O's are 5-7 so far in Spring Training; a 68 win full season pace (not that it matters). Endy Chavez is batting .409/.458/.591, which hopefully won't encourage Buck to make him the team's lead-off hitter (which he was for this game). Nick Johnson is at .348/.464/.478; Mark Rernolds, JJ Hardy, and Matt Antonelli have each walked more times than they've struck out (though have only 2 home runs between them); Chris Davis has a not surprising .276/.300/.483 line. On the pitching side, I love seeing Brian Matusz's 13-0 strike-out to walk ratio and reports that he's throwing in the low 90's, though I'm still not getting my hopes up that he'll be back to "normal"; after the season he has last year, just being a major league caliber pitcher at all would be nice.

The Good:

• Endy Chavez picked up three more hits, moving his average to .462. Career OBP in the Majors is still just .313, of course.
• Adam Jones hit a three-run homer, going down and getting a pitch that might have been off the plate away and driving it out to center-field.
• Matt Wieters did work on both sides of the ball, homering at the plate and throwing out a couple of potential base-stealers plus picking off a runner at second. 
• 2001 third round draft-pick Mike Wright pitched two and a third innings in relief, K'ing 4.
• Stu Pomeranz came out throwing some gas in the 9th, striking out the side.

The Bad:

• Alfedo Simon didn't look great when he was pitching - it seemed to me like he wasn't get much power from his pitching motion, and the fastball didn't have it's usual pop (plus, he was throwing a lot of off-speed stuff, though maybe he was jsut working on something). Thus, it wasn't surprising to find out he left the game after two innings (one run on two hits, a walk, and a hit batter; no K's) with a groin strain.
• I'm mostly just picking on him, but Chris Davis went 0-4 with a strike-out and looked absolutely terrible against lefty (and former Oriole) Clay Rapada.

The Final:

The Orioles beat the Yankees! Sure it's only Spring Training, but that's still always nice. It sounds like Zach Britton will be missing some more time with shoulder inflammation, which isn't great news. If I'm the Orioles, I don't care at all about Britton's contributions to the team in 2012 and am completely concerning with his long-term health when it comes to decision making.

Baseball on TV! Well, considering it was the Orioles versus the Pirates, maybe one would call it "baseball". The O's had their starting line-up out there though, and Spring Training games are still (usually) better than almost anything else on.

The Good:

• Brian Matusz got the start, going a couple innings. Though he gave up a number of hits (6) and a few runs (3), there were some positives; he K'ed 3, didn't walk a batter, and didn't give up a flyball (there was one relatively hard-hit "fliner", but nothing that was going to leave the yard with a strong wind). It looked like maybe they wanted Matusz to just work on the fastball, since that seemed to make up the vast majority of his offerings. He was hitting 90-91 pretty consistently, and even threw the pitch by at least one batter. I'm not sure things would have gone as well against a line-up better than the Pirates' B team, but it wasn't a bad start. Looking forward to seeing Matusz open things up a bit in future games.
• Oscar Villareal (1 IP, 1 H, 2 K), Troy Patton (2 IP, 2 H, 1 BB, 1 K), and Stu Pomeranz (1 IP, 2 H) didn't give up any runs, which was "good", relatively speaking.
• Nolan Reimold was in the lead-off spot, and it sounds like there's a fair chance he'll actually be there during the season. Only Nick Markakis has a higher career OBP on the team, so Reimold-Markakis (or the other way around) at the top of the line-up makes a lot of sense. Nolan did go 0-3 with 2 K's, but hopefully that doesn't dissuade Buck.
• Manny Machado made a a nice diving stop plus strong throw at short - if he can be average to above there defensively, that'll go a long way to making him a valuable big leaguer.

The Bad:

• Kevin Gregg is still on the team. The announcers were talking about how he wants to get his closer's job back... and Gregg promptly allowed a two-run home runs. Sure, he can get his job back - he just needs to outpitch Jim Johnsons. Given that I'm not totally confident in Gregg outpitching, say, Jason Berken, it just seems unlikely. At least he struck out the side.
• Matt Lindstrom followed Gregg, giving up three more runs (only two earned) and not even recording a K. I'm not a scout, but even though he was throwing 94, the ball wasn't really popping and it didn't seem like batters were having all that much trouble catching up to it. And the slider seemed kind of flat. Maybe it was an off night though.
• Darren O'Day didn't give up an earned run, but two crossed the plate, on two hits and a walk (struck out a pair)
• Two errors (Andino, Davis) and generally poor defense, which is not a great way to back up a bad pitching staff.
• On the other side of the ball, the O's had as more K's (9) than hits (6 - all singles) plus walks (2).

The Final:

The O's went down 1-0 two batters into the game (mid-season form!), and it more or less continued on in that vein. This is Spring Training for fans too, but the team just dropped us right into the deep end having to watch this kind of game - couldn't they have eased us in to the sucking?

The infield was put together last week, leaving the outfield and the bench to be projected from the position players.

Nolan Reimold (LF):

500 PA, .253/.340/.431, -4 fielding, 1.4 Wins Above Replacement

It'll be interesting to see what Reimold can do if he gets a full healthy season to play. At 28 years old already, there isn't a lot of time left in what should be his prime years to establish himself as a starter in the big leagues. I'm assuming he'll be the team's primary left-fielder, though Chavez will steal some starts.

Adam Jones (CF):

600 PA, .275/.325/.456, -4 fielding, 2.5 WAR

Good but not great player, though - as before every season - he could certainly break out if he makes a step forward with the plate discipline. I'd just as soon see Jones traded this year if the O's can get a decent return, since the idea of paying him for what he could be (which I think is what he'll want) as opposed to what he is doesn't sound appealing.

Nick Markakis (RF):

650 PA, .289/.366/.422, -3 fielding, 2.7 WAR

Good but not great player, and I'm not holding out hope any longer that Nick can be much more than that. The ability to hit for average and get on base probably keeps him as the team's best hitter, even without the power, but that isn't very impressive from a corner outfielder.

Taylor Teagarden (C):

175 PA, .216/.280/.351 +1 fielding, 0.3 WAR

Above replacement level, but nothing to write home about. Good glove and some pop, but it'll take something beyond that to keep the drop-off from Wieters from being too big.

Matt Antonelli (IF):

425 PA, .243/.327/.352, -4 fielding, 0.6 WAR

I might like him more than most, but when OBP is all you bring to the table you need to be really good about it to be valuable. There are worse back-ups, of course.

Endy Chavez (OF):

350 PA, .272/.306/.365, +6 fielding, 0.7 WAR

It's certainly nice to have a good fielding 4th outfielder, but I hope that doesn't mean he'll be starting too often.

The outfield plus bench totals to 8.3 WAR - three outfielders met or exceeded that mark in fWAR last season (Jacoby Ellsbury, Jose Bautista, Matt Kemp). The starters should be pretty solid, but the O's need more than that from their "stars to be competitive. With a rough go at the position players "done", here's where they stand:



That's a total of 17.6 WAR, but it's likely that some players not listed (who will tend to be more replacement level) will get playing time (knocking the total down, maybe closer to ~16). The offense should be middle of the pack again, and hopefully the defense isn't quite as bad (though it will still probably be below average - and I may have been a little too kind in that regard). That the position players are definitely the strength of this teams is, well, kinda sad.

The first round of 2012 Orioles projections takes a look around the starters in the infield (plus DH). A few of these players probably won't get as many plate appearances as I attributed to them, but it shouldn't take too huge a difference.

Matt Wieters (C):

525 PA, .270/.337/.446, +5 fielding, 4.0 Wins Above Replacement

There's some mild concern that Wieters won't be able to maintain the power production he showed last year - he went from 11 homers to 22 - but a plus hitting Gold Glove caliber catcher is very valuable. He's the team's best player, and he could very well beat this projection and turn into a star player.

Chris Davis (1B, 3B, DH):

575 PA, .248/.297/.414. -4 fielding, -0.2 WAR

Frankly, if Davis is this bad then I have a hard time seeing him getting this much playing time. I'm assuming he'll get every chance to produce though. Lots of K's, poor defense, and not nearly enough walks or homers to make up for it. Replacement level players should be freely available - no reason to give up assets to acquire them.

Robert Andino (2B, SS):

550 PA, .258/.315/.348, +2 fielding, 1.0 WAR

If Andino can walk 8% of the time again and post an above average BABIP, then he could push closer to 1.5 wins. Better as a utility infielder than as a starter, but given the way the roster is currently constructed he's probably the team's top second-baseman.

Mark Reynolds (3B, 1B, DH):

625 PA, .218/.320/.460, -10 fielding, 1.4 WAR

There will be a lot of strike-outs, homers, and walks. If Reynolds gives back close to 30 runs with the glove again, he'll be a replacement level player. Hiding him at DH once in a while will help.

JJ Hardy (SS):

500 PA, .259/.310/.427, +5 fielding, 2.6 WAR

I'd be very, very surprised to see Hardy hit 30 home runs again, but he doesn't need to to be a valuable player. I hope the plate discipline numbers come around though, and that he stays healthy.

Wilson Betemit (DH, plus filling in some places on the infield):

550 PA, .255/.327/.408, -2 fielding, 0.5 WAR

If Betemit repeats his .391 BABIP from last year, that would be great. If Buck picks his spots with Betemit a little better, then his rate stats should be better (though I'm not sure he'll be more valuable, since it'll be in less playing time obviously). Nice to see someone who will take a walk, but I still don't get the two years.

So that's six guys, totaling just 9.3 WAR. By comparison; Alex Rodriguez in 2007 - 9.8 fWAR. Wieters is good and Hardy is solid, but the rest of the group, well, partially explains why this is a last place team. And the youngest player from the "also-rans" - Davis - is probably the worst of the bunch.

Blogging's been pretty light recently because, well, "pitchers and catchers soon to report" hasn't brought with it the usual sense of excitement. The Orioles will obviously not be very good this year - not new - but things also seem relatively boring. Despite people sometimes saying to the contrary, I've tended to be an optimist about the O's in recent years ("maybe they'll get to .500!", "maybe the pitching won't be awful!", etc.) - I don't think it's been really likely, like some, but I've at least held out hope that those were real possibilities. That just isn't coming in 2012.

Another year of Nick Markakis not bouncing back in 2011 means that hope of it ever happening is pretty much gone. Matt Wieters and JJ Hardy had nice seasons in the power department, but expecting improvement from either seems somewhat doubtful* (and regression from the latter is fairly likely). Whereas last Spring there was some hope that Brian Matusz could turn into an above average starting pitcher, now I'm left hoping that he can just be a major leaguer again. It'll be interesting to see how Wei-Yin Chen and Jason Hammel do, I guess, and if Zach Britton can build on his rookie season - but the stakes for the former pair are relatively low, and it's unfair to expect Britton to become the ace of this stuff already (though it may happen, perhaps more by default than anything else).

* Projections for 2012 coming soon - guess off the top of my head says 70 wins.

Beyond the issues at the major league level, the farm system seems pretty shallow after the first few names (looks like I underrated Machado at the time of his draft, and Bundy might be up quicker than I expected). I'm not as down on Dan Duquette as some, since the really important things he can be doing now involve rebuilding the organization as opposed to signing Prince Fielder to a stupid contract to make them a slightly better 5th place team in 2012. Things still don't look too promising in the short term though - something ESPN's power rankings of teams' prospects over the next five years indicated (note; Insider required).

Jim Bowden, Keith Law and Buster Olney got together to rank all 30 teams based on five categories; major league talent, minor league talent, finances, management, and mobility (sort of the liquidity of their player assets, I guess). The Orioles, not terribly surprisingly, came in 30th (just behind the Astros, who I certainly would have said are in worse shape before their recent front-office turnover - now it's a toss-up).

The main culprit, also not terribly surprisingly, is management. I've defended Peter Angelos against people criticizing him for not wanting to "open up the purse strings", since adding a huge contract or two to a last place team isn't going to do a lot in the AL East, but his impact on baseball operations seems to have been bad enough that the Orioles had trouble even finding someone who wanted to be the GM. The unfortunate part is that even if you give the O's a competent management score (say, 15), that still only launches them up just passed the Brewers into 21st place. The team is behind the eight-ball in too many places to be competitive in the near term without huge amounts of luck.

Here's how they'd rank in the five categories, just in the AL East in my opinion - the ranking for 1-20 aren't out yet):

Major League Talent: 5th. Probably not too too close to the Jays.

Minor League Talent: 5th. Maybe within striking distance of 4th (or even 3rd!) but the O's need Machado and Bundy to hit (and their history of developing prospects in general isn't exactly encouraging).

Finances: 4th, ahead of the Rays. Depending on how Toronto would support a contending Jays team, maybe the O's get up there with them. Clearly behind Evil Empires I & II though.

Management: 5th. I'd go 6th or 7th if I could think of some snarky stuff to put in front of them. The gulf between 5th and 4th (Yankees maybe?), seems pretty massive.

Mobility: 4th, ahead of the Yankees. Could argue maybe ahead of the Red Sox.

That is not a particularly cheerful next five years. But! These things can change. If Dan Duquette gets free(ish) range, and turns out to be a more forward-thinking GM than his long time spent away from the game would indicate, then it's not unreasonable to think a true-talent (ie, not fluky) winning Orioles team could be coming down the bend. Maybe not this year, maybe not next year, but perhaps some time before Matt Wieters Jr. is the team's starting catcher. For now we more or less have to be content with whatever little victories we can find (maybe Matt Antonelli will post a .330 OBP!).

I thought the Orioles should have been trying to trade Jeremy Guthrie (during the deadline last year, if possible), given his age and proximity to free agency, but I never thought the team would do it given that Guthrie - though not exactly an Ace by any stretch of the imagination - is the only pitcher on the club they could count on to be productive (ie, he's their ace). But I guess Dan Duquette felt comfortable enough with the thirty or so #4/5 starters on the depth chart to move Guthrie, who'll be going to Colorado in return for pitchers Jason Hammel and Matt Lindstrom. This seems like not at all the type of return the Orioles should have been looking for (though that's not the same thing as saying they didn't get enough back).

Honestly, Guthrie isn't worth a King's ransom on the trade market. He's going into his last year of arbitration, and was going to be paid $8-10 M*, which cuts into his value. As a good but not great pitcher - he's been between 2.1 and 2.6 fWAR in four of the past five seasons - his production is worth something in the neighborhood of $12.5 M for the season (sure there's aging and injury risk to consider, but Guthrie also posted his best strike-out rate since 2008 last year (still only 5.6 K/9) and has shown a relatively consistent ability to beat his peripherals - I'm not uncomfortable calling him a 2.5 win pitcher for the purposes of this exercise). It is interesting that the Rockies have added yet another flyball pitcher to their staff - we'll see how that works out.

* It's possible that the arbitration issue - the Orioles filed at $7.25 M and Guthrie at $10.25 M, and it looked like there might not be any sort of agreement - may have played into the move. Guthrie actually settled with the Rockies for $8.25 M already.

Jason Hammel is a 29 year-old right-handed (mostly) starter, who will be a free agent after the 2013 season. He was very good for the Rockies in 2009 and 2010, striking out around 7 batters per nine and walking just over 2, but things fell off last year (5 K/9, 3.6 BB/9). He's been able to get some groundballs though, which is nice (45% career). Hammel has actually been sort of an anti-Guthrie, with a career BABIP allowed of .314 and a 4.99 ERA but a 4.38 FIP and 4.27 xFIP. By comparison, the starter the O's traded away is at 4.19/4.68/4.61. It's entirely possible that Hammel and Guthrie are similarly good pitcher, with the ERA favoring Guthrie while the "advanced" stats favor Hammel (tERA says Guthrie 4.82, Hammel: 5.09 while SIERA says Guthrie: 4.60, Hammel: 4.37, for what it's worth). If the Hammel of old shows up in 2012, there's a good chance the Orioles will have actually upgraded their rotation.

Hammel is a four-pitch pitcher, who leans heavily on his ~93 mph fastball and compliments it with a slider, curve, and a change.  The heater looks like it gets a bit of extra sink, which makes sense with the groundballs. The breaking-balls also seem to have pretty good movement, though they're not big-time strike-out pitches. The whiff rates on his offerings:

Year	Fastball	Slider	Curve	Change	Overall
2009	12.70%	23.40%	46.80%	31.90%	21.50%
2010	11.70%	27.30%	29.70%	18.60%	17.50%
2011	10.40%	27.60%	26.20%	26.10%	16.80%

Given those numbers, it might be fair to say that Hammel should have struck out more than 5 batters per nine last year, but also should have struck out fewer than 7 per nine the year before. I guess we'll see next season.

After two years at 3.9 fWAR followed by one at 1 fWAR, calling Hammel a two win or so pitcher doesn't seem too unreasonable. He's set to make $4.75 M in 2012, and with decline, salary inflation, arbitration rates, and all that factored in, should give the O's around $6-7 M in surplus value over the next two years.

Matt Lindstrom is a soon to be 32 year-old right-handed reliever. For a dude who throws 96-97 mph (that's average fastball velocity), he doesn't generate a lot of strike-outs (just 7.2 K/9). He does get some groundballs though (47% career) and isn't too too wild (3.4 BB/9). While he'll miss some bats with his four-seamer and his curve (but not an ungodly amount), his sinker tends to meet the bat and that's partially why his punch-out numbers aren't so impressive. Career 3.81 ERA, 3.48 FIP, 4.03 xFIP (solid if unspectacular numbers).

Lindstrom is already under contract, making $3.6 M in 2012 with a $4 M option for 2013. That seems pretty fair for a guy who's averaged about 0.7 fWAR for his career, so there's probably not much surplus value (if any) to be had here. It does mean that Kevin Gregg has another pitcher to beat to get back to the 9th inning though, which I imagine will make some fans happy.

So the trade looks like a mild win for the Orioles on paper - they pick up a year of team control on a (maybe) relatively equivalent starter (with some upside?) and add an interesting arm to their pen. Much like with the Koji Uehara trade though, I don't understand the point. Maybe it makes the team better in the short run by a couple wins if things work out well, but it leaves things in the same shape they were post 2013, which is where the organization should be looking anyway. They can finish in 5th place with Guthrie, with Hammel/Lindstrom, or with neither. Trading Jeremy Guthrie was a good idea, but I don't particularly like the execution - a potential opportunity to add depth to a shallow farm system was wasted*.

* So, it seems like Dan Duquette may have tried to do this and was unable:

""We didn't have any offers of young prospects for Jeremy,"  Duquette told reporters".

If that's the case, then I guess I'm more OK with the deal - as I said, it's not a bad return, with at least some upside. Could the O's have gotten actual prospects last year though? Who knows (and that obviously isn't on Duquette). Maybe they could have gotten something at the deadline this year, I guess, but it's not unreasonable not to want to take that chance (and end up with nothing). Non-zero chance that Hammel and/or Lindstrom has a solid year and can be traded for something.

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.