Baltimore Orioles: Was 2012-2016 all luck?

The Baltimore Orioles have always been competitive under Buck Showalter – ALWAYS. I don’t need to tell this to most fans, but what the heck. Showalter took over in August of 2010, the Birds finished the season strong, and again struggled in 2011. However they still finished the season strong in the end. The made the playoffs for the first time since 1997 in 2012, had a winning record in ’13, won the division in ’14, finished at .500 in ’15 (with a very strong September), and went to the playoffs again in ’16.

Throughout that time, the Birds have had a very similar core in terms of players, basically centered around Adam Jones. That’s especially true from 2012 to the present. And the O’s are returning virtually the same team in 2017. Yet, Baseball Prospectus is insisting that the Birds will take a huge step backwards in 2017.

They have the Orioles finishing at 73-89, and in last place in the AL East. Mind you, teams such as Toronto lost major pieces, yet they feel they’ll finish ahead of the Orioles. Then you have Tampa, who wasn’t even remotely near the map last year in terms of the post season – and supposedly they’re going to finish in second place with 84 wins.

With all of this said, some people are going to argue that last year’s results bear no relevance to anything to do with this year. And honestly I disagree – in this case. Again, the Birds are bringing the same basic team back, albeit with a couple of changes. However are those changes enough to take them from being a playoff team to the basement? And again, you have good teams from last year (Toronto) who lost big parts; yet they’re ahead of the Orioles. Not to mention bad teams (Tampa) who gained nothing – yet they’re ahead of the Orioles.

Obviously this is about the Orioles’ starting pitching, and that’s certainly a fair criticism. But what these potential standings are saying is that Chris Tillman and Kevin Gausman are definitely taking big steps backwards this year. According to Baseball Prospectus, there’s absolutely no doubt about it. It also means that Ubaldo Jimenez has no shot of improving year-over-year. Now Jimenez has struggled over time without a doubt. However he has had flashes where he’s looked good (such as last September). And Baseball Prospectus is saying that won’t happen this year.

It also means that Dylan Bundy without any doubt won’t be having any success in 2017. And here’s the thing; all of that could happen. But again using Tampa as an example, Baseball Prospectus is saying that everything Tampa’s putting together is going to magically work out. And the exact opposite with the Orioles.

To take that a step further, they have Oriole bats finishing the season at .256 with a .318 OPB. Now I’ll grant you that on-base percentage isn’t this group’s forte. However power most definitely is. And they think that the likes of Jones, Trumbo, Machado, Davis, et al are only going to hit at a .256 clip? Regardless of what people might think of the pitching, that’s not even a stretch. It’s borderline impossible.

But it all goes back to Buck Showalter. What of his record (both in Baltimore and before) would make anyone think that he’d allow this team to finish like that? In effect, what Baseball Prospectus is saying is that the Orioles got lucky from 2012-2016. Again mind you, the Orioles are bringing the same team back for the most part. Toronto is not, yet they’re picked ahead of the O’s. Tampa is bringing the same team back, but they didn’t get the job done last year. Yet they’re picked ahead of the O’s. Does that really make sense other than going under the assumption that the O’s just got lucky for five years or so?

Mind you however, all of this is plausible. Maybe Tampa’s the group that’s going to start getting lucky. Maybe Bautista and his hatred for Baltimore, the Orioles, the Orioles fans, etc. is going to be enough to give his team a better record than the Birds. Maybe instead of majestic homers and big games, Oriole bats will only produce strikeouts this year. And maybe the bright spots in Oriole pitching that does exist will simply go away, along with the success of the bullpen.

That’s called living on a prayer, or perhaps the opposite thereof in this case. Baseball Prospectus is just assuming that everything Buck Showalter puts his hand on this year is going to turn to dust; the opposite being true of every other manager in the division. Basically, they’re saying that to this point the Fighting Showalters have simply gotten lucky.

Baltimore Orioles acquire Gabriel Ynoa

The Baltimore Orioles traded cash considerations to the New York Mets yesterday in exchange for minor league pitcher, Gabriel Ynoa. In a bit of a surprise move, they then DFA’d catcher Francisco Pena. I say a surprise move, because the Orioles liked Pena and he was in the big leagues for some time last year. But “them’s the breaks.”

The Birds are expecting Ynoa to begin the year in triple-A, which means that at some point we may see him in Baltimore. For what it’s worth, the big league clock has started on him, as he played in ten games with the Mets last year. His record was 1-0.

The O’s think that Ynoa could be a starter in the big leagues on a consistent basis. Some will scowl at that a bit, however keep in mind that Dan Duquette is very good about getting these diamond in the rough players. Speaking of which, Duquette had this to say about the Orioles’ new acquisition (quote courtesy of Roch Kubatko, MASNsports):

He’s young, he’s strong, he’s durable. The kid won 13 games last year. Pitching in Las Vegas, that’s a tough ballpark to pitch in, but he was one of the top pitchers in the Pacific Coast League. He has a good sinker, a four-seam fastball that reaches 95 mph and a good changeup.

Our scouts think he’ll be able to develop into a big league pitcher with a little more consistent breaking ball. He’s got pretty good credentials for a major league starting pitcher.”

Just another story as we wind down the off season – or the non-baseball part of it at least.

Baltimore Orioles: “Come Monday”

As the Jimmy Buffet song goes, “…come Monday it’ll b alright” for the Baltimore Orioles. Pitchers and catchers are due to report then, which unofficially begins the 2017 season in Birdland. Pitchers and catchers reporting is always an exciting day, although nothing really happens per se. But as I said, it unofficially begins a new season…

…and everything that goes with it! A baseball season is a grind, and these guys will be together until the autumn starting next week. For their sake, you have to hope they’re ready for that.

Position players will report roughly one week later, and in essence two weeks from today is Grapefruit League Opening Day. That means it’s gameday – Orioles vs. Tigers! But regardless of who’s playing, who’s on the travel roster, or anything else, bats start cracking and gloves start popping on Monday. “Come Monday it’ll be alright.”

Baltimore Orioles: Mistake in not signing Jason Hammel?

Former Baltimore Orioles’ pitcher Jason Hammel signed a two-year deal with Kansas City this week. Before I go on, it’s probably worth mentioning that Kansas City may have had the more pressing need for a starting pitcher given that their best one just died in a car accident. They had an immediate hole in their rotation, and they plugged it.

But Hammel was on the market for quite some time. Were the Orioles foolish to not consider bringing him back? Hammel had a 3.83 ERA last year with the World Champion Chicago Cubs. That’s not stellar per se, but it might play well with an Orioles team looking for good starting pitching.

So it’s not a matter of whether or not the Orioles missed an opportunity now, but this entire time since the culmination of the season. My personal opinion is that it would have behooved the Orioles to sign Hammel, especially since he played here before. He’s familiar with the Showalter system, as well as with many of the current Orioles.

Furthermore, he’s also been to the mountaintop. He’s participated in the post-season (with the Orioles as well), and last year of course he won a World Series with Chicago. That type of experience means something. And in a division that seems to get stronger every year in terms of it’s power hitters, experience in general is a good thing to have.

But if the Orioles ever had any interest in bringing Hammel back, the time has now passed. Kansas City needed him, and they signed him. Hopefully for the Orioles’ sake they don’t find themselves in the dog days with starters struggling to go five innings and Hammel’s plugging away for Kansas City.

Baltimore Orioles: Should starters hit the road in spring?

We all know how the Baltimore Orioles along with most teams do things in spring training. For the most part, starters stay behind for road games and only play in the teams’ home affairs. So the fact is that regardless of what I or anybody else writes, that’s going to be the case.

That’s why it’s almost challenging to have a truly bad record in spring training; because no matter how mad your starting team may be, they’re playing against scrubs in their home games. Major League rules dictate that teams have to bring and play at least three veterans on every road trip – just to ensure a semi-competitive game for paying fans. But we all know that rules like that are easily skirted. All it takes is a manager to say I don’t know who’s starting at that position and you can get by the rule.

But here’s a question: should the Orioles play their starters in more road games? First of you will see some of the starters making trips away from Ed Smith Stadium…towards the tail end of spring. But at the beginning don’t bet on it happening too often. But would it not benefit the O’s in some sense?

All of the Orioles’ division opponents play in the Florida Grapefruit League. So it would benefit hitters to play against teams and pitchers they’re going to see come Opening Day and beyond. Furthermore there’s another aspect to that which goes unnoticed: the field dimensions’. Many teams, including the Orioles, are now constructing their ballparks to be exact dimensional copies of their home parks. So…would the O’s not benefit from that?

If the starting players all go down to JetBlue Park in Fort Myers to play against the BoSox, that might help them to get used to the dimensions of the park again and thus be ready for Fenway. Obviously that goes both ways, as Ed Smith Stadium is a copy of Camden Yards’ field as I said above.

There are other reasons why players often stay back on road games. While you want your players to be in shape and ready for the season, you also don’t want them to injure themselves. The last thing anyone wants is someone getting hurt because he’s working too much or something along those lines. Plus it gives the younger players a shot at playing in a real big league game against big league talent.

There are different theories on all of this, but needless to say it’s a rare occasion when a veteran sees his name on the travel roster. And I don’t expect 2017 to be any exception.

Baltimore Orioles bring back Robert Andino

The Baltimore Orioles are bringing Robert Andino back. That’s right, you read that correctly. The former Orioles’ infielder made famous in 2011 is returning to the scene of the crime.

Andino needs no introduction to most of you. He orchestrated the last-second takedown of the Boston Red Sox on the last day of the 2011 season. His RBI-single in the last of the ninth inning broke a tie and won it for the Birds. A few moments later Tampa beat New York on a walk-off home run; both plays combined to keep Boston from the playoffs that year.

I’m not going to lie, that’s still the greatest closing act of all time in terms of a season that I’ve ever seen. Part of it for sure was the fact that it all kind of came together at the end at once in that manner. But as a result, Robert Andino is still thought of fondly in Birdland.

Nevertheless, he signed a minor league contract yesterday with the O’s, which also comes with an invitation to big league spring training. The reports indicate that he’ll begin 2017 as an infielder at Triple-A Norfolk. Whether or not he sees anytime in the big leagues remains to be seen. But I suspect we’ll see him at some point, and when we do I’m sure he’ll be warmly received at Oriole Park.

Baltimore Orioles: Pitfalls on technicalities

Last autumn I spent some time writing about over-regulation for the Baltimore Orioles and Major League Baseball. We’re starting to see it across the board in baseball, such as the rules governing takeout slides and blocking the plate. The more rules and stipulations that exist, the more they’re open to interpretation by different umpires.

And over the weekend we saw the dark side of interpreting rules in a college basketball game. In short, St. Bonaventure beat VCU in an apparent upset victory – or did they? “The Bonnies” hit a shot to take a one-point lead with what appeared to be .4 seconds on the clock. At one point the clock actually said zero, and the students stormed the court in celebration.

However the game wasn’t over – there were .4 seconds left. That’s barely enough time for a heave-ho at the end, but in theory it’s enough time. However the game official whistled a technical foul against St. Bonaventure because the crowd stormed the court. VCU was awarded a free throw (which they converted to tie the game – with .4 seconds left), and then won the game in overtime.

This is where we get into well “technically” the letter of the rule says… And that’s where frustrations can boil over. Major League Baseball should look at that situation and take note. Because something like that could in fact happen in baseball if an umpire wanted to interpret a rule one way or another.

In accordance with the rule the way it is written, the referee in that game was within his right to whistle a technical foul. Some people might even argue that he would have shirked his duty had he not done so, in fact. But baseball fans have a word/hashtag for this: #umpshow. Basically when an umpire decides to make himself part of the show, we start seeing that term thrown around.

And in my view that’s exactly what the ref in that basketball game did. Because he absolutely had to rigidly enforce the rule by the letter, he not only became part of “the show,” but he put his own stamp on the game. That’s not supposed to happen.

So some might ask what exactly I want officials to do. If a rule is broken, should some sort of enforcement not occur? Of course it should. However if you’re an umpire or ref, you’re also schooled in how the game works. So in that case the ref should have understood the magnitude of that moment, and yes in essence looked the other way. That’s not to say that he should have just given the St. Bonaventure students carte blanche to storm the court before the game was over, but he should have looked at the circustance of the moment as opposed to just the letter of the rule.

And yes folks, if there are too many rules sometimes things like that can happen. So MLB needs to take note of that. I’ll let you throw scenarios around in your heads as to how something along those lines could in theory occur in baseball, but when something along those lines flat out costs you a game that you rightfully won it’s no laughing matter.

As an aside, baseball does have one advantage over the rest of the sports in situations like these. The concept of “playing under protest” still exists according to the rules. If a manager thinks a rule has been unfairly applied or misinterpreted, he can let the umpire know that he’s playing under protest. The umpire is then supposed to document that, and put that in his report to the league office after the game.

The manager can drop the protest after the game if he so chooses (which most managers will do if they end up winning the game). However if he chooses to continue his protest he has until noon the next day to send in a formal notice of protest to the league office. The league will then review the situation, and if they decide that yes in fact a rule was misinterpreted or misapplied by the umpire, they can order the game to be re-played from that moment.

Apparently that concept doesn’t exist in college basketball – but I think it should exist in all sports. However that aside, the more rules and regulations which exist the more chance there is that something like that could happen.

Baltimore Orioles: Super Sunday in Charm City

Like the rest of the sports world, most of the Baltimore Orioles will be watching the Super Bowl tonight. So I’m going to keep this brief today because everyone’s focusing on that. As well they should be.

Super Sunday also means that pitchers and catchers will be reporting soon. But again – another story for another day! Baltimore does have a rich history in a sense when it comes to the Super Bowl. The Baltimore Colts of course were the vanquished in one of the most famous Super Bowl games of all time, Super Bowl III. My Dad always told me to dislike the Jets growing up as a result!

However two years later the Colts made it back to the big game, defeating the Dallas Cowboys on a Jim O’Brien field goal as time expired. Baltimore returned to the Super Bowl in the form of the Ravens in the 2000-2001 season, defeating the NY Giants. And of course in 2012-13 when they beat San Francisco. So all in all, the city of Baltimore has only lost the Super Bowl once.

Having said that, most of Baltimore’s rich NFL history with regard to championships was before the Super Bowl existed. Johnny Unitas and the Colts of course won the greatest game ever played, the 1958 NFL title game against the Giants in NY. What most people don’t remember is that they also beat the Giants in the 1959 title game, this time at Memorial Stadium.

This year of course Baltimore fans will watch the hated New England Patriots take on the Atlanta Falcons. Along with everyone else, I’m pulling for Atlanta. But not simply because I don’t like Brady or Belichek – it would be fun to see someone win it all who’s never won it before. And I’ve been a Matt Ryan fan since he was at Boston College. He broke Maryland’s heart a few times, but he’s a decent QB.

But again similar to most people, I’m not sure Brady’s going to lose tonight. I do think it’ll be a competitive game, but I’m picking the Patriots to win and I’ll give three: New England 31, Atlanta 27.

Baltimore Orioles: To the National League?

When it comes to my own competitors covering the Baltimore Orioles, let’s just say that I read my share of articles from varying people. I noticed one yesterday by Camden Chat’s Chris Booze, advocating the Orioles move to the National League. As a person who admires the National League game, I clicked on it and read it.

First off, I highly recommend reading the article, as Mr. Booze makes some wonderful points. In short however, he wonders aloud if switching the O’s to the National League East might not be a part of a future realignment of some sort. Speaking for myself, I would welcome it.

National League baseball is old school baseball. And I’m an old school baseball type of guy (within reason – I am a fan of instant replay, but that’s another story). Whenever the O’s go on the road in a National League city, I love having the opportunity to see the pitchers hit. I’ve always hated the DH, and I think it takes the strategy out of the game.

I recognize that I’m in the minority, because even in Mr. Booze’s article he references the fact that American League games are more exciting. But are we simply trying to sell a few more tickets, or play the game in as pure a form as possible. My point’s always been that a pitcher should be just as accountable for hitting as anyone else on the field. It allows him to take ownership of run support in a way.

But we all know the strategy that comes with the National League game as well. Double-switches, pinch-hitters, etc. That’s part of baseball, although I’ll grant you that perhaps in the old days it wasn’t so much a part of the game. Pitchers pitched complete games in those days.

Obviously the one issue with this is that the traditional AL East rivalries would cease to exist from the Orioles’ standpoint. However would it not just feel “right” having division rivalries with Washington and Philadelphia? It would make for easy travel to road games, among other things.

Is this going to happen? Probably not. Or at least not at anytime soon. But it’s a thought. Speaking for myself, I wouldn’t mind it.

Baltimore Orioles announce spring training radio schedule

The radio home of the Baltimore Orioles, 105.7 WJZ-FM (“the fan”) announced their spring training schedule yesterday. The station will broadcast 12 of the Orioles’ spring games during Florida Grapefruit League action, beginning with the home opener on February 26th in Sarasota. The complete schedule is available by clicking here.

One of the games carried by WJZ will be the March 7th home game in Sarasota against the Dominican Republic’s national team. And that game will have a very strange quirk. Manny Machado will be absent from the Orioles that day…but he will be at Ed Smith Stadium. The O’s will actually be playing against Manny, who will partake in the game as a member of the Domincan Republic.

The final three spring broadcasts will feature the full game package, including a 30-minute pre and post-game show. Veteran announcer Joe Angel will return for his 18th season behind the microphone. His primary broadcast partner will be Jim Hunter, however similar to last year Mike Bordick and Ben McDonald will fill in on occasion as well.

Angel’s longtime broadcast partner, Fred Manfra, appears to be scaling back his schedule moreso than he even did last year, as he’ll call select home games. So in a sense we’re seeing the end of an era in the Orioles’ radio booth; Fred Manfra’s been a part of Orioles’ broadcasts dating back to when Chuck Thompson was calling games. So has Angel, incidentally; both men are institutions in Baltimore.