On Matt Wieters: A Quick Rebuttal

I was reading a post by blog-buddy frostking over at Camden Crazies about Matt Wieters and how he has underwhelmed thus far, especially with the bat. It's worth reading and he makes some good observations about the cause of some of these trouble.

However, he misses on a couple things that I will point out here. First, on Wieter's patience at the plate:

I don’t know if he’s just over-anxious or has some issues with pitch recognition...but until he takes a more patient approach at the plate I don’t think we’ll see quite the hitter we expected.

Well, the walks aren't there and (as frostking's data seems to indicate) Wieters is chasing ball outside of the zone. But he's not impatient.

Pitches per Plate Appearance for Baltimore Orioles:

           P/PA
Wieters     4.1
Reimold     4.0
ZAUN        4.0
Roberts     4.0
Salazar     3.9
 
 

Wieters is being as patient as Oriole at the plate, he's just having issues with pitch recognition. And why is that? I have a theory.

Matt Wieters Left/Right Splits:

                 PA   AVG   OBP   SLG   OPS 
Wieters vs RHP   80  .316  .350  .461  .821
Wieters vs LHP   69  .222  .290  .302  .611
 
 

Wieters is struggling against lefties in the majors and has been done no favors as Baltimore has been facing an unprecedented number of LHP's since Wieters arrival. A whopping 46% of Wieters' plate appearances have been against lefthanded pitching. By comparison, Brian Roberts has only faced lefties 34% of the time. Facing this much lefthanded pitching just doesn't happen over the course of a season.

So Wieters has had to make the toughest transition in sports against the best lefthanded pitchers in the world and only faced lefties 28% of the time during his entire (albeit brief) minor league career. Is it any wonder he has struggled? He's barely seen any professional lefthanded hurlers before May.

Besides, I've already told you that Christ in a Catcher's Mask needs to wander in the wilderness for 40 games before he comes to town and starts dropping the miracles. Last night was game 39 (he went 4-5) and the last 6 games he is OPSing .933.

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Baltimore to be born?

Base Hits: 6/27/2008

"That's how you're gonna beat 'em, Butch. They keep underestimating you."

- Butch Coolidge (Pulp Fiction)

Dateline Chicago: O's Just the Second Team to Take Series From Cubs at Wrigley in 2008

When Chicago Cubs manager Lou Piniella saw his interleague schedule, he was relieved.

The Cubs were matched up against the American League East this season, but didn’t draw the Yankees or the Red Sox. Turns out, he should’ve been worried about the Rays and the Orioles...

The Cubs (49-30) won two of three at Toronto but dropped five of six against the surprisingly good Rays and Orioles.

“I thought maybe we caught a break,” Piniella said. “But this was before we played Tampa Bay and Baltimore.”

They keep underestimating you Orioles. That's how you're going to beat them!

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Buster Olney talks with some Oriole players as they continue surprise this season. And he's honest enough to admit he only had this team winning 56 games this season.

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I wonder how long Sam Perlozzo will be able to hang on to his coaching gig in Seattle? Doesn't look like Perlozzo's sunny disposition is helping anything out there.

But Dave Trembley is certainly helping things in Baltimore. A good article about the Orioles skipper over at Pressbox Online.

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Win Share data on the Trade Tracker is updated now. The Tejada and Bedard deals continue to look great in the short term as well as the long term.

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I can't believe I didn't think of this earlier but the Orioles are eliciting some great reaction shots from the opposition. So here's today's Oriole-Inflicted Grimace of the Day:

This Jason Marquis grimace is courtesy of an Aubrey Huff double in the third inning of yesterday's game.

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Want to learn more about the newest Baby Birds? Nobody is doing it better than Camden Depot as they look at each draft pick the Orioles made in 2008. (Well, at least the first few picks...)

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Song of the Week: A sons from Canadian indie rockers Arcade Fire. This one's called Rebellion (Lies). Have great weekend and let's sweep the Nats!

O's Keep Surprising

Ronny Cedeno's face says it all...

The Orioles continue to shock the world.

Last night was such a feel-good game I had to write something this morning. Nick Markakis flashing the leather. Four double plays turned. Two triples (Luke Scott and Brian Roberts). Sherrill striking out the side to get the save. Jeremy Guthrie getting a rare but well-deserved win. Good stuff.

What you have to love about this team is that they compete. They go on the road to face the best team in the National League and just handle them.

This team is 15-11 since being "mired" in last place on Memorial Day.

After the O's leave Wrigley, the play the Nationals, Royals, Rangers and Toronto in succession. Keeping their heads above .500 looks pretty good for the foreseeable future.

Burres vs Lilly tonight. Give Jay Payton a start!

Let's go O's!

Mark Teixeira: He's Not Coming and We Don't Want Him

The relative success of the 2008 season has some Oriole fans starting to talk about the possibility of the Orioles signing Mark Teixeira in the offseason again. I have detailed before why he's not coming but I don't think I've gone into why we Oriole fans shouldn't want him here.

First, you have to understand that he will be commanding a salary somewhere in the neighborhood of $20 million a year. If Andruw Jones can command $18 million per year, Teixeira can command more than that without blinking an eye.

So what are you buying for your money? Presumably, a team is going to pay a premium for Teixeira to get a bonafide slugging first baseman.

Fine. Texieira may be that man. But since the year he hit 43 home runs for Texas, his home run numbers have been in decline. Since 2005, he has hit 43, 33 and 30. He is on a pace to hit just 24 this year. And during his best years for Texas, his home/road splits were quite dramatic.

          Home OPS     Road OPS
2004          .967        .893
2005         1.109        .809

His Isolated Power (ISO) has been in steady decline too. Since 2004:

        ISO
2004    .279
2005    .274
2006    .232
2007    .257
2008    .175

The ISO for 2007 would look even worse if not for the red-hot August and September Teixeira had once he got to Atlanta. He posted ISOs of .325 and .268 respectively.

That success has not carried into this year. .276 AVG, 10 HR, slugging .448. Not the numbers of premier major league slugger. But he will be expecting to be paid like a premier major league slugger.

I think Mark Texieira is a good hitter. He will probably be a good component for a team that is already good. If I thought the O's were one hitter away from contending, maybe my opinion would be different. But the Orioles are not just one hitter away. And he's not going to be the man. He's not going to be a dominant hitter. And he's certainly not a good bet to be that kind of hitter over the course of a 7-year/$140 million contract.

Roberts Saves The Day

It's becoming a recurring them for the 2008 Baltimore Orioles. Pitcher gets hit early, bullpen circles the wagons and holds down the opposing batters, Orioles bats chip away until team is within striking distance and then a big blow allows them to take the lead. Last night, The Truth struck back in the 7th to give the Orioles the lead. And according to Yahoo Sports, he did it with his eyes closed.

When are they going to fix that?

Anyway, that wasn't enough as Ichiro tied the game with an unlikely two run homer and left it to Brian Roberts to hit a equally unexpected solo shot in the top of the 8th to give Baltimore the lead for good as George Sherrill closed it out for his 8th (?!?!?!) save of the year. Yes, Sherrill is on a pace for 50+ saves this season.

Adam Loewen is reporting forearm pain which explains a lot. His delivery was all over the place this season. He essentially gave a mea culpa and asked for the team to give someone else a shot in the rotation. I imagine the Oriole will DL him and that Matt Albers gets a shot to start for awhile.

Yawn. I had to go in and work late last night which allowed me to watch the whole game on my laptop but very much has me feeling like a nap this afternoon.

Being lazy, here's the Song of the Week and I'm signing off. "Landed" by Ben Folds. Later.

Feel The Thrill...Orioles!

Hey LaTroy Hawkins! How do you like the Orioles organization now!

I wasn't going to post this weekend but...how great is this?

Markakis hustling to second on a Giambi error and then gunning down Bobby Abreu at the plate later in the game on Friday. When are these opposing baserunners going to learn? Our rightfielder is deadly with his arm. And from the looks of it, maybe out leftfielder is too.

Give up some love for Daniel Cabrera! Nice game! Just keep the ball in the yard as all these homers you are giving up are making me nervous.

Brian Burres proving me wrong, shutting down the Yankees lineup for 5.7 innings. They shut out the Yankees!

Raise your hand if you still think this team is going to lose 100 games.

I keep saying I'm going to enjoy this as long as it lasts but it just keeps going...I'm beginning to take this team seriously.

Base Hits: 4/15/2008

Is anybody else having as much fun as I am? I got to watch the Baltimore Orioles play the Blue Jays for 1st place in the AL east tonight. And they won. I keep saying it; enjoy it as long as it lasts.

13 hits and only four runs? Not good. Adam Jones looked great last night. So did Matt Albers. Will he force his way into the rotation?

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OK. Brian Burres data:

             AVG   OBP   SLG
1st PA in G   .256  .344  .421
2nd PA in G   .301  .400  .393
3rd+ PA in G  .340  .411  .490

See? First time through the order, he's fine. A nice swingman and long reliever. Nothing to be embarrassed about.

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Desert O of Weaver's Tantrum will be taking a hiatus from the Oriole blogging as he hikes from Georgia to Maine on the Appalachian Trail!

Good luck to Desert O on his journey, that is no easy undertaking. You can follow his progress on the trail at his other blog, right here.

Blackbird Rising will be keeping Weaver's Tantrum warm until Desert O's return.

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Welcome back Gabe Kapler! A look at Kapler's improbable success early this season over at FanGraphs.

I was stationed in Jacksonville when Gabe Kapler played for the AA Jacksonville Suns and my wife and I had a lot of fun watching those games. There were a few players on that team who ended up playing in the majors (Matt Anderson, Robert Fick, Dave Borkowski, Willis Roberts, Jose Macias) but only Francisco Cordero and Dave Roberts have gone on to have any careers of note. But I would have sworn that Gabe Kapler was going to be a star. Some Kapler stats from 1998 at the age of 22: 139 games, .322 AVG, 28 HR, 47 doubles, 146 RBI.

I've always pulled for Gabe and he's probably the only Red Sox player I was genuinely happy for when they won the World Series.

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Finally, a nice pull (again) for Anthony over at Oriole Post as he plays five questions with nobody special. Only Brooks Robinson!

Millar photo courtesy of Reuters

They Did It Again...

Before Friday night, Carlos Pena was o-5 with four strikeouts against Jamie Walker. Oh, how times have changed.

First, here's the break on the pitches by Walker to Pena in the fateful 7th on Friday night.

The graph stands in counterpoint to Roch Kubatko's assertion that Jamie hung a breaking ball to Pena. The ball broke at least as well as anything else he threw that night. Pena just crushed a good pitch.

Saturday was a different story. Walker threw a belt-high fastball on the inside part of the plate and Pena turned on it and lined it into the rightfield stands. I suppose he was trying to sneak one by but I'm guessing he wanted to keep that ball down.

(As an aside, I wasn't the only one who thought Roch was being snarky with Jamie Walker. The comments on that blog entry later in the day had many replies remarking about the same thing.)

But the Orioles were not to be denied tonight as Ramon Hernandez out-Pena-ed the Rays, smashing a Dan Wheeler fastball over the leftfield fence to give the O's a 3-2 with 2 out in the top of the ninth.

Hernandez is only batting .194 but he's making it count. He is second on the team with 7 RBI this season.

Daniel Cabrera gave one of those performances that will break your heart later in the season. An outing like that makes you start believing. More on that later...

With the win, the Baltimore Orioles retain sole possession of first place in the AL East.

Hey...Wha' Happen'd?

There weren't a lot of optimists going into 2008. Hell, in the Orioles blogosphere it was only my lukewarm assertion that the team wouldn't be worse than last year and James Baker of Oriole Magic believing that the pitching staff would surprise.

Now, the Orioles are giving us an unexpected dose of joy in early April and giving other AL teams fits.

The Mariner fans are disconsolate after their unexpected sweep at the hands of the Orange & Black.

Lookout Landing:

I'm pretty sure this entire series was George Sherrill giving an extended one-finger salute to everyone who thought the Bedard trade was simply exchanging a talented young outfielder for an established ace. Guess what? It hurt the bullpen too, and while Eric O'Flaherty isn't nearly as bad as he's looked so far, he's still a substantial downgrade.

U.S.S. Mariner

Early trade results: Baltimore acquired three saves, a couple of base hits, and some good outfield defense in exchange for a bad hip. Advantage, Orioles.

We've actually struck a little panic into the hearts of opposing fans. A nice little moment.

So how are they doing it? First is obviously the very excellent work of the bullpen. Now, we saw this to a lesser extent last year but the workload was too much and various relievers began to break down.

I checked the stats and unlike last year at this time, Baltimore relievers are not leading the league in innings. They are ranked 16th in the league so it's a pretty average workload. The starters will need to be eating more innings going forward if this momentum is to continue but they have done enough thus far, usually getting through 6 innings on average.

Aubrey Huff has gotten off to a quick start, Luke Scott has been a huge upgrade in left, Luis Hernandez has some clutch hits (and is hitting .364), Brian Roberts and Nick Markakis are...well, themselves.

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The O's also seem motivated by all the bad press they heard in the preseason. Even this paragraph by Dan Connolly in the Baltimore Sun on Monday got them fired up.

Here's the deal. This team isn't close to the ones of the late 1970s and early 1980s that helped energize this city. There's still plenty of reason to believe it will be the worst to wear Orioles on a road jersey since 1988.

Jamie Walker reportedly took Connolly to task in the locker room and several of his teammates weren't too pleased either. Cheap "us vs them" tactics for motivation? By any means necessary...

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I often beat myself up over my writing on this blog, specifically typos and spelling errors I don't catch at first glance.

So it make me feel better when others screw up facts and grammar.

This was on Yahoo last night previewing today's game. (It has since been corrected...)

The Baltimore offense has gotten a boost from two relative newcomers. Offseason acquisition Luke Scott homered Tuesday and is 9-for-14 with four RBIs in the last four games. Huff, acquired from Tampa Bay in mid-July, has two homers and 11 RBIs - four on Tuesday as he matched a career high with four hits.

Huff was acquired by Houston from Tampa Bay in July 2006. The Orioles signed Huff in the offseason.

From Amber Theoharis' blog on MASN (not picking on you Amber, enjoy your stuff!)...

We've all be tainted by the Orioles teams of the past 10 years.

No further explanation necessary...

And on Baseball Tonight, Karl Ravech stated that Brian Burress had gone 7+ innings when we all know that he only went 6+.

I don't know. Knowing the pros make errors too makes me feel a little better about my foibles. But not really.


Luke Scott photo credited to the AP

Thoughts on the First Game...

Current Orioles are hitting .281 against James Shields. Nick Markakis hits over .300 against Ray pitchers overall.

Jeremy Guthrie was 2-1 vs. the Rays last season.

That's it. A little optimism.

SC posted a speech from Major League that is quite fitting for our season.

Let's go O's!