Luke Scott had an excellent 2010 at the plate, and though he wasn't likely to repeat it in 2011, the move to left-field could have theoretically made him just as valuable of a player if his defense out there hadn't degraded too far.

	Projected	Actual
PA	525	236
BA	.264	.220
OBP	.345	.301
SLG	.479	.402
wOBA	.357	.307
BB%	10%	10%
K%	21%	23%
HR	24	9
BABIP	.295	.250
Defense	-3	-2
WAR	2.1	-0.1

Luke started out the here hitting well - .167/.314/.492 in April - with the only trouble being the low batting average due to a .262 BABIP and a few too many K's. Then he started to fall off a bit (.317 wOBA in May/June), before going on the DL (and then coming off the DL, and then going right back on the DL) in July. The shoulder injury could have been responsible for the drop-off in power, as Scott's .182 ISO was easily a career low. The low BABIP for the year may be partially explained by a low line-drive rate - possibly, like with the homers, because he couldn't hit the ball with as much authority - but also likely shows some bad luck.

With the down year, plus some questions about how effective he'd be in 2012, there's a fair chance that Luke Scott won't be in an O's uniform next season*. If so, '11 would be a sad way to see him go out as an Oriole. He's provided the team with some very solid production since coming over from Houston.

* If a team thinks he'll recover reasonably well, he could potentially be a bargain. Scott can still hit pretty well; give him even a .285 BABIP and he's at a much more "normal" .253/.330/.442 for 2011.

The Orioles have (finally!*) found someone to sit on the bunch as Matt Wieters starts 130-140 games**, picking up 27 year-old catcher Taylor Teagarden from the Texas Rangers in return for minor-league pitcher Randy Henry and a player to be named later.

* It's not like back-up catcher is really a big deal, but people seem to have been harping on the O's lack of one for a while now.

** Maybe having a better back-up will allow Wieters to get a little more rest.

Teagarden has gotten some playing time in parts of four major league season, but has just 392 career plate appearances to his name. The .220/.286/.417 line is not impressive (especially with a .314 BABIP), but my understanding is that he's supposed to be a good defensive catcher (+3 DRS career, not that that means much in so few games) and so that kind of line can get you some above replacement level performance. Offensively, Teagarden's main issue is that he whiffs a ton (36% strike-out rate in the majors, 29% at Triple-A, 34% at Double-A), but at least he brings a relatively strong walk rate (~11% in the high minors, 7.4% in the majors) and some pop (16 homers in 118 major league games) to the table.

Randy Henry was the O's 4th round pick in the 2009 draft. He has a 3.33 career minor league ERA, with an 8.3 K/9 and a 1.7 BB/9. Those are certainly good numbers, but Henry is a reliever who has topped out at High-A Ball thus far (and in 2011 his strike-out rate was down to ~6.8 K/9 after a stronger 2010). Frankly, probably not much of a loss for the system (he's supposed to have a good fastball and whatnot, but a low-minors reliever turning into a mediocre major league reliever is sort of a "success story", and that's more or less equivalent to back-up catcher). 

Assuming the player to be named later is worse than Henry, the trade seams a decent one. The O's will have four years of control of Teagarden, who maybe can put up about half a win a season as a back-up on the cheap in what should be his prime years (that would be around $5 M in excess value to the O's - worth like two grade C pitching prospects). That he needs to be added the a 40-man roster that's currently full is a minor issue (it doesn't help that Dylan Bundy is on there already - or that Matt Antonelli got a major league deal, actually), though if the PTBNL is, say, Willie Eyre**, then that problem is solved. Fine job Dan Duquette!*

* #LoweredExpectations

** Sounds like it's actually Pedro Viola (career 7.50 ERA in 12 IP) getting designated for assignment to make room.

Another year, another season of Jeremy Guthrie having a better than average BABIP against and an ERA that beat his FIP/xFIP. I had projected him for 180 IP and a 4.15 ERA, but Guthrie posted his third straight 200+ innings pitched season (208) while failing to beat his peripherals by as much as usual (4.33 ERA, 4.48 FIP, 4.47 xFIP). His 2.1 fWAR placed him second on the pitching staff (behind Zach Britton's 2.5 - in over 50 fewer innings pitched), as he continued his run as a solid middle-of-the-rotation type starter (four out of five years in Baltimore he's had an fWAR between 2.1 and 2.6).

Early in the season I looked at Guthrie's tendency to post low BABIPs, saying that if we regress his career numbers than our estimate of his true talent BABIP is about .285. Actual 2011 BABIP against; .284. Normally that would have given him an ERA closer to 4, but Guthrie stranded runners a the worst rate of his career (only 69.6% left on base rate - about where the O's were as a team (the second lowest in the majors) - compared to 73% career).

On the bright side, Jeremy struck out batters at his highest rate since 2008 (a still below average 5.7 K/9). The curveball became a more prominent pitch for him, apparently at the expense of the slider (he threw breaking-balls about 26-27% of the time in both 2010 and 2011, but the mix was closer to even in the latter year - though still favoring the slider). This "resulted"* in both offerings inducing more whiffs, even if they're still not that great at getting swings and misses by normal standards. Most of increase in curveball usage came against left-handed batters**, who actually started to see the pitch more often than the slider.

* Not saying it's causal, but mixing the two pitches better - with the 10 mph difference between them - could conceivably make them both more effective.

** Not sure if I've noticed this before or not, but Guthrie has pretty small platoon splits for his career (and reverse ones in 2011); 4.53 xFIP versus righties, 4.69 xFIP versus lefites. And he's struck out left-handed batters more often (6 K/9 to 5.1 K/9)!

PitchFX also has Guthrie starting to use a cutter this past season. That might be part of the reason why his BABIP was above his career rate though, as fastballs from 2008-2010 with less horizontal tailing movement (like cutters) resulted in higher BABIPs while fastballs with more horizontal movement had BABIPs close to .250. Guthrie also threw fewer fastballs that had a lot of rise or a lot of sink (those pitches for 2008-2010 which had lower BABIPs) and was more consistent with his vertical movement (the in-between fastballs had the higher BABIPs).

Indeed, his BABIP on all fastball types (around .282) was a fair bit higher than it had been over the past few years (around .261). For the pitches categorized as regular fastballs, the BABIP was around .277; for the two-seamers (or "sinkers") it was around .221; and for the cutters it was around .267. One would think that would support the previous findings, but looking just at movement for all fastballs it was the ones with medium tail and medium sink that had the lowest BABIPs (though we're getting into some pretty small sample sizes at this point - and where the cut-offs for the different movement "buckets" are makes some difference). The mystery's still there, but it is interesting that the change in overall BABIP one would expect from the change in fastball types is actually what transpired (for change-ups the BABIP was up a bit too, but for the breaking-balls it was right on target).

Beyond the extra hits on balls in play, Guthrie also ended up walking the most batters he ever had; 2.9 BB/9. Much of that increase came against right-handed batter (he walked lefties at about his career rate of 3.1 BB/9). There might have been a bit of bad luck there, since it appears he threw pitches close to the zone more consistently but rarely seemed to get the pitch just down or just off the plate away called for a strike. In any case, 2.9 BB/9 isn't much higher than his career 2.7 BB/9.

With Jeremy Guthrie entering his final year of arbitration, it's possible the Orioles are going to shop him this off-season. There's a fair chance there's a team (or five) in need of a decent #3-4 starter who can provide some innings, and the O's can turn a 32 year-old into maybe a couple quality 22 year-old prospects. That would leave the 2012 rotation without it's rock (since he came over in 2007, Guthrie has started almost as many games for the team as the next three pitchers - D-Cab, Bergesen, Matusz - combined), but would probably be the best thing for the organization long-term.

While Tommy Hunter was probably the main piece coming to Baltimore in the Koji Uehara trade, the O's also picked up corner infielder Chris Davis in the deal. While taking a flier on a guy with some potential who's blocked on his current club is exactly what a team in the Orioles' position should be doing, acquiring them via minor league deals or in trades for mediocre relievers (as opposed to very good ones who could have brought back actual prospects instead - yes, I'm still a little bitter about the deal) would be the way to go.

Davis hit .250/.296/.408 for Texas in 81 PA before being traded, and though his numbers were better for the O's (.276/.310/.398 in 129 PA), that isn't saying much. An overall line of .266/.305/.402 isn't good in general, bad for a first-baseman, terrible for a poor defensive first-baseman (-3 runs, along with another -3 at third), and embarrassing for a poor defensive first-baseman who also has a .366 BABIP to help him out.

Not that any of that is really new; Davis has a bad approach at the plate (unlike Mark Reynolds, who also has awful contact skills (even worse than Davis'), he is prone to expanding the strike-zone), and won't do nearly enough damage even when he puts the bat on the ball to make up for it (his career rate of homers per 600 PA is about 24, which is solid - unless you bring literally nothing else to the table).

It sounds like Davis will be competing for a corner infield spot in 2012, and that the team would prefer to play him at third to get Reynolds over to first. I'm not sure how much sense that makes, since even though Reynolds is awful at third (around -11 runs career per season according to the various defensive metrics) he also appears to be awful at first (much smaller sample size, but around -22 runs per season); having no range turns out to be an issue at multiple positions. Davis, on the other hand, has much better numbers at first (-5 runs per season, versus -30 runs per season at third - in many fewer games). Given that, it would seem that the least bad (though still very bad) alignment would have Davis at first and Reynolds at third. Or, really, Reynolds at DH, Davis at first, and Matt Antonelli at third.

It's no secret that I'm a big fan of Zach Britton. I had the groundball machine as the O's top prospects going back a couple years, and his success last year and in Spring Training left me excited to see how he would do at the major league level in 2011... in June or so, when he was called up. Worrying about the Super Two deadline for pitchers doesn't always make sense - who cares about the extra arbitration year when there's a good chance the pitcher won't even be in baseball 6-7 years down the line - but for a team not really playing for anything why take the risk?

When Brian Matusz wasn't healthy enough to make his first start of the season (or many thereafter), it was Britton who got the call to start the O's third game of the year in Tampa Bay. He was probably (marginally) the best option as far as winning games goes - and the Quest for .500 was still in full swing at that point - but the move seemed short-sighted. Though Britton did go down to the minors for a stretch in July (after a horrendous start in Boston; 8 runs allowed, 2 outs recorded), he was up shortly (to make an even more horrendous start in New York; 9 runs allowed, 1 out recorded). The 159 total days of major league service time accrued will almost surely push Britton into Super Two status, perhaps costing the Orioles upwards of $20 M*.

* The extra arbitration year means that Britton would get a second "third" year of what's usually the 80% rate (the arbitration rates tend to be something like 40-60-80% of free agent value in the three years). If he's even a 2 win player then, he'll cost around $10 M (includes salary inflation but also discounting to 2011 value). At 4 wins (a good but not great pitcher) he'll cost around $20 M. Given that Britton came in around 2.5 fWAR in 2011 - production worth ~$11 M - keeping him out for a third of the year would have deprived the O's of a bit less than $4 M in value. So not even accounting for the possibility that the team might want the extra money later when they're (hopefully) trying to compete, the Orioles only break even if Britton ends up not doing much in the majors by that point (less than 1 win) but could end up as much as $15-20 M in the hole if he turns into a top starter.

Anyway, Britton pitched 154.1 surprisingly good innings for the Orioles in 2011. His control was occasionally spotty (3.6 BB/9) and he didn't miss many bats (5.7 K/9), but he kept the ball on the ground enough to make up for that (53% GB rate). His 4.61 ERA was not as indicative* of how he pitched (4.00 FIP, 4.12 xFIP). The .304 BABIP allowed was a touch high, but not as much as I expected given that Britton is left-handed and the O's had Mark Reynolds at third most of the year (JJ Hardy at short probably helped some). To hold your own in the AL East as a rookie is impressive, and there's still a lot of upside there.

* With men in scoring position, his BABIP against was .347! That'll happen with groundball pitchers sometimes, but at least some of that is bad luck (with runners on base overall it was .308). He also gave up home runs more often with men in scoring position, but his xFIP was only 4.32 in those situations so I wouldn't expect the issue to persist.

Britton sat at 92 with both his four-seamer and his two-seamer. The former was generally thrown away from lefties and got some swings and miss (9% whiff rate), but ended up in the middle of the plate more to righties who tended not to miss (5% whiff rate) and put the ball in play more. The two-seamer I expected to be a real sinker given Britton's awesome minor league groundball rates, but it didn't seem to drop so much and instead had a great amount of tail to it. Like with the four-seamer, righties (8% whiff rate) handled it better than lefties (11% whiff rate).

The change-up, on the other hand, had both tail and sink - and was pretty hard, at 86 mph. It was Britton's primary off-speed pitch to righties, and they didn't have an easy time putting the bat on it (29% whiff rate) - though, neither did lefties when they offered (33% whiff rate). The slider wasn't as hard - around 83 mph - but didn't have a tremendous amount of break despite that (the velocity maybe put it more in slurve territory, but the movement surely didn't). It was thrown more to the southpaws, and gave them fits; they whiffed an awesome 50% of the time that they offered at the pitch (they generally let it go by down and away for a ball). Righties chased the pitch a little more often, but with only marginally more success (47% whiff rate). With effective secondary offerings, it wouldn't be at all surprising to see Britton up his strike-out some going forward (I'd be surprised to see it go too far above 7 K/9, but a league average* rate combined with a ton of groundballs is pretty darn good).

* Fun fact; on 0-2, 1-2, and 2-2 counts, Britton struck out the batter 42% of the time in 2011. The AL average was 42%. The problem was that the average AL pitcher got to a two-strike count 49% of the time, while Britton did only 41% of the time.

Opposite-handed batters' ability to get to the fastball kept Britton from striking them out too often, but because his walk rate was just about the same to hitter from either side of the plate his platoon splits weren't huge; 3.94 FIP vs. RHH, 4.17 FIP vs. LHH and 4.33 xFIP vs. RHH, 3.58 xFIP vs. LHH.

While the sky might not be the limit - I don't think anyone's expecting him to turn into an Ace - there's a decent chance of Zach Britton becoming a good #2 type starter. A few more K's, some improved control, and a higher groundball rate (even if it doesn't approach his 65% from the minors) - plus a non-terrible defensive unit behind him - and Britton could certainly post some low-3 ERAs in his career.

The Orioles have apparently signed 33 year-old right-handed relief pitcher Chong Tae-Hyon to a two-year, $3.2 M contract. The submariner - or Korean Chad Bradford*, as I'm going to think of him until I learn how to pronounce his name (and maybe after that) - has a 1.93 career ERA in 569 IP in South Korea. Other numbers; 7.1 K/9, 3.3 BB/9, 0.4 HR/9. By comparison, Chad Bradford's Triple-A stats; 1.78 ERA, 6.6 K/9, 1.7 BB/9, 0.3 HR/9.

* Here's some video of Tae-Hyon. Looks sort of Bradford-like, with maybe worse stuff (though it's not a lot of pitches to see).

I wouldn't expect all that much from Tae-Hyon - maybe an ERA around 4-4.25 and somewhere between replacement level and 0.5 wins. And signing him for two years seems maybe a touch overboard. At least he's relatively cheap. Maybe if he picks up some batted ball luck the O's can spin him off at the trade deadline. Low risk, (probably) low reward move. But that's OK*.

* #LoweredExpectations.

First there was word last week that the Orioles were thinking about making a two year contract offer to David Ortiz. Then today, apparently the O's inquired on Huston Street. Even if it's very unlikely that either of these moves were made, that there could even be real discussions* about them is so very depressing.

* Looking at every possibility is fine, though doesn't sound like an efficient use of time. Staying on bad ideas is, well, bad.

(1) It sounded like Dan Duquette shot down* the idea of bringing in a high-priced DH, and it doesn't seem to makes sense. The counter to that is; Duquette might not want Ortiz, but what if Buck does?.

* "We did have Vlad Guerrero last year. I'd much rather sign those Dominicans to contracts when they're coming out of the amateur market rather than pay them a lot of money in the big leagues. We have to sign a few more of those before we look to a high-priced DH, I think." Exactly right.

Signing a 36 year-old DH to a two-year contract (almost certainly for quite a bit of money - perhaps as much as $15 M a year) is just a terrible idea for a team that is hoping to get over that 70 win threshold (#LoweredExpecations*). Sure Ortiz had a good year in 2011 - .309/.398/.554 (he's not Vlad - he'll take a walk) - but he's probably not going to get the O's any surplus value with his production. That is, he won't be a bargain as an asset, and could very easily be a liability (not like players declining in their late 30s is new).

* Breaking the string of losing seasons is a common goal to hear from O's fans, but at this point they need to stop the streak of sub-70 years first. They haven't gotten their since 2006. Because of that, and the organization being poorly run, I may start using the #LoweredExpectations tag more often on Twitter. At this point I'm not expecting them to be smart - just don't do anything stupid!

Even if the demands were reasonable and he could be a bargain it still probably doesn't make sense to sign him (though at a given price point - say, the league minimum - it's almost surely a fine idea to bring him on-board, at least as a trade chip). The one small positive that could potentially arise is that Kevin Gregg might be upset enough about having Ortiz on the team that he would retire. Otherwise it's pretty much a no real upside, potential downside move.

(2) Really? A fifth place team is going to give up talent (he's still under the Rockies' control, after all) to bring in an OK relief pitcher? This goes even beyond handing out too much money for saves (Mike Gonzalez, Kevin Gregg) - they want to pay him $8 M and lose players from their own organization as well? Lunacy.

It seems that part of the impetus for potentially making such a move is Buck's desire to move Jim Johnson to the starting rotation. Really though, all you need to do to do that is... move Jim Johnson to the starting rotation. You don't need to "replace" hisinnings. If JJ provides more value as a starter than as a reliever (assuming there are free spots in both places), then you make the switch independent* of your other personnel (again, assuming that there are free spots in both places, which I think there probably are).

* Say you have a 10 WAR rotation and a 2 WAR bullpen. If JJ moves from the latter to the former, and personally goes from 0.5 WAR to 1 WAR, then the team is better (if his spot in the pen is taken by a replacement level reliever and he himself takes the spot of a replacement level starter). It doesn't matter that the bullpen is now down to 1.5 WAR, since the team is better off (12.5 to 12).

As a fun thought experiment... would Colorado accept Chris Davis and Tommy Hunter for Street (who is both worse and more expensive than Koji Uehara)? They probably should*, but I'm not sure they would (though who knows, maybe the Rockies just want to dump his salary).

* Street's ERA the last four years is like 3.50. Hunter could maybe get his to 3.75 or so in the same role, for a fraction of the price.