Orioles History

The One Royal Way blog (Twitter @OneRoyalWay) asked me to write up an introduction to Orioles history over at their site, and I was happy to oblige.  This looks like an excellent resource not only for Royals fans, but for anyone seeking out grassroots coverage of any of the teams around baseball.  I'm looking forward to checking out some of the new O's bloggers on his list.

Poll Results

I ran a poll a few weeks ago, but I'm not sure how scientific my results are.  For instance, my home computer never did show me that anyone else voted, but my work computer tallied away.  Regardless, O's fans are a pessimistic bunch: half the voters picked the O's to finish with the worst overall record, and the other half picked the club to finish with the second worst record.  Given the way the club has started the second half, I fear those who picked the O's to finish out of the top (bottom?) spot are a bit optimistic.  At least we don't have to play the Blue Jays tonight.

Jose Bautista

Jose Bautista has crushed the Orioles this season, posting a .326/.400/.884 line with six homers in just 50 at-bats.  It's safe to say that the former Oriole is a big reason why the O's are 0-11 against the Blue Jays this season.  More interestingly, though, Bautista has enjoyed a truly break out season at age 29, leading the league in home runs and posting 2.5 WAR in 400 plate appearances.  This has of course led to a great deal of analysis about whether or not his break out is "real" or simply a fluke.  R.J. Anderson has the latest piece at Bloomberg today.

Unfortunately, every single thing I've read about Bautista this season falls short in one important respect: no one has mentioned his path to the Majors.  In 2003, Bautista played 51 games at A+ Lynchburg where he posted a .242/.359/.424 line at age 22.  At this point, he had accumulated 990 plate appearances across the Gulf Coast, NY-Penn, Sally, and Carolina leagues.  Then, the Baltimore Orioles selected Bautista in the Rule V draft and jumped him straight to the big leagues.  In 2004, he received a combined 96 plate appearances with four different organizations.

Since he didn't stick in the Majors, Bautista returned to the Pirates in 2004, and the Bucs did the sensible thing and assigned him to AA in 2005.  There, he posted solid numbers, hitting .283/.364/.503 with 23 home runs in 507 plate appearances.  His development looked to be on-track.

In 2006, the Pirates jumped him to the Major Leagues after just 119 plate appearances in AAA.  Add in the 55 pa's he received in AAA in 2005, and Bautista had only 174 plate appearances at the highest level of the minor leagues.  Over the next four seasons, Bautista was largely a full-time player for Pittsburgh and Toronto, accumulating 1911 Major League plate appearances and posting a .242/.334/.412 line, equivalent to a 96 OPS+.  Certainly not great, but he was just a bit below average with the bat.  Add in a bit below average glove, and Bautista was only marginally more effective than a replacement player over that span.

Bautista's 2010 exploits have been well chronicled, so I won't rehash them here.  I do, however, want to raise an important question: how did Bautista's non-traditional path to the Major Leagues affect his long-run development?  Certainly, 2004 was a lost developmental year, and he also spent negligible time at AAA before his final promotion to the Majors.  Yet, all along the way, Bautista showed good plate discipline.  Should we really be so surprised by his break out season?  Let's throw out 2004, and also toss 2006,  Bautista's first full Major League season.  Would a 27-year old hitter with an 11.6% walk rate a 96 OPS+ in about 1500 plate appearances across three seasons, and who also showed power potential in the minor leagues, enjoying a break out really shock us?  For instance, Brian Roberts had nearly 1700 Major League plate appearances and an 83 OPS+ before his breakout 2005 season.

I don't know the answers to those questions, but I think they have important implications for player development.  The Orioles have tended to rush their young pitching prospects, and they definitely pushed Nick Markakis aggressively.  I don't think you can make a reasonable case that Josh Bell was big league-ready at the time of his promotion this year. While each player is obviously unique, how do aggressive assignments affect player development, in aggregate?

Is Bautista's 2010 season a fluke?  Quite possibly.  But given his handling during his key developmental years, I'm absolutely not willing to casually dismiss his power surge.

Second Half Poll

I've decided to run my very first poll here at the Bird's Nest; check out the sidebar and vote.  I'll report the results next week.

Question: Where will the Orioles select in the 2011 First Year Player Draft?

Here are two valuable resources for research:
coolstandings.com
baseballprospectus.com

Midseason Review

It's the All-Star break, and that of course means a celebration recap of the first half.  New to this year's review, each award gets a Twitter hash tag!

Most Valuable Oriole: Nick Markakis
Nick's .308/.395/.452 line is good for a .371 wOBA and 2.2 WAR.  He may only have 6 homers and 31 RBI but I'll take a league-leading 28 doubles, a 1:1 K:BB ratio and a 12.9% walk rate any day of the week.  And, for the record, Nick has a .316/.421/.408 line with runners in scoring position. #RBIfail

Jim Palmer Award (since Cy Young was a Red Sock): Brian Matusz
Slim pickins.  I considered Matusz, Guthrie, Berken, and Simon, and really, none of them deserve the honor.  I went with Matusz since he's just 23 years old, and when he's on, he's brilliant.  Maybe we should change this to the #JorgeJulioAward.

Rolaids Relief Award: Jason Berken
There's been no shortage of heartburn from the O's bullpen (for instance, the team has allowed an .842 OPS in the 8th inning, an .878 OPS in the 9th, and a mind boggling 1.001 OPS in extra innings), but Berken really does spell relief.  Across 50.2 IP, he's post a 1.95 ERA and 1.13 WHIP.  He began the season in a long relief role but has earned the right to pitch higher leverage innings.  A prime example of the way a former starter's stuff can play up in the bullpen. #ProjectingRelieverPerformanceIsHard

Biggest Bust Award: Garrett Atkins
That was $4.5 million wasted.  Too bad we didn't spend the money on some more scouts or something. #NeverSawThisComing

Biggest Bust Award II: Mike Gonzalez
Another $12.0 million well-spent.  At least he's on pace to void my prediction that he never pitches in an Oriole uniform again. #ProjectingRelieverPerformanceIsHardSoDon'tSpendBigMoneyOnThem

Biggest Disappointment: Matt Wieters
Finally, a category where we have lots of candidates from which to choose!  Nolan Reimold (now batting .215 in Norfolk), Adam Jones (.304 OBP), and Chris Tillman (two stints in Norfolk) have all disappointed in one way or another, but Wieters production is the most worrisome.  Expected to be the cornerstone of a revitalized lineup, he's instead batting a measly .245/.315/.357.  To my untrained eyes, he's looked overmatched at times.  At least his defense has received rave reviews. #BaseballIsHard

Newest Man Crush: Zach Britton
He's gotten ground balls nearly two-thirds of the time in Bowie and Norfolk and was one of the standout performers at this weekend's Futures Game.  Granted, allowing ground balls is a terrible strategy considering the Orioles infield defense, but maybe one day we'll get some guys with more range than the Babe Ruth statue out there. #FutureAce

Best Nickname: Alfredo Simon
#ShutdownSauce

Biggest All-Star Snub: Nick Markakis
No, he probably doesn't deserve to make the team without the one player from each team rule, but that's no excuse for Joe Girardi selecting Ty Wigginton instead. Since he clubbed two homers on May 15 to bring his OPS to 1.070, Wigginton is hitting .212/.303/.272 with just two home runs in 211 plate appearances.  A .562 OPS in 152 plate appearances from Garrett Atkins got him designated for assignment, but a .575 mark from Wiggy means he goes to the All-Star game.  I guess now would be a good time to point out that Oriole clean-up hitters are hitting a stout .229/.292/.315. #TimingIsEverything

In conclusion, the first half of the season has been a disaster.  The O's are just 29-59, but at least they're finally off the pace of the 1962 Mets.  The club is about to hire its third manager of the year.  The young talent has regressed.  There are serious questions about the ability of the coaching staff to develop Major Leaguers.  And attendance continues to dwindle.  But with bright spots like Nick Markakis and flickerings from Adam Jones, Brian Matusz, Jake Arrieta, Chris Tillman, Jason Berken, David Hernandez and Alredo Simon, there are still plenty of reasons to watch in the second half.

Trade Deadline Primer

If you're like me, you've noticed that Daniel Moroz at Camden Crazies hasn't recently been blogging quite as frequently as is usual.  Well, now I know why.  The 2010 Trade Deadline Primer is out, and it's an incredible piece work of work by Daniel and other bloggers from around the league.  Would you like to know which Major Leaguers are likely to be available from each of the 30 teams?  How about the prospects each team has to offer in return?  Or perhaps you're more interested in specific first basemen or shortstops the Orioles could chase at the deadline.  It's all there, plus rundowns of the first half for each team and essays from around the league.  This is a fantastic work from the analyst community, and a prime example of why I enjoy baseball on the Internet so much.  Check out the free version (about 1/4 of the book), or spring for the whole thing; I suspect it will be $10 well spent.

Zach Britton

In a year of disappointments, one major bright spot within the Orioles organization is the performance of Zach Britton.  The O's 3rd ranked prospect this offseason has been excellent at AA Bowie, racking up a 3.44 FIP (91.2 IP, 68 K, 28 BB, 4 home runs allowed) and an incredible 64.1% ground ball ratio.  Now, he's been called up to Norfolk, a promotion that he has certainly earned.  Understandably, this has caused speculation about whether or not we'll see Britton in Baltimore this season (assuming he keeps up his stellar performance in AAA, of course).  Britt Ghiroli sure seems to think its possible, but I'm a touch skeptical.

By my count, the Tides have 65 games remaining this season, meaning that Britton is likely to make about a dozen starts in the International League.  He's already thrown 91.2 innings across 15 games this season, and another 12 starts would likely add about 70-75 innings to his season total. Britton tossed 140.1 innings in 2009, and 153.0 in 2008, so I can certainly see the Orioles pushing him to about 160 or 170 innings this season.  As we all know, 91 + 70 = 161.  Would the Orioles bring Britton to Baltimore just for one or two starts, or perhaps a handful of relief appearances?  It's certainly possible, but I don't think that's the most likely scenario.  Britton is still just 22 years old, and the club handled young pitchers Brian Matusz and Chris Tillman very carefully in September just a year ago, shutting down the youngsters at the first signs of fatigue.  As a fan, I'd love to see Britton make it all the way to Baltimore this year, but I've got my money on a 2011 debut.

Mike Flanagan

I got into a good exchange with @CamdenDepot today regarding the potential re-re-hiring of Mike Flanagan as pitching coach.  He contends that the "current pitching development system the O's run is still the model Flanny put in place."  Since Flanagan was previously the pitching coach in 1995 and 1998, I naturally wondered if that covered the entire time between now and then, or if this was a relatively recent plan put in place during Flanagan's tenure as an executive (which began in 2003).  Since pitching busts like Matt Riley, Mike Paradis, Richard Stahl, Beau Hale and Chris Smith all hail from the intermediate time, I think it's important to ask just when the development program took effect.  I think Crawdaddy is arguing that most of the plan went into effect in recent years (and not in the late 90s), but since this is difficult to discuss over Twitter and it seems like an important part of the organization's direction, I wanted to open up a thread for discussion.  If you've got anything to add, please do!

Orioles Attendance

Yesterday, the Baltimore Sun had a big article stating that, despite the Orioles miserable start, attendance at Camden Yards has actually increased since last season.  Here's their assertion: "Even with the Orioles' ineptitude, attendance is up 9.5 percent, from 21,653 to 23,720, through 32 home games compared with the same number of games last year, according to Major League Baseball."  Technically, that is true, but it certainly doesn't tell the whole story.  The Sun does offer one caveat, noting that the Orioles have had an attractive slate of opponents in the early going, hosting "the Boston Red Sox in two weekend series, the Yankees in two midweek series and the New York Mets on a weekend,"  while at this point last year the club "had hosted two Yankees series — one on the weekend and one during the week — and no Red Sox games," but they did nothing to quantify the effect.  Since they couldn't be bothered, I will do so for them!

First, let's try and build a model that would predict attendance for any single game.  What sort of factors might you be interested in?  I identified several variables to test: 1) Day of the Week, 2) Attractive Opponent (defined as Yankees, Red Sox and Mets), 4) Opening Day, and 5) Summer (defined as between Memorial Day and Labor Day).  Now, obviously, you could also add in things like win loss record, game time temperature, and day game vs. night game, but I'm going for a quick and dirty model here (plus, this is the data I can easily access).  After running the regressions on 2009 data*, I came up the following statistically signficant variables (95% confidence interval): Attractive Opponent, Friday, Saturday & Sunday games, Opening Day, and Summer.  Thus, games taking place on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday do experience a change in attendance from Monday nights (the baseline case).  I think those results are very inuitive.  Here's the regression equation:

Attendance = 13,803 + AttOpp(12,185) + Friday(9,538) + Saturday(12,557) + Sunday(6,519) + OpenDay(22,617) + Summer(4,256)

Using that equation, we would expect attendance for the first 32 games of 2010 to be 25,889.  Instead, actual attendance came in 8.4% below that number.  So where did the Sun go wrong in its analysis?

First, all those attractive opponents make a huge difference.  In 2009, the Orioles played a total of 21 home games against the Red Sox, Yankees and Mets (average attendance of 32,747 including Opening Day), but had played just six of those games by the 32nd home date (average attendance 35,340); they've already played 15 games against those teams in 2010 and averaged just 28,299 fans.

Next, the use of 32 games--and not the calendar date--is also significant.  In 2009, the Orioles played home game number 32 on Thursday, June 11.  On Friday, June 12, the O's welcomed in the Atlanta Braves for the start of a summer weekend series that averaged 28,295 fans.  This year, home game 32 occurred on Sunday, June 13.  If you include that Atlanta series to normalize the date, the year on year comparison is less favorable, with the Sun's 2009 number moving from 21,653 to 22,222.

The use of game 32 (and the omission of another weekend series) highlights another important point: the day of the week.  The 2009 Orioles played 20 of their first 32 home games a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday; the 2010 O's contested just 17 of 32 on those days of the week.

Thus, when adjusting for opponent, day of the week, and the calendar, the Orioles 2010 attendance is almost assuredly running lower than last season, and I suspect that upcoming series (serieses? serieii?) against the Marlins, Nationals, Athletics, Blue Jays, Twins, Angels, White Sox, Mariners and Rangers (the O's next nine home series) will reveal just that.

*If you would like to see the data set, please email me.

Mainstream Media

I (and the rest of the saber community) do lots of mainstream media bashing, so I feel its equally important to point out when the media does something well.  Jeff Zrebiec did just that in his big feature on Nick Markakis this morning.  The money quote:

Overall, the Orioles are second to last in the AL in on-base and slugging percentage. They have the fewest walks in the league, and they see the fewest pitches per plate appearance (3.73). They also have the fifth-worst "chase percentage" in baseball in that they swing at 30.2 percent of pitches thrown out of the strike zone.

Perfect.  He used on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and plate discipline, and he did it in a way that is accessible to the casual fan.  Nowhere does he mention batting average, and he doesn't rail about the Orioles lack of clutch hitting (which is certainly a problem, but is more a symptom of their poor approach than the cause of their woes).  Thanks, Jeff.