Couple of minor moves, as the Orioles added some minor league depth by signing reliever Pat Neshek and catcher Ronny Paulino.

Neshek, now 31 years old, broke into the majors with the Twins back in 2006, posting two fine seasons as a middle reliever before getting hurt and missing most of 2008 and all of 2009. He came back somewhat less effective, showing worsening control (in 2011 with the Padres, his walk rate - 8 BB/9 - was actually higher than his strike-out rate of 7.3 K/9).  Despite being a side-armer, Neshek has been a flyball pitcher throughout his career. The home runs were less of a big deal when he was whiffing tons of batters (10 K/9 career), but as that's gone down and the free baserunners have gone up it's become more of a concern. Given that Neshek is now throwing 85-86 instead of 89-90, I wouldn't expect him to return to his old ~3.50 ERA self (which would be even lower today anyway by virtue of the decrease in scoring). Small sample size last year, sure, but he didn't even manage to handle righties better than lefties (whereas he used to give them fits, as would be expected from a right-handed pitcher with his delivery). But hey, I've been a fan of Neshek's in the past and I hope he can find something with the O's.

Paulino, turning 31 early in the season, makes a fine third-string catcher. He doesn't seem to do anything really well, but won't hurt you behind the dish (+2 runs career on stolen bases according to DRS) or beside it (for a catcher) with his .273/.326/.379 career line. Not much power there (.106 ISO), but at least he doesn't strike out a ton (16% of the time) and will take an occasional walk (7% of the time). Half a win (fWAR) per 40 games played, career, is none too shabby on a minor league deal. If Matt Wieters goes down the Orioles are obviously going to be hurting, but if Taylor Teagarden goes on the DL (or just sucks), then at least the team will have a fall-back option other than playing Wieters 13 out of every 14 games.

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The Orioles have agreed to a two-year* contract with switch-hitter Wilson Betemit. The 30 year-old is expected to get some playing-time at third-base and DH. Betemit is a career .269/.336/.448 hitter, usually as a part-time player. That's pretty good for someone who can play third-base competently (he can't; -14 runs per 150 games there career according to UZR) but not that impressive for a DH. He'll take a walk and has some pop (though he's only at 16 home runs per 500 plate appearances career, and he does swing and miss quite a bit), which is nice, and he really mashes against righties (.350 career wOBA, compared to just .299 versus lefties).

* This post was originally written when it was reported as a one-year deal. The actual contract - two years plus an option - seems kind of crazy. Why is a 5th place team investing multiple years in a guy who's averaged just about 0.5 fWAR per 100 games in his career? The money hasn't been released yet, but if it's for anything more than a couple million dollars a year then I don't understand why the O's needed to do this.

Update: looks like it's for just $3 M total for the first two years, though the option is a vesting one and with the incentives it could go up to $6 over three years. That doesn't seem so bad, but it's still unclear why they had to give Betemit 2+ years.

It'll be interesting to see how playing-time is doled out - and where - given that Betemit, Chris Davis and Mark Reynolds all have similar all-hit, no-glove profiles. Maybe there will just be a merry-go-round from first to third to DH so that fans can't get to disgruntled with any one guy's defense before they forget about it? Matt Antonelli and Ryan Flarety (the team's Rule 5 pick) probably lose out, with the latter fairly unlikely to stick in Baltimore now.

The signing seems like OK value, but giving at bats to an older guy without too much upside doesn't seem like what should be Plan A for the Orioles in 2012. Maybe if Betemit plays well, the O's can get something for him at the trade deadline, I guess.
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Jake Arrieta started out the year doing pretty well, despite having a high ERA. He was throwing more strikes and missing more bats, which is always nice to see. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to stay healthy all year, as an elbow injury led to surgery and Arrieta missed the last two months of the season. It's possible that the bone spur in his throwing elbow had negative effects on his performance for parts of the season, but - assuming he starts 2012 healthy - there were some good signs.  

Overall, Arrieta greatly improved his strike-out rate, from 4.7 K/9 to 7.0 K/9. It never made sense for him to have so few K's given his stuff, and more around league average seems like the "correct" range to expect going forward. Here are his whiff rates by pitch type: 

	Fastball	Sinker	Slider	Curve	Change-Up
2010	10.2%	11.3%	22.9%	18.7%	19.8%
2011	12.2%	12.4%	26.4%	29.3%	18.5%

Everything went up except for the change (which is the pitch he threw least often, and even less in '11 than in '10). By getting ahead in the count more often - he went from going to two strikes on a batter 43% of the time to over 48% of the time - Arrieta was able to get batters to expand the zone more. That can help allow the breaking-balls - which it looks like he may have become a little more consistent with - to be more effective.  

Part of the improvements were due to platoon splits. Righties started to get more sliders, which they swung and missed more often (same thing to lefties, but they didn't see the pitch nearly as often), at the expense of fastballs. Lefties actually saw more heaters (with some closer to "cutters", having little horizontal movement), and their whiff rate on the pitch jumped from 8% to over 12% - matching the rate for righties (which stayed about the same - thus the overall increase from 10% to 12%).  

The platoon splits on the curve were especailly interesting, as righties went from missing the pitch 28% of the time to 20% of the time, but for lefites the rate increased from 14% to over 33%. For sinkers the movement was in a similar direction, but to a much lesser degree. No wonder Arrieta went from having a very slight platoon split for strike-out rate to a somewhat large reverse split:  

	2010		2011
	Righties	Lefties	Righties	Lefties
K/9	4.8	4.5	6.2	7.8
BB/9	3.7	4.9	2.7	6.0
xFIP	4.76	5.52	4.13	4.88

It's like Arrieta was two different pitchers; to righties he was Aaron Harang, and to lefties he was Fransisco Liriano. To left-handed batters he really worked away from them, which resulted in missing off the plate quite a bit (and hence the walks, as they declined to swing fairly often). If you combine the strike-out rate versus lefties with the walk rate versus righties, you've got a pretty solid pitcher (FIP ~ 4).  

Beyond wakling 15% of the left-handed batters he faced, Arrieta also got taken deep with regularity. His HR/9 allowed was 1.9 against them, and a stilll bad (though better) 1.3 against righties. Some of that is surely flukey, given he improved his groundball rate from 42% to almost 46% (with much of the increase actually coming against lefties) - I wouldn't expect a 15% HR/FB rate again. Despite the ERA and FIP both going up (4.66/4.67 to 5.05/5.35), Arreita dropped his xFIP by over a half-run (5.17 to 4.52). There are some reasons for optimism going forward, even if he's unlikely to be much more than a #3 starter at the high end (that's like a #1 on this team!).
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The Orioles have added some depth to their rotation by bringing back left-handed pitcher Bruce Chen! Wait, no... that's left-handed pitcher Wei-Yin Chen, coming over from Japan (though he is Taiwanese - woops) as Dan Duquette continues investing in the international market.

Chen's only 26 years old will get three years and $12 M, which seems like a fine deal. His career numbers in the NPB include a 7.1 K/9 (though it was down to 5.1 last year, which is mildly concerning), a 2.2 BB/9, and an 0.7 HR/9. Chen is supposed to be a harder thrower than Tsuyoshi Wada, coming in in the low 90s with his fastball (complemented with a slider - potentially plus, according to Keith Law). Using the same kinds of translations as with Wada:

Here are Chen's last three years: 

Year	IP	HR	BB	K	"FIP"
2009	164	10	40	146	2.94
2010	188	21	49	153	3.81
2011	164.2	9	31	94	3.33

Adjusting the last year for the new NPB ball:

Year	IP	HR	BB	K	"FIP"
2009	164	10	40	146	2.94
2010	188	21	49	153	3.81
2011	164.2	14	34	86	3.90

Translating to MLB: 

Year	IP	HR	BB	K	"FIP"
2009	164	17	45	132	3.74
2010	188	35	55	138	5.04
2011	164.2	24	38	77	4.83

Using a 3-2-1 weighting for more recent years: 

Year	IP	HR	BB	K	"FIP"
2012	172.1	26	45	107	4.73

And then regressing 50% to the mean for the rates: 

Year	IP	HR	BB	K	"FIP"
2012	172.1	23	50	118	4.42

A 4.50 FIP in even 120 IP for the first year, with some decline in years two and three, still would leave the contract "fair" the O's. $4 M isn't a crazy amount to play for a quality reliever (thought three years might be excessive), which seems like a reasonable expectation - and given that Chen is left-handed, I imagine that unless he crashes and burns some team would be interested in maybe trading for him.

It's a nice low-risk, medium reward move, and a much preferred alternative to giving multiple years to, say, Joe Saunders (who is probably a surer bet for a 4.50 FIP but doesn't have the potential up-side). The O's starting rotation now has some serious depth of average ot below arms; Guthrie, Britton, Arrieta, Chen, Wada, Tillman, Matusz, Simon, Eveland, Bergesen. The O's should have their starters go 3-4 innings and then bringing in another "starter" for 3-4 more each game! Thinking outside the box! Add in Berken and Jim Johnson to close things out - hey, it could work (I'd pay $5 to see them try this for two weeks, maybe after they're clearing out of contention just to keep people from freaking out as much).

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The Orioles have essentially completed a three-team deal in which they traded cash to the Oakland A's in return for outfielder Jai Miller and then picked up cash from the Texas Rangers while sending them Brandon Snyder.

Taking the latter deal first, trading prospects for cash doesn't seem like something the O's should be doing, but I've never thought all that much of Snyder. The 25 year-old's chances of being a good Major Leaguer took a huge hit when he had to give up catching, as his bat didn't seem likely to play at first-base. In three seasons at Triple-A, Snyder hit just .256/.317/.394. He didn't walk much (7% of the time) or hit for power (only 13 home runs per 150 games), while striking out to much (22% of the time) to hit for a high average even with good BABIPs (~.317). I've heard that Snyder has turned himself into a fine defensive first-baseman at this point, but he'd need to be Keith Hernandez over there to sniff replacement level unless hi improved offensively. It would have been nice to turn Snyder into another (possibly higher ceiling but lower level) prospect, but I can imagine no team being willing to part with one. It is interesting that Dan Duquette once again showed a willingness to trade away a mediocre prospect for nothing worth much long-term in return.

Jai Miller will take Snyder's 40-man roster spot. The (in two weeks) 27 year-old similarly has very little major league playing team, but has hit .271/.351/.516 in four Triple-A seasons. He swings and misses more than Snyder (a 31% strike-out rate in the minors is pretty awful), but at least he's hit for power (30 homers per 150 games, though much of that comes from 2011 in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League) and taken some walks (10% of the time). 47 stolen bases isn't a lot over 423 games, but at least his success rate is about 80%. Miller's minor league Total Zone numbers are in positive territory (both in the corners and in center), but that data is only through 2009 (though he's supposed to have a good glove). Given that it took a BABIP around .356 for Miller to hit even .271 in Triple-A, I wouldn't expect him to be much of a hitter (even if he draws a couple free passes and hits some dingers). If the glove-work is still a plus though, that might play as a 4th outfielder. This trade is the kind in which one should pick up these kinds* of players.

* Chris Davis, admittedly, has much better minor league numbers. But he doesn't play center-field, does he? I probably wouldn't trade Davis for Miller, but I think one can consider it at least.

The O's have also brought on pitching coach Rick Peterson to do work with minor league pitchers in some capacity ("pitching guru" is how I've heard it described), and trainer Chris Correnti to do rehab and conditioning work (also with minor league pitchers). These are the kinds of organizational moves that can have real longer-term effects, and could easily swamp the impacts of the minor trades Dan Duquette has made this year. The Orioles have been pretty bad with developing their young pitchers, so focus on that process is very nice to see.
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As I mentioned last week, the Orioles have hired Loyola economics professor Stephen Walters to the organization. Walters worked with Dan Duquette previously in Boston, and has been with the Chicago Cubs most recently. CamdenDepot has links to several of his posts at Wages of Wins here, which make for some good reads - I especially enjoyed the comment sections.

After answering some questions I had regarding a paper he had co-authored regarding free agency returns for big and small market clubs, Professor Walters was kind enough to let me ask him a few questions about his baseball work:
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With newly acquired Japanese left-handed pitcher Tsuyoshi Wada likely being penciled into the Orioles' rotation for next year, it might not hurt to take a guess as to how he might do. Comparing NPB stats to Major League ones is tricky, but luckily Brian Cartwright (who does the Oliver projections) has looked into the issue:

"I started with a list of 33 Japanese pitchers who have come to MLB from 1995-2011. I’ll show their last 3 years in Japan, their projection, and their first 3 years in MLB... Last week I coded an adjustment for the new standardized ball in NPB in 2011... For a FIP estimate of a pitcher coming from NPB to MLB, increase HRs by 68%, increase BB by 11.6%, decrease SO by 9.6%."

Handy!

So here are Wada's stats for the last three years:

Year	IP	HR	BB	K	"FIP"
2009	84.1	13	24	87	3.99
2010	169.1	11	55	169	3.02
2011	184.2	7	40	168	2.52

The "FIP" uses the standard major league FIP formula, not adjusted year-to-year.

Adjusting for the new NPB ball in 2011 using Cartwright's Yu Darvish changes:

Year	IP	HR	BB	K	"FIP"
2009	84.1	13	24	87	3.99
2010	169.1	11	55	169	3.02
2011	184.2	11	44	153	3.05

So it looks like much of the 2011 "improvement" was a mirage due to the new ball, though he did walk (and K) fewer batters.

Adjusting using the NPB to MLB conversion:

Year	IP	HR	BB	K	"FIP"
2009	84.1	22	27	79	5.65
2010	169.1	18	61	153	3.90
2011	184.2	19	50	139	3.83

Those home runs in 2009... yikes. For '10-'11 these numbers would compare not too unfavorably to John Danks, Matt Garza, and Jonathon Niese (all have a K/9 within 0.5 points, BB/9 within 0.25 points, and HR/9 within 0.1 point of Wada's 7.4-2.8-0.9 for the two years). I'd wager that all three of those guys have better stuff than Wada does though.

A 3-2-1 weighting of more recent seasons would give Wada the following 2012 line:

Year	IP	HR	BB	K	"FIP"
2012	163	19	50	133	4.01

This needs to be regressed, but I'm not sure what* to regress it to... lefties with fastballs under 90 mph perhaps (for '10-'11, those with at least 200 IP total had an overall K/9 of 6.3, BB/9 of 2.8, and HR/9 of 0.9)?

* Normally it's league average, I think, but looking at a specific player I can throw some "scouting" in there maybe.

Doing so at 50% gives:

Year	IP	HR	BB	K	"FIP"
2012	163	18	50	123	4.03

Mostly it just decreased the K's a bit, but also the home runs a touch which kept the FIP about the same. Not regressing the HR would put the FIP at 4.14.

Lastly, there's some aging involved. A 5% decline in each category would leave:

Year	IP	HR	BB	K	"FIP"
2012	155	19	53	117	4.27

Which makes Wada pretty much Ervin Santana circa 2010 (pro-rated to 155 IP; 19 homers, 51 walks, 118 K's, 4.24 FIP). I'd be wary about such an optimistic projection (but it could happen!) - a 10% decline would instead give:

Year	IP	HR	BB	K	"FIP"
2012	147	20	55	111	4.5

That I'm a little more comfortable with; 6.8 K/9, 3.4 BB/9, 1.2 HR/9. If he can pitch almost 150 innings at that level, that's still a good win and a half - enough to make his contract a small bargain (even taking into account further decline in 2013). If he manages to pitch to the penultimate line, it's more like 2 wins, and Wada will earn his salary twice over.

It'll be interesting to see how well Wada transitions to the big leagues, but it looks like Dan Duquette might have made a nice little move here.

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The Braves are trying to deal starting pitcher Jair Jurrjens. The Orioles want to bolster their starting rotation. Thus, Atlanta offered to trade Jurrjens to the O's - along with Martin Prado and a pitching prospect - in return for Adam Jones. And the Orioles said no. Was it a good call?

Jones is under team control for two more seasons. The past two seasons he's been at 2.6 and 2.9 fWAR, and calling him a three win player for his age 26-27 seasons doesn't seem unreasonable. There's the hope that he picks up his game and moves to the next level, but there are injuries and a drop-off in defense on the other side. That type of production would be worth around $31 M, but Jones will probably be paid only around $20 M in the two arbitration years. So that's ~$10 M in surplus value.

Jurrjens is about to turn 26, and is under team control for two more seasons as well. His 3.40 career ERA looks good, but his FIP (3.88) and xFIP (4.22) tell the tail of more of a middle of the rotation starter. Jurrjens K/BB ratio is only around 2, since he doesn't miss many bats (6.2 K/9 career, 5.3 K/9 last year) and his control isn't exceptional (3.1 BB/9 career, 2.6 BB/9 last year). He's been less of a groundball pitcher in recent years, but hasn't given up that many home runs (0.7 HR/9 career) - which I wouldn't expect to continue pitching in Camden Yards against the AL East teams. Same thing with the career .280 BABIP.

On top of the performance vs. peripherals disparity, Jurrjens has also been injured the past couple seasons, starting a total of only 43 games at the big league level. His fastball velocity fell off from 91-92 mph to just 89 mph in 2011. Given that the Braves seem somewhat anxious to trade him, I'd be a bit cautious. If he stays at the same level of production that he was at in '10-11 (1.2 and 1.5 fWAR, respectively), then he'd probably bring in only $5 M or so of surplus value.

Prado, ago 28, lost his second-base job to Dan Uggla last year. Like Jones and Jurrjens, he has two years of team control left. The .293/.341/.434 career hitter had a less than stellar 2011 as his BABIP fell to .266 (as his rate of line-drives dropped off), and without many walks (he's started to chase more pitches out of the zone, but isn't bad about it - he just makes so much contact he doesn't get into as many deep counts) or a ton of pop (double-digit homers and some doubles) he needs to hit for average to be a plus at the plate. If Brian Roberts can't play, Prado would probably move back to second for the O's. He has a career -8 UZR/150 at the position, though it was only around -3 runs recently (and he's at +3 career at third). Assuming his bat bounces back, Prado could be a 3-ish win player for the Orioles. Going with a more conservative 2.5, he'd have around $8 M in surplus value.

So right there, the O's have a decent chance of coming out even or ahead in the trade. The identity of the pitching prospect wasn't revealed, but I'd wager it wasn't one of the Braves' top young arms. Given that, I don't see the point of the deal for Baltimore. The only player they'd get who is scheduled to be around in 2014-2015 is the unknown pitcher. The point of dealing Jones is that he's getting closer to free agency, and the O's would still be in the same position with Jurrjens/Prado (who might be better than Jones on average, but I think carry more risk with similar high end). If the team is really going to trade Adam Jones, they need to shoot for at least one top prospect with more younger* players sprinkled in. That the O's turned down the offer** isn't bad news, as it would have been like a repeat of the Koji Uehara trade - picking up value, but not doing much to help the team contend (in the short or long term).

* Sure the team could flip Jurrjens/Prado for prospects, but I'd want that second deal in hand before trading Jones.

** Apparently, this exact offer wasn't made. The Orioles instead asked for Jurrjens, Prado, and two of the Braves' better pitching prospects which (a) would puts more emphasis on the correct area and (b) is kind of crazy (and so Atlanta said 'no'). Let them keep Jurrjens then, by all means - I'd want the prospects, and Prado if he'd come cheap (or not - another younger player is fine too).
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Small change, but the O's have agreed to minor-league contracts with:

Right-handed pitcher Kyler* Newby; the soon-to-be 27 year-old sometimes starter (he's been shifted into that role a little bit in recent years) has spent most of his minor-league career in Double-A, where he's punched out some batters (8.3 K/9) but shown only decent control (3.0 BB/9) and a tendency to give up the longball (1.2 HR/9), as sometimes happens with flyball pitchers. Might be an OK reliever (don't have starting-relieving splits - maybe his non-knock-out seeming stuff plays up especially well out of the pen?).

* Was 'Kyle' just too boring of a name? Did it have to be made more "extreme"?

Right-handed pitcher Jon Link; he'll be 28 at the start of next season, and is almost exclusively a reliever. Career Triple-A numbers; 9 K/9, 3.9 BB/9, 0.8 HR/9. Seems to primarily use a low-90s fastball and a slider, though the fastball might have some sink to it since Link's been able to generate some groundballs (less so recently than in the lower minors, but still around a 50% rate). Based on five-minutes of looking, I like him better than Newby (though he's still probably only a 4.50 ERA type guy in the majors at best).

Outfielder Antoan Richardson; he's 28 years old, but still only has 40 career plate appearances above Double-A, where he's hit .260/.384/.321. He's supposed to be a very good defensive player, as a speedy center-fielder. Plus he's stolen bases at an almost 85% clip with almost 60 thefts per full season in his minor-league career (though only ~20 steals per at around 80% in Double-A). I love the walks (13.5% career walk rate at Double-A), but Richardson strikes out too much (~18% of the time) to hit for a high average even with a good BABIP (around .330), and he has virtually no power. It wouldn't be surprising to see the free passes decrease at higher levels as pitchers have little reason not to challenge Richardson, but if he could keep his OBP in even the .320-.330 range while saving 10+ runs per season in the field then he would be a decent back-up outfielder.

Outfielder/first-baseman Lee Cruz; this 28 year-old only even has 140 games in Double-A to his name. Given the side of the defensive spectrum that he plays on, it's not surprising to see that Cruz's game is about the power production; he's hit .255/.297/.433 in Double-A and .292/.330/.485 in the minors overall. He doesn't hit a ton of homers (~20 per season), but cracks a bunch of doubles to make up for it. He'll put the bat on the ball more than some other sluggers, but never walks (less than 5% of the time in the minors) and - unless his fielding is much more impressive than I'd assume (in the outfield he tended to play left) - he's unlikely to even be particularly close to a replacement level player in the majors. But hey, minor league depth!

I wonder if Stephen Walters* had a hand in bringing these guys aboard.

* Econ professor at Loyola who the O's just brought aboard (though he apparently advised Angelos in the past and also worked with Dan Duquette in Boston).

He's already "provided financial valuations — based on an undisclosed formula — which have aided the Orioles in their pursuit of several minor league free agents they have signed this offseason" and he "analyzes how many additional wins a player can create and how much a specific team should pay for those wins...

"If you incorporate 'Player X' into the mix, how many wins does that add and how much are those wins worth in that market?" said Walters, who also still works for Loyola. "It can vary from case to case, and there is a time dimension question with any player transaction — what are the future ramifications? … So the puzzle pieces come together, and ultimately, Dan is the guy who masterminds that information. But a lot of people supply him with the information.""

I'm not sure how much more complicated Walters' "formula" is than the freely available WAR implementations around the web (I'd assume he's using proprietary inputs, but is his formula different than the normal frameworks?). Plus, sometimes* economists will apply their models to baseball and get odd results instead of building models starting from the baseball. (Obviously not all economists are the same - Matt Swartz, for example, does some very fine work). I read Walters' study on the free agent market and came away not completely impressed (I guess in 2007 it might have been more ground-breaking, maybe). At least he didn't try to come up with his own measure of player production and used WARP instead, but that still leaves me wondering what Walters brings to the table relative to what the sabermetricians already have going.

* For example, one of the previous studies that Walters/Burger criticize was one that used slugging percentage as a proxy for overall player production, which is laughably wrong. 

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The Orioles have signed outfielder Endy Chavez to a one-year contract (presumably for something like like $1-1.5 M*). The soon to be 34 year-old has a career .274/.313/.373 batting line, as he doesn't work free passes (5.5% walk rate) or hit for power (.099 ISO). That's not what he was signed for though; Chavez is a very good defensive outfielder, with a career UZR/150 of around +21 runs in the corners and +7 in center (the other metrics similarly see him as saving quite a few runs with the glove). If he hits .270/.305/.360 but plays close to his usual level of defense (and base-running), than he should be around a half-win player for the O's.

* Turns out it's $1.5 M, with another $0.5 M in performance bonuses.

Britt Ghiroli mentioned that the left-handed Chavez would be platooning in left-field with Nolan Reimold, but that doesn't seem to make much sense. Chavez has very slight reverse career platoon splits (.307 wOBA versus lefties, .302 wOBA versus righties), while Reimold actually has more prominent reverse* platoon splits, though in a smaller sample size (.345 wOBA versus righties, .332 wOBA versus lefties). One could argue that Chavez is actually the better player at this point (if, say, Reimold's defense is bad, his power falls off a bit, and his BABIP stays low), but the potential for an extra half-win (by giving Endy more playing time) matters less than finding out what the O's might have with Nolan. Chavez being around as a defensive replacement is fine - he's easily the best defense outfielder on the team now - and letting him give some outfielder or other a rest every now and again is OK too, but if he's starting 3-4 days a week that isn't great news.

* Interestingly, Adam Jones also has some reverse splits; .341 wOBA versus righties, .297 wOBA versus lefties.
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