Going Fishing?

Earlier today, it was reported by Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe that the Orioles and Marlins were discussing different trade scenarios. It was also reported by ESPN’s Jim Bowden that the Marlins could make a blockbuster deal within the next day.

With that said, it could be entirely possible that the Orioles are interested in acquiring 3B/SS Hanley Ramirez and possibly SP Josh Johnson as well.

Ramirez (pictured above) is only 28 years old and is signed through 2014. Ramirez has put together some very solid seasons with the Marlins, especially from 2006 to 2010. In 2009, Ramirez led the NL in batting average, hitting an impressive .342.

However, Ramirez has struggled the past few seasons, hitting an underwhelming .246 this season. The on and off field struggles have led to Ramirez falling out of favor with the Marlins organization.

Ramirez has the ability to be one of the top players in baseball, but a lot of scouts have questioned his desire to reach the level of peak performance.

Right now a change of scenery could really benefit Ramirez.

Johnson, also 28, is an imposing right-handed pitcher, who at times has the ability to be one of the most dominating pitchers in baseball.

The only issue with Johnson (pictured above) is his history of injuries, ranging from shoulder inflammation to undergoing Tommy John Surgery.

So far in 2012, Johnson has shown flashes of brilliance but has been extremely inconsistent.

The real question is what would it take to acquire these two players?!

They definitely won’t come cheap. Despite both of their values being at their lowest point right now, both are extremely coveted by teams around the league.  Johnson even more so than Ramirez due to the fact most teams have a lack of starting pitching and are looking to add a front-line starter.

For the Orioles to get these two talented Marlins, it would probably cost top prospects such as Manny Machado and Jonathan Schoop. It would also cost underachieving pitchers like Brian Matusz and Jake Arrieta.

With that said, it would be great if they O’s could acquire Hanley Ramirez or even Josh Johnson but it is extremely unlikely to happen. The Marlins would do better to maximize both of their values by trading them in separate deals.

However, the Orioles could look into trading for other Marlins such as Logan Morrison and Ricky Nolasco. 

While they may not make the impact that Ramirez and Johnson would make, they still would provide immediate upgrades to the Orioles lineup and starting rotation.

Adam Jones: Offensive Savior?

Many experts and knowledgeable Orioles fans believed that this was the year that Adam Jones finally launched himself onto the level of baseball star.

While I do not believe that Jones is a star, I do believe that Jones is a very, very good player and has carried the Orioles offense this season.

Jones currently leads the team in almost every offense category and carries an Offensive Wins-Above -Replacement (OWAR) of 3.7. His 3.7 OWAR currently ranks 9^th in the Major Leagues.

Who knows where the Orioles would be without Adam Jones this season. Yes, he may still have some things to improve on, i.e. walks and his defense, but he has been the player that has been carrying the Orioles on his back.

However, if the Orioles want to keep up their winning ways, they need other players to step up and help Jones lead the Orioles to the playoffs.

Jones is one of the main reasons why the Orioles are currently tied for the American League Wild Card.

Without the successful season that Adam has been having, who knows where the Orioles offense would be right now, and who knows where the O’s would be in the standings.

From One Bay to Another

Trading Season

It's trading season.  Personally, this is my second favorite time of the baseball year, slotting in just behind the playoffs but ahead of the draft.  We have about 11 days until the trade deadline, but already the trades have been pouring into the commissioner's office for approval.  This morning the Jays and Astros worked a deal that lead to 10 players switching teams.  Shortly thereafter, the Rockies worked out a trade that sent ex-Oriole Jeremy Guthrie to Kansas City for ex-Giant Jonathan Sanchez.  This afternoon the Orioles, not to be left out of the fun, acquired Omar Qunitanilla for cash considerations from the Mets.

The most obnoxious part of the trade deadline involves experts and novices proposing trades left and right.  I will now try my hand at proposing an obnoxious trade.

The Deal

Baltimore sends JJ Hardy, Darren O'Day and a prospect or two to the Giants for Brandon Belt and a prospect or two.

   

Justification

Orioles' fans may not be a big fan of this deal, but for the O's this trade makes a lot of sense.  We haven't had a big time first baseman since Rafael Palmeiro, and Belt could step right in and play a very solid 1B for us.  Trading Hardy is a hard pill to swallow as he's a fan favorite, but running a baseball team is about winning.  Belt clearly fills a hole and adds another solid core player to this building Orioles squad.  While Hardy provides immense value to the team now, he'll likely be supplanted by Manny Machado on the next 90-win O's team.

The Giants are in a similar situation where this deal won't make many fans happy as they would love to see Belt get more playing time.  However, the Giants have a chance to make a serious run this season and Hardy & O'Day help fill big holes on the team.  While Hardy hasn't played well lately, he's a superb defensive SS and is slowly coming out of his slump the past few days.  The Giants could use the offensive bump he'd give them.  Belt is beloved by the fans, but the organization has shown that they won't give Belt regular at-bats for a reason far beyond me.

The "& prospects" listed on both sides is just a nod to the common swapping of lower level prospects to balance a deal.  A perfect example of this was in the Pineda/Montero trade where both sides sent a lo-A player along with the headliner.

Do you think this trade makes sense for the O's?  How about the Giants?

Fun With PITCHf/x for Hitters

Recently Dan Brooks of Brooks Baseball fame and Baseball Prospectus teamed up to supply some pitchf/x data for hitters in  really unique way on the Baseball Prospectus website.  Dan is constantly adding functionality to the application, and his most recent update has some pretty cool implications for understanding the data behind batter performance.  This post is going to highlight a lot of the really cool visualizations that this new tool allows us to create.

Adam Jones

This first breakdown compares Adam Jones' True Average on breaking balls down & away versus his True Average on those same pitches this season.  Keep in mind that the typical Small Sample Size (SSS) warning applies here, but it's interesting nonetheless.  For a description of True Average check out Baseball Prospectus' glossary here.

Adam Jones TAv Career - Normalized for RHH

Adam Jones TAv 2012 - Normalized for RHH

The interesting point here is that, over his career, Jones has performed well below average on breaking balls down & away compared to other MLB right-handed batters.  However, so far this season, Jones' performance has been above league average (.260) in all 4 quadrants of the low and away portion of the zone.  This is certainly interesting, and could be a reason for Jones' success thus far this season.

Chris Davis

Here we're going to look at how pitchers have been pitching to Chris Davis so far this season, something that I think shows how well pitchers adjust to hitters over the course of a season.  The first image will show, compared to other left-handed hitters how often Davis sees "hard pitches" (fastballs) in a certain zone.  The second image shows Davis' True Average over the various zones against "hard pitches".

Chris Davis Frequency 2012 - Normalized for LHH & "Hard Pitches"

Chris Davis TAv 2012 - Normalized for LHH & "Hard Pitches"

As you can see, the league has adjusted.  Davis sees many more hard pitches, basically fastballs of various types, up in the zone compared to other lefties.  Consequently, hard pitches down in the zone, typically a staple for many pitchers, are not being seen by Davis.  This is likely because of his performance on those pitches, as exhibited by the True Average image above.  Davis has multiple zones where his TAv is significantly above the league average figure of .260.

Nick Markakis

The last player we'll analyze today is another long-time Oriole, Nick Markakis.  The interesting thing about Nick's data is that it seems nobody knows where to pitch Nick.  The lowest % in terms of pitch frequency is 85.63% which is quite high.  The second image shows how Nick has performed against pitches in the various zones, and highlights the lack of a hole in the zone for the most part.

Nick Markakis Frequency Career - Normalized for LHH

Nick Markakis TAv Career - Normalized for RHH

This color scheme shows just how good Nick has been at covering all zones across the plate.  Of the 25 zones in the breakdown, only 4 of them show TAv values that deviate significantly from the league average figure.

Takeaways

All in all this tool is very cool.  If you haven't already, you should play around with it here and see if you can find any interesting data.  I hope to do more of this in the future, and I really think the applications for this data are truly endless.  Let me know any interesting points you notice from the graphs above, or feel free to link to new graphs in the comment section.

First Half Reflections

I'll start with a personal note - for those loyal readers out there (do I have loyal readers?) my move is pretty much completed and I now have internet & cable hooked up so expect more frequent posts from here on out.  We should be back to the 2 posts a week standard we were on through May or so.

First Half Reflections

Ok, so this post is going to be less statistical and more of an overview of my opinions about the Orioles' first half.  We'll talk about the pitching first, the hitting second and wrap it up with a description of the team as a whole.  I might throw in some statistics as we go, but I want this to be more of a stream of consciousness type piece.

The Pitching

I'm going to refer to this section as the regression to the mean group.  We'll start with the starting pitching who, as a group started out pretty strong, but stumbled lately.  Or so it seemed... month by month breakdown of ERA/FIP/xFIP for the starters looks like this:

March/April - 3.63/4.42/4.39

May - 5.16/4.40/4.08

June - 5.45/4.42/4.19

July - 4.79/4.39/4.16

As you can see the Starters' FIP has fluctuated between 4.39 and 4.42 this season, which is oddly consistent.  Some months they've been lucky, but others they've been pretty unlucky.  Overall, this is above league average (surprise) which currently sits at 4.08.  It would be great for the team if the starters could come down to league average, and this is definitely reachable given the tumultuous nature of our rotation through the first 5 months of the season.

The relievers on the other hand have been less consistent, but better as a whole.  Here's a month by month breakdown for the relievers by ERA/FIP/xFIP:

March/April - 1.83/3.46/3.91

May - 2.64/3.97/3.85

June - 3.24/3.56/4.02

July - 4.43/5.97/5.13

There are two things to note here that I think are important for O's fans to understand going forward.  The first is that they have outperformed their peripherals (FIP) every month, suggesting that they aren't as good as they've been.  Also, they have trended upwards in ERA towards their FIPs (season average is 3.87).  I would expect them to be closer to that number than the 2 ERAs we have seen them put up.

A league average FIP would be 3.84, meaning the O's bullpen would fall in the middle of the pack as opposed to the top 2 or 3 teams as they have been all season.  This is not the end of the world, and if the starters can pick up their game a bit in the second half, the O's can still contend with the AL East powerhouses, though not necessarily for a playoff spot.

The Hitting

Let's start with some numbers here, as this is perhaps the most surprising development of the first half.  The Orioles currently boast a .305 wOBA, which would rank 21st in MLB to this point.  Only the Rays, A's and Mariners rank lower among AL teams to this point.  This likely stems from the Orioles ranking 26th in MLB in batting average, hitting only .240 on the season.  To be fair though, they rank 27th in BABIP at .278, besting only the Rays, A's and Mariners.

Ironically, the offense was the least of my worries going into the season, as the team ranked 12th in MLB last season for wOBA.  It seemed they made some upgrades over the winter & we expected young guys like Wieters and Jones to continue improving.

This isn't necessarily a fair judgment though as the team has been without some major players for much of the season, and frankly has started AAA guys at 3/9 of the lineup spots.  I honestly think that Markakis coming back will significantly improve the lineup, not necessarily because he's that significant of an upgrade, but because of the ramifications it will have on the rest of the lineup.  Similarly the offense will likely tick up as guys like JJ Hardy bounce back (.233 BABIP would be a career low).  I think the offense will likely be league average for the second half, assuming no significant Markakis-like injuries.

The Team as a Whole

There's kind of been a running theme throughout this piece, maybe you've noticed my opinion on the team to this point.  The Orioles are not as good as they have been so far this season, but they're not as bad as they've seemed the past few weeks.  Coming into this season, if I told you "this team will go .500 this season", you'd have been ecstatic.  Now though, that seems like a failure.  This team smells like a .500 team to me.  The offense is below average but has been unlucky.  The relievers look to be right around average if not slightly better.  The starters have a very real chance to get back to league average I think, especially given the lack of consistency to this point.

Before the season I had the Orioles' over/under for wins at 75 games.  It looks to me like they'll beat that, but not make the playoffs.  You know what?  I'm just fine with that.