The Book's annual Fan Scouting Report project is up:
"Baseball's fans are very perceptive. Take a large group of them, and they can pick out the final standings with the best of them. They can forecast the performance of players as well as those guys with rather sophisticated forecasting engines. Bill James, in one of his later Abstracts, had the fans vote in for the ranking of the best to worst players by position. And they did a darn good job.
"Baseball's fans are very perceptive. Take a large group of them, and they can pick out the final standings with the best of them. They can forecast the performance of players as well as those guys with rather sophisticated forecasting engines. Bill James, in one of his later Abstracts, had the fans vote in for the ranking of the best to worst players by position. And they did a darn good job.
There is an enormous amount of untapped knowledge here. There are 70 million fans at MLB parks every year, and a whole lot more watching the games on television. When I was a teenager, I had no problem picking out Tim Wallach as a great fielding 3B, a few years before MLB coaches did so. And, judging by the quantity of non-stop standing ovations Wallach received, I wasn't the only one in Montreal whose eyes did not deceive him. Rondel White, Marquis Grissom, Larry Walker, Andre Dawson, Hubie Brooks, Ellis Valentine. We don't need stats to tell us which of these does not belong.
The Project
What I would like to do now is tap that pool of talent. I want you to tell me what your eyes see. I want you to tell me how good or bad a fielder is. Go down, and start selecting the team(s) that you watch all the time. For any player that you've seen play in at least 10 games in 2011, I want you to judge his performance in 7 specific fielding categories."
Help Tango - and everyone else, really - out: http://www.tangotiger.net/scout/.
no commentsMike Flanagan passed away yesterday, taking his own life. Just terrible, terrible news. My condolences to his friends and family.
You can watch Jim Palmer (amongst others) discussing it here.
There were reports from WBAL (since retracted) that the reason for the action was Flanny's feelings regarding his part in the O's struggles (or, at least, the fans' perceptions of them), which would be deeply sad if true. No matter how much we may care - and I imagine Flanny cared about as much as anyone - it's still just a game. I may never have watched Flanny pitch, and I was certainly critical of much of his front office work, but he was a big part of the Orioles and I'd take a hundred more losing seasons to reverse the last two days.
More from Dan Szymborski, Tim Kurkjian, Buster Olney, and Rob Neyer (with a collection of others).
My post at MASN's Orioles Buzz this week is on Alfredo Simon's progression from Tommy John injury to flame-throwing reliever to potentially decent starter. Check it out here.
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The Good:
This was the best O's game I've seen in quite a while. It's only two games, but the Birds are making a case for not actually being the worst team in the AL this year.
Some notes on Wieters' 4 walks:
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- Shutdown Sauce! Alfredo Simon looked great, missing bats with the slider, the splitter, and especially the fastball (something like a 30% whiff rate between the two and four seamers combined). Final line; 8 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 BB, 8 K, 1 HR.
- JJ Hardy went 3-5, which wasn't one of the best offensive nights for an Oriole.
- Vlad had 3 hits as well, but his included a double.
- Matt Wieters doubled as his only hit, but he did walk 4 times. And threw a runner out trying to steal.
- Mark Reynolds went 3-5 with a triple.
- Nolan Reimold only had one hit, but it was a three-run homer.
- Adam Jones left the game early due to illness. Hope he's OK.
This was the best O's game I've seen in quite a while. It's only two games, but the Birds are making a case for not actually being the worst team in the AL this year.
Some notes on Wieters' 4 walks:
- It was the second time this year and Orioles walked four times (Luke Scott).
- First time since 2007 that an O's catcher did it (the immortal Paul Bako), and the 5th time a catcher has done it (Bako, Chris Hoiles, and Elrod Hendricks twice).
- The 46th player in franchise history to do it - the 64th time overall (Brady Anderson holds the record with 4 such games).
- Only the 5th time in franchise history that a batter walked four times and had an extra-base hit. Nick Markakis had an identical line (1-1, double, 4 BB, 2 R, 1 RBI) in 2008.
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In a move that has probably been building most of this season, the Orioles have finally designated Felix Pie for assignment. Matt Angle will be called up to take his roster spot.
I had some relatively high hopes for Pie after his first season in an O's uniform, when he hit .266/.326/.437 in 2009 and showed plus range in the outfield. While not expecting star level performance ever, a league average hitter with a +10 glove in left-field is a nice little player to have on the cheap. Pie had improved his plate discipline that year, cutting down on his strike-outs and getting his walk rate to almost average.
Then things got worse instead of better in 2010, with fewer K's - something I think the team was trying to have him work on - going with less power and only half as many walks (.274/.305/.413). The defensive metrics were less kind as well.
This year was worse still, with no power whatsoever (.220/.264/.280) and a -11 UZR. His -1.9 Wins Above Replacement was one of the lowest marks in the majors.
Pie always seemed like a guy with good tools but not great baseball skills, who sometimes didn't seem sure what he wanted to do. Occasionally he'd actually show a good approach at the plate, but often enough he'd go up either hacking at everything or (though less frequently) trying to be excessively patient without quite the pitch recognition skills to make it work.
It's a shame that Felix wasn't able to reach his ceiling in Baltimore. Maybe some other team will pick him up and give him a chance - he is only 26 years old, after all.
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I had some relatively high hopes for Pie after his first season in an O's uniform, when he hit .266/.326/.437 in 2009 and showed plus range in the outfield. While not expecting star level performance ever, a league average hitter with a +10 glove in left-field is a nice little player to have on the cheap. Pie had improved his plate discipline that year, cutting down on his strike-outs and getting his walk rate to almost average.
Then things got worse instead of better in 2010, with fewer K's - something I think the team was trying to have him work on - going with less power and only half as many walks (.274/.305/.413). The defensive metrics were less kind as well.
This year was worse still, with no power whatsoever (.220/.264/.280) and a -11 UZR. His -1.9 Wins Above Replacement was one of the lowest marks in the majors.
Pie always seemed like a guy with good tools but not great baseball skills, who sometimes didn't seem sure what he wanted to do. Occasionally he'd actually show a good approach at the plate, but often enough he'd go up either hacking at everything or (though less frequently) trying to be excessively patient without quite the pitch recognition skills to make it work.
It's a shame that Felix wasn't able to reach his ceiling in Baltimore. Maybe some other team will pick him up and give him a chance - he is only 26 years old, after all.
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The Good:
- More "Eh" than good, but Zach Britton didn't get lit up in his first start coming off the DL. Final line; 5 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 4 BB, 4 K.
- Mike Gonzalez faced four batters. He struck out four batters. Not bad. Hopefully the team doesn't immediately sign him to a two-year extension.
- JJ Hardy and Matt Wieters both went deep - their 24th and 13th, respectively. Wieters' was a bomb, too.
- Nick Markakis singled and doubled, and Mark Reynolds also had a couple hits.
- In the third inning, the O's scored a run and had one on with none out and the top of the line-up coming up - JJ Hardy, in fact, who's been the team's second best hitter this year. So of course Buck Showalter had him intentionally make an out. And of course the Orioles then failed to score another run in the inning. And of course it was in his next at bat that Hardy homered.
The Orioles actually won, which is awesome, but the highlight of the night was this catch by Ben Revere in center. Amazing stuff.
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The Orioles Beyond Wins and Losses tab has been updated for the first time in a while:
The Basics:
| W | L | W% |
| 47 | 76 |
.382 |
Pythagorean:
| RS | RA | Pythag. W% | Pythag. W | Pythag. L |
| 517 |
661 |
.389 | 48 | 75 |
Advanced Stats:
| wOBA | wRC | Baserunning | Expected RS |
| .317 | 528 |
1 |
529 |
| ERA | FIP | xFIP | Defense | Expected RA |
| 4.95 | 4.61 | 4.23 | -54 |
633 |
| Expected W% | Expected W | Expected L |
| .418 | 51 |
72 |
That's ugly.
The Orioles are on pace to win 62 games. If they play to their expected winning percentage from here on out, they'd finish with 63 wins.
They haven't won a series since the end of June versus the Reds, and haven't won one against an AL team since the beginning of June versus the A's.
I've been busy so I haven't seen more than 4-5 innings of a single O's game in over a week, but between people being hurt and the ones who are healthy not playing well (to say the least), 100 losses looks like a fair bet at this point. At least the Astros (42-85) exist.
Stats: Pythagorean W%, wOBA, wRC, ERA, FIP, xFIP, Defense no comments
This week's post at MASN's Orioles Buzz is a look at Adam Jones' improved offensive production this year and if it will continue going forward. Check it out here.
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The Good:
- Brad Bergesen did a decent job in relief, pitching 4.1 shutout innings to give the O's a chance to make a come back. No K's and he walked a batter, but at least he did on OK job of keeping the ball on the ground. Bergesen came into this game with the second lowest xFIP on the team (4.38) amongst pitchers with at least 10 starts (Britton).
- Nick Markakis hit his 11th home run of the season - the 100th of his career. We don't get to see him turn on the ball all that often, so that was nice. Nick's next homer will tie him with the immortal Chet Laabs for 25th on the all-time O's list.
- Nolan Reimold has two hits; a double and a hustle single. I still don't understand why he's backing up Felix Pie, or batting below Chris Davis for that matter (Reimold: career .334 wOBA despite a .280 BABIP, Davis: career .321 wOBA with a .324 BABIP).
- I had been getting ready to write something on Chris Tillman's recent turnaround, so I was hoping he'd have a nice outing today. First inning; single, homer, double, double, double... down 4-0 before recording an out. He didn't touch 93 with his fastball, and his control seemed spotty. Final line; 2.12 IP, 8 H, 6 R, 3 BB, 3 K, 1 HR.
- The team's 8-0 strike-out to walk ratio offensively wasn't great either.
The Orioles lost 3 of 4 to the White Sox - at home - but at least they were only outscored by 6 runs in the series. If the O's win out, they'll finish with 92 wins... which would still possibly (probably?) leave them out of the playoffs.
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My Orioles Buzz post for MASN this week was on the Orioles' inability to develop their pitching prospects - an issue that has stretched back quite a while. Can you guess who the top 5 pitchers that came up through the O's system in the last 20 years have been? Post here.
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