Archive for August, 2013

Minor League Recap: August 19-25

Posted in Minor Leagues, Offense, Pitching, Prospects with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 27, 2013 by oriolesprovingground

Recently, as I was thinking of potential topics to write about, it occurred to me that Orioles Proving Ground has not dealt much with the minor league system of the Baltimore Orioles.  This is somewhat strange considering that the name of the blog was partially meant to invoke images of players in the minors proving their worth and graduating to the major leagues.  That has not really happened to date, other than maybe a couple of posts.  In order to change this, I thought we would start a weekly feature that looks at the best and worst individual performances of Baltimore’s top three minor league affiliates (AAA, AA, and Hi-A).  Conveniently, the minor league season will be coming to a close in the next week, so there will only be two installments of this series in 2013, after which it will hopefully pick up again during the 2014 season.  For the most part this is just a recap, but some analysis may be given where appropriate.

Just a note.  As I do not have much scouting experience and have not attended many minor league games this summer, these posts will look at on field performance only and are not meant to be used as scouting reports.

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Who is the Most Clutch Oriole?

Posted in Offense with tags , , , , , , , on August 23, 2013 by oriolesprovingground

The following post was written by Doug Nickerson as a guest post for Orioles Proving Ground.  Nickerson grew up as a Red Sox fan on Cape Cod, MA and is looking forward to writing about the Orioles with his knowledge of the AL East from a non-emotional perspective.  He moved to the DC area last August, and while he loves the city, he hates humidity and traffic.

In watching so many games this year with the purpose of evaluating the players instead of solely enjoying the beauty of the game, many ideas have percolated from the frustrations of watching teams struggle to score, while others seem to score with ease.  Now obviously some matchups are lopsided causing teams to either easily run up the score or look helpless at the dish.  But the real question I ask myself is, what is the relationship between being good and being able to perform under pressure?

On the surface, the Orioles haven’t been able to turn it on when it counts this year compared to last year, especially when considering their record in 1 run games has gone from 29-9 in 2012 to 14-22 this year.  What’s the cause of this? Is it purely luck? Did last year’s team have nerves of steel compared to this year or is it just the law of averages taking its course?

To compare this year and last year, I needed to look at clutch stats.  The easiest to compare is baseball-reference.com’s “clutch” stat, which is based on its win probability stat and average leverage index.  The clutch stat normalizes these numbers so that a player with a clutch rating of 0 is an average player and a positive or negative rating is more or less clutch, respectively.  Let’s take a look at the offensive numbers (I included guys with at least 45 ABs for the season).

2013 Clutch Rating

2012 Clutch Rating

Chris Davis

1.7

Adam Jones

1

Chris Dickerson

1.1

Taylor Teagarden

0.7

Adam Jones

1.1

Nate McLouth

0.6

Nick Markakis

0.7

Jim Thome

0.6

Steve Pearce

0.7

Mark Reynolds

0.4

Brian Roberts

0.6

Steven Tolleson

0.4

Alexi Casilla

0.5

Chris Davis

0.2

Manny Machado

0.4

Manny Machado

0.2

Danny Valencia

0.4

Matt Wieters

0.1

Yamaico Navarro

0.1

Steve Pearce

0.1

Travis Ishikawa

0

Nolan Reimold

0.1

Taylor Teagarden

0

J.J. Hardy

0

Henry Urrutia

0

Nick Markakis

0

Chris Snyder

-0.1

Endy Chavez

0

Nolan Reimold

-0.2

Brian Roberts

0

Nate McLouth

-0.3

Ryan Flaherty

-0.1

Matt Wieters

-0.4

Ronny Paulino

-0.1

J.J. Hardy

-0.5

Xavier Avery

-0.2

Ryan Flaherty

-0.8

Nick Johnson

-0.2

Omar Quintanilla

-0.3

Lew Ford

-0.4

Robert Andino

-0.7

Wilson Betemit

-0.9

Now, as expected, Chris Davis is the most clutch player on the 2013 team and that’s a reason why he is rightfully in the MVP race.  The surprising results of this stat is that 3 regulars are considered the most clutch hitters on the team (Davis, Jones, Markakis) and 3 regulars are considered to wilt during the big moments (McLouth, Wieters, Hardy) for the 2013 season.  When compared to last year’s team, only 2 players that got regular starts (Andino and Betemit with over 350 ABs each) had a negative rating.  This could be a potential reason for the drastic change in their record in 1 run games.  However, now the question arises as to how much are they affected by the big situation?  How much does 0.1 clutch point reflect into a player’s OBP in high leverage situations? Is it substantial, where all hope is lost if there are two outs, man on third, and the game is tied in the late innings? I find the clutch stat to be interesting but it leads me to more questions.

Now let’s take a look at each players OBP in different leverage situations to see if there is anything substantial.  I used OBP as a comparison, to measure the ability to keep the inning alive as critical to increasing your opportunity to score runs.  It is also a clean stat that is taken directly from the field and not manipulated in any way, unlike win probability, runs created, etc.

OBP Clutch Graph

From the chart, it can be seen that Nick Markakis is the most clutch batter on the team in getting on base in high pressure situations this year.  He also has nerves of steel as his OBP rises almost 100 points from his average when he is in a high leverage situation.  Matt Wieters appears to be deserving of his low clutch rating due to his drastically low OBP in high leverage situations.  However, the same can’t be said for J.J. Hardy or Nate McLouth.  Both are roughly the same or above their 2013 OBP average in high leverage situations, making them fairly clutch relative to themselves in low-pressure situations.  Five of six regular Orioles perform better when the pressure is on them to succeed.  This causes me to believe that the clutch rating stat has to be taken with a grain of salt when looking for it to translate onto the field.

With this in mind, I’ll look into the team’s clutch pitching numbers with my next post to see how the 2013 team is comparing to last year’s.

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Orioles Proving Ground Now on Twitter!

Posted in Uncategorized on August 21, 2013 by oriolesprovingground

The title of this post basically says it all.  Orioles Proving Ground is now on Twitter (and actually has been for about a week, so…sorry for the late notice).  Follow us @OriolesPG for links to blog posts (mine or other posts I find interesting), thoughts, observations, etc.

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What’s Wrong with Jim Johnson?

Posted in Pitching with tags , on August 16, 2013 by oriolesprovingground

Jim Johnson has been struggling.  He leads the league in saves, but he’s blown 9 saves on the year, including 3 in his last 3 opportunities.  In today’s post located at ESPN Sweetspot Network affiliated Orioles blog, Camden Depot, I take a look at what is wrong with Jim Johnson to see why he isn’t performing as well as he did last year, and what the Orioles can do about the situation.

Direct Link to Article –> What’s Wrong with Jim Johnson?

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Taking a Look at Mark Reynolds

Posted in Offense with tags , , , , on August 14, 2013 by oriolesprovingground

Last week, the Cleveland Indians designated Mark Reynolds for assignment.  Orioles fans should be familiar with Reynolds, as he spent all of 2011 and 2012 with Baltimore, coming over in a trade from the Arizona Diamondbacks.  During his two years in Baltimore, he accumulated -0.2 fWAR.  Most of that was a function of the fact that he plays terrible defense (at any position) and doesn’t run the bases effectively.  Despite the negative WAR, he was an above average hitter during his time in Baltimore, with a cumulative line of .221/.328/.458 (AVG/OBP/SLG), and a 112 OPS+ (meaning he was 12% better than the average hitter, who has an OPS+ of 100).

If you’ve read this blog at all, you should know that the Orioles have had trouble getting production out of the DH spot in 2013, since we’ve talked about it a couple of times.  If you haven’t been reading this blog, you can find those discussions here and here.  Baltimore’s designated hitters have combined for a .230/.275/.385 triple slash line, and a .288 wOBA, good for 14th in the American League.  With that in mind, it would seem like the recently available Reynolds could provide an upgrade for Baltimore’s DH spot.

Through 99 games with the Indians this year, Reynolds has a triple slash line of .215/.307/.373, and a wOBA of .303.  While Reynolds’ production this year would have been an upgrade over what the Orioles have gotten out of DH, it wouldn’t be much of one.  Additionally, we don’t care about the past, we care about the future.  Would Mark Reynolds provide more offense for the Orioles in their final 44 games than anything they already have available?

Overall, Reynolds’ season isn’t too far off from his career numbers.  His AVG, OBP, BB%, K%, and BABIP are all at or around his career averages.  The biggest difference in 2013 has been his lack of power.  His current ISO of .158 is easily the lowest of his career, in addition to it being under .200 for the first time.

Reynolds has experienced two different seasons in 2013.  There is the month of April, and then there is everything else.  Take a look.

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com Generated 8/13/2013.

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com
Generated 8/13/2013.

That’s not trending downward, that’s falling off the cliff.  The Indians stuck with Reynolds as long as they could, but they severely cut his playing time in July and eventually just took him off the roster completely.

Prior to their recent trip through the National League West, the Orioles have been using a mix of mostly Henry Urrutia, Danny Valencia, and Steve Pearce at the DH position.  They have been deployed in a platoon, with the left-handed Urrutia getting most of the at-bats.  There are small sample size issues with each player’s performance.  Pearce leads all three in PA’s, with just 102 on the season.  Despite that, let’s look at how they’ve done this year.

Henry Urrutia (47 PA’s)                 .298/.298/.340
Danny Valencia (78 PA’s)              .216/.256/.500
Steve Pearce (102 PA’s)                 .261/.333/.402

Pearce owns the best triple slash line of the group and has Reynolds beat in every category.  However, the majority of Pearce’s PA’s have come against left-handed pitching.  He’s completely ineffective against right-handers and because of that, he can’t be counted on as an everyday DH.  Urrutia, who has faced right handed pitchers almost exclusively since being called up, has an impressive average, but only has one extra base hit (a triple), and has not walked once.  Valencia has hit for some power, but not much else.  His average may be held down by his .216 BABIP (despite a line drive percentage around the league average), but his slugging percentage has been buoyed by his lofty 18.5% HR/FB rate, approximately 10% higher than his career level.

So where does that leave us?  It leaves us with 4 terrible options at DH.  While Dan Szymborski’s Zips projection system at Fangraphs sees Reynolds as a slightly above average hitter the remainder of the season, the depths of his terribleness in June and July make me think Zips is a little too optimistic.  However, Baltimore fans know that Reynolds can occasionally go on one hell of a hot streak, which could make him very valuable to the Orioles down the stretch.  If Reynolds is able to pass through waivers without getting claimed (VERY likely), the Orioles could roll the dice on him for basically nothing more than the cost of a roster spot.  Given the limitations of Baltimore’s current options, it’s probably worth a shot.

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2013 Trade Deadline Wrap Up

Posted in Draft, Pitching, Prospects, Rule 4, Trades with tags , , , , , , , , on August 5, 2013 by oriolesprovingground

Let’s get right to it.  The 2013 MLB trade deadline was disappointing.  Most of the sellers ended up not selling (how could the Phillies not trade ANYONE?!?!?!?!), and a lot of the buyers didn’t buy.  With 3 deals over the month of July, including 1 at the deadline, the Baltimore Orioles were one of the more active teams on the trade market.  Let’s take a quick look at how they did.

July 2

Orioles get: RHP Scott Feldman and C Steve Clevenger from the Chicago Cubs

Orioles give: RHP Jake Arrieta, RHP Pedro Strop, and two international signing bonus slots (approximately $388K)

Even though Feldman hasn’t pitched particularly well in his month with the Orioles (5.70 ERA in 6 starts) I thought this was a great trade.  We’ve talked about it a few times now, but it’s worth mentioning again that the Orioles really needed some starting pitching help.  Recognizing that need, they did well to go out and get Feldman early in the month of July, rather than wait until the deadline.  Feldman isn’t anything close to an ace, but he’s a guy that will limit walks and give you quality innings.  He’s basically your average MLB starter (on pace for about 2.0 fWAR), and adding an average starter is a huge upgrade in the Orioles starting rotation.

I still WANT to have faith that Arrieta and Strop will be effective pitchers, but I think it was time for them to move on.  Both guys can put up huge strikeout numbers and occasionally look brilliant, but they are frustratingly inconsistent.  They often have a lot of trouble finding the strikezone, which greatly limits their effectiveness.

July 23

Orioles get:  RHP Francisco Rodriguez from the Milwaukee Brewers

Orioles give:  3B/1B Nick Delmonico

Doug took a brief look at this trade a couple weeks ago when he was going over relief options for the Orioles prior to the deadline, and mentioned how he thought this was a good deal for the Orioles to make.  I respectfully disagree.  It’s not that Rodriguez won’t help Baltimore down the stretch, or that I believe Delmonico will be a future star.  It’s because I think Delmonico is too good of a prospect to give up for 20-25 innings of relief pitching.  Personally, I think teams should be able to find effective relief pitching by looking through their couch cushions, so giving up Delmonico was paying too steep of a price.

Delmonico was ranked as Baltimore’s #6 prospect by Baseball Prospectus heading into the season, and while they currently project him as a second division regular, he’s only playing in High A as a 21 year old, so there is a lot of time for that projection to change.  If anything, Delmonico is an interesting enough prospect that he could have been used as an enticing part of a larger package that would have brought back a more significant return.

July 31

Orioles get:  RHP Bud Norris from the Houston Astros

Orioles give:  OF L.J. Hoes, LHP Josh Hader, Competitive Balance Draft Pick #33

Another trade that I didn’t particularly like. Bud Norris may be the Astros best pitcher, but most talent evaluators view him as a #4 or #5 pitcher, or even a reliever due to his issues with left handed hitters (career .310 wOBA versus righties, career .350 wOBA against lefties).  I think Norris will provide a slight improvement this year, but I don’t really see the point of acquiring him after they already got Feldman.  I’m sure the fact that Norris won’t be a free agent until 2016 was a big reason the Orioles went after him, and he’s likely viewed as Jason Hammel’s replacement following the season when he becomes a free agent.

While Keith Law of ESPN thought the return for Norris was light (insider access required and encouraged), I disagree. I like Hoes more than most, especially since he has greatly improved his on base abilities this year.  He won’t be a star, but I think he could be an average to slightly below average corner outfielder if he can consistently get on base.   While Hoes doesn’t have much projection left, Hader has a ton.  Baseball Prospectus ranked Hader as the Orioles 10th best prospect prior to the season, as a projectable LHP currently throwing in Low A.  Hader is a high risk prospect though, since he is only 19 years old.  Baltimore also gave up their competitive balance pick in next year’s draft, tentatively #33 overall.  I likely would have given up Hoes and either Hader or the pick for Norris, but not both.

Even though I wasn’t a fan of 2 of the 3 deals the Orioles made, I am hoping I’ll be proven wrong.  I’ll gladly admit that I also may put too much value in prospects, when the reality is that most of them won’t ever contribute to the major league team. In the end, Baltimore improved their team’s chances of making the playoffs (ESPN insider required, again), without giving up anything of value or sacrificing their future. And by doing that, it’s hard to fault them for making these moves when a playoff birth is within striking distance for the second year in a row.

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