Individual Performances Leading Team Effort on Charge to the Top

On July 18th, the Orioles were 2.5 games out of the AL Wild Card spot and 10 full games back on the Yankees for the AL East title. Today, they started the day in possession one of the wild card spots and a single game behind the Yankees for the division lead going 29-15 over that stretch.

While this has been an improbable team effort, there are some great individual efforts that have sparked this run. Here are the Orioles who helped lead that furious charge. Not surprisingly, most of these guys are pitchers.

Nick Markakis

          AVG   OBP   SLG   OPS   2B  3B  HR  
Markakis .331  .390  .489  .879    9   2   5

Nick has been on fire since his return from the DL and is flourishing in his new role as leadoff hitter. He is now the best hitter in the lineup.


Mark Reynolds

          AVG   OBP   SLG   OPS   2B  3B  HR  
Reynolds .252  .366  .489  .855    9   0   8

Reynolds has streaked his way to offensive relevance over the past 6 weeks while leading the team in walks, ranks second on the team in ISO and since moving to first base has provided adequate defense. Some of the fans who were clamoring for a playoff spot were also the same ones who were crapping all over Reynolds this season which I always found strange since this team was going to need every bullet in the arsenal to make a run at even a wild card berth. Reynolds has proved to be valuable in that endevour.


Wei-Yin Chen

           IP    K    BB    HR    ERA
Chen     54.2   51    16     7   3.79

In the absence of Jason Hammel, Chen provided some stability and a center to the revolving door of starters entering and exiting the rotation. Not spectacular but always solid.


Chris Tillman

           IP    K    BB    HR    ERA
Tillman  52.0   41    17     8   3.81

Miguel Gonzalez

           IP    K    BB    HR    ERA
Gonzalez 49.0   37    14     8   3.67

Zach Britton

           IP    K    BB    HR    ERA
Britton  41.0   37    15     5   4.39

I lump these three guys together because with the rotation is ruins, these three came in on the Norfolk shuttle to throw some quality innings and settle things down. There were some rough spots for sure but the minor league journeyman, the former prospect whose star had faded and the top prospect who was working his way back from injuries have teamed up to give the pitching staff a huge boost.


Steve Johnson

           IP    K    BB    HR    ERA
Johnson  18.0   37    14     8   3.67

Steve Johnson has come up from AAA to provide some spot starts and long relief for the team. With Tillman's health in question, he will be taking on a larger role in September. Remember when we lost Johnson in the Rule 5 draft a couple of years ago? Thank God we got him back.


Luis Ayala

           IP    K    BB    HR    ERA
Ayala    19.1   11     4     1   2.79

And why wouldn't we see a bunch of guys from bullpen on this list? Ayala is not spectacular and give up his fair share of hits but he is working enough magic to strand enough runners to be very effective.


Pedro Strop

           IP    K    BB    HR    ERA
Strop    18.0   18     8     0   2.50

The big fastball and impressive ground ball rate offset the occasional wildness as Strop continues his breakout season.


Darren O'Day

           IP    K    BB    HR    ERA
O'Day    17.2   18     6     0   0.51

Troy Patton

           IP    K    BB    HR    ERA
Patton   11.0   11     2     0   0.00

The unsung heroes of the 'pen whose praises I keep trying to sing. Even though he is now on the DL, look at what Patton had done before he went down. And O'Day has been dominant. I want Patton back and soon.

Stunned Silence

From Jeff Conine to Chris Davis: A Recent History of Offensive Futility at First Base

For more than 10 years, the Baltimore Orioles have been looking for a regular first baseman. By and large, they have failed.

Below is a graph showing the Orioles' offensive output measured by sOPS+, a comparison of OPS compared to the rest of the league's first basemen. (sOPS+ stats pulled from Baseball-Reference.com)

As you can see, the best the Orioles have done over the past 10 seasons is flirt with average production from their first baseman.

Back in 2003, Jeff Conine was just hanging on and the offensive output was pitiful. Production was buoyed a bit with the second tour of duty of Rafael Palmeiro and the massively underrated Kevin Millar from 2004-2007 (with an occasional assist by Aubrey Huff although he was mainly a DH). 2009-11 saw new lows in bad hitting first baseman with the likes of Aubrey Huff, Ty Wigginton, Garrett Atkins and Derrek Lee.

The Oriole farm system has been bereft of legitimate first base prospects for many years and they team has tried and failed to patch that hole through free agency with disatrous results at worst and mediocre results at best. Andy MacPhail addressed the issue by trading or claiming off of waivers every corner infieder he could  lay his hands on which is why we saw appearances by Rhyne Hughes, Michael Aubrey and Scott Moore over the past few years.

But finally, some of those MacPhail trades have paid off as Mark Reynolds and Chris Davis have combined to provide slightly above average offensive production at the position with some poor production from Wilson Betemit, Nick Johnson and Joe Mahoney dragging it down.

Chris Davis is under team control for the next three years and may be the closest thing the Orioles have had to a regular productive first baseman the club has had in years. He's probably not going to be the answer but he's not a disaster. It's not much but it's a start.

Donning the Golden Sombrero

This post is inspired by a Twitter conversation with Matt from Roar from 34 about his post regarding the day Don Buford struck out 5 times in the same game and the follow up question from @sarahcumbie:

So I decided to find out. As it turns out, Sarah had the right idea...Mark Reynolds is well into the double digits. All-time leaders in games where a player wore "The Golden Sombrero":

Reggie Jackson     23
Bo Jackson         19
Jim Thome          18
Ryan Howard        18
Sammy Sosa         17
Rob Deer           17
Jose Canseco       16
Dave Kingman       15
Andres Galarraga   15
Dick Allen         15
Reggie Sanders     14
Mark Reynolds      14
Ray Lankford       14
Bobby Bonds        14

That's way up the list for a guy who had only played three seasons. The next Orioles on the list (at least one who spent significant time in Baltimore was Frank Robinson with 6 sombreros to his credit. He's a player the likes of which we have never had in Baltimore...an all or nothing slugger.

He's going to make me bi-polar.

Mark Reynolds Coming to Baltimore

The Orioles have acquired 27-year old 3B Mark Reynolds from the Arizona Diamondbacks, reportedly for RP David Hernandez and RP Kam Mickolio.
I am not really sure how I feel about this deal. Really, it depends on how the rest of the offseason goes. But even Reynolds, in a vacuum, leaves me conflicted.

If you have read my blog for even a little bit, you know how much I love power bats. Love 'em. It's why I keep banging the drum for Luke Scott. It's why I was pimping Adam Dunn for Baltimore this offseason and in the 2008 offseason. It's why I love the potential of Adam Jones and Matt Wieters. Power. Power makes the offense go. It's a game changer and the Orioles don't have nearly enough.

Reynolds brings power in spades. Over the past three seasons, Reynolds has an ISO .247. That's 9th in baseball over that span, ahead of guys like Joey Votto, Adrian Gonzalez, Evan Longoria, Ryan Braun and Dan Uggla. On top of that, nobody ahead of him on that list plays anything other than DH or first base. According to HitTrackerOnline, the True Distance of his average homer was 415.6, tops among the leading home run hitters in baseball. If you can get that kind of power from your third baseman, you take it. Anytime. Sick, sick power. 32 homers in 2010...that was a down year.

Of course, I'm leaving out the downside. Reynolds hit .198 last season. .198...that's it. I don't care much about batting average by itself but when you hit .198, it's really tough to build enough good on top of that to make the overall offensive numbers look respectable.

Not that Reynolds didn't try. His walk rate was 13.9% in 2010. That was 9th in baseball. He has a good eye, something his 200+ strikeouts in each of the last three seasons seems to contradict. I don't care much about strikeouts either...but 200+ consistently is enough to raise anyone's eyebrow. That and the fact that his K rate has risen in each of the last three seasons too. And his Line Drive rates have dropped.

But his walk rate has increased over that span too. And he was hampered by a bad hammy late in the season and the Diamondbacks, in an effort to cut down on the strikeouts, started tinkering with his swing mid-season. And even with all this working against him, he put up an OPS of .754 (98 OPS+) Those are serviceable numbers, even with a .198 average.

The O's are only committed to him for 2 years. Maybe he gets healthy and Jim Pressley (the new Oriole hitting coach) sees a way to get him back on track. But I think he's going to turn me into a manic-depressive every at bat as I experience ecstasy everytime he launches one into the leftfield seats and despairing when he strikes out four times in a game.

As for the guys Baltimore sent to the desert, losing David Hernandez is a bit of a blow. I think Hernandez will be, someday, a successful major league pitcher. However, his path is almost certainly that of a reliever at this point and you shouldn't hesitate to part with relief arms to improve the club. Hernandez did manage to increase his K rate to something close to his minor league rate in 2010 but he was still essentially a flyball pitcher and figures to do better in Arizona. I have little doubt that he may have success going forward but he won't be as valuable as Reynolds has the chance to be.

Kam Mickolio is another story. Mickolio was a top relief prospect coming into the 2010 season. He's got a live fastball and was seen by many as a future closer. But he has struggled with wildness, struggled a bit during brief stints in the majors and will be 27 next season. Again, he may develop into a top notch reliever but there's no guarantee. And he is, after all, just a relief prospect.

I have no idea how all of this will work out. As you can see, I'm back and forth on Reynolds. I don't even know if this means the end of Josh Bell either since Reynolds could be moved over to first base. But there's a lot of upside here and the O's didn't give up any of their core building blocks. I'm cautiously pleased.

The Crystal Ball 2011: Mark Reynolds

With the arrival of Mark Reynolds to Baltimore, we looked at the drama that will accompany him. There will be 475 ft game-winning homers followed by quadruple strikeout games. Highs and lows like Mt. Everest and Death Valley. Watching Reynolds in an Oriole uniform is going to be like dating the crazy bad girl who you know is bad for you. But she's fantastic in bed so you put up with it and you're happy...until she torches all your clothes.

But now we must look a little closer about the kind of player he is. On the surface, he hit .198 and struck out 211 times. So he must be a huge out machine, right? Well, kind of...

Leaders in outs made last season, with less than 625 plate appearances.

                      Outs
1. Carlos Lee         479
2. Jose Lopez         473
3. Alex Gonzalez      464
4. Ty Wigginton       461
5. Vernon Wells       451
6. Ryan Theriot       450
.
.
.
38. Ryan Howard       413
39. Lyle Overbay      413
40. Mark Reynolds     412
41. Michael Bourn     411
42. Carlos Gonzalez   407

Even is a very down year, Reynolds trails a bunch of people. Why? Because even though he strikes out a ton, he can take a walk. Best walk rates in the majors last season:

               BB%
Barton        16.0
Fielder       16.0
Pena          14.9
Pujols        14.7
Bautista      14.6
Heyward       14.6
Zobrist       14.0
Votto         14.0
Reynolds      13.9

In addition, he has a bit of speed for a big guy. He only grounded into 8 double plays last season. Yes, some of that is a function of all the strikeouts he piles up but he stole 24 bases in 2009 and 7 last season. This is not to suggest that he is a good base stealer, just that he has pretty good footspeed for a guy who goes 6'2" and 220 lbs.

Something else he brings to the table in his glove. Talking to Diamondback fans, they are quick to point out that Reynolds was primarily a shortstop in the minors, as recently as 2006. His 2007-2009 fielding numbers are pretty brutal but they steadily improved and he was able to post a UZR/150 of +2.5 for 2010. It could be that Arizona had to live with his learning curve and that Reynolds will be an average MLB third baseman with the glove. Maybe better. Regardless, he is assured of being better than the Miguel Tejada/Josh Bell combo the team had last season.

As far as a projection, I have no idea how Reynolds will fare with a move from the NL West to the AL East. You would have to think he will hit 30+ homers and slug north of .500. But he's coming from a pretty good offensive park in Arizona so Camden Yards will not give him much of a boost with his numbers, if any. He's going to be facing tougher pitching, pitchers who may be able to exploit his offensive weaknesses better but it wasn't like the guy was facing chumps in his old division. Matt Cain, Ubaldo Jiminez, Clayton Kershaw, Chad Billingsly, Mat Latos, Jonathan Sanchez and, oh yeah, Tim Lincecum. Maybe the change in leagues won't impact him as much as we think.

Most projection systems are projecting a mild rebound. Even if he hits .235, thats going to give us some pretty good offensive production from the hot corner. I'm cautiously optimistic that he can do it.