I’ll admit, I do not know the work of Bradford Doolittle. Maybe I should know him but cut me some slack, I’ve been out of the game for a minute. (His name should definitely be wearing a top hat and a monocle) But after Twitter directed me to his article on ESPN.com grading the Orioles’ recent swap of Jorge Lopez, I am more familiar with his psyche than I ever hoped to be.
After a hectic day before trade deadline day, the actual deadline day kicked off with a deal between a team scrambling to hold onto a narrow division lead and a team scrambling to relinquish its unexpected status as a postseason contender.
I typically use Fangraphs for my playoff odds and using their base calculation the Twins have a 49.3% chance to make the postseason and the Oriole chances are….2.5%. Hard to compare a team with multiple paths to the postseason and a current division lead to the Orioles for whom it’s wild card or bust and they are battling it out with 6 other teams for those spots.
But hey, Fangraphs leans heavily on pre-season projections and sees the O’s as a regression candidate. Other models weigh in-season results more heavily. So over at Baseball Reference, we see the Twins have 50.4% chance at the postseason and the Oriole have a 37.4% chance. Not too shabby.
But would this make us buyers? We are projected to go 29-28 the rest of the season. Great! But how does dealing Jorge Lopez affect those odds? More on that later…
Lopez, meanwhile, has arguably been the most improved player in baseball this season. After entering the campaign as a failed starter with a 6.04 career ERA, he made some drastic changes to his pitch mix and his career suddenly took off.
He made some drastic changes to his pitch mix. Hmm. He made. I wonder who suggested that to him? Odd that he did not make these changes in Milwaukee or Kansas City. Guess it was just a coincidence that these changes started happening once he joined the Orioles.
In his first full season with the Orioles, Lopez’s K% ticked above 20.0 for the first time in his career. With the shift to the bullpen, he increased his velocity and started leaning heavily on his sinker and slider and became an All-Star. Baltimore deserves some credit for turning a journeyman hurler into an effective weapon. His career did not “suddenly” take off. More on that later…
There is a white flag flying over Camden Yards. Someone should write a song about it.
Is that a Star Spangled Banner joke? You cheeky monkey.
While the Twins are embracing their narrow, uncertain chances at a playoff run, the Orioles are sprinting away from their still-breathing probabilities as if they were being chased by the ghost of Babe Ruth.
Is 50.8% narrow and uncertain? I think not.
There is a reason the Orioles have a puncher's chance at a wild card berth...their winning July. The team went 16-9 that month, surging into the playoff race and bringing into question what they should do at the deadline. What did Lopez do that month? A 4.76 ERA and opposing batters had a .913 OPS against hm. He turned every hitter into Pete Alonso. On another note, Trey Mancini slashed .237/.321/.355 in July. That is just above Odor-esque production at the plate. It is not as if Mancini and Lopez put the team on their back and dragged them to 16 wins...the team won in spite of those guys.
So this is not even the waving of a white flag. It could be a rally flag instead. This team might actually get better. (Indeed, they are 2-0 for August...)
With Lopez leading the way, the work of Baltimore's bullpen has been the backbone of the team's surprising success this season.
Yeah….kind of? The O’s bullpen has been great this year and Lopez has been a big part of that with 1.1 fWAR out of the ‘pen. But Felix Bautista has been just as good, also 1.1 fWAR. Dillon Tate has been just as good as Lopez (0.9 fWAR over fewer innings). Cionel Perez, Keegan Akin and Bryan Baker have also been very good in their roles. See, baseball is a team game. Lopez is not the entire relief corp on his own. Someone will need to step up and take a bigger role now that he is gone…will that be Nick Vespi? I am doubtful but this organization has been surprisingly good at finding and developing relief arms.
Lopez was one of those. A waiver wire claim back in 2020, the Orioles were able to turn him into an asset and an All-Star. Tate was one of the arms we got back for Zach Britton back in 2018. Bautisa was a rookie league minor league free agent signing back in 2016. Baker and Perez were waiver wire claims this past offseason. Akin was a 2nd round draft pick back in 2016.
The Orioles have been great at developing relief arms under Mike Elias and I am willing to bet they can patch it together again.
Even after the Mancini trade weakened the Baltimore roster, the Orioles' playoff chances went up at the end of the day -- from around 11% to 15% -- because they went out and won a game. I guess that didn't sit well with GM Mike Elias, so he picked up the phone and shipped out the standout performer from the most productive position group on his roster.
I love the imagery of Mike Elias as Snidely Whiplash, twirling his handlebar moustache and laughing maniacally as he trades Lopez to the Twins. This’ll get them to lose! I mean, where does he get this characterization from?
I know, I know. The Orioles are rebuilding. But you know when a rebuild is over? When your team reaches August with a winning record, is 2 1/2 games out of a playoff spot
Imagine the scene, Elias coming out for a Warehouse press conference with a huge “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED” banner behind him. “Gentlemen, when we started this rebuild three and half seasons ago, my goal was to have this team two full games over .500 in the month of August and by God, we have achieved that goal! I declare the rebuild over!”
Anyway, from a value standpoint, I'd rather bet on Lopez outproducing any one of these four prospects over the next three seasons, but he'd be hard-pressed to outproduce the aggregate of the quartet over the duration of all those controllable seasons. Yippee.
I don’t think Doolittle understands the aim of trading for prospects. There is not a rule that you lose the prospects after three years. This is quite an arbitrary time frame to declare winners and losers.
Maybe all of these pitchers will be part of a postseason Orioles team in five years. Maybe they won't. Either way, it won't make me any less annoyed about what they've done over the last two days.
Grade: F-
It’s the minus for me.
I am not aware of Doolittle’s personal grading scale. Maybe he has a G. But if not, this is the absolute lowest grade you can give a transaction. If you don’t like it, you could give it a C or C- but I don’t know if trading a newly minted closer can ever be an F-. It just won’t have that kind of impact, even if you blow it.
Here’s an F- trade that could be made…Elias traded the entire starting lineup save for Rougned Odor, throws in 3 starting pitchers and D.L. Hall getting Joey Gallo in return. Then he machine guns some puppies at home plate, pees on the Cal Ripken, Jr. statue and sets the stadium on fire. That’s an F-.
I don’t know if he has problems with the Orioles organization in general but this analysis lacks all perspective. I hope old Bradford is able to recover. Maybe I’ll send him a new top hat.
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