep 'em coming...

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You know, one of these days I have to get out to Bluefield to take in a Bluefield Orioles game. Bluefield has been a Baltimore affiliate for 52 years and is a living piece of Oriole history. The season kicks off on June 23rd against the Elizabethton Twins. Einar Diaz will be the manager this season. The 24th is Hardee's Night! Gotta love the rookie leagues...

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Sammy Sosa reportedly tested positive for steroids? See previous post.

Base Hits: 6/12/2009

I am taking down my little "Value Over Daniel Cabrera" widget from the left hand side of the blog. The final results in terms of ERA:

Daniel Cabrera 2008 - 5.25
Daniel Cabrera 2009 - 5.85
Adam Eaton - 8.56
Mark Hendrickson - 5.53
Alfredo Simon - 9.95
Rich Hill - 5.24
Koji Uehara - 4.37

The whole point of the exercise was to decipher what The Warehouse was thinking in regards to the rotation this year. It seemed they were looking for stiffs to eat innings and buy time for the kids in the minors. But then they let go a "proven stiff" in Daniel Cabrera. Cabrera had proven that he was just that kind of pitcher and had proven it in the AL East. It was kind of ironic that they let Cabrera go just at the time he had proven he was forever to be mediocrity but an innings eater. Cabrera was, for the first time in his career, a perfect fit for the Baltimore Orioles and they cut him loose!

Now, you can certainly disagree with me about Cabrera in specific but you have to admit that nobody they brought in has done a better job that D-Cab, save for Koji Uehara. Certainly the trio of stiffs that were in the rotation on Opening Day (Hendrickson, Eaton, Simon) were a downgrade.

I don't have many criticisms of Andy MacPhail so far but his assemblage (or lack thereof) of a starting rotation for the 2009 Orioles has been a glaring and abject failure.

Anyway, it's hardly fair to compare the rotation anymore now that some kids are starting to fill those roles. I've made my argument.

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Want the human interest stories behind the 2009 Oriole draftees? Matt at Roar From 34 has compiled them all.

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I'm not sure that I've said it before (and he certainly doesn't need the traffic from me!) but the Matt Wieters Facts site (put together by Frost King) is still quite entertaining to me.

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I love me some Old Bay. And I love me some Orioles.

I don't reprint press releases very often but if I was in Baltimore on Saturday, I would be at Camden Yards for this promotion:

OLD BAY SPICES UP CAMDEN YARDS

The Orioles and Charm City Cakes help celebrate the 70th BIRTHDAY of a Baltimore icon.

What:

Cake creator extraordinaire Duff Goldman of Baltimore’s Charm City Cakes will help celebrate the 70th birthday of Baltimore’s own OLD BAY Seasoning prior to the Orioles-Braves game with the unveiling of a larger-than-life cake that replicates the iconic yellow and blue can with the red lid. Duff will also be throwing out the first pitch and the first 10,000 attendees age 15 and over will receive an OLD BAY mallet

When: Saturday, June 13th
Presentation begins at 6:30pm

Where: Baltimore Orioles vs. Atlanta Braves Game
Camden Yards


Background:

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I like Melvin Mora. I have enjoyed watching him through out his Oriole career. But he's done. The Orioles should not pick up his option for the 2010 season. I'll probably harp on that fact as the season goes on but Mora is doing a pretty good job of sealing that fate himself.

Mora is OPSing .653 which puts his bat within shouting distance of Cesar Izturis (.620) and even Felix Pie (.595). But Mora is no longer a great glove or a kid. It's probably going to get worse. Month by month, his OPS has dropped from .940 in April (over 7 games) to .647 in May and a meager .417 in June.

He'll probably play out the year since the Orioles don't have many internal options but 2009 should be his Oriole swansong.

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Some sage words form Rick Dempsey about Jeremy Guthrie:

Usually it is pretty easy for me to watch a pitcher and see what he is doing right or wrong. A lot of times all you have to do is watch the flight and spin of the ball, and it can tell you exactly what you want to know....

From what I've seen, its not just one thing. There's a lot going on right now that nobody can figure out except Jeremy.

Obviously, I don't see every pitch of every game like Rick does (and based on the copious notes and score keeping I saw him taking during the MASN Oriole Blogger Night last month, he's certainly paying close attention) but I was working on a post about Jeremy Guthrie and trying to figure out why he was giving up so many homers this year. After pouring over Pitch F/X data, pitch types, pitch sequence, the counts , his velocity, the types of hitters he's facing...everything I could think of. But there's no common denominator! They're launching home runs off of every kind of pitch he throw without discrimination. It doesn't happen when he's behind in the count. He velocity and control (at least, his walk rates and amount of strikes he throws) are consistent with his first two seasons.

So I've got to go with Rick on this one. It not just one thing...but you would like to think Guthrie can solve it sooner than later.

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It's been a rough week for the Orioles but the Braves have been having trouble scoring runs too. Could this weekend be the remedy for the Baltimore win column?

Let's go O's!

Random Thoughts from Weekend Baseball

I really don't know whether to be encouraged that Jeremy Guthrie battled so hard after that bad first inning on Friday or concerned that he gave up his league leading 8th home run in 7 starts in said inning.

Luis Montanez hit .300 last week, Felix Pie .333. Competition is a good thing? BTW if Luke Scott goes on the DL, it's a huge blow to the Orioles offense. But it does give Pie and Montanez more opportunites.

Matt Wieters has hit 4 doubles in his last five games and is now hitting over .300 again.

If there was ever one thing you needed to point to that would demonstrate the superiority of American League talent to National League talent, it would be Fernando Tatis. The guy was washed up and couldn't even stick with the Orioles, one of the worst teams in the AL. Now, for the past two years, he sees significant playing time for the Mets, a NL team that is considered a serious contender.

Speaking of the Mets...what kind of throw is this?



Can we get Koji a win? Just one win? He's strung together five straight quality starts. How about just a little win for the brother?

Ryan Freel debuted as a Cub today, getting a pinch hit...and then promptly getting picked off second base. At least he ducked this time...

Five Things to Watch During Spring Training

Lots of new faces in Ft. Lauderdale this year...what should we be watching for when we watch the meager MASN slate of Spring Training games?

1. Koji Uehara…What’s Up With That?

Uehara is an exciting addition but he’s a huge unknown on this side of the Pacific. Raise your hand if you’ve seen him pitch. I’ve only seen some WBC footage on YouTube. How’s his delivery? How does that fastball pop? Can he control his breaking pitches? How will he do against the competition this Spring?

2. The Rotation…who will emerge?

When Spring Training broke in 2007, here was the starting rotation:

J. Guthrie
D Cabrera
A Loewen
S Trachsel
B Burres

As you know, only Guthrie remains in the organization. Uehara will be the number two starter by default but it’s a Battle Royale for the last three spots. We have star-crossed homegrown prospects (Hayden Penn), cast-off from other organizations (Brian Hennessey), former Cubs farmhands who can’t find the plate (Rich Hill), former Oriole farmhands who can’t find the plate (Radhames Liz), guys who weren’t even sure they wanted to be middle relievers two years ago (Danys Baez), guys dumped for minor league relievers by division rivals (David Pauley), guys coming back from serious shoulder injuries (Troy Patton, Matt Albers), former NBA players (Mark Hendrickson), recent First Round draftees (Brian Matusz) and various farm system products hoping for a shot (David Hernandez, Brad Bergensen, Chris Waters).

That’s at least 13 arms who will legitimately compete for three available spots in the rotation. (I won’t count Chorye Spoone, John Parrish, Chris Tillman, etc…guys who have no real shot at grabbing a spot.) That makes for a lot of competition and a hope that at least a couple of these guys break out and put a stranglehold on a spot in the rotation.

3. Luke Scott…Where’s he playing?

Dave Trembley has said that the arrival of Felix Pie will not spell the end of Scott’s time patrolling LF for the O’s. Scott says he’s willing to play some first base and the DH spot is wide open.

Contrary to popular belief, Scott’s defense in left was not bad at all. He doesn’t look great doing it but he fields his position well. It would seem a waste to put him exclusively at DH. It will be interesting to see how he handles first base; if he is competent, he could be an interesting option for that position in 2010 when Aubrey Huff departs.

4. The Catcher Situation…

Gregg Zaun has the starting job until Matt Wieters shows up but there are a few guys competing for that backup catcher spot…even if they will only have it for a few weeks. Robby Hammock, Guillermo Quiroz, Chad Moellers, Adam Donachie…but obviously that’s not the glamourous aspect of this story.

The interesting thing will be if Wieters plays well enough to break camp with the team. Now, given the free agency ramifications surrounding him, there’s little chance he heads north with the big club in April. Of course, I said the same thing about Nick Markakis three years ago. If he shows up and lives up to the hype of being Christ in a Catcher’s Mask, he’ll make the decision a lot harder for Andy MacPhail.

5. Who’s The Closer?

Or more precisely, how’s the bullpen going to shake out? But figuring out who the closer is will go a long way to figuring the rest of the ‘pen out.

If Chris Ray takes the closer spot back, what happens with George Sherrill? If Sherrill tkaes the setup job, does Jim Johnson take over as the 7th inning guy? Will Jamie Walker be reduced to lefty specialist? Will Walker be effective at all? Will Trembley feel comfortable with a 12 man pitching staff or will he continue to carry 13 arms? Who's the long relievers?

Mundane matters now but they won't be mundane once the games start to count.

The Crystal Ball '09: Jeremy Guthrie

A big part of trying to guess what a player may be is to examine the past and see where he fits in. There is more than 100 years of baseball history to draw from after all. But that's really tough to do with Jeremy Guthrie because he has one of the most unique career paths for a pitcher in the last 50 years of baseball.

For a guy who never really distinguished himself in the minors and only appeared in 16 major league games before the 2007 season, Guthrie has performed like nobody before him. In last season's Crystal Ball, I could only find three pitchers who had broke into the majors at age 28 who had a similar level of success. After a nearly identical sophomore effort, Guthrie stands alone.

The only guy from last year's list who still bears some resemblance to Guthrie is Jack Sanford, a pitcher from the 1950's primarily for the Phillies and the Giants. He, like Guthrie, came from nowhere to have a very good rookie season for the Phillies in 1957. But he fell back to earth during his sophomore campaign before going on to a respectable 10-year career. (On a side note, Sanford played for the minor league Baltimore Orioles of the International League before breaking in with the Phillies.)

Harvey Haddix broke in at age 27 in 1953 and made a big splash but also fell off a bit during his sophomore season. (Haddix wound up his career in the 60's as a reliever...for the Baltimore Orioles.)

Guthrie has posted back to back seasons seasons of 125 ERA+. No pitcher of his age or experience (barring players coming in from Japan) has had that kind of success and consistency. We are witnessing one of the more distinctive careers in the history of major league baseball.

What can we expect from Guthrie in '09? Don't look for a lot of wins. Guthrie is a very good pitcher but he would not be an ace on many teams. The Orioles are trotting out a guy who qualifies as a solid No. 2 against the very best pitchers in the American League. Some of his best efforts are wasted and he has pitched much better than his Win-Loss record would indicate.

Other than that, there's no reason to imagine that Guthrie won't do the exact same thing that he has done the last two seasons.

               W   L   IP   HR   BB   K    ERA
Guthrie '09    9  12  190   24   55  124  3.75
 

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:

Random Thoughts on the Last Two Games...

Wayward O has covered this nicely but I had to throw in my two cents.

Lots of lashing out at Dave Trembley for leaving Jeremy Guthrie in the game so long Tuesday night. Really? My complaint about Trembley has been that he doesn't leave his starters in long enough. I'm certainly not going to come down on him for erring on the other side of the equation.

But the real issue here is expectations. Some people are acting like this is a team of contenders. They're not. Three weeks ago, 100 losses were being touted across the O's blogosphere and general baseball press. Now that the team started 11-8 (now 12-9), people are acting like Trembley should be trying to keep the O's in the race. They are wrong.

Trembley gave his pitcher a chance, a pitcher who said he could get the job done. (Enough of the "every pitcher wants to stay in" argument. Tired.) Trembley hasn't seen what Guthrie can do in this situation so he decided to find out. Dave gave him the opportunity and Guthrie couldn't deliver. I don't expect Trembley to make the same mistake twice.

The point is, this is Trembley's first full season as manager with a lot of players who are in their first or second year in the big leagues. He is still learning what these guys may or may not be capable of and that's exactly what he should be doing in 2008, wins and losses be damned.

This team will be very fortunate to get to .500 by years end. It's important to remember that.

Nobody knows what kind of team the Orioles really have. I'll cut Trembley some slack while he works it all out. But if he does it again, I'll kill him for it.

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Wayward O also posted this defensive gem by Jeremy Guthrie but you must watch it again. It may be the best defensive play you see all year. (Of course, Ramon Hernandez fired the ball into rightfield right after that, negating everything.)

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Anyway, I have admitted I am a sucker when it comes to Daniel Cabrera and while I'm not sold by this latest run of success, it is easy for me to get carried away. I'll be taking (yet another) closer look at this later.

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"Spanky" Huff is an idiot. It's a good thing he can hit home runs because he certainly doesn't seem to have a head for the game. Anybody see him practically run over Juan Samuel as he ran through the stop sign and got thrown out at home? If Juan Samuel's not sending you, you have to be dead to rights. Juan hasn't been conservative enough of his tenure as thirdbase coach. Home runs or not, Huff must go and Scott Moore must take his place.

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Josh Kalk is a wiz with PITCHfx data and has created "player cards" for each pitcher's 2008 season thus far. Most interesting among Orioles is Jim Johnson's card where his similarity score shows him to be closest to Josh Beckett. I'm not sure how he calculates similarity but any comparison to Josh Beckett cannot be bad.

A Quick One...

"The ball was getting away from me, and I couldn't figure out my release point. ... "

- Adam Loewen




Release point of fastballs thrown by Jeremy Guthrie on Sunday and Adam Loewen yesterday:





Pretty easy to quantify. Guthrie's release point is fairly clustered while Loewen's looks like a Rorschach Test. Repeatability is so important in pitching. At least Loewen is cognizant enough to know exactly what he's doing wrong.