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.

Offensive Disappointments

Dan Connolly asked yesterday "which Orioles hitter has disappointed you most?"  He lists lots of candidates: Luke Scott, Garrett Atkins, Nolan Reimold, Adam Jones, Cesar Izturis, and... Nick Markakis.  And one person picked Markakis!  How is this possible?  Markakis is currently hitting .312/.411/.486, numbers which are a career high in batting average, on-base percentage and just .005 shy of a career high in slugging percentage.  He has 11 doubles, good for third in the American League.  If you are disappointed in Markakis, it is because he only has 9 RBI.  But it's kind of hard to get any RBI when you're hitting behind a lead-off batter posting a .242 on-base percentage.  Which, of course, means that Adam Jones and his 3 walks in 128 plate appearances is the easy answer for most disappointing hitter.

The Orioles

Joe Posnanski is one of the best sportswriters around today:

The first Orioles game I ever attended was in 1990 at Memorial Stadium. It’s one of my favorite ever baseball experiences. The Orioles were already lousy then, but there was still the whiff of the great Baltimore teams in the air — Cal Ripken was at shortstop every game, Frank Robinson was managing the team, and you could park in front of somebody’s house (for a small fee) and walk through a neighborhood to get to the ballpark. 

Baltimore represented just about everything I knew that was good about baseball — growing up in Cleveland, where the team constantly did everything wrong, the Orioles were like a team from another planet. From 1970-85, they had the best record in baseball. They pitched great, and they played great defense, and they hit the three-run homer, and they ran the bases beautifully. The biggest dream I could come up with as a young journalist — this is absolutely true — was to be a sports columnist for the Baltimore Sun. The Orioles, I know, were the big reason for that.

A few years later, I saw the Orioles play at Camden Yards. And it was beautiful … but different. I loved the park. I thought it was spectacular, and I found it amazing that such a new place could feel old, could feel like a part of Baltimore baseball tradition. The Orioles were pretty good then too; the ballpark was a money-printing machine and those were the years when they tried to match payrolls with the New York Yankees. They reached the championship series in 1996 and ‘97. But the Orioles could not sustain it.

This year, they drew fewer than 10,000 fans for just their fourth home game of the season — a 5-1 loss to Tampa. They were about 14,000 the next game and just a few more than 10,000 the following. The Orioles lost both of those too. You can’t blame the fans, not after 12 consecutive losing seasons, not with the team stuck in a division with the Yankees and the Red Sox and even the Tampa Bay Rays (who play, God bless ‘em, quite a lot like those classic Orioles teams used to play). No, you can’t blame anyone, but it’s sad to watch a great baseball town lose heart.

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Bloggers on the Beat

MLB.com has a new beat blogger for the Orioles this season, Brittany Ghiroli. She was a contestant on last year's Prospectus Idol, which I think bodes well the perspective she'll provide.
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Really? A.J. Burnett?

The Baltimore Sun has Dan Connolly and Peter Schmuck debate whether or not the Orioles should sign Mark Teixeira. Connolly votes yes, and Schmuck votes no. Without getting into the merits of Connolly's argument, Schmuck votes no because the Orioles should instead spend the money on starting pitching, which he correctly determines the O's need desperately. However, he also correctly notes that CC Sabathia and Ben Sheets won't be signing with the Orioles. And thus he says the O's should go after A.J. Burnett. The same A.J. Burnett that will be 32 next season and who has only twice in his career pitched at least 200 innings. To be fair to Burnett, barring a late season injury, he is likely to exceed that number again in 2008. To be fair to the Orioles checkbook, Burnett also has a 4.51 ERA and 1.41 WHIP this season. Burnett signed a five year, $55 million deal with the Blue Jays after the 2005 season, but he has an opt-out clause this year. He is slated to earn $12 million each of the next two seasons.

Burnett would not opt out of his contract if he and his agent were not reasonably sure that they could get a deal that would pay significantly more--for significantly longer--than his current salary. And therein lies the problem. MASN conveniently just put up the following graphic tonight, showing just how well a few "recent" big-money free agent signings have worked out:

Kevin Brown: $105 mil/7 years
Darren Dreifort: $55 mil/5 years
Mike Hampton: $121 mil/8 years
Kei Igawa: $46 mil/5 years
Gary Matthews, Jr: $50 mil/5 years
Chan Ho Park: $65 mil/5 years
Richie Sexson: $50 mil/4 years
Mo Vaughn: $80 mil/6 years
Barry Zito: $126 mil/7 years

Quite simply, these huge deals almost never work out (Carlos Beltran, Pedro Martinez and Manny Ramirez are the only ones that come to mind), especially when injury-prone pitchers are involved. Schmuck is right to argue that the Orioles need lots of pitching; he's wrong that the Orioles should go after A.J. Burnett. I sincerely hope this is the last time he floats that horrible idea.

Roch Kubatko Update

Well, that didn't take long. Roch Kubatko will be joining MASN, where he'll cover the team through the new School of Roch blog. Good to see Roch will keep his excellent coverage of the Orioles alive, but I hope that MASN uses some better blogging software than the Sun.

Since MASN is team-owned, I wonder how much leverage he'll be given to write what he wants, and how MASN's expansion of coverage beyond its TV network will affect the access to sources that other media outlets will enjoy in their own reporting. Personally, I feel that the Sun has done an excellent job with its Orioles coverage and I hope that the team doesn't try to push that voice into a secondary role just to expand the value of its TV network.

Roch Kubatko

Roch Kubatko, of the famous (infamous?) Roch Around the Clock blog, is leaving the Baltimore Sun, and he says he's taking his blog with him. Much of why his blog is so popular is that he has reporter access to the team and can use that access to provide scoops and insider info unavailable to most of the online community. It will be interesting to see how his blog evolves now that it is no longer tied to the "old media" of the Sun. He'll still have his cell phone, so he can still work the phone lines, and he's very well liked by the PR staff of the O's. If he fails to (or chooses not to) land with another traditional media outlet, I hope the O's will still renew his press pass. This will be an interesting test for the O's media access policies in the age of the internet. I know Roch from my days with the Orioles and I wish him the best.