With the baseball season about to begin (finally!), the Beyond the Box Score crew assembled our predictions for how the 2011 standings would shake out. You can check those out here; mine are as follows:

AL East
BOS - NYY - TBR - BAL - TOR

NYY with the Wild Card and BAL/TOR extremely close - was tempted to put BAL 5th.

AL Central
MIN - CHI - DET - CLE - KCR

Top three teams not too far apart. Royals seem pretty terrible this year.

AL West

TEX - OAK - LAA - SEA

Small gap between TEX and OAK. Larger gaps from 2 to 3 and 3 to 4.

NL East

PHI - ATL - FLA - NYM - WAS

ATL should give PHI a good fight.

NL Central

CIN - MIL - STL - CHC - HOU - PIT

Top 3 - maybe even 4 - teams where tough to pick. Not confident at all there.

NL West

SFG - COL - LAD - SDP - ARI

COL has a good shot, and LAD to a lesser degree.

AL MVP: Adrian Gonzalez
NL MVP: Albert Pujols

AL Cy Young: Jon Lester
NL Cy Young: Roy Halladay

AL ROY: Jeremy Hellickson
NL ROY: Freddie Freeman no comments


When it was revealed that Josh Rupe would be coming North with the Orioles to start the season, I speculated on Twitter that it was due to his Spring Training performance (0.00 ERA*), given that he has a career ERA/FIP/xFIP around 5 in the majors... as a reliever (plus an awful 1.2 K/BB ratio). A good point was made by Luke Jackson that the team was going with only 4 starters initially, so Rupe wasn't likely to be up long. MASN's Steve Melewski** replied that Buck Showalter and the team had used the "eye test" with Rupe, and liked what they saw - and that's why he had made the team.

* Edit: Not anymore apparently, as Rupe have up a couple runs in the O's last ST game.

** Steve and I argue occasionally, but he's a good sport about it and I appreciate that.

Here's the thing about that; it seems like baloney to me. Rupe has a sparkling ERA, but in 13.2 he's struck out all of 4 batters. He hasn't given up an earned run*, but he has given up a home run. And he's only allowed 8 hits, which is the kind of luck that won't continue while everyone's putting the ball in play against him. So either they're not using stats at all (ignoring his entire career and his poor ST strike-out numbers in favor of "he looks good out there"), or they're using the wrong ones, incorrectly (ERA in a small number of innings against uneven competition).

* The earned run / unearned run distinction is kind of silly, but ERA is what FIP/xFIP are scaled to and it's so common.

Not that it really matters. The difference between Rupe and, say, Mark Hendrickson is more or less negligible over the course of two weeks. I just don't like the apparent process. The question shouldn't be "does he look good?" or "how are his ST numbers?"; it's "using how he looks, his ST numbers, and the much larger amount of other information we have available (career numbers, etc.), how is he likely to perform this season?" And that last group should be weighted significantly more.

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Stats: ERA, FIP, xFIP, K/9 & BB/9

FanGraphs is going through their annual organizational rankings, and the Orioles have come in at #15:

"Present Talent – 75.00 (T-20th)

Orioles Season Preview

Future Talent – 85.00 (T-5th)

Orioles Top 10 Prospects

Financial Resources – 76.67 (17th)
Baseball Operations – 76.82 (T-20th)

Overall Rating – 77.45 (15th)

There are many factors that go into why the Orioles ended up 15th, much higher than anyone (including most of our writers) expected. Before we get into those specific reasons, it is important to note just how bunched up the teams in the middle really are. Baltimore finished with an Overall Rating of 77.45, but the teams that finished in the 15-19 slots were separated by less than a single point. This means that the rankings were extremely tight, and there’s no real difference between the placements of the teams in this grouping. If you wouldn’t have been upset with Baltimore at #19, then treat this accordingly, as a small change in voting could have knocked them down several pegs"

When the 20 through 16 spots came and went, I was very surprised to see the O's not mentioned. I figured they had a middle of the road major league team, a middle of the road front office, a middle of the road financial situation, and a below average farm system. That lends itself to an organization that's a little below average. As the comment shows, 15th is not much different from 19th, which is about right. I don't understand the future talent rating being that high, since outside of Britton and Machado there isn't much to be excited about.

Interestingly, there hasn't been much progress with the team, as far as these rankings are concerned (though I imagine comparing in this way isn't exactly right). The O's were 17th last year, and 16th the year before.

Jake Fox has been hitting really well this Spring; leading the majors with 9 home runs. This has led some people to propose giving Fox a more prominent role on the team going into the season. Is the offensive barrage a sign of things to come, and should the Orioles take advantage of it by giving Fox some plate appearances in the majors?

First off, Fox leading the majors in Spring home runs is nice, but he's also tied with legendary masher Mike Morse for that distinction. Having 9 home runs in 71 PA is a relatively strong showing, but the pitchers he's taken deep are Scott Baker, Andy Sonnastine, Ross Ohlendorf, Scott Olsen, Sergio Mitre, Matt Fox, Al Alburquerque (awesome name), Joe Beimel, and Aneury Rodriguez. I've heard of most of these guys, but it's not exactly Halladay-Lee-Oswalt-Hamels.

Additionally, knocking the ball over the fence is the one thing we knew Fox could do. He's hit 18 longballs in 467 career major league PA, and 29 in 422 PA in Triple-A. Overall - like this Spring - the issue has been everything else. Fox rarely walks (4.9% career, 1.4% in Spring Training) and strikes out a fair bit (22.9 % career, 18.6% in ST), so his batting average and OBP are sub-par. If he had a (still impressive) 6 home runs in ST, he'd be hitting closer to .257/.268/.629 given his 1 walk and .250 BABIP (.260 career).

Chances are, facing major league pitching on a more consistent basis and a normal regression of his crazy home run rate (his HR/FB has to be around 30%, if not a fair bit higher - which is a "tops in the majors" type of number) would drop the power figure and leave Fox around where he's always been - .236/.285/.423. So even if it's been exciting to watch Fox hit the last month, it's not something that'll continue into April, May, etc.

As to whether or not he deserves a spot on the team, I'm mostly ambivalent. If the team is going with a 13 man pitching staff (which I definitely think is excessive), then there's only one spot for a back-up catcher - and that would need to be either Tatum or Fox. The difference between the two offensively over 200 PA is around 2-3 runs. It's not crazy to think the difference defensively could be at least as big - say, Tatum at +2-4 runs over a full season and Fox at -3 to -6 run. I'd think it's less than that though, which means making Fox the primary back-up catcher could net the team a couple runs. Plus, it would add some flexibility to the bench, if it is indeed short. If they're going with a 12 man staff, letting Fox get the last bunch spot over, say, Nolan Reimold makes some sense since it's probably better for the latter to play more often.

So seeing Jake Fox in Baltimore as a bench player is fine, but I wouldn't be expecting too much more than replacement level production.

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Stats: BB% & K%, HR/FB%, BABIP, wRAA, WAR

Even with Brian Roberts finally seeing action this Spring, there's a non-zero possibility of him missing the beginning of the season (and, even if not, a good chance of missed time later on). That leaves a hole defensively at second-base, and a hole in the lead-off spot off the line-up. Unfortunately, the main players capable of filling the position - Cesar Izturis, Robert Andino, Brendan Harris - have no business hitting at the top of a major league line-up (or possibly even a Triple-A line-up, but I digress). So who would bat first?

Buck Showalter has a career record of 916-856 as a manager - a .517 winning percentage.  That's certainly nothing to sneeze (I'd gladly take 84 wins from the O's this year), but it's not outstanding by any stretch. And yet, many Orioles' fans (and non-fans actually) think Buck will have a significant positive impact on the club's record. As far as I can tell, this has very little to do with playing time allocation or in-game decisions or whatnot, and much more to do with his leadership and other intangibles. He's supposed to get the most out of the players he has*.

* Which begs the question, why were we cheering for these guys all these years who apparently weren't even trying to be that good?

Commenter Bret* said recently that Buck "has a history of getting position players to play to (or above) their potential". But does he?

I answered a few questions for Matt Vensel a few days ago, and the interview went up today at the Baltimore Sun*. We talked about Matt Wieters being a disappointment, Brian Roberts missing time, the pitching staff, and the farm system, among other topics. Wanted to thank Matt for very kindly including me in his Blogger on Blogger series.

* Was pretty neat seeing my name on the front page of the Sun's site**. Also enjoyed the first comment; "Morozzzzzzzz!"

** This leaves my only remaining unfulfilled professional goal as getting a spot on the blogroll at The Book Blog.