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.

July 10, 2012

The Thome Trade

I realize this post is not the most timely as the trade for Jim Thome actually transpired over a week ago.  But as more and more rumors of the Orioles being active players in the trade market continue to pop up, I can't stop thinking about what the Thome trade means for the direction the Orioles organization is going to take at the trade deadline.  If the Orioles were willing to deal two prospects for a 41 year old DH that most likely will not be with the team after this season, they certainly must consider themselves buyers at the trade deadline and contenders for a playoff spot.  The Orioles front office will most likely be looking to upgrade the roster at the trade deadline at the cost of either young major league players or prospects.  I don't think that is the right strategy to take at this point for the Orioles.

First, let's look at the Thome trade.  The Orioles traded Kyle Simon (RHP) and Gabriel Lino (C) for Thome.  Kyle Simon was a 4th round draft pick of the Orioles in the 2011 draft out of the University of Arizona.  Simon was pitching in High A Frederick and had accumulated a 2-8 record with a 3.96 ERA and a 4.44 FIP. The reason he was expendable was that he doesn't miss enough bats and only had a 6.07 K/9 rate with the Keys.  He kept his walks under control with a 2.60 BB/9 rate in 72.2 innings but according to Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus, his best asset is an upper 80's sinker that generates a lot of groundballs.  Without any plus secondary pitches, his profile seems to fit best in middle relief which is where the Phillies have already moved him. 

Gabriel Lino signed with the Orioles in 2009 out of Venezuela at 16 years old.  His numbers this season in Low A Delmarva aren't terribly inspiring with a line of .218/.282/.340 and only 4 home runs.  However, as a 19 year old playing his first season in full season ball, the scouting reports are very important for him at this stage of his career.  You can read a great scouting report from Mike Newman of FanGraphs here.  From the scouting reports I've seen, Lino has good raw power potential and the athletic ability to become an average to plus defensive catcher.  The bat is still a work in progress, but he's still very young so it has time to develop.  The range of outcomes here is wide, but he could have a career as a regular or a defensive minded backup if the bat doesn't develop.

So how much value is Thome going to bring to the club this year in order to offset the value of these two youngsters?  ZiPS projects Thome to hit for a line of .243/.339/.486 in 124 plate appearances which would provide 0.6 WAR to the team.  It looks like ZiPS still expects Thome to play in the National League and doesn't forecast the uptick in playing time available with the Orioles by playing DH.  So let's add another 100 plate appearances or so.  That makes Thome worth about 1.0 WAR from now until the end of the season.  This is a little simplistic, but let's say for the sake of argument that the combination of Chris Davis, Mark Reynolds, Wilson Betemit, and Nick Johnson would have produced 0.5 WAR at DH.  That makes the addition of Thome worth about 0.5 WAR to the Orioles this year on the field.

This is the 3rd time Thome has been traded in the past 4 seasons, so we should be able to gauge his market value from the other times he was moved during the season.  Here are the recent trades he has been involved in:

August 31, 2009: Traded by the Chicago White Sox with cash to the Los Angeles Dodgers for Justin Fuller

August 25, 2011: Traded from the Minnesota Twins to the Cleveland Indians for a player to be named or cash.  In September, the Indians sent the Twins $20,000.

June 30, 2012: Traded by the Philadelphia Phillies to the Baltimore Orioles for Gabriel Lino and Kyle Simon.

If you're like me, you had to look up Justin Fuller just to see who he was.  The best I can tell, he's no longer playing professional baseball.  Last year, Thome was traded for $20,000 and 2 years prior he was traded for a non-prospect who is now out of professional baseball.  But this year for the Orioles to get him from the Phillies (who had Ryan Howard coming back, no DH spot and no place to play him), they had to give up a decent catcher prospect and a future middle reliever?  Something doesn't smell right here.  Why would Dan Duquette agree to give up 2 prospects when the going rate was either one non-prospect or cash?  Now both of the prior deals were August waiver deals after the trade deadline but that shouldn't change Thome's value to this extent. 

This deal seems like an overpay.  In the end, it may not matter much if the two prospects the Orioles traded don't amount to much.  But we have to question the process that the Orioles front office took in consummating this trade.  The Orioles improved a very small amount on the field, while giving up a decent prospect in Lino and a not so great prospect in Simon.  Based on the prior deals that Thome has been involved in, Duquette should have been able to consummate the deal by only including Simon.  That deal would have been justifiable to take a shot at the second wild card, which the Orioles currently hold if the season were to end today.  As it is, it looks like Duquette misjudged the market price for Thome in a hurry to add a piece to the roster. 

Since the Orioles have a plethora of left handed DH types, this deal doesn't make any sense to me.  The Orioles real need is starting pitching, not a left handed DH.  I wouldn't be surprised if that's what the Orioles focus on next.

This started out as a post about what the Thome trade meant to the Orioles direction at the trade deadline.  It turned out to be a more in depth review of the Thome trade.  I guess I had more to say about it than I thought.  Next time, I'll outline my position on what the Orioles should do at the deadline and also what they're likely to do.  Somehow, I have a feeling that the two won't match up.