The Good:

• Jake Arrieta's control was spotty, but he was able to miss enough bats (mostly with the breaking-balls) and enough groundballs to make it work. Final line; 6 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 3 BB, 6 K, 1 HR.
• Jim Johnson pitched the 10th and 11th innings, because obviously a tie game in extra innings is lower leverage than a three run lead in the 9th. He came into the game with the best xFIP in the O's pen (3.12), and was perfect tonight (no baserunners, plus a K).
• It was nice to see JJ Hardy back in the line-up anyway, but especially so when he hit a home run in his first at bat since coming off the DL. He also singled (three times) and walked later in the game. He raised his season batting average from .200 to .316 in this game.
• Adam Jones came through with a couple of clutch hits, driving in three total with a double and a single. And then he doubled again in the bottom of the 10th, but the O's couldn't move him forward.
• Vlad Guerrero went 3-4, including punching a ball through the vacated second-base hole on a well executed hit and run.
• Nick Markakis had three hits and drew a walk.

The Bad:

• Mike Gonzalez gave up 3 hits and got 2 outs. One runs scored and then another of his baserunners was allowed across by Koji (on an infield single), which pushes Gonzalez's season ERA up to 7.94. I didn't think he'd be this bad, but that sometimes happens with relievers. That's why you don't invest real money (and especially draft-pick compensation) into solid middle relievers (even ones with some career saves).
• Brian Roberts went 0-5. He flied out his first three trips to the plate, and then the fourth time hit the ball on the ground... into a double play. His only "contribution" was a sac bunt in the bottom of the 9th. And again in the 11th. Lead-off batter intentionally making an out twice? Doesn't sound too good. But then he swung away in the 12th a struck out with the bases loaded, which isn't good either.
• Mark Reynolds beat him with an 0-6 (including two K's). He's been... not so good, this season.
• The send in the bottom of the ninth was truly awful. With Hardy on second and one out, Markakis singled to left. Hardy was waved around even though (a) there was only one out and he was already at third, and (b) he was going to be out by a mile unless the throw was as bad as the send (it wasn't).

The Final:

Nothing to do with the play on the field, but there was a dude in the stands who kept referring to Derrek Lee as Silky D. First it was weird. Then it was funny. Now I'm kinda taken with it.

What a crazy game. The ups. The downs. More downs. Ups again. Then a succession of downs. And then finally the walkoff win. Not getting much sleep tonight. Worth it.

The Orioles were nice enough to invite me down to the park for Blogger Day today, and we were able to go onto the field during batting practice and subsequently talk to Matt Klentak, Director of Baseball Operations, and Jeremy Guthrie.

Klentak answered a number of questions for us, but the only two I had were (paraphrased):

1) Any idea what will happen with Super Two status with the next CBA?

A: It's something that'll be looked into, but there's no definite outcome.

2) You mentioned that the O's looked into the return on investment for international prospects not being that great (he had been asked why the team doesn't invest much in that area); can you give us an idea as to how bad the RoI is?

A: Not really (it's proprietary info.), but we brought someone in to look at that issue for a year, and even though people remember the successes (Felix Hernandez), a lot of guys don't work out. It's generally easier to get a handle on guys in your own back yard. But we've really looked into it.

So that's pretty interesting. I don't recall seeing a publicly available study on that international prospects issue before, so I don't know. It's certainly plausible that overall it's not a great investment, though obviously it would be different from team to team based on their scouting and whatnot. Perhaps with the O's relative lack of presence in those areas, investing resources might really not be profitable in the shorter term. It's something I plan on looking at as soon as I get a chance, unless someone can point me to existing work.

After he left, we got to go into the dugout to talk to Jeremy Guthrie, who, despite his previous claims that he "remembers everything", said it was nice to meet me. The only question I had for Guthrie this time was regarding the idea of line-up protection. After some stumbling and poor explanation, I finally got out "would you pitcher differently to Rafael Furcal if Andre Ethier was coming up next as opposed to if a pitcher was coming up next?" Answer (again, paraphrasing): "No... that's a deep question."

So there you go. Right from the horses mouth, so to speak. We also learned Guthrie was awful (in my opinion) taste in music (Justin Bieber, Avril Lavinge, the Backstreet Boys, the lost went on and on), but I won't hold that against him.

It's nice that the team made those guys avialable to us - not a ton of pertinent information from my perspective, but definitely value added. And it was just plain neat.

After being swept by the Rays, the O's look to bounce back against the M's in this midweek series.

Mariners:

	Batting	Fielding	fWAR
Ichiro Suzuki	.308/.354/.349	-7	0.0
Chone Figgins	.217/.269/.308	3	0.3
Justin Smoak	.293/.393/.535	0	1.1
Miguel Olivo	.212/.246/.288	-2	-0.3
Jack Cust	.198/.362/.248	0	0.0
Adam Kennedy	.260/.295/.397	2	0.3
Carlos Peguero	.182/.182/.182	0	-0.1
Brendan Ryan	.208/.280/.260	-1	-0.1
Michael Saunders	.170/.225/.255	4	0.0

The Mariners have a bit of a below average lineup (except for Ichiro and Justin Smoak so far) but have somewhat been getting it done (they sport a 16-19 record).  Hopefully the O's can shut them down tonight.

Michael Pineda:

ERA	FIP	xFIP	K/9	BB/9	GB%	fWAR
2.58	2.51	3.33	9.2	2.8	31.3%	1.1

In the second half last year, Brad Bergesen changed his approach on the mound and that helped turn his season around some. He's carried that forward into 2011, and the results - ERA aside - having been similarly encouraging (4.39 FIP with an xFIP to match). Interestingly, though his xFIP is almost exactly the same now as it was in his rookie season, Bergesen is getting those results in very different ways. He now looks like a flyball pitcher, instead of the sinkerballer of years past.

Bergy has started to eschew his formally signature pitch a little* more, instead utilizing the four-seam fastball - and that's caused his groundball rate to tumble from 50% to just 37%. He's made up for it though, by striking out more batters (K/9 up to 5.9, which is still below average but a full point higher than it had been) and improving his control (if only slightly - 2.2 BB/9). For the first half of 2010, part of Bergy's problem was that he was having a little trouble spotting his sinker (and his walk rate went up).  I don't know what happened to cause that (injury?), but it looks to me like he's made the adjustment to go with the offering he can more consistently throw strikes with. Going by FanGraphs' Zone%, almost 56% of Bergesen's pitches this year have been in the strike-zone, compared to less than 47% last year (league average both seasons is ~46-47%).

* Some of the extra fastballs are coming from sinkers, but some of them are also coming from off-speed pitcher (change-ups and curveballs - the latter of which he doesn't throw anymore at all, it seems).

Other than the emphasis on the different type of fastball, the four-seamer itself is faster by about 1 mph and overlaps with his two-seamer less (it's got less sink to it) - consistent with the changes from later last season. Additionally, he's missing more bats with the pitch, generating a whiff rate close to 13% (compared to the 6-7% he got before).

If Bergesen keeps missing pitches with his fastball, he might actually have some room to improve his strike-out rate further given that his slider has been coming in harder and without quite as much bite as before - and he's leaving it up and in the middle of the plate more, instead of getting it down and away from righties. That's probably what's contributed to the lower whiff rate on the offering this year, and if he corrects that I wouldn't be surprised if his strike-out rate over 6 K/9 range*.

* I won't be surprised if it falls below 5 K/9 either - closer to his career numbers - but I can at least see a plausible path for progress as well.

The usage patterns have also been interesting from a platoon perspective - whereas before he'd throw more four-seamers relative to two-seamers to right-handed batters vs. left-handed batters (that is, with a lefty up he'd lean on the sinker more than usual), now his fastball distribution is pretty much the same no matter who's at the plate. The only difference is that righties get the slider as almost the sole off-speed pitch, while lefties see the change-up mixed in as well. I don't expect this is the only reason, but perhaps this has had some effect on the narrowing of Bergesen's (xFIP) platoon splits this year:

	vs. RHH	vs. LHH
2009-2010	3.97	5.18
2011	4.12	4.54

This makes some sense, since the sinker is the pitch with one of the largest platoon splits (if not the largest), so using it less versus lefties (against whom it's relatively worse) should be a good thing. And he's still using the pitch almost as much against righties, so there's not that much loss there (besides the quality/control of the offering perhaps being worse).

A more general point in Bergy's favor is that he's actually faced way more lefties (77) than righties (43) so far in 2011, whereas in the past it's been close to a 50-50 split. So there's some upside there as well, since as he faces more right-handed batters, his numbers should improve.

It's still early in the season, and who knows if batters will adjust to the changes Bergesen has made (or even if Bergy will continue in this manner). But I still think he can be a decent back of the rotation starter, even if it's not going to be in quite the same form I originally expected. Maybe Jeremy Guthrie can even teach him his low BABIP trick, so the O's can have two low-BB, low-K righties who outperform their peripherals in the rotation.

---

Stats: FIP, xFIP, K/9 & BB/9, GB%, PitchFX

The Good:

• Jake Arrieta's control was a little shaky in the early going, but he settled down and turned in a fantastic start - continuing his very good 2011. Final line; 7 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 8 K. Plus 9 groundballs to 5 flyballs.
• Nick Markakis went 2-5, with both hits being hit very hard - a frozen-rope RBI single and a home run on a hanging curveball that he turned on. More of that, please.
• Mark Reynolds had a perfect day at the plate (OBP-wise, at least), going 3-3 plus a walk. More of that, please.
• Luke Scott was also on base four times, with a pair of singles and a pair of walks. Eh, he's been fine this year. Maybe a few more free passes to get that OBP up.

The Bad:

• The O's let Kyle Davies off the hook repeatedly, and finished the game with 10 hits and 3 walks by only 3 runs (and one was on the homer).

The Final:

Thankfully the bullpen only needed to manage an ERA below 9 in this one to keep from blowing the lead. And they did. If the team can beat former Orioles Bruce Chen tomorrow, it'll give them the series win and get them back to .500.

I received an email from long-time commenter Bret:

"Daniel,

Having a bunch of trouble commenting these days, not sure if it is the website or my computer or what.  Anyway, I thought this might make an interesting post.  If the O's could get rid of Markakis contract for nothing like the Jays did with Rios should they?  Seems very similar to me in terms of age, production, salaries etc. and the Jays certainly aren't regretting it.  You can read my points* under the comments in Steve Melewski's "Frustration in KC" post, I tried to involve him in a discussion and he just dismissed it without an intellectual attempt at justification so I thought you might be interested.  Bottom line, I think they should let him go but never will no matter how much he sucks due to community involvement, ties to city etc."

* "I think if you take the community stuff out of it and just focus on baseball, if Markakis was going to be the player he was in 2008 you can pay him big money but it appears that rather than a 6 win player he is a 2 win player and you can't give 15% of your payroll as a mid-market team to a slightly above average outfielder. His BABIP is low, he will play better but he isn't a superstar and over the next few years the O's are paying him like one. Not sure that the best move if the plan to contend is 2013 wouldn't be to clear the salary and use it to extend Matusz, Britton, Wieters, plus the draft etc."

First off, if others are having trouble commenting, please let me know so I can pass along what the issues are and hopefully get them resolved.

Now onto the question. I don't have the post I did handy, but when the Blue Jays waived Rios and he was picked up by the White Sox, I thought it was a better move for the latter than the former. My inclination, therefore, is to view this move similarly (if one takes the framework that they're equivalent). But let's walk it through.

Nick signed the big contract after his great 2008 season, but has fallen off significantly since then and is mired in a fairly deep slump to start 2011. At this point I don't think it's at all crazy to suggest that he's merely an average to slightly above player - as I've discussed previously. Would the team give him a 4 year, $54 M contract after 2011 (even assuming he bounces back and finishes with similar numbers to 2009-2010)? I kind of doubt it.

If Nick is a 2-3 win player - which he has been the last two years - then the going free agent market rate for his production this off-season would have been something like $10-15 M per year. If you then assume that the 27 year-old Markakis won't drop off at all over the next four years (so stays steady at ~2.5 WAR), then even relatively slow salary inflation (say, 5%) would have him worth almost exactly $54 M (what he'll be paid, when you include the buyout of the team option).

That doesn't mean the O's would be wise to lock up that kind of production at those prices, if given a do-over, but the contract isn't exactly an albatross (maybe Nick's production actually falls off and he's over-paid*, and maybe salaries rise faster and he's under-paid). Letting him go for nothing but the extra salary space (which I'm not that confident would be spent too wisely** anyway) doesn't seem like a good idea.

* If you use a half-win decline per year, his production comes out to ~$37 M. That is, he'd be over-paid by about $4 M per year. The team could almost sign a solid middle reliever who has some saves on the back of his baseball card for that money!

** The club should be able to lock up Wieters, Matusz, etc. anyway. At least, I would hope so.

Now, I think there's virtually zero chance of the Orioles letting Markakis go, but that makes it neither a crazy suggestion (it would be close to break-even, assuming the money freed up was spent to bring in talent on a similar WAR per $ basis) nor the wrong move for the team, depending on how their path looks. Frankly, if 2011 is a below .500 year and the prospects for 2012-2013 don't look good, moving Markakis (in a trade for young talent - I think he has enough value in the eyes of at least one GM to bring back an actual return) might be the best thing to do. I won't say we're at that point, but I would surely hope that Andy MacPhail isn't one to dismiss the idea outright.

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Stats: WAR

The Good:

• Vlad Guerrero singled and walked(!). That actually moves his OBP above his batting average, which is now a little weird to see. I was kinda hoping Vlad would go all year without walking, just for the fun of it (imagine how exciting every three-ball count would be in August and September).
• Adam Jones went 3-4 and drew a walk himself.
• Luke Scott, batting down in the line-up with a lefty on the mound, hit a three-run homer (against said lefty) and then later singled (against a righty). Still correct to drop him given his career (regressed) platoon splits. (Process > Results, though batting 7th allowed there to be a couple runners on when he went deep).

The Bad:

• Nick Markakis' struggles at the plate continued (0-5, the only Orioles without a hit or walk), and he didn't look good in right-field either. The team needs him to pick things up sooner rather than later.

The Final:

The O's came back a couple times, but going into extra innings is usually edge-home-team. And so it was, as they dropped the first game of the series in KC.