Beer Tragedy Update

This landed in the Birds Nest inbox this afternoon...

From: The Brother In-Law
To: The Oriole Way
Subject: Amid fallen brothers, weary soldiers return home

After weeks of post-holiday uncertainty, we have finally welcomed home the brave Oregon brews sent to fight thirst in the East. The troops never met the front lines, however, as several casualties met the battalion along the journey.

Last week I returned home from work to find a familiar package at my door; one that had left town weeks ago. The brown box, carefully addressed to one The Oriole Way of Owings Mills, Maryland, was hardly recognizable. What can best be described as the "bottom left" of the package prominently displayed a large dent; the entire parcel was tightly wrapped in cellophane and the top was stamped "unclaimed." Immediately, I realized at least one of the tightly-wrapped metalheads had met disaster en route to the unit's destination.

I was able to find some time today to explore the damage and cut open the package, a process akin to the first steps into King Tut's tomb or the curious Pandora's first glimpse into a now-famous box. The first wave of smell hit me like a five iron as my mailbox key deftly separated plastic and tape, cardboard and paper. The putrid scent of mold and stale beer smelled like the bastard child of an Arizona State fraternity and Jeffrey Dahmer's refrigerator. As the key moved on and the interior of the box came into view, I found what I thought to be a full, intact bottle. In fact, it was a 22-ounce Lompoc Strong Draft with the cap still on but very little liquid still inside. This terrible fate was echoed by some other bottles deeper inside the package. In a flurry of bubble wrap, moldy liquid and bottles, I recovered the survivors:

22-ounce Deschutes Brewing Hop Trip
22-ounce Roots Organic Brewing Island Red
22-ounce Cascade Lakes Brewing India Pale Ale
22-ounce Oakshire Brewing Ill-Tempered Gnome Winter Ale
12-ounce Bridgeport Brewing Ebenezer Ale

These tough and delicious thirst warriors left Portland prepared to fight valiantly against cheap beer and dry NFL playoffs, only to return to base with scars of war not found in battle. The scars worn by these timeless heroes are those of The Oriole Way's empty pint glass and broken dreams. The revered veterans have been cleaned up and debriefed, will receive proper ceremony and are scheduled to return to duty at base camp within 24 hours.

Prosit.

Out of 11 brave soldiers, five survived. May the memory of the lost be honored with taps and a 22 oz salute.
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Free Agent Fail

Pick one of the following players for this season:

Player A: Age 29, $550,000 salary, CHONE Projected .344 wOBA, 3-year trend: .365, .333, .338 wOBA
Player B: Age 30, $4,500,000 salary, CHONE Projected .324 wOBA, 3-year trend: .368, .337, .291 wOBA

Let's also point out that Player A spent most of the past three seasons in the American League, and Player B spent all of the last three years in the best hitter's park in the National League. I am, of course, talking about Ryan Garko (Player A) and Garrett Atkins (Player B).

Free agent fail.
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Bloomberg Sports

Wow, this looks awesome.

As a financial industry professional with a Bloomberg terminal on my desk, I wonder if there is any way possible I can sneak this expense by our data services team. Hmmm... I trade FX, this uses PitchFX, do you think anyone will notice?
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2010 Baltimore Birds Nest Projection, Part I

Hard as it may be to believe, spring training is barely two weeks away. With that in mind, let’s take a look at how the Orioles roster is shaping up for 2010.

By my count, 23 of the 25 roster spots are spoken for. We can assume the Orioles will keep 13 position players and 12 pitchers. First, the position players:

CA: Matt Wieters, Craig Tatum
IF: Brian Roberts, Cesar Izturis, Miguel Tejada, Garrett Atkins, Ty Wigginton, Robert Andino
OF: Adam Jones, Nick Markakis, Nolan Reimold, Felix Pie
DH: Luke Scott

I’m giving the 13th spot to Robert Andino since he is the only back-up available to play shortstop and second base (except maybe Justin Turner), meaning that both Michael Aubrey and Luis Montanez are likely off the roster. At this point, I think it is once again fair to scratch our heads at the Garrett Atkins signing. Josh Bell, Brandon Snyder and Justin Turner are dark horses to make the team out of spring training, but each could make his Baltimore debut sometime in 2010.

On to the pitchers:

SP: Kevin Millwood, Jeremy Guthrie, Brad Bergesen, Brian Matusz, Chris Tillman
RP: Mike Gonzalez, Koji Uehara, Jim Johnson, Cla Meredith, Mark Hendrickson

Two relievers will come from this group: David Hernandez, Alberto Castillo, Matt Albers, Jason Berken, Kam Mickolio, Armando Gabino, and Wilfrido Perez. Waiting in the wings, the Orioles have Jake Arrietta, Brandon Erbe and Troy Patton who, while currently starting pitchers, could easily fill bullpen roles if no spots open up in the rotation.

In 2009, the Orioles allowed 876 (rank: 14, league average: 771) runs while scoring 741 (rank: 11, league average: 781) runs for a Pythagorean record of 69-93, five games better than their actual record of 64-98. Thanks to Dave Cameron, I know we can’t stop there. According to WAR, the Orioles received 15.8 WAR from their offense (including pitcher hitting) and 7.5 WAR from their pitchers. Since replacement level in 2009 was about 46 wins, the Orioles are actually about a 69 win team according to WAR. Thus, since the two methods agree, I’m very comfortable working with a baseline performance of 69 wins from the 2009 Orioles.

Thus, in order to make a run at .500 in 2010, the Orioles need to improve by about 120 or 130 runs. The fastest way for this team to make up those runs will be to improve the pitching staff, and my early analysis shows that they will do just that. Last season, Orioles starting pitchers threw 877.2 innings, compiling a cringe inducing 5.37 ERA and 1.52 WHIP. According to FIP, that ERA was no fluke either. The starters allowed 154 homers, walked 299 and struck out just 533; that’s a FIP of 5.38. Fortunately, the starting pitching projects to be much improved for 2010.

(Note: For each of the pitchers below, I’m taking a weighted average of three readily available projection systems: Bill James, PECOTA, and CHONE, except for Brian Matusz, who does not have a Bill James projection.)

Kevin Millwood: 174.0 IP, 194.7 H, 21.0 HR, 58.3 BB, 5.0 HBP, 113.3 K, 4.56 FIP
Jeremy Guthrie: 192.7 IP, 200.3 H, 27.0 HR, 62.0 BB, 5.7 HBP, 115.7 K, 4.87 FIP
Brad Bergesen: 148.7 IP, 164.7 H, 17.7 HR, 42.7 BB, 8 HBP, 74.3 K, 4.77 FIP
Brian Matusz: 109.5 IP, 117.5 H, 15.0 HR, 42.0 BB, 1.0 HBP, 85.0 K, 4.61 FIP
Chris Tillman: 137.0 IP, 143.7 H, 19.3 HR, 58.7 BB, 8.3 HBP, 112.0 K, 4.87 FIP
Combined: 761.8 IP, 820.8 H, 100.0 HR, 263.6 BB, 28.0 HBP, 500.3 K, 4.74 FIP

Now, normally a team will need about 975 innings out of its starting pitchers (162 * 6 IP = 972 innings), meaning the Orioles have about 200 innings unaccounted for in the above projections. While it would be awfully nice to give 75 of those to Brian Matusz (Matusz threw 157.2 including the minors last season) and Chris Tillman (161.2 combined), let’s instead be conservative and give those 200 innings a replacement level-ish 250 hits, 30 homers, 100 walks, and 130 strikeouts; that works out to a FIP of 5.35. Our new combined starting pitcher line: 961.8 IP, 1070.8 H, 130.0 HR, 363.7 BB, 28.0 HBP, 630.3 K, 4.87 FIP. Some quick subtraction shows that this year’s staff is 0.50 runs per nine innings better than last year’s version (5.38 – 4.87 = 0.51). That’s a savings of about 50 runs over last season. You’ll quickly notice that a 0.10 difference in FIP equates to 10 runs, or one win; keep that in mind when we start to do a bit of sensitivity analysis around these projections.

Moving on to the bullpen, the 2009 ‘pen threw 550.1 innings, posting a 4.83 ERA and 1.53 WHIP (613 H, 64 HR, 232 BB, 400 K, 4.49 FIP). Now, FIP is a bit less reliable for relievers, but it’s the best I can offer; plus, there doesn’t seem to be any clear bias in the data one way or the other. Let’s look at our bullpen projections for this season.

Mike Gonzalez: 60.7 IP, 50.0 H, 6.0 HR, 25.0 BB, 2.3 HBP, 64.0 K, 3.73 FIP
Koji Uehara: 58.3 IP, 60.3 H, 7.0 HR, 15.0 BB, 0.0 HBP, 44.7 K, 4.00 FIP
Jim Johnson: 63.7 IP, 68.7 H, 7.3 HR, 24.7 BB, 2.0 HBP, 41.3 K, 4.66 FIP
Cla Meredith: 65.7 IP, 73.7 H, 6.7 HR, 20.7 BB, 1.7 HBP, 41.3 K, 4.28 FIP
Combined: 248.3 IP, 252.7 H, 27.0 HR, 85.3 BB, 6.0 HBP, 191.3 K, 4.18 FIP

(Note: I'm not using the Mark Hendrickson projections since they seem to be giving him waaay too many innings. I'm just going to roll him into the replacement level below.)

To play a full season, a team needs 1,450 innings from its pitching staff. We’ve now projected 1,210.1 between the starting rotation and the top four relievers, meaning we need 240 more innings. We’ll give those a FIP of 5.00 (240.0 IP, 275 H, 30 HR, 120 BB, 160 K) since we would expect replacement level pitchers in the bullpen to be just a bit better than our replacement pitchers in the rotation (mainly because many of those replacement starters are going to see some time in the bullpen, and they're numbers out of the 'pen should be better than their numbers as starters). The combined relief pitcher line: 488.3 IP, 527.7 H, 57.0 HR, 205.3 BB, 6.0 HBP, 160.0 K, 4.58 FIP. Unfortunately, that’s right about the same level as last year’s bullpen.

Now, that does not mean this year’s ‘pen won’t actually be better than last year’s version. Mike Gonzalez should be a pretty fair approximation for the George Sherrill that was so impressive for the first four months of the season, and I’m very optimistic that Koji Uehara will take nicely to a bullpen role. If that happens, Dave Trembley should be able to use Johnson and Meredith in situations where they face better match-ups, and likewise for the remainder of the bullpen. In addition, last year’s pen actually allowed a bit more runs than their FIP would suggest. I’m comfortable projecting a 0.2 runs per nine innings improvement for the bullpen this year, or about 11 runs better than last season.

Adding up the rotation and the bullpen, here is the combined projected pitching line for 2010: 1,450.2 IP, 1,598.5 H, 187.0 HR, 569.0 BB, 34.0 HBP, 981.7 K, 4.77 FIP. That works out to about 775 earned runs allowed for the Orioles. Add in 35 unearned runs, and I project the club to allow a total of 810 runs for 2010. In other words, the Orioles figure to improve by about six wins on the mound in 2010.

Up next: Part II (The Offense).
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Projection Season Begins

The 2010 Projection Season is here! Baseball Prospectus pegs the O's for 79 wins, which is looking to be right about where I think the O's finish as well. I'm hoping to get my season preview up this weekend, but that is entirely dependent on finishing homework for Monday's and Tuesday's class.

Update, 7:58 PM: BP reports that there are problems with the data. I'll repost once they have it fixed.

Update, Feb 3, 7:20 PM: The link above should be to good data again. 80 wins for the O's.
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More on Miggy

Peter Schmuck loves it.

The veterans on this team want a chance to compete, and the fact that Tejada had 199 hits last year appears to outweigh any concerns about the negative aspects of his previous incarnation as an Oriole.

Well, maybe. But he also managed just 19 walks and 14 home runs while playing in the weaker league last season. I hope people aren't expecting the same Miguel Tejada that posted a .311/.362/.501 line in his four seasons with the Orioles.

Also, there's this:

The Orioles ranked fifth in the league in batting average last year but only 11th in runs, which is an indication that they are an RBI guy or two away from being a pretty good offensive team. Tejada's run-production potential isn't what it was when he drove in 150 runs for the Orioles in 2004, but he's still a difference-maker.

Egads. The O's were 8th in OBP, and 10th in slugging percentage. They don't need a good "RBI guy", they need a guy who can get on base and hit with some pop. At this stage in his career, it is unclear if Tejada (.313/.340/.455 in 2009) is that guy, regardless of his past RBI accumulations.
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First Base

With the signing of Miguel Tejada over the weekend, the Orioles appear to have finalized their roster for 2010. Tejada will play third, while Garrett Atkins will man first base. Given Atkins' shift across the diamond, I think it is worthwhile to reevaluate his acquisition.

As we saw when the Orioles signed him a few weeks ago, Atkins is probably a bit above replacement level as a third baseman. When moving over to first, however, he no longer benefits from the positional adjustment, pushing him darn near close to replacement level as a player. This might be excusable if there were no other options or Atkins was reasonably expected to improve in 2010, but he's 30-years old and coming off a truly awful year in the weaker league (and in a great hitters' park). I can understand the roll of the dice if Atkins is going to play third base; not so much if he's going to play first.

Rather, I would have liked the Orioles to sign Ryan Garko. He's two years younger, has played in the American League, and projects to post a higher OBP and ISO than Atkins. Both are right-handed hitters and could thus platoon with Michael Aubrey or Luke Scott. In fact, check out Garko's career split versus lefties: .313/.392/.495 in 485 plate appearances. Aubrey, in a small-sample size 122 Major League plate appearances, has a .283/.336/.487 line against righties. That seems like pretty decent production from a corner infielder put together on the cheap, no? (Full disclosure: Atkins is a career .301/.384/.486 against lefties, and was .268/.363/.428 in 2009). Mostly, I think the Orioles could have come up with a productive solution at first base for less money and less risk than paying Garrett Atkins $4.5 million.
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Miguel Tejada

Frankly, this is shocking. The 1-year, $6 million deal seems about right, and the type of player that Tejada is today is a good fit for the Orioles (experienced right-handed hitter that can play an infield corner), but I'm really surprised the club is bringing him back. If my feelings are any indication, the fan base was more than ready to move on. He was bad on defense, perceived to be both lazy and a malcontent, and his involvement in the Palmeiro fiasco seemed indicative of deeper clubhouse issues. Maybe this will all work out in the end, with Tejada being a model citizen while keeping the hot corner errr... hot for Josh Bell, but I can't think of very many signings that would be quite so controversial.

On a happier note, this means that the O's roster is pretty much set for the coming year and I can put the final touches on my season preview. I doubt I will get it done tonight, but should have most of it complete in the next few days.
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Relief Pitching

Back in the dark ages of 2006, the Orioles had a really bad bullpen (I know, hard to believe). A relief corps anchored by LaTroy Hawkins, Bruce Chen, Russ Ortiz, John Halama, and Todd Williams somehow managed to punch up a 5.27 ERA and 1.55 WHIP in 512.1 IP. In response, the club decided to spend big money on middle relievers in the free agent market: Danys Baez (3 years, $19 million), Jamie Walker (3 years, $12.0 million), and Chad Bradford (3 years, $10.5 million) received a combined $41.5 million. The results? Disastrous.

Over the past three seasons (and including the season and a half Bradford spent with Tampa Bay), those three "pitchers" (and I use that term loosely) were worth a combined 0.8 wins above replacement, with Bradford the only one earning positive returns. That's right, the Orioles paid $51.9 million per marginal win! Granted, the rest of the league wasn't so good either that offseason. Seven relievers (Baez, Walker, Bradford, Keith Foulke, Guillermo Mota, Scott Schoeneweis, and Justin Speier) received $80.3 million in guaranteed money and returned -0.8 wins to their clubs! I think it's safe to say that the free agent market is not a good place to go looking for wins from your bullpen.
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Links

A few links for your reading pleasure...

1) FanGraphs runs down the remaining free agent first basemen: Branyan, Delgado, Garko, Thome, Giambi, Blalock, and Tatis. I think Ryan Garko would be my preferred option out of that group, based on age, defensive abilities, and his recent success in the American League. Delgado would be a reasonable risk to see if he can bounce back from an injury plagued 2009.

2) Orioles Top 10 prospects, also courtesy of FanGraphs. This is a much deeper list than the pre-MacPhail years.

3) A rundown of recent Orioles drafts, from (you guessed it) FanGraphs. Notice that while many people criticized the O's for going cheap at the top, they signed quite a few guys to significant over slot deals last year. Additionally, the last time the club lacked a 2nd and 3rd round pick, it spent heavily on Wieters, Arrieta, and Tim Bascom. Remember when I panned the loss of a 2nd round pick on the Mike Gonzalez deal? Well, let's see how the Orioles spend the money saved by not having a 2nd round pick before passing final judgment.

4) One last FanGraphs item: Matt Klaassen discusses the Orioles surplus of young, talented outfielders. I'd still like to see how Nolan Reimold looks with a first baseman's mitt. It wouldn't have to be permanent, and there's no reason he couldn't still play 60 games in the outfield as sort of a mini-platoon with Pie and a day off every couple weeks for Adam Jones (with Pie playing in center those days).

5) The Orioles have been fairly quiet in the reliever market, signing one (Gonzalez), trading one away (Ray), and losing one to free agency (Hendrickson... maybe), but the bullpen should be much improved next year. Spencer Fordin has the rundown. He lists Uehara, Meredith, Sarfate, Albers, Hernandez, Berken, Mickolio, Lebron, Castillo, and Perez; ten guys who each have legitimate chances to be something from key late inning options to match-up lefties, from swing men to insurance in the minors. Throw in Jake Arrieta, Brandon Erbe, Troy Patton and maybe even a few others, and the Orioles could potentially have an above average bullpen. If Millwood allows the starting rotation to stabilize (with Guthrie, Matusz, Tillman and Bergesen) and Gonzalez takes the 9th inning, the Orioles could be much improved at run prevention. I'll have much more about this in the days ahead.
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