The Orioles have singed infielder Matt Antonelli to a contract, presumably for the minimum as it's a major league deal. If that's the case, I like the move. The former top prospect no longer has the ceiling he once did at age 26, but with Brian Roberts potentially not being able to play it's nice to have some decent depth (gives the team extra flexibility with Robert Andino and Ryan Adams around as well). And Antonelli brings some needed on-base to the club. He hit .297/.393/.460 for the National's Triple-A affiliate last year. His career numbers at that level are .237/.347/.369. The average is low largely due to relatively few home runs (19 in 273 games) to go along with a BABIP of just around .275. He didn't strike out all that much (around 16% of the time), and managed to keep his OBP up by walking over 13% of the time.

Antonelli's only gotten 65 career plate appearances in the big leagues - batting .191/.292/.281 - and that came back in 2008. He's probably not going to hit for a high average or show much pop (he'll get some doubles and triples and could maybe crack double digits in homers if he started every day), but if he's able to draw some free passes and play OK defense (his minor league Total Zone numbers aren't great; -8 runs per 150 games at second and -3 run at third in a much lower sample size) then he could provide above replacement level production (probably topping out at around 1 WAR). The report that Antonelli is expected to compete for the third-base job seems a touch off, but he's really not that different from Chris Davis* there in overall value (or Mark Reynolds, if he brings the -30 run defense again). Guess we'll see how that plays out.

* This shows why the Koji Uehara trade bothered me. A similarly valuable play - trading SLG for OBP - was picked up so easily in the off-season. Why actually trade a valuable asset for Davis instead of getting some pitching prospects?

To say I was not a fan of the Vlad Guerrero signing is probably an understatement. It was pretty bad at the time, and actually managed to turn out even worse than I had expected (but he had a track-record!):

	Projected	Actual
PA	550	590
BA	.291	.290
OBP	.336	.317
SLG	.467	.416
wOBA	.346	.318
BB%	5%	3%
K%	12%	9%
HR	22	13
BABIP	.300	.302
Defense	N/A	N/A
WAR	1.1	0.0

Vlad didn't draw a walk until May 3rd, which was awful but amazingly not even the longest streak to start the season (Chicago's Brent Morel went till the 29th - 117 PA to Guerrero's 115*). The lack of walks wasn't too surprising given his reputation, and Vlad did stay true to form by swinging at pitches out of the strike-zone more often than anyone in baseball (according to FanGraphs). The best part of it all (or worst, depending on perspective), is that for the first time in his career he actually had more double play (23) than walks (17). That ratio (1.35 to 1) is the 17th worst of all time**. Vlad's lucky he still makes a lot of contact and keeps his average up, or his OBP would really have been terrible.

* The third longest streak was... Felix Pie (99 PA).
** Tops is former Oriole Deivi Cruz, who was at 1.92 (25 to 13) in 2000 for Detroit.

Perhaps worse than all the outs - which were expected - was the lack of power. Vlad's ISO dipped to .126, and the 13 longballs were his fewest since 1997 (his rookie season, where he had only 354 PA). He put the ball on the ground a lot - almost 50% of the time - but even when he elevated it he didn't do much damage. Vlad's home run per fly ball rate dropped to just 8%, compared to 16% for 2002 to 2011 total (and 15% last year). Perhaps a slower bat made it harder for him to get around on the ball, since only 16% of his flyballs went to left, whereas it was 29% for '02-'10. On fastballs in particular, it seems he rarely drove the pitch passed medium-depth left-field; in 2010, even, that was more frequent. Of his 13 home runs, 7 were pulled - but only 3 of those ended up going more than 400 feet. Overall, Vlad's average home run distance fell from the 405-410 foot range it had been in to just over 390 feet. He just appeared to be a shell of his former self.

A designated hitter who doesn't walk or hit for power is... likely to find himself out of baseball in short order (as Vlad's replacement level production for something like 17 times what it should cost would indicate). Early in the season I said that I looked forward to the day when O's fans would realize that JJ Hardy was, at this point, a superior player to Vladimir Guerrero. The pull of the FVHOFRCUH was strong, but it seems like everyone eventually got there. It's unfortunate it ended up being so clear, given that Vlad was such an exciting player to watch in his prime. In 2011 it was mostly painful seeing him wave at pitches way at of the zone while so rarely making up for it with something positive. But hey... remember that time he got a hit on a pitch that bounced? It was against the Orioles (in 2009), but still pretty awesome.

The Orioles brought Koji Uehara back on a one-year contract last season, making him the team's best reliever but (1) not giving him the closer's job (he totaled exactly 0 saves) and (2) giving him less money than Kevin Gregg got.

Koji rewarded the team by not only staying healthy, but being his usual awesome self, posting a 1.72 ERA, 2.56 FIP, and 2.45 xFIP. Uehara struck out 11.9 betters per nine, while only walking 1.5 for the Birds - the man would be nearly unbeatable if he didn't give up so many flyballs (and, therefore, home runs). That last part was an issue after he was dealt to Texas - in a move that gave the O's good value but which I didn't like in principle- as his home run per flyball rate more than doubled to 25% and he gave up a homer about every 3-4 innings. Still, with his 23 K:BB ratio for the Rangers (not a typo - 23!), his xFIP there was 2.03 despite an ERA over 4.

I wrote about Koji's ability to generate whiffs despite only throwing 88-89 mph earlier in the year - you can check that out here - and it really is amazing. Heck, it's allowed him to post the best strike-out to walk ratio in the history of baseball* at 7.23 (and that's by a fair bit too - second place is 5.63).

* Since 1890, min. 100 career IP.

It was unfortunate that Koji was left off Texas' roster for the World Series, as watching him pitch was one of the fun parts of being an Orioles fan in recent years - and though I didn't want the Rangers to win (or the Cardinals, frankly), it would have been nice to see him get a ring. With his innings threshold crossed, the $4 M vesting option for 2012 was picked up so it looks like (barring a trade) Uehara will be staying in AL West for a full season. If he remains just as effective as he was this year though, I'd be open to bringing him back to Baltimore for 2013 (as long as he's cheap and doesn't require giving up a draft-pick to sign, of course).

I said the following about the move earlier this week:

"Bringing Dan Duquette in as the GM seems... fine. He's done some OK things in the past, but that was a long time ago. Could be worse, I guess (Dave Littlefield, for example). The bottom line is that the organization is in awful shape, and it's not terribly likely that there will be a significant difference between Duquette and someone else (who would take the job) over the next three years (as the O's look set to continue being a 5th place team given the relative lack of major league talent - especially pitching - and the weak farm system). It's kind of depressing."

But hope springs eternal, and the O's are so often like Lucy with the football; after hearing Duquette's press conference, I'm kind of excited again. Good things I heard:

He talked about Early Weaver and OBP; every GM should certainly understand and appreciate the importance of the latter, though it getting a shout-out isn't a bad thing. And it probably wouldn't hurt if everyone in the organization read Weaver on Strategy, as Duquette suggested (while ignoring Weaver's use of pitcher-batter match-up stats).

Regarding the budget (thanks to Eat More Esskay at Camden Chat for transcribing):

“I don’t think I’ll have any troubles getting players to take my money. You have to work harder and smarter when you don’t have the resources of the top two clubs – build up inventory of the farm system, core players coming to MLB team. Team that has the best farm system will compete year in and year out. The value you create does not have to be created by the money you spend. Signed int’l players that went on to be very very valuable players. Scouts ID’d talent, player development staff brought them through."

Scouting and player development were the terms of the day. You don't need to spend $200 M to field a competitive team (though it surely helps).

Regarding signing a big free agent:

"My success in FA market was in players to complement the team. When your club’s in a position to go over the top, that’s the time for the FA market. I don’t know that it’s terrific use of club’s resources to sign FA just to say “I’m signing free agents!” I believe that Oriole fans know our best players will have to come through farm system."

Exactly right. Signing Prince Fielder to get to 76 wins doesn't really do anything.

Regarding international scouting:

"I believe in international scouting. I have good contacts. I have a plan I’m putting together for the club. We’re going to value-based markets where the players are. I’ve got people chomping at the bit to come over and help us."

Maybe once he sees the research the O's did showing international prospects were poor value he'll change his mind. I hope not (unless the research was actually much better than I'm giving it credit for, not having seen it).

Regarding playing in the AL East:

"That’s the challenge of the job. We’re gonna bring in good players, build our team from the ground up. Gonna have to work harder and smarter than teams with huge piles of resources. It can be done. I learned in a small market, applied my skills in a small market. If you focus on player development, you can build a strong team.”

The Rays (who he referenced previously) are a decent model, that the O's can emulate and then add cash to.

Regarding funding for scouts:

"It’s resource allocation. The O’s resources have been appropriate. It hasn't been money, it’s been getting the return of players for that money. That’s where I’m going to apply my capability."

Return on investment is important, obviously, but I don't think it's unfair to suggest that the team needs not just "better" but "more and better" in that area.

So, there was a lot of good stuff said. It's left to be seen if Duquette is able to follow this up with appropriate actions. Even if this is the philosophy he wants to implement (which I support as necessary, if not completely sufficient), it's still unclear if he'll have the full authority to do so.

When the Orioles traded for Mark Reynolds, I thought it was an OK move. Reynolds is better than his batting average might suggest, but worse than his home run totals would. Dealing a reliever (even a cheap one like David Hernandez) for a starting position player is usually solid though.

In several aspects, the projections for Reynolds were pretty close. Not towards the bottom of the table though.

	Projected	Actual
PA	600	620
BA	.229	.221
OBP	.328	.323
SLG	.468	.483
wOBA	.345	.348
BB%	12%	12%
K%	35%	32%
HR	34	37
BABIP	.311	.266
Defense	-5	-28
WAR	2.3	0.3

After several years of better than average BABIPs, Reynolds has been below .270 the past couple seasons (.257 then .266). That corresponds to the drop in his line-drive rate, from around 18% of balls in play to just 13% - that's not a great sign, and makes it hard to hit for a non-abysmal average when coupled with all the balls not being put into play (due to the K's).

In the strike-out department, Reynolds actually had his best year since his rookie season and managed to avoid the 200 K mark. His contact rate was up to 65%, which was still the worst in baseball (but not by as much as usual). Early in the season Reynolds strike-outs were way down - to like the 26-27% range - and he wasn't hitting with as much power (only 7 homers in April and May combined). In the season's last three months, he K'ed almost 37% of the time but had a home run per flyball rate of like 28% and went deep 22 times.

Seeing those mammoth home runs (he was 4th in the AL in "no doubt" homers, via HitTracker) was one of the more entertaining parts of the 2011 season, at least. And often it didn't even look like Reynolds was swinging all that hard. His average home run distance fell from ~420 feet to ~400 though, with more of a cluster down the left-field line and less opposite-field power - maybe just random fluctuations, but possibly slightly worrying.

The power and the plate discipline were impressive (Reynolds actually does a good job at swinging at strikes and not at balls - he just whiffs a lot), but the atrocious* defense cut his value severely. -28 UZR, -29 DRS, -25 TZ; that's 2 to 3 wins given away with the glove, which is the difference between a replacement level players and one who's average to a bit above. The significance of errors is sometimes overrated, but 26 of them (with a .897 fielding percentage) is certainly awful. That Reynolds made so many errors is even more amazing when you consider his lack of range (so, so many balls got by him at third - and at first too). It's almost unthinkable that he's really a -25 fielder, but if he is then a move to DH actually increases his value (since the difference in positional adjustment going from third to DH is like 20 runs over a full season). Moving Reynolds to first doesn't really help though, since he's still probably a poor fielder there but his bat doesn't play as well. Where he plays in 2012 may be determined by the other personnel on the team.

* This was somewhat amusing, given that when the O's picked Reynolds up, the announcers and others talked quite a bit about how much he had improved his defense recently. Woops.

There's still one guaranteed year at $7.5 M left on Reynolds' contract, and he could be worth that assuming he isn't the worst defensive player in baseball again. The $11 M option for 2013 doesn't seem likely to be great value to pick up but, on the other hand, it probably won't matter*.

* Bringing Dan Duquette in as the GM seems... fine. He's done some OK things in the past, but that was a long time ago. Could be worse, I guess (Dave Littlefield, for example). The bottom line is that the organization is in awful shape, and it's not terribly likely that there will be a significant difference between Duquette and someone else (who would take the job) over the next three years (as the O's look set to continue being a 5th place team given the relative lack of major league talent - especially pitching - and the weak farm system). It's kind of depressing.

Congratulations to Matt Wieters on winning a well deserved Gold Glove. The awards are obviously kinda dumb (Rafael Plameiro winning with only 28 games played at first, Derek Jeter having 5), but the certainly got it right in this case. Matt Klaassen from his recent Beyond the Box Score article:

"The overall leader is the same guy who has been running away with it all season, Matt Wieters, who dominated these leader boards like he was supposed to dominate major-league pitching immediately upon his promotion in 2009. He is not just the overall leader, but also the best at blocking pitches and catching base stealers according to these rankings. His offense may not ever reach expectations, but by itself it was good enough relative to his position without good defense. With his defense, he probably had a better than five-win season. Maybe it is not the way Orioles fans envisioned, but Wieters has become a star, even if it is mostly going unnoticed."

Final tally? More than 15 runs saved above average - about twice the 2nd place player. Dude's awesome, and I don't think this will be his last piece of hardware.

Nick Markakis winning - something that O's fans have been clamoring for for years - is less legit (-5 UZR, -4 DRS, -4 Total Zone). Markakis had a great arm, but it's seemed to me that it's more just good at this point. And his range has been only so-so for a while now. He'll make a diving catch every now and again, but a lot of those balls a truely great outfielder would have caught with the exceptional effort. Too many balls fall in around Markakis for him to really be worthy of a Gold Glove (I probably would have gone with David DeJesus).

JJ Hardy had a solid argument for the Gold Glove at the shortstop position, though I personally would have likely chosen Alexei Ramirez. Neither player won though (Erick Aybar).

Chris Tillman started the season in the starting rotation, and actually managed to hang around in the majors until the end of May. At that point, with a 4.69 ERA in 10 starts, Tillman was sent down to Triple-A. That's where he spent most of the season, before being called by up for a short stretch at the end of July (three starts - one good, two bad) and then sent back down to end the year. I had projected 120 innings of 5.00 ERA ball from Tillman, but he didn't manage to get there on either count.

In the minors, Tillman pitched 76.1 innings of 5.19 ERA ball. His old minor league strike-out ways look behind him (6.4 K/9) and he didn't even manage to keep the walks down (4.4 BB/9). He also gave up 17 home runs - an awful 2 HR/9. Given that level of production, it's actually a little amazing that he ended up getting called back up as opposed to sent down further.

In the majors, Tillman pitched 62 innings with a 5.52 ERA, 3.99 FIP, and 4.83 xFIP. His strike-out rate of 6.7 K/9 was actually easily a career high (if still below average) while his control looked more like 2009 and (the worse) 2010 with a 3.6 BB/9. A 1.8 K/BB ratio certainly isn't good, but it can be manageable. Unfortunately for his ERA, Tillman had a .348 BABIP against (which seems like largely bad luck - his line-drive rate wasn't too high and he did manage to induce a fair number of pop-ups). And unfortunately for his xFIP, he continued being an extreme flyball pitcher. That only 5-6% of his flyballs ended up leaving the yard - leading to a 0.7 HR/9 - is what led to the below-4 FIP and, thus, his 1 fWAR (amazingly, the 4th highest for a starter on the team).

Stuff-wise, the lowered velocities continued; his average fastball came in at just 89 mph (90 mph last year, 92 mph the year before). There were a couple starts in his second stint with Baltimore where he was more 91-92 (with an 11-2 strike-out to walk ratio to boot), but then in the third game of the set it was back down to 89-90. A twinkle of hope, and then... bleh. Interestingly, calls to develop more pitches don't seem to be helping either. Tillman not only had that (straight, slow) fastball, the (now straighter) change-up, and the big curve (which got left up in the zone a fair bit), but also an occasional cutter (which generated a solid 24% whiff rate) and a new slider. So that's five pitches - none of which seem that great at this point (the curve could be if he could get ahead in the count more and had better control of it).

Interesting note; for his career, Tillman has actually struck out left-handed batters at a much higher rate (6.6 K/9) than right-handed batters (4.9 K/9) and given up homers to them less often (1.1 HR/9 to 1.8 HR/9), though also walking them more (4.7 BB/9 to 3.2 BB/9). That's given him a reverse platoon split; 4.93 FIP and 4.93 xFIP versus lefties, and 5.75 FIP and 5.09 xFIP versus righties. Tillman's breaking-balls have gotten more whiffs against opposite-handed batters while his change-up has gotten more whiffs same-handed batters (fastballs were about the same) - not what one would usually expect. Maybe it's because the lefties see the change more than twice as often? Not sure, but it's the first time I think I've noticed the differences.

Still just 23 years old, it's not necessarily time to completely write Chris Tillman off. There are still sparks of talent every now and again - even if it's just for one game, or one inning - but to become even an average major league pitcher he'll need to either (1) walk many fewer batters and hope to limit home runs, (2) figure out a way to mix his pitches to maximize how many bats he can miss to up his strike-out rate, or (3) figure out where his stuff went and get it back. Seems like the odds of all three happening (which would be needed to get Tillman to what his perceived ceiling was when the O's acquired him) are extremely small; I'd gladly take just one (though given the O's player development, I'm not holding my breath).