Archive for Nick Markakis

Orioles Trade Target: Michael Saunders

Posted in Offense, Offseason, Trades with tags , , , , on November 18, 2014 by oriolesprovingground

Since the Orioles officially declined the team option on Nick Markakis, they’ll have some decisions to make.  Since it looks like he may require a four-year contract, it may be best for the Orioles to move on.  If they decide to take that route, they could go into the 2015 season with an Adam Jones, Steve Pearce, Alejandro De Aza, and David Lough outfield, or they could replace Markakis through a trade (as I mentioned in a previous post, upgrades on the outfield free agent market are virtually non-existent).  Today at ESPN Sweetspot Network affiliated Orioles blog Camden Depot, I explain why the Orioles should look into acquiring Michael Saunders from the Seattle Mariners.

Direct Link to Article –> Orioles Trade Target: Michael Saunders

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Nick Markakis and Why the Orioles Should Pick Up His Option

Posted in Offense, Offseason with tags , , on October 23, 2014 by oriolesprovingground

After the loss to the Royals in the ALCS, the Orioles offseason is officially underway, and they have several items they need to take care of prior to the start of the 2015 season.  One of the decisions that needs to be made deals with the team option that they hold for Nick Markakis.  Even though the media is reporting that the Orioles are likely to decline his option, I explain why I think they should exercise it today at ESPN Sweetspot Network Orioles blog Camden Depot.

Direct Link to Article –> Nick Markakis and Why the Orioles Should Pick Up His Option

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Nick Markakis’ Secret Platoon Issue

Posted in Offense with tags , on May 29, 2014 by oriolesprovingground

Nick Markakis is off to what seems like a very strong start to the 2014 season, hitting for a much higher average, on base percentage, and power than he was last year.  However, despite the early results and the fact that he already has an 18 game hit streak under his belt, there may be some underlying statistics that suggest that Markakis is not only having a worse season than it initially appears, but he may have a serious issue with left handed pitching.  Is it bad enough that he could potentially be a good platoon candidate?  It’s something I take a look at today over at ESPN Sweetspot Network Orioles blog Camden Depot.

Direct Link to Article –> Nick Markakis’ Secret Platoon Issue

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Orioles Still Have a Problem Getting On Base

Posted in Offense with tags , , , , , , on April 11, 2014 by oriolesprovingground

Over the last 2 off seasons, one of the main issues the Orioles have needed to address was their lineup’s ability to get on base.  That issue wasn’t addressed before the 2013 season, as the team finished towards the bottom of the league in OBP, and was ranked dead last in BB% in the American League (ok, they weren’t DEAD last, they were tied for dead last).  While they made some newsworthy acquisitions during this past offseason, it wasn’t clear that they did anything to improve their on base skills, and two weeks into the season, it’s starting to look pretty obvious that they didn’t.  It’s very early in the season though, so do they have a chance to be a better OBP team?  I take a look at it today over on ESPN Sweetspot Network Orioles blog Camden Depot.

Direct Link to Article –> Orioles Still Have a Problem Getting On Base

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Projecting the 2014 Orioles: Offense

Posted in Offense, Offseason, Projections with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 26, 2014 by oriolesprovingground

Following a surprise playoff appearance in 2012, the Baltimore Orioles finished the 2013 season with an 85-77 record, 12 games out of first place in the American League East and 7 games out of the wild card spot.  Despite not making the playoffs, the 2013 team was arguably more talented than the 2012 team, due to reasons that we’ve discussed before. This offseason was relatively quiet until around the start of spring training when the team made several moves to improve roster holes leftover from 2013 (starting rotation and designated hitter). Despite what looks to be an upgraded team, the Zips Projection System at Fangraphs currently sees them finishing the 2014 season at the bottom of the AL East with a record of 78-84. Let’s take a closer look at how Zips came to that conclusion.*  This is more informative than actual analysis, but I think it is still be a worthwhile exercise.

*Note: this post as written before Zips made its final projections for the season, so things will probably change slightly in the next week.

Catcher

2014 Zips Projection

2014 Zips Projection

In 2013, Baltimore catchers produced a total of 1.9 fWAR, which placed them 18th in all of baseball. The bulk of that production came from Matt Wieters (2.4 fWAR), but the backups added -0.5 wins in only 101 plate appearances.  Offensively, Zips sees Wieters improving on his disappointing 2013 season, while once again playing a lot at the position.*  I personally believe that the projection for Wieters is slightly on the low side, and that he has a decent chance to exceed it.

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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 Draft Retrospective: 2000-2003

Posted in Draft, Prospects, Rule 4 with tags , , , , , on May 31, 2013 by oriolesprovingground

With the MLB Rule 4 Draft rapidly approaching (the festivities begin June 6), I’m sure that you have seen a lot of draft analysis (as well as mock drafts) all over the interwebs from your favorite baseball writers.  While I appreciate the inclusion among your favorite baseball writers, I am not planning to write up any kind of draft preview (although maybe I’ll do a draft recap).  Instead, I thought it would be interesting to take a brief look at how well the Orioles have drafted since 2000.  We’ll take a look at the team’s first round picks, a first round pick they passed on (but shouldn’t have), and any successful picks they made in later rounds.

2000

The Orioles had two first round picks in the 2000 draft (numbers 14 and 32 overall), the second pick a result of losing Arthur Rhodes to free agency.

1-14 – Beau Hale (RHP) from University of Texas at Austin

1-32 – Tripper Johnson (RHP) from Newport HS (Bellevue, WA)

Don’t get upset at yourself if you’ve never heard of either of these two.  Both players topped out at AA, and neither has played since 2007.  In fact, no one from the Orioles 2000 draft has made it to the major leagues, except for their picks in each of the rounds from 32 to 36, with only one out of five providing positive Wins Above Replacement (WAR).  That lone player was Tim Stauffer (never signed with the Orioles), who has a career 2.1 WAR (according to Fangraphs), all with the San Diego Padres, who drafted him in 2003.

The biggest prize in the first round the Orioles skipped over from that draft was none other than one of my favorite players, Chase Utley (career 52.9 WAR), who was selected by the Phillies at #15, immediately following the Orioles pick of Hale.

2001

The Orioles once again had multiple first round picks, the two extra being given as a result to losing Mike Mussina as a free agent.

1-7 – Chris Smith (LHP) from Cumberland University

1-19 – Mike Fontenot (2B) from Louisiana State University

1-31 – Bryan Bass (SS) from Seminole HS (Seminole, FL)

Fontnenot is the only one of the 3 to make the big leagues, accumulating 4.8 WAR, mostly for the Cubs and Giants (the Orioles traded Fontenot and others in 2005 for the washed up remains of Sammy Sosa).  The one from the first round that got away in 2001 was David Wright, but in fairness, he was drafted 38th overall, so just about every team their shot at him.

The Orioles got their current closer Jim Johnson in the 5th round of the 2001 draft, but really nothing else.

2002

The Orioles had one first round pick in 2002, and they used it on…

1-4 – Adam Loewen (LHP) from Fraser Valley Christian HS (Surrey, BC)

Loewen contributed a total of 1.7 WAR on the mound for the Orioles between 2006 and 2008.  In 2011, he briefly returned to MLB as an outfielder for the Blue Jays (currently on their AAA team).  The only other player from that Orioles draft that produced a positive WAR was John Maine (all of that positive value was with the Mets, who traded for him in 2006).

I don’t know what everyone was thinking leading up to this draft, but looking back, this draft was loaded in the first round, and the Orioles passed on all the following players still on the board when they took Loewen.

#6 – Zack Greinke

#7 – Prince Fielder

#9 – Jeff Francis

#12 – Joe Saunders

#15 – Scott Kazmir

#16 – Nick Swisher

#17 – Cole Hamels

#20 – Denard Span

#25 – Matt Cain

Not the finest moment in the Orioles draft history.

2003

While the Orioles didn’t get much from the 2002 first round pick, they made up for it the following year by selecting…

1-7 – Nick Markakis (OF) from Young Harris College

With a career total of 21.0 WAR to date (all for the Orioles), I think it’s safe to say that this was a good first round pick, regardless of who was still on the board.  But just out of curiosity, let’s take a look and see who was still there in the first round.  Names such as John Danks, Chad Billingsley, Aaron Hill, and Carlos Quentin were still available, but none of them have been more valuable than Markakis.  In fact, Markakis has been the most valuable 1st round pick (according to WAR) from the 2003 draft, period.

Despite the excellent Markakis pick in the first round, the Orioles got nothing else of value out of the 2003 draft.  We’ll stop on that somewhat positive note and pick it back up with 2004-2007 next time.

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