Recap of the Orioles/A’s Series and The Week Ahead

After losing the first 2 games of the series against the scorching-hot A’s, the Orioles, behind Wei-Yin Chen, were able to win the last game of the series 6 to 1. Chen pitched 5.2 innings and struck out 12. With the win, Chen improves to 9-6 on the year.

To recap the series the Orioles started the series against Oakland on Friday night, where Zach Britton faced off against A’s rookie right-hander Jarrod Parker. This game went back-and-forth, with the A’s getting off to a 5-0 lead by the 2^nd inning. However, the O’s rallied back with a homerun by Chris Davis in the 2^nd inning and a homerun by Adam Jones in the 5^th inning. Jones homerun put the O’s up 6-5. In the 6^th inning the A’s pinch hit Seth Smith for Johnny Gomes and Smith hit a base-clearing double to put the Athletics up 8-6. However, the O’s battled back in the 8^th inning and eventually took the lead 9-8. The A’s came up in the 9^th against O’s closer Jim Johnson, who has pitched extremely solid this season, and scored six runs off of him. The O’s fell 14-9.

In the second game of the series, Tommy Hunter squared off against Bartolo Colon. The game was kept scoreless until the 4^th inning, when smoking-hot A’s OF Yoenis Cespedes hit a two-run homerun off of Hunter. Hunter, who has been plagued by the long-ball all year, gave up another homerun to A’s 1B Chris Carter in the 6^th. The O’s lone run came in the 9^th inning when Nick Markakis homered.

Thankfully for the Orioles, Chen was able to put together a great outing today and Matt Wieters finally showed some sign of life with a three-run homerun in the 3^rd inning off of A’s success-story Travis Blackley. Recently-acquired Omar Quintanilla also homered for the O’s.

(Another note from the today’s game is that the Orioles started OF Lew Ford in left-field today and he batted 5^th. Ford hasn’t played in the big leagues since 2007, when he was a member of the Minnesota Twins. It’s great to see Ford make it all the way back to “The Show”.)

However, the two losses against Oakland did hurt the O’s in the Wild Card Standings. They are still 2.5 games back of Oakland and Anaheim.

The Orioles have some very crucial games in the upcoming week. If the O’s want to stay at the top of the playoff hunt they must win both series against the Yankees and the Rays.

The next week could really determine whether the O’s stay in the playoff hunt or return to their former ways of being at the bottom of the cellar in the AL East. 

Buck Showalter: Tactical Genius?

Jim Johnson's Dominance

Let's start this conversation by saying that this is going to be one of those stat-heavy posts.  In this case we'll be utilizing the win probability data from fangraphs, which you can find here.  The first point I'd like to note is that according to Win Probability Added, Jim Johnson is the best pitcher in baseball this season with a fairly sizable lead over Justin Verlander.  Here's an explanation of WPA if you're not familiar with the stat.  Not necessarily that important, just something interesting to think about as we look at the bullpen usage more in depth.

Buck Showalter's Bullpen Usage

The stat I really want to focus on is gmLI which basically gives an indication of how intense the situation is when the pitcher enters the game.  Using the same page from before we can sort the pitchers who have thrown at least 10 innings in MLB by gmLI.  If you want more info on Leverage Indices and how they work, click on the link in the first sentence of this section.

As you can see, Jim Johnson is tied for 9th in MLB with an average leverage index of 1.79 for the games he enters.  As stated in the fangraphs explanation, anything above 1 is an average leverage appearance, so that figure shows that Buck is using his best pitcher in the most critical situations.  Johnson's 1.79 leverage index leads the Orioles, but looking at the rest of the staff gives more insight into how Buck has used the bullpen.

If we sort out the Orioles' pitchers we can look at the average leverage index when each guy enters the game, and get an idea of who pitches in the highest leverage and lowest leverage appearances.  Johnson paces the O's with a gmLI of 1.79, followed by Strop at 1.71.  These two guys have pitched in the most crucial situations, and their performances have backed up Buck's aggressive usage.

The O's also have a bunch of pitchers between average leverage at 1.00 and 1.16, slightly above average.  From most to least these guys are: Ayala, Lindstrom, O'Day and Patton.  All of these guys have provided quality innings out of the bullpen, though these mainly come earlier in games which might play a role in their lower gmLIs.  At the opposite end of the spectrum Kevin Gregg and Dana Eveland bring up the rear with 0.81 and 0.60 gmLIs.  These are almost certainly a function of their usage, as Gregg rarely pitches in close games and Eveland is the de facto long-man coming in when a starter exits early.

What Does It Mean?

Well to assess the seasons these guys have had, we'll use a stat called ERA-.  Basically ERA- adjusts a pitchers ERA for their league, home park, etc.  For this particular stat a score of 100 would be league average, and the lower your number is the better.  Here are the ERA- stats (among other stats) for the O's pitchers:

Johnson, Lindstrom and Strop have absurd ERA- stats of 29, 31 and 34 respectively, showing that they've been absurdly better than league average to this point.  O'Day and Ayala both also have scores below 50.  This presents an opportunity for Buck to perhaps spread out some of the high leverage situations among these guys as well as they've shown the capability to handle it.  Will they be this good for the whole season?  Probably not.  What we have, and can hope to continue to see is that Buck using his pitchers well. I'm thinking of Buck putting Jim Johnson out there in tie games against the Phils and Yankees earlier this season rather than saving him for the "traditional save chances".

Buck has used the bullpen really well so far this season despite them having to throw a lot of innings.  That said, he needs to continue to manage the bullpen well to put guys in positions to succeed.  Using Johnson as he has allows him to utilize his best pitchers in the most critical situations - giving the O's the best chance to win.  Buck's decision on the lineup and who starts where might be questionable, but his usage of the pitching staff has been really solid so far.

Worst to First: Bullpen Improvements

No, I'm not talking about the Orioles winning the AL East this season.  Nor am I literally saying that they are going from worst to first.  This post is really more about one area where the team has shown vast improvement over last season.

Last season the Orioles bullpen ERA was 4.18, good for 4th worst in MLB, and 2nd worst in the AL behind those pesky Minnesota Twins.  Not to mention that the FIP of 4.31 that group posted shows we could have been even worse.  Those were good times.  No lead was safe, and excitement at the end of games was common (especially for other teams).

This season however, things are looking up.  The bullpen has an ERA of 2.25, the 4th best mark in MLB this season and 2nd best in the AL behind that team from New York.  Granted, FIP calculations (the O's bullpen has a FIP of 3.78 this season) suggest that the 'pen is in for some regression.  Despite this, the bullpen has impressed, and here's how they've done it:

Kevin Gregg

Let's just move on... nothing to see here.

Troy Patton

Oh Buck.  Patton versus left-handed batters: 13 batters faced, 3 hits, 1 ER, 1 BB, 3 Ks.  Patton versus right-handed hitters: 18 batters faced, 6 hits, 3 ER, 1 HR, 0 BB, 0 Ks.  If we would stop putting Patton in against right-handed hitters he might be able to bring that 4.91 ERA down.

Pedro Strop

Strop has been a pleasant surprise thus far as I imagined he'd have a few more growing pains than he has.  He's sporting a 2.25 ERA with a 2.45 FIP and 2.79 xFIP to prove it's not a fluke.  Good stuff.  He's also striking out a batter an inning and getting 78% groundballs.

Darren O'Day

O'Day is sporting a 1.29 ERA, mostly as a result of his phenomenal peripherals.  O'Day has K and BB rates of 9 and 2.57 batters per 9 innings respectively, and has stranded 100% of the runners on base against him.  I would also expect his 47% GB rate to come up a bit meaning he might be able to sustain some of this success.

Lindstrom, Ayala, Johnson

These three are currently posting a combined ERA of 0.00 over 21 IP.  Ironically, Johnson has pitched pretty poorly, with a low K rate and a high BB rate, but that hasn't caused him to slow down as he leads the AL in saves.  I obviously don't expect all 3 to finish the season with 0.00 ERAs, but thus far they've been impressive.

At this point a perennial weakness looks like it might be a strength for this team.  Honestly, I wasn't sure about the bullpen heading into the season, but 3 of the pickups made this offseason have turned out pretty well so far.  Worst to First, one part of the team at a time.

Guest Post - Keeping Up With Your Oriole's News: Jim Johnson Looks Sharp vs. Pirates

Tonight we have a guest post from one Mr. Richard Broadway of Birdz Bullpen.  Richard does some really good work keeping O's fans updated on all the latest Orioles notes and his site is one any O's fan should check out.

- Jeff

BRADENTON, Fla.

As you are keeping up with your Oriole News:

Saturday afternoon, reliever Jim Johnson tossed a scoreless eighth inning and looked sharp in doing it. Saturday was the first time this spring that Johnson has thrown on consecutive days.

“I thought JJ had his best outing of the spring,” manager Buck Showalter said. “The biggest thing is the location. You can tell when he is locating the ball, he feels good about himself. I think that second day in a row did him well.”

Johnson was clocked at 94 mph during a 19- pitch inning, which he also picked up a strikeout, and then Showalter said that it was good to see Johnson back to his old self.

“There was some unknown. He went through a little bit of an offseason that he has never done before,” said Showalter. “Like I said before, I always feel like he is going to get there, it was just a matter of time. And that was real encouraging today. ”

“A Call to the ‘Pen”

As 2012 approaches it looks like the Orioles bullpen is pretty much set. Last year the O’s bullpen was not terrible, but not great either. Yes, they did have a 4.18 ERA, but some players did shine however, especially pitchers Jim Johnson and current Texas Ranger Koji Uehara. Johnson appeared in 69 games for the O’s last season and had the highest WAR for any pitcher in the bullpen of the O’s, 1.6, and he also finished with a 2.67 ERA. The latter had a 1.72 ERA with the O’s as well as having 11.87 K/9.

With 2012 come new goals and new faces. Like I mentioned earlier, Uehara is no longer on the Orioles after being traded on July 30^th to Texas for Chris Davis and Tommy Hunter. Some new faces include Tsuyoshi Wada, Dana Eveland and Darren O’Day.

The Orioles have a lot of options for the bullpen with this season and these are who I predict to be the main contributors (in no particular order):

- Tsuyoshi Wada

- Brad Bergesen

- Tommy Hunter

- Darren O’Day

- Alfredo Simon

- Pedro Strop

- Kevin Gregg (pictured at the top)

- Jim Johnson

A few of the pitchers above do have some starting experience and will provide value as swingman, especially Wada, Bergesen, Hunter, and Simon.

Even though a lot of people predict Wada will be in the rotation, I expect him to be in the bullpen for the majority of the year. With the crossover from Japan to the Majors, I expect it to put a little wear-and-tear on Wada’s arm. He almost reminds me of Koji Uehara, who started off in the rotation, but ended up in the bullpen due to injury.

Relievers Pedro Strop and Darren O’Day will provide decent value for the O’s in the middle-to-late innings of the game, especially the 6^th and 7^th innings. Bill James predicts Strop to finish with 30 innings in 2012, with a 3.90 ERA and a 9.60 K/9 and a 4.5 BB/9. The key for Strop will be to limit his walks and to be able to control his off-speed pitches, such as his slider and his splitter. O’Day‘s main concern is staying healthy. In 2011, O’Day hit the Disabled List twice- the 60-Day DL with a torn labrum in his left hip, and the 15-Day DL once with right shoulder inflammation. His best two seasons came with the Rangers in 2009 and 2010, where he had 1.94 and 2.03 ERA. He also had 0.95 and 0.88 WHIP.

As for the back-end up the bullpen, Kevin Gregg should set-up Jim Johnson. Yes, Kevin Gregg is a so-called “proven closer”, but even though he’s saved over 20 games the past 5 years, he still does not have good numbers. As a closer, the lowest ERA he has had was 3.41 in ’08 with the Marlins. He also has spotty command at best. Last season he walked 6.03 hitters per nine.

Johnson should definitely be the closer for the Orioles. Like I said earlier, Johnson was arguably the Orioles best reliever last season and has chance to put up similar numbers this year. In an earlier post, Jeff mentioned why Johnson would be a better reliever than starter (here is the link: http://warehouseworthy.blogspot.com/2011/12/jim-johnson-closer-or-starter.html).

All in all, the Orioles bullpen will most likely not drastically improve, but there is a chance for a few different pitchers to establish themselves as solid relievers for the Orioles in the next few years. Hopefully they will not have as much weight on them as they did last year.

Jim Johnson: Closer or Starter?

Jim Johnson has held down a prominent role in the Orioles' Bullpen since coming up for good  in 2008.  However, Jim made a majority of his appearances in the minors as a starter, starting 52 games from 2006 - 2007. If you listen to Jim Palmer, Johnson is a starter in reliever's clothes. With Kevin Gregg having a $6M option for next season based on 50 games finished, we're looking at Johnson either in the rotation or closing. He saved 9 games at the end of last year anyway.

So rotation or bullpen? Issue 1: sure Johnson started in the minors, but that was over 4 years ago. And, he never threw more than 156 innings in the minors. He'd be on a strict pitch count to say the least. After throwing 91 innings last year, it's conceivable that he could go somewhere between 120 and 150 this season depending on health.

What about performance? Well he struck out only 5.74 batters per 9 innings last year, so he would likely be a contact pitcher. Also, he would have to rely on his secondary stuff rather than the fastball heavy repertoire he's leaned on lately. Yes, he has 3 good pitches. Yes they could play in the rotation. But they would all likely take a hit, with his fastball velocity likely dropping from 95 to 92 (where it was when he was starting).

At the end of the day, Johnson holds more value to the Orioles and other teams as a reliever. Potentially a very good closer. While I don't blame the Orioles for considering it, I doubt he makes it out of spring training in the rotation.