How Baltimore Can Win The East '09: The Case Against The Blue Jays

Hope springs eternal during this part of the season. To combat some of the terminal moping in Baltimore after 11 straight losing seasons, I have endeavored to inject a little bravado, a little hope for Oriole fans the past two seasons and I see no reason to stop now. Yes, the Baltimore Orioles can win the AL East...put much would have to go right for Baltimore and much would have to go wrong with the other clubs. If you put any of these clubs in the NL West (even the Orioles) and they would have a very good chance to compete, so I'm not running any of them down. But the Orioles are a bit better than people give them credit for. Especially when compared to the Toronto Blue Jays.

1. A Rotation in Shambles

Perhaps an overstatement but perhaps not. There's Roy Halladay and Jesse Litsch but none of the other projected starters has a career ERA under 4.50. One of the best rotations in baseball will teeter on the verge of being mediocre. The health of Halladay and Litsch is essential for the pitching staff to be at least average.

2. Where are the Sluggers?

The Jays only had two players(Alex Rios and Vernon Wells) slug over .450 last season (the Orioles had 5 by comparison) and don't look like they will have any more than two players do it this season. Sure, Travis Snider might do it in a full-time role this year but Rios' slugging has declined for three straight years and Wells has already injured his hamstring...again. No one else is likely to provide consistent power to drive in runs for the Jays this season.

3. Scott Rolen

Before the 2008 season, the Jays traded Troy Glaus to the Cardinals for Scott Rolen. Not only was Rolen two years older than Glaus, he was more expensive and under contract for a year longer than Glaus.

The Jays owe him $11 million per for the next two seasons. He has only played in more than 115 games and only posted an OPS+ greater than 120 once in the last four seasons. He is still a good fielder but no longer among the elite.

So why am I focusing so much on Scott Rolen? Because he is the highest paid Blue Jay, takes up more than 10% of the total payroll and he is a mediocrity at this point in his career.

For a team with a tight budget, the Rolen contract is an albatross.

4. The Infield Offense

It's kind of sad that Kevin Millar has a legitimate shot at leading all Blue Jay infielders in OPS in 2009.

Look at the names...Scott Rolen, Lyle Overbay, Marco Scuturo, Aaron Hill, Rod Barajas, John McDonald, Michael Barrett...ancient Kevin Millar's bat doesn't look so bad when looking at the rest of the motley crew.

5. A Talented but Mecurial Outfield

Lots of talent in the outfield (and DH for whoever's not playing the field) but it's the production that's suspect.

We've already covered Alex Rios' declining power and Vernon Wells' injury issues (which won't get any better as he passes 30 this season). Adam Lind is talented but has yet to provide even a glimpse of the promise he did in the minors. Todd Snider looks like the real deal but is only 21 this year; it would be foolish to expect him to carry Toronto in his rookie season.

Conclusion:

The bullpen has been consistently good for years and they have a couple good arms at the top of the rotation. IF every one stays healthy, the Blue Jays will flirt with .500 all season. But they will be thin and unable to absorb a critical injury or setback to one of their starters. There is a fair chance that Baltimore finishes above them in the standings even if things go fairly well...

Pre-season Thoughts in Review - Toronto Blue Jays

It's the All-Star break so just a look back at some of my pre-season predictions. I looked at potential problems with the Toronto Blue Jays...

1. David Eckstein is Playing Shortstop

He is the worst fielding shortstop in the AL and is a poor hitter to boot. Hitting .269. Horrible free agent signing.

2. Their Best Offensive Threat Is 46

And they cut him. Good job. Only Seattle has a more pitiful offense.

3. No Legitimate Catchers

Rick Dempsey's Nephew and Rod Barajas have been an adequate pair at catcher. Better than expected and a small bright spot in their offense. Kind of.

4. Injury Prone At The Corners

This has not come to pass but Scott Rolen has missed a few games. Lyle Overbay has been a virtual ironman at first but is only hitting .269 with 6 homers.

5. Legitimate But Injury Prone Rotation

Dustin McGowan and Shaun Marcum are on the DL. Roy Halladay is Roy Halladay and A.J. Burnett has been up and down. Jesse Litsch is regressing toward his FIP form last year. Burnett may now be on the trading block. The bullpen is in good shape but outside of Halladay, there's not much in the rotation for the second half.


Only some bizarre wins and Roy Halladay kept the Blue Jays out of the cellar at the All-Star break. A puny offense and a banged up rotation won't get you through the dog days of summer. I expect them to sink lower in the short term and if they unload Burnett, they could finish below the Orioles in the AL East.

How Baltimore Can Win The East '08: The Case Against the Blue Jays

This is a tough one because the Blue Jays will be solid but not spectacular overall. Outside of their bullpen, there's nothing great about this team but there is very little bad about them.. What's that? They just signed the left side of the Cardinals infield? Players that contributed to a losing club and a third place finish in the woeful NL Central. OK, let's start there shall we?


1. David Eckstein is Playing Shortstop

Sparkplug? My hairy butt.

David Eckstein is one of the worst free agent signings the Jays have made in years. He is a big drop-off defensively from John McDonald (most other teams wanted to sign him to play second, not short) and hardly an upgrade offensively. He hit .300 last year but it was an empty .300. No power and very little patience at the plate. And that was in a weaker league, in the weakest division in baseball.

Toronto leadoff hitters only got on base at a .321 clip last season. Eckstein will be an upgrade in that sense but since so much of his OBP depends on his batting average, he's going to struggle to post an OBP in the .340 range. He'll be facing tougher pitching in the AL East than in the NL Central.

With the majority of Toronto starters being groundball pitchers, they will be watching a lot of grounders get through for singles to left center. I wonder what that will do for team chemistry.


2. Their Best Offensive Threat Is 46.

Frank Thomas is old. He's going to the Hall of Fame someday but in 2007 he just looked decrepit.

The only other legitimate offensive threat on the team is Alex Rios. The Jays are counting on an old, injury prone veteran to make this offense go. A risky move at best.


3. No Legitimate Catchers

Rick Dempsey's nephew will be 37 and finally started to hit the wall last season. He will be backed up by Rob Barajas who is a good backup catcher but he'll be called upon to carry more load than he should this season.


4. Injury Prone At The Corners

The Jays traded away the injury-prone Troy Glaus for an even more injury prone Scott Rolen. Rolen will be better defensively but they will lose some offense at the Hot Corner. And that's if he stays healthy all year. If he goes down, so will any offensive threat from third base.

1B Lyle Overbay is coming back from having a bunch of screws in his hand. There is no legitimate backup for him if he struggles to a .241 average like he did last season.


5. Legitimate But Injury Prone Rotation

Halladay and Burnett are studs but neither has a great track record of staying healthy. Last year was Burnett's turn as he only started 25 games. Both these guys need to start 30+ games for Toronto to finish above .500. They have some talented kids at the back of the rotation but...
Here's a look at the ERA's and FIP's from the primary starters last season:

                ERA   FIP
Halladay       3.71  3.65
Burnett        3.75  4.44
McGowan        4.08  3.82
Marcum         4.13  5.05
Litsch         3.81  5.23
 
   

Halladay and McGowan put up numbers that are legit. They truly pitched as well as their ERAs suggest. The rest? Looks like they were aided by a) good luck and b) great infield defense.

(What's FIP? Start here.)

The Jays had the best infield defense in the AL last year (by RZR rating) which greatly helped their staff of groundballers. Are they going to repeat that performance with Eckstein at short in place of Jason McDonald? I think not. Look for the back half of the rotation to suffer while working around all those extra outs.

Conclusion

Outside of a great bullpen (which will get stronger with the return of B. J. Ryan) there are not a lot of sure things here. You can't hang your hat of a strong lineup, killer rotation or stellar defense. They will do all things fairly well...if everything goes absolutely right! That's a big "if" to deal with.

Next up: The New York Yankees

I'm Set Free

I've been set free and I've been bound
To the memories of yesterday's clouds...
And now, I'm set free

- Lou Reed


Sorry I have not been posting, I am leaving town for Memorial Day weekend and needed to work a little extra before I left...

It's an annual tradition for me and last night that tradition has continued. I have written off the season and will be far less tortured for the next few months now that I realize there is little hope for a 2007 turnaround.

The standard was set back on May 17th after the O's were swept by Toronto. if the O's don't win the rest of the series for the month, they will have no shot at contending for anything and I will divorce myself emotionally from this team. As you all know, the O's beat the Nationals but were unable to win the rubber game with Toronto last night. Was it a lot to expect? Maybe. But if the O's aren't better than the Nationals, an injury depleted Blue Jay team, an injury depleted Oakland team and the Royals then there isn't much hope for success this year. None of those teams (save maybe Oakland) is going to be very good this year.

They are now 5 games below .500.

It's over.

After this post, I can continue the rest of the year with cold statistical analysis and looking for trends for next season and I won't be so miserable when Mr. Reluctant blows yet another game. I won't be miserable when Sam Perlozzo make some silly move to put the game in jeopardy. I won't be miserable when the infield botches double plays.

I'll still be watching but I will be a lot more at peace.

I'm set free.

Baltimore Sweeps Toronto Aside

Was Toronto at full strength? No. Is it still April? Yes. Forget all the justifications for the experts to dismiss this sweep of the Blue Jays. This weekend the O's sent a message and that message is that they will contend this year. The darkhorse pick in the AL East this year is Toronto and Baltimore took them out like last week's garbage.

If Boston loses tonight, Baltimore will be the hottest team in the AL. (Friday night I assumed the Yankees had won that game vs. Boston). Not everyone has caught on yet but Chris Berman did refer to Baltimore as "red-hot" on Baseball Tonight this evening.

Adam Loewen's performance on Saturday exemplifies what has been so impressive about the "young guns" on this staff. Although Loewen didn't have his best stuff and certainly didn't have a lot of control, he didn't get rattled, he battled and scraped his way through 5.2 innings and let his bullpen come in and protect the lead. (Chad Bradford was huge in relieving Loewen with the bases loaded. Bradford is not a strikeout guy at all but got a big strikeout of Jason Smith to end the inning. Toronto never threatened again.) We have seen this over and over again this season, with Cabrera, Bedard and Loewen not having their best outings but keeping their composure and the club winning the game anyway. It's encouraging.

Also encouraging is that the bats are starting to come around. It doesn't hurt that they are facing less than stellar pitching (save A. J. Burnett) but the O's were struggling to score against anybody a couple of weeks ago. Today you saw a glimpse of what this lineup can do when everyone gets healthy. They didn't ahve to start Jay Gibbons against a lefty and Jay Payton made the lineup a much tougher proposition for Gustavo Chacin. Outside of Alberto Castillo, there was a legitimate major league hitter in the lineup today. Just wait until Ramon Hernandez (and Brian Roberts) come back.

Steve Trachsel got his first win of the season as he held the Jays to one run even though he gave up 4 hits and issued 4 walks over his 5.1 innings of work. Nick Markakis continued his hot hitting with a double and a triple (a near homerun) as he and Miguel Tejada both drove in three. They chased Chacin in the 5th and continued to knock Victor Zambrano around as they bludgeoned the Jays 7-3. Only a two out rally in the 9th against Brian Burres made the score look somewhat respectable.

Now for the reality checks. Adam Loewen needs to find his control. Walking batters like you are the 2005 version of Daniel Cabrera is not a recipe for long term success. The lineup ranks 8th in the American League in slugging. That will also need to improve if Baltimore hopes to keep pace. Steve Trachsel must have a horseshoe stuck where the sun don't shine. He can't possibly keep this up for the whole season. The rotation needs to pitch deeper into games if the bullpen hopes to have season long success. Only the quality start challenged Yankees have more innings logged by their bullpen than Baltimore. Today, the O's will probably face the toughest pitcher they've seen all year.

But am I optimistic? Hell yeah.

P.S. It's sure been weird to be rooting for the Yankees the last two nights. But in a good way.

Battle of the Birds Part 1 - Speed Kills

Beer of the Game: Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale
(I must have had a premonition...)

I love this team.

What's not to love? (OK, except for Paul Bako...)

How about Corey Patterson robbing Lyle Overbay of a homerun in the first (an absolutely amazing play that had me leaping from the couch shouting at the TV screen and scaring the hell out of the dog) and then getting the clutch hit in the ninth to start the rally and score the winning run? How about Brian Roberts stealing two more bases tonight? How about Nick Markakis with yet another clutch hit? How about old man Millar taking a home run swing in the 8th and blooping a hit to left to tie the game? How about Melvin Mora jacking another one? And I don't know who this guy masquerading as Daniel Cabrera is but he struck out 7 while only walking 2! 2 walks! Leo Mazzone truly is a miracle worker.

This team comes back from the dead more times than Nosferatu. Oriole bats are the worst nightmare for opposing bullpens. And our bullpen is the worst nightmare for opposing batters. John Parrish is sick. He pitched lights out yet again.

Rick Dempsey's nephew was held to one hit.

Victor Zambrano my hairy butt. You think we're going to lose to that guy?

I'm going to keep repeating this until I see it said on Baseball Tonight. The Baltimore Orioles are the hottest team in the AL.

Get on the bandwagon O's fans. We're in it for the long haul this season.

Base Hits: 4/20/2007

Leonard Shapiro has an article on WNST and the Orioles brass denying Nestor Aparicio press credentials.

I've made it pretty clear that I think Nestor's late-season walkout last year was pretty pointless and accomplished little more than garnering WNST some publicity. I never heard Nestor's radio show but his blog posts are rambling and sometimes incoherent and always self-promoting. He's a P.T. Barnum for sports radio and he's a clown in his own circus.

But he is a journalist. And the Baltimore Orioles denying him press credentials cannot be defended.



Over at The Hardball Times, John Brattain takes a look at his Blue Jays on the day they start their three game series in Baltimore and says "Don't Panic!" Strangely, he mentions the Yankees and Red Sox as Toronto's competition and neglects to mention the hottest team in the AL. Who could that be? Hmmmm....



I did a "Where are they now?" post about the 2000 Baltimore Orioles draftees and wasn't sure exactly what happened to top pick Beau Hale. The Baltimore Examiner goes into greater detail about the current Baysox pitcher.



Keith Law from ESPN rarely has anything nice to say about the Orioles and he continues his trend in yesterday's chat session:

Syracuse, NY: Can the Orioles remain in contention this season or is their success so far just a premonition?

Keith Law: I don't think they have the offense, and although their pen has performed well, I don't think that will hold up across the board.

Although I don't agree with the assessment of the offense, they certainly haven't done enough to instill confidence that they will deliver on their promise. But the bullpen? The only thing you can say is that they won't keep it up because up until now they have exceeded expectations. So why won't they keep it up Keith? Knee-jerk reaction perhaps? Nice analysis.

Matt (Springfield, MO): Is Loewen going to get his "stuff" together? Is he any good?

Keith Law: His stuff is only OK, and his control has never been good. I think that the "real" Adam Loewen was left on the operating table when he tore his labrum in '04.

Wow, how cheery. How do we know he left his "stuff" on the operating table? Reduced velocity? Law never explains. Loewen struck out nearly 8 per 9 last year and his control has been average for a young power pitcher. Scott Kazmir walked more than 5 per 9 over his first 39 major league starts and he is regarded as one of the bright young stars in the AL. Soon, Adam Loewen will be too.

Update to the Injury Updates

Shortly after I posted yesterday, the Blue Jays updated the statuses on their injured players.

Reed Johnson will be out until at least July, slightly longer than they had said before.

B.J. Ryan's injury is quite serious as we won't be seeing him around until June at the earliest. Wonder if all that money they paid him was worth it for one good year?

Troy Glaus is now in the 15-day DL with bone spurs and heel issues. Glaus has had injury issues in the past (as this Glaus injury timeline over at the Angels blog 6-4-2 details) but not in the past couple of years. This is one of the events that I said could happen that would allow Baltimore to make noise in the Al East this year. According to the Toronto Star, Glaus' replacements will be either John McDonald (career .240 hitter, career OPS+ of 58) or Jason Smith (a career backup with a .236 average and career OPS+ of 72). We gotta like this as Baltimore hosts Toronto on Friday. Only Vernon Wells remains as a legitimate slugger in that lineup.

As an aside, Baltimore will miss Halladay in the rotation and have to face A.J. Burnett but then Gustavo Chacin and Tomo Ohka. Not bad.

How Baltimore Can Win the East Part 1: The Case Against Toronto

The odds are insurmountable they say. Even with improvement from the O's, the competition is just too stiff. But the opponents are not as formidable as they are made out to be.

Oh sure, if things go well for the other teams in the division (especially Boston and New York) it will be tough to compete even if everything goes right. But there are chinks in the armor that could bring the Evil Empires crashing to the ground.

So, this series is based on two premises:

1. Tampa Bay is not a factor. They have young talent to be envious of but they don't have a lot of it on the mound. Outside of Scott Kazmir, expect a mess of a pitching staff. The young hitters won't be able to bail them out. Devil Rays, I summarily dismiss you.

2. Baltimore gets appreciably better in several areas and avoids major injury. That means the young pitching develops well, some players have bounceback seasons and the free agents perform as advertised. While Baltimore has only one player who can be reasonably expected to hit 30 HR (Tejada) you can add several who are capable of exceeding 20 (Huff, Mora, Hernandez, Gibbons, Markakis). So the offense and pitching would have to be solid, not spectacular, for a run to be made.

Got it? Great. The first team to dissect is Toronto:

1. The Outfield Reverts to Form

Every principle player slated for the outfield had a career year (Reed Johnson, Alex Rios) or approached their career year (Vernon Wells) in 2006. Based on past performance, none of these guys can reasonably be expected to surpass these performances. I would find it highly unlikely that they match them as a unit. Expect some declines and assume that this unit will be worse (maybe way worse) this year.

2. Frank Thomas Breaks Down

Frank Thomas is a formidable hitter, even at 39. At least when he's healthy. He has played in 135 games or more only 3 times in the last 6 years. He's another year older, so do you bet the over or the under here? I'm betting the under. His replacement would likely be Greg Zaun most nights, a significant dropoff in power.

3. The Infield is Suspect

Lyle Overbay is a nice fielder at first but up until last year had a very Millar-like bat. Expect him to return to form this year. At second, the young slick-fielding Aaron Hill who'll hit for a decent average but has never hit for much power. At short, the hideously all-around bad player that is Royce Clayton. He can't hit his way out of a paper bag and the only boast he can make about his fielding is that he is better than Derek Jeter, which isn't saying a whole hell of a lot. Troy Glaus is a power threat at third, a hitter to be feared but strikes out more and walks less these days. You can pencil him in for 35+ homers but also an average in the .250's. He's another guy with a history of injuries and the Jays don't have a lot of depth to pick up the slack.

4. The Pitching is Suspect

The Jays have a stud and a half. Roy Halladay is the stud, A.J. Burnett is the half. Much like the O's and Erik Bedard, the Jays are screwed if Halladay doesn't start 32 games this year and he does have a well known history of inuries. If Burnett starts more than 20 games, I'll be shocked. By the way, he is still just a .500 pitcher for his career at the age of 30. Behind them? Gustavo Chacin, Tohmo Ohka and John Thompson. Anybody shaking in their boots when these guys take the mound? The bottom of the rotation could prove to be quite the disaster. Josh Towers will be the first one called in case of injury and I think we are all familiar with how little he brings to the table.

The one bright spot is the bullpen, anchored by B.J. Ryan and Justin Speier but beyond them, no one is the bullpen has proven themselves over multiple years.

5. Catcher is a weakness...

...defensively when Gregg Zaun is behind the plate, offensively when Jason Phillips is behind the plate. They may actually be worse off with Benji Molina gone.

Conclusion

Does this look like the 87 win team from last year or the losing teams from 2003-2004? John Gibbons may not survive the season. This is a team that needs everything to go right to even repeat last year's performance. How does 4th place look to you guys? Baltimore should have no problem overperforming this crew.

Next up: The Boston Red Sox