July 27, 2012

The Orioles Should Not Be Buyers

“Our future is now,” Dan Duquette told Fox Sports on Wednesday of last week.  This is one of many articles linking the Orioles to acquiring players at the trade deadline in order to make a run at a playoff spot this year.  On Orioles fan sites, there are running commentaries on who the Orioles should trade for this month.  The Orioles have been mentioned in numerous trade rumors by national news outlets because the fans aren't the only ones who think the Orioles should be buyers at the trade deadline.  The GM does too.

“We’re going to try to do everything we can to get into the playoffs this year,” Duquette said. “I just think it’s important to the fans that they know we’re trying to put a good team on the field and have a good season.”  The Orioles have been linked to Chase Headley, Jason Vargas, and Juan Pierre in this article.  They've been linked to Clayton Richard in this one. 

Is the Orioles trading prospects for veterans to try to win now the right strategy for the organization to take?  I would definitely say no.

The Orioles record at the moment is 52-47.  The team is in second place in the AL East 7.5 games behind the Yankees.  They're also 1.5 games out of the second wild card spot with 3 teams ahead of them in the wild card standings.  There are 4 other teams within 3 games of them in the wild card standings.  At best, the Orioles have a small chance at a wild card spot and would have to fight off 7 other teams in order to win one.  Baseball Prospectus gives the Orioles just a 3.7% chance of making the playoffs.

There are many reasons to believe that the Orioles have gotten lucky in order to achieve their 52-47 record.  One of them is their staggeringly bad run differential.  The Orioles have been outscored by a total of 53 runs this season, which is the 3rd worst run differential in the American League.  While it can't be used as definitive because there are other factors that go into a team's won-loss record, their pythagorean record is just 44-55.  8 games worse than their actual record.  Some have pointed to the Orioles record in 1 run games (19-6) as a measure of the strength of the team's bullpen.  General sabermetric wisdom would say that there was a lot of luck involved in compiling that record, and the team is bound to regress and start losing more of these 1 run games going forward.  Thanks to some great work by Andrew on Camden Chat, we can see that the Orioles bullpen really didn't do anything special in all those 1 run games.  They were good about the same number of total times that they were ok or bad, but the O's won games when the bullpen pitched well and when it didn't.  That could mean that regression in those games is coming.

Jeff Sullivan of SB Nation just wrote a great article, which generally stated that the Orioles aren't that good of a team but they're in a wild card chase so they should make small upgrades to try to win a playoff spot.  In the post, he states:

The Orioles have had the second-worst team offense in the American League, between the A's and the Mariners.

By defense-independent statistics, the Orioles have had the fifth- or sixth-worst starting rotation in the American League. Their 4.41 FIP ranks between the Indians and the Red Sox. They've also had a lower-half bullpen, with a 4.00 FIP that's better than the Angels but worse than the Indians.

The Orioles presently have the American League's worst UZR, which is a measure of team defense. They're also the worst in the American League in Defensive Runs Saved.

That pretty much covers the three phases of the game: hitting, pitching and defense.  The Orioles are close to the bottom of the American League in all three.  Now after going through all that, I'm not sure how he gets to the conclusion that the Orioles should be buyers at the deadline, but he does. 

The new Collective Bargaining Agreement that was put in place during this past off season added a second wild card to the playoffs in each league.  These two wild cards will now meet in a "play-in" game to determine which wild card team gets the right to advance to the division series.  Dave Cameron of Fangraphs recently examined how the new wild card format should affect team's trading deadline decisions.  It's definitely worth a read.  If the Orioles do somehow manage to win one of the two wild card spots, in all likelihood, they will face a much more talented Angels ball club that will probably have the chance to line up Jered Weaver to start the game.  It's doubtful that the Orioles would have the opportunity to line up their rotation as they will be in a dog fight just to win the wild card, so the Orioles would have to pitch whoever's turn is up in the rotation.  The Orioles would be huge underdogs in that one game playoff, which at best would be a 50/50 proposition.  Should the Orioles be trading prospects that have a chance to help the ball club in the future for the chance to play in this game?

It would be extremely misguided for the Orioles front office to even consider trading Manny Machado or Dylan Bundy, so we should all be thankful that neither of them is on the table.  However, I have to believe that guys like Jonathan Schoop, Xavier Avery, Nicky Delmonico and others would be on the table.  The team has also been rumored to be thinking about trading from the group of young pitchers that have struggled on the major league team this season such as Brian Matusz, Jake Arrieta, and Chris Tillman.  If they traded one of them at this point, the value they would receive would be much less than the upside each of them possess. 

The Orioles should be focusing on the the next few seasons when they will still have their current core in place, but will also have Bundy, Machado and Schoop on the team to supplement the current talent.  At that point, the team will hopefully be ready to compete for the division title which is much more valuable under the new playoff format.  They shouldn't be trading anyone away that has a chance to help them when they are truly ready to compete.  The team is just not at the point yet where they are a real contender.

The Orioles have been a great story so far and it's exciting for the fans to get to watch the team in a playoff race, but that doesn't mean the Orioles should trade pieces that could help them in the future to try to win this year.  Do they owe it to the fans to try to compete after 14 straight losing seasons?  I'd say they owe it to the fans to try to be competitive over the long term, not just this season.  Their best pitcher so far this season, Jason Hammel is out until at least mid-August and we don't know how he's going to pitch when he comes back.  That's not going to make winning down the stretch any easier.  While this season has been fun to watch and I'd love to see them fighting for a wild card spot in September, the team shouldn't mortgage the future in order to do it.  If I was running the team, I'd actually be in favor of trying to sell a few pieces in order to load up for the next few seasons.  I'll be fine if the Orioles stand pat at the deadline to take a shot at the 50/50 wild card spot.  Just don't sell the farm, please.

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