Bedard’s standard

Dan Haren – Game Scores > 75 – 1 / Avg Game Score – 60 / Best 3 game stretch – 216
Johann Santanna – Game Scores > 75 – 3 / Avg Game Score – 59 / Best 3 game stretch – 196
Jeremy Guthrie – Game Scores > 4 – 5 / Avg Game Score – 61.7 / Best 3 game stretch – 213
Mark Buehrle – Game Scores > 75 – 2 / Avg Game Score – 57 / Best 3 game stretch – 208
Erik Bedard – Game Scores > 75 – 7 / Avg Game Score – 61 / Best 3 game stretch – 253
John Lackey – Game Scores > 75 – 1 / Avg Game Score – 55 / Best 3 game stretch – 197
Chad Gaudin – Game Scores > 75 – 2 Avg Game Score 51 Best 3 game stretch – 196
Justin Verlander – Game Scores > 75 – 2 / Avg Game Score – 57.5 / Best 3 game stretch – 216
Josh Beckett – Game Scores > 75 – 1 / Avg Game Score – 57 / Best 3 game stretch – 197

(The number of Game Scores above 75; Average Game Score and best 3 game stretch for the current 10 leaders in AL ERA. Here’s a definition of game score. Game score is a measure of a pitcher’s dominance; 75 was an arbitrary cut off marking the best pitched games.)

Friday night’s game held some drama for Oriole ace Erik Bedard: He had a no-hitter through five innings again Oakland. But then

… Ellis, quickly ended the drama by hammering Bedard’s 1-0 pitch over the scoreboard in left field.

Left fielder Jay Payton raced back and looked as though he thought he might have a play for a second, but the ball disappeared into the seats. Bedard barely flinched, quickly turning to plate umpire Bruce Froemming to call for another ball before Ellis had even touched home.

The possible disappointment on missing out on a no-hitter, though, shouldn’t obscure a different truth.

Erik Bedard is having an incredible streak (and a fine season).

Over his last three games – 23 innings – he has allowed a single run, six hits and 5 walk. He has also struck out 33, saw his ERA drop by half a run and faced only 7 batters above the minimum. His dominance can be measured by the cumulative game score of 253 he has accumulated over those three starts.

So how has Bedard’s season compared with other leading pitchers in the American league? I isolated certain aspects of game score and Bedard ranks with the top pitchers in terms of dominance and consistency.

No other AL pitcher has dominated as Bedard has this year over a three game stretch. His average game score is not the highest – he’s had a few bad outings – but it is close the top – including a no -decision as recent as July 2. But he also has accumulated the greatest number of game scores 75 or greater among American league pitchers. The latest three game stretch may well mark a peak for him this year.

The Orioles are amazed.

In winning his fifth straight decision, Bedard, who is now 9-4 with a 3.12 ERA, allowed just Ellis’ home run and walked three while striking out 11. How dominant has Bedard been? In his past three outings, spanning 23 innings, Bedard has surrendered just one earned run and allowed only six hits. He also has struck out 33 batters during that span.

“What the guy is doing now, is he’s dominating,” Orioles interim manager Dave Trembley said. “He’s making it look easy. He’s throwing all his pitches for strikes. When he’s pitching, the guys know they have a chance to win.”

Hall of Famer, Jim Palmer is impressed too.

“I just think it’s an evolution of pitching three or four years and having overwhelming talent,” said Palmer, who has more wins (268) than any other Oriole. “There’s never been a doubt about that.”

(h/t Sox and Dawgs)

Cookin’ with Gas looks at the stats for more than a year and concludes

I think Erik Bedard has a darn good argument as one of the best five pitchers in MLB right now. In fact, the only one I see who is really better (when taking things such as league and park into effect) is Johan Santana.

Throughout the year Bedard has been one of the top strikeout pitchers. He currently leads in that category of Johann Santanna (by a significant margin). The Orioles may be having a disappointing season, but Bedard has been about as good as a pitcher could be.

There may not be much to root for at Camden Yards this year, however Erik Bedard’s continued success is great to see.

Crossposted at Soccer Dad.

Deadline deals

Now is the time when major league teams will decide if they have a realistic chance of making the playoffs or not. If they do they will look for players who can strengthen a weakness. Still teams need to balance their immediate needs against their long term needs. If they give up too much in a trade and don’t make the post-season will they regret the move?

Ken Rosenthal gets to the crux of the problem.

“Prospects are overvalued,” one general manager says. “Four to six years ago, perceived certainty (from veterans) was overvalued, and zero-to-six players weren’t nearly valued enough.

“Now it’s completely changed. The attrition rate on prospects isn’t being valued or properly considered. There’s zero regard for the attrition rate right now.”

The attrition rate, of course, is one reason that teams stubbornly hold onto prospects, knowing that not all will produce.

But shrewd teams — most notably, the Braves — evaluate their youngsters objectively and trade players they determine to be marginal.

(The anonymous GM is speaking too generally. There are still a number teams where experience is over-valued.) But it’s not always so easy to see the future. Still nowadays the tools are there for evaluating talent more accurately than in the past.

Dayn Perry gives a rundown of what various contenders (and near contenders) need. Sometimes his suggestion is to sit pat and wait for a player to improve or to use a player already on the roster more frequently.

More interesting still is Keith Law’s (free preview) overview of the borderline contenders and what they need. For the seven teams he evaluates, he makes specific recommendations.

Obviously this is one of the hardest parts of the game. In 2000 the Orioles had a selling spree, trading off a number veterans: Mike Bordick, Mike Timlin and B.J. Surhoff, and the only player of value they got back in return was Melvin Mora. (The supposed “crown jewel” of all these trades was oft-injured pitcher Luis Rivera from Atlanta. He never made it to the bigs due to injuries. Nor did the Orioles learn their lesson when they traded Sidney Ponson, the key player to the deal was the injured Kurt Ainsworth.)

Right now the Orioles have a few players that could be attractive to the right team: Keith Millar, Chad Bradford and Jamie Walker. Can the Orioles get anyone of value in return. None of these three is likely to bring more than one prospect in return. Hopefully, if the Orioles trade anyone they won’t be looking for help this year and will take a chance on a AA player with an upside instead of a AAA suspect. Recent history hasn’t been encouraging.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Orioles minor league road trip

The Baltimore Sun had a series on the Orioles’ farm teams. Following an itinerary mapped out here, it’s especially relevant now that the Orioles have all their farm teams clustered reasonably close by.

The first profile was of Bowie. The Bowie Baysox are now in their 15th year. (Their first year, 1993, they played in Memorial Stadium. Tippy Martinez had a barbecue stand.) Since 1997 I’ve taken my children to at least one Baysox game each year. It is great family entertainment and somewhat less expensive than major league baseball. (Given the performance of the Orioles during this time, there is little reason to shell out the money to see their games.)

The first game we went to in 1997 featured the Baysox of David Dellucci and Calvin Pickering. Dellucci was the hero of the game we attended hitting a 12th inning double that drove in the winning run against the Reading Phillies.

After going to a few games I realized something: most foul-pops go to the right side. (For the physics explaining this see here.)
So we started sitting along first base. The first year we did that, 2001, Bowie first baseman Franky Figueroa hit a foul. I remember following it with my eyes. I don’t know that I moved much, but when it landed, I was in position. The ball bounced on the bench in front of me and I reflexively bare handed it on the bounce. (My children were impressed.) In 2001, the Baysox were terrible, and we were there late in the game when most of the fans had left, that gave me an extra edge.

In 2003, someone from the grounds crew saw my son, and tossed him a ball. After the game we were treated nicely and got autographs from a few players and coaches including Kris Wilken, former #1 pick Darnell McDonald and coach Butch Davis. That game wasn’t just a game, it was an experience and the children loved it.

Last year we got a foul ball. Had we been a bit quicker, we might have gotten a second. And then after the game they let the children on the field to run around the bases. When they finished, they were given a t-shirt. Needless to say the children had a great time again.

Other nice aspects of Bowie are the carousel and the free admission for children wearing a uniform. (I believe that all the Maryland farm teams have these.)

Among the players we’ve seen at Bowie have included Augie Ojeda, Jerry Hairston Jr., Brian Roberts, Mike Fontenot, Willie Harris, Howie Clark (who had an incident with A-Rod earlier this year), Aaron Rakers, Luis Matos and Jayson Werth. Here are a couple of posts related to the Baysox.

Anyway, back to the Sun article, At Bowie, zany promotions take fans’ breath away

When a team like the Baysox hovers around the .500 mark and players are being called up and sent down, building a reputation for entertainment and good service is paramount to survival. The Double-A Orioles affiliate will stop at nothing – or almost nothing – to put fannies in the seats.

That means staging last week’s Bad Breath Night, three Bark in the Park events for pooches this season (the last will be Aug. 26), a Tribute to Toilet Paper Aug. 31 and fireworks, fireworks, fireworks – 22 dates over the five-month season.

If a homeowner wanted to stage a similar 10-minute pyrotechnic display by Zambelli Internationale, it would set him back almost $5,000. By contrast, an adult general admission seat at Bowie is $9.

I believe that once the Baysox tried to get into the Guinness book of World records by giving everyone a whoopee cushion so they could have the biggest collection of people sitting on whoopee cushions at the same time. So yes some of the promotions are silly. But people enjoy them and will go as much for the promotions as for the game.

The next article in the series tells of Fans, players share special relationship between the Low-A Delmarva Shorebirds and their fans. They’re somewhat more accessible than the AA players at Bowie.

There’s Gil and Joyce Dunn, booster club leaders, who take Delmarva Shorebirds into their home, steer many of them through their first steamed crab dinner, cheer them when they’re slumping and cheer for them when they’re riding high.

And Hannah Seward, who started a Web site for the team four years ago when she was 12 — to profess her undying love — and ended up creating a site where the parents of players can see how their boys of summer are doing.

And Bob and Donna Cummings, long-time season ticket holders, who sit just behind the visitor’s dugout and admit that geography makes them tighter with the opposing players and coaches than the home team. But that doesn’t stop them from honking away on a small noisemaker when their favorite Shorebirds come through.

(From what I’ve read having local families hosting minor league players is not unique to Delmarva. I believe that also happens in Bowie. I suspect that it’s a pretty widespread phenomenon.)

If you’d like to keep up with Delmarva, Monoblogue features a Shorebird of the week, every week of the season.

Frederick fans sing a different tune tells of Keys fans who sing

We’re the Frederick Keys

Come on out support your team

Baseball is back in town

You can hear the shaking sound

Bring the family

Unfortunately other than the Key’s theme song and how the grounds crew had to fix the field, there’s not much else to the Frederick article.

The Bluefield article about the Orioles rookie team, Bluefield offers rare throwback atmosphere tells of the no frills nature of the lowest rung in the system ladder, but the one with, perhaps, the most history.

But Bluefield’s humble status belies its place in Oriole history.

“This is where Cal Ripken got on the bus to start his career,” says Bruce Adams, a minor-league baseball aficionado who, with wife Margaret Engel, wrote the book, Ballpark Vacations: Great Family Trips to Minor League and Classic Major League Baseball Parks across America. “Bluefield is the one most people haven’t experienced and if they love baseball, they should.”

In addition to Ripken, who played in Bluefield in 1978, there’s Eddie Murray, Boog Powell, Don Baylor and Bobby Grich. Dean Chance, signed by the Orioles in 1959, passed through town on his way to the Los Angeles Angels in the expansion draft and a Cy Young Award in 1964.

Last Sunday, Grich returned to town for the first time in 40 years to celebrate the Golden Anniversary and conduct a baseball clinic for local kids.

But if the 50 year relationship between the Orioles and Bluefield shows the rich history of the franchise, the article about Norfolk, In Norfolk, Tide turns from Mets to O’s tells of the Orioles’ less than sterling recent past. Four years ago the Orioles lost their affiliate in Rochester, because the Red Wings were tired of poor showings. This past fall the Orioles lucked out, because Norfolk decided that it wanted to be the location of the O’s minor league team. Norfolk terminated its longtime association with the Mets to do so. Having a farm team in Norfolk is much better than having one in Ottawa, but it serves as a reminder that not only have the Orioles been failing their fans, they’ve also been failing their affiliates.

Owner Ken Young was wooed by the Nationals and the Orioles, both looking for a Triple-A affiliation closer to home.

“It was hard to make the decision even before we knew it was the Orioles,” says Young, a food service mogul and baseball traditionalist who wears a 2000 Mets National League championship ring on his right hand. “I joked that the hardest part was that I might lose out on some more hardware.”

But Young, who also bought the Bowie Baysox and Frederick Keys in the offseason, gave up little in the switch. Season ticket sales are up slightly, the team store is selling more Orioles apparel than it did Mets gear. And with the MASN sports network on the Norfolk cable system, fans can follow their favorite players up to Baltimore.

The Orioles gained, too.

In abandoning fan-less Lynx Stadium in Ottawa in favor of Harbor Park, they gained a 12,000-seat gem along the banks of the Elizabeth River that serves as one of the anchors of a revitalized waterfront. Trains roll by the left-field fence and ships and barges glide by right field. The ballpark, 15 years old, looks a third its age because crews power wash it daily.

Norfolk’s GM David Rosenfield has some positive words for the big league team

But Rosenfield, 76, runs a tight ship, which means clean and well-lighted restrooms, a full-service restaurant down the right-field line and a huge picnic area. It’s exactly what you would expect from a man voted the “King of Baseball” at the 2004 baseball winter meetings.

Rosenfield praises the Orioles’ minor-league brain trust.

“At this level, you have some players on the downturn just hanging on. The Mets last year had six or seven guys in their mid-30s and they played like it. That’s not what the minor leagues are supposed to be about. You’re not supposed to be hanging on for a paycheck,” Rosenfield says. “The Orioles don’t put up with that.”

The oldest players on the Tides are Alberto Castillo, 37, who had two stints as backup catcher with the Orioles this season, and pitcher Tim Kester, 35. The rest of the players are 30 or younger.

With the Tides currently languishing in 3rd (out of 4 places) in their division at 45-49 and few prospects worthy of the name on the roster, I wonder how long the honeymoon will last.

Finally in If you build it they will come, the Sun reports on what it’s like to attend Cal Ripken’s Aberdeen Ironbirds.

It also includes a bit of a primer what teams look for at the lowest level of the minor leagues and at succeeding levels.

As Orioles assistant general manager and director of minor league operations, David Stockstill spends his summers on the road pruning the farm system.

“At the beginning, they’re very, very raw,” he says. “As hitters we want them seeing the pitches, judging the rotation, judging speed. When they can do that, they’re able to move up a level and then we’d like to see them hit the ball all over the field and hit the ball with authority, the breaking ball as well as the fast ball. That should get them up to the Double-A area. After that, it’s more adjustment pitch to pitch as the pitcher adjusts to them.”

Stockstill also watches how players mature and deal with stress and being away from home: “Can they handle having 10,000 people yelling at them and come back and perform?”

Orioles Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Palmer says at lower levels, the emphasis is on athleticism, good control and movement on the pitches: “Does he have a wind-up he can repeat?”

“As they go up, you want to see how they read bats,” he says. “If the batters are on their fastball, do they recognize that and go to something else? How do you do when things don’t go well? That usually happens at some point in the minors. Do you maintain your composure when it does?”

Making sure players have the fundamentals down at Double-A is important, says Stockstill, because many players skip over the highest level of the minors on their way to the majors. These days, a city that pays for construction of a 12,000-seat Triple-A stadium wants a winning team in return. So the age and experience of players has increased as parent clubs try to maintain good working relationships.

However Minor League, Major Troubles tells of mistakes the city of Aberdeen made in luring the Ironbirds. Certain development that the city was counting on never materialized. Now the city is seeing none of the expected benefits of having the minor league team in town. It doesn’t change the fact that the Ironbirds are thriving financially.

It was a good idea to give an overview of the Orioles’ minor league system. The illogical route taken is a function of scheduling. (Sometimes the scheduling’s a little odd. Recently we had considered taking in a Frederick or Bowie game but neither team was home that week. The different leagues ought to work things out so there are options of catching one or another team on a given day.)

I can only hope that it won’t be long before it will be interesting to see games at each level for the baseball and not just for the gimmicks.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

3 points of light (for the Orioles)

The first half of the Orioles’ season has been, as it has been since 1998, dismal.

To take a look at how the individual player have done check out beat writer Jef Zrbiec’s Report Card. Or The Hardball Times Win Share chart for the team. (Win Shares measure the contribution a player makes to his teams wins based on a calculation developed by Bill James.) By either measure there are only three players who stand out above the rest: All Star Second baseman Brian Roberts and starting pitchers Erik Bedard and Jeremy Guthrie.

Before the season there were rumors that the Orioles were exploring trade talks with Atlanta that involved Brian Roberts and pitcher Hayden Penn for Marcus Giles and Adam LaRoche. In the end Peter Angelos nixed the deal, which, looks pretty wise.
Marcus Giles SDG .242 .313 .338 .651
Adam LaRoche PIT .239 .324 .439 .763

Brian Roberts BAL .322 .405 .443 .848

The problem was that he didn’t nix the deal for baseball reasons but because Brian Roberts is one of his favorites. At the time I criticized the interference.I had thought that Roberts’ decline last year a greater concern than Giles’ decline. It appears that the opposite was true. Roberts currently has the second highest OPS for AL second basemen behind Dustin Pedroia of the Red Sox.

I’m glad that Angelos nixed the deal, but appalled that, once again, he did it for the wrong reason.

Erik Bedard has been a pretty solid pitcher for most of his career. But this year he’s moved his performance up another notch. Currently he leads the AL in strikeouts and has a sterling 4 to 1 K:BB ratio. And he’s coming off a 15 strikeout complete game shutout of the Texas Rangers that garnered a game score of 98, the highest in baseball this year.

Brian Roberts has settled in as a very good second baseman and Erik Bedard has reached the level of an elite pitcher. Jeremy Guthrie, though, has come out of nowhere to have an excellent season (except for last night) after being a disappointment in Cleveland. Here’s what he’d done as of June 26:

Since the Orioles inserted him into their rotation on May 8, Guthrie has made nine starts and has been arguably the American League’s best starting pitcher. He leads the league in ERA (1.63), base runners allowed per nine innings (6.92) and innings pitched (66 1/3 , tied with C.C. Sabathia) since becoming a regular starter.

Guthrie has pitched at least seven innings in eight straight starts, never once allowing more than three runs. He hasn’t lost since becoming a starter, throwing well enough to become a potential all-star as a 28-year-old rookie.

The article also portrays Guthrie as a real prince.

At a recent game, Guthrie wanted to sign autographs and chat with a church group that was seated in the upper deck at Camden Yards. Guthrie asked a team official how to find them from the clubhouse.

“Why don’t you wait, we’ll send someone up there for you,” came the response.

“No, that’s fine,” Guthrie said. “I’ll find them myself.”

Guthrie got directions, found the group and signed autographs. “You don’t find many ballplayers walking by themselves to the upper deck,” Duquette said.

While the Post article notes that Guthrie’s doing well, it doesn’t exactly explain how he is doing so well. John Sickels recently did a prospect retro on Jeremy Guthrie. Sickels writes

Guthrie opened 2003 in Double-A and did well, going 6-2, 1.44 in 62.2 innings. However, his K/BB ratio was just 35/14…a very low strikeout rate. Promoted to Triple-A, he was blasted for Buffalo, going 4-9, 6.52 in 18 starts. I saw him pitch late in the season. . .it was very strange. He was hitting 93-94 MPH, and his breaking stuff had a lot of movement, but he wasn’t fooling anyone. It was hard to understand how a pitcher with such good stuff could look so poor, especially since he threw strikes. Command wasn’t the problem. I gave him a Grade C+ in the ’04 book.

If there was no obvious reason Guthrie wasn’t succeeding with Cleveland, Sickels attempts to answer that mystery and suggests that Guthrie may have found himself in Baltimore.

His stuff was back up into the low-to-mid-90s and his breaking stuff had more bite again. But he was now 27 years old, and kept getting hit hard in the majors, with a 6.98 mark in 19 innings last year. I wrote that a change of scenery and a switch to relief would be the only things that would save his career.

Guthrie got the change of scenery and so far he’s been quite a revelation for the Orioles: 2.42 ERA in 81.2 innings with a 56/14 K/BB. He’s been a bit hit-lucky I think, giving up just 59 hits, but he’s pitching genuinely well and is now living up to the expectations generated back in his Stanford days. He’s pitching the best ball of his career right now. What’s the explanation? He’s always had the stuff. I think it was a matter of confidence and location, and clearing his mental and emotional palate after his struggles in Cleveland. If he continues to throw quality strikes, I think it’s sustainable.

I’d like to know how often someone with Guthrie’s minor league record succeeds in the majors, but no one’s looking at that now. Right they’re (rightly) marveling that he’s turned his career around. I guess, if nothing else we’re witnessing the Mazzone effect. If so, the Orioles better do all they can to make sure that Mazzone stays in Baltimore.

There little hope for this year. And no real hope for the immediate future. Hopefully the front office under McPhail can build from these three and progress towards respectability in 3 to 4 years. It won’t be sooner than that.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

The cycle

Last week Aubrey Huff hit for the cycle in a losing cause for he Orioles. He became the third player this year, after Mark Ellis of the Athletics and Fred Lewis of the Giants to hit for the cycle.

The Giants have had players hit for the cycle 24 times. (Lewis’s cycle put them ahead of the Pirates.) Luke Scott of the Astros became the first rookie to hit for the cycle, when he accomplished the feat last year. Gary Matthews Jr. was the most recent player to hit for the cycle in order when he was with the Rangers last year.

The Twins had eight players hit for the cycle between 1970 and 1986 but none since.

Does the name Tyrone Horne mean anything to you? Well he’s the only professional baseball player ever to hit for the home run cycle. Baseball Guru adds

Horne’s four homers and 10 RBI helped the Travelers rout the Missions, 13-4. Horne went on to win the Texas League home run crown with 37 that year, also driving in 139.

But get this: Horne never made it to the majors in the U.S. (He did play in the Korean Major Leagues, though.) I’d add that this isn’t necessarily surprising. For someone to lead a minor league level in HR (or any counting stat) for a season, he’d have to play nearly a whole season, at least, in that league. That would mean that his team never saw that he had progressed enough to go to the next level.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Managing improvement

Sunday’s Baltimore Sun had an article by Dan Connolly, “Help Wanted” about what the Orioles need in a new manager.

The Orioles have hired a new manager every few years for the past decade or so. They’ve tabbed World Series champions and big names. They’ve developed their own and dipped into the hot-prospect well.

They’ve done just about everything but find the right manager at the right time to point them in the right direction for the long term.

I guess the problem with the article starts at the very beginning. When a team’s problems extend a decade, the manager is probably not the main problem. Since avey Johnson quit, the Orioles have had Ray Miller, Mike Hargrove, Lee Mazzilli, Sam Perlozzo and, now, Dave Trembly as managers. They’ve also had Pat Gillick, Frank Wren, the late Syd Thrift, Jim Beattie/Mike Flanagan and Mike Flanagan/Jim Duquette as general managers. Given the lack of continuity in those running the team it’s not hard to see that the problem extends beyond the manager.

But the Orioles aren’t yet sure exactly what or whom they are looking for. Perhaps a mix of energy and attitude from a good, old-fashioned taskmaster could stop the spiral of losing. It would be a change, but in this era of baseball, that style is on the endangered list, if not extinct.

What’s more likely is a new hybrid, a custom fit that will work in Baltimore, but maybe not in other places. That, however, will take time, research and risk, because as Orioles fans have seen, things don’t always go as expected.

The problems is that none of this illuminates the Orioles’ biggest woes: the inability to identify and develop talent. Earl Weaver was a great manager but there was only so much he could do in 1986. He probably kept that team afloat for 3/4 of the year. But the talent wasn’t there and collapsed terribly in the last quarter of the season leading the first last place finish in the franchise’s history.

In reviewing the Orioles’ managers past, Connolly, only once puts his finger on the manager’s quality.

Then there was Davey Johnson, a superlative tactician with a contagious swagger who didn’t care if he irked players or management. He’s the only one of the recent lot to have won here, but he did it with a star-studded roster, not the collection of complementary players that has defined the Orioles for nearly a decade.

“Superlative tactician” refers to a guy who had Aaron Ledesma replace Rafael Palmeiro at first base when the team faced Randy Johnson. And it marked the only season – including playoffs – in which Randy Johnson lost five times to the same team.

But that’s how I describe tactics. Not calling for steals, hits and runs and double switches, it’s a matter of matching up players to opponents and situations to maximize their value to the club. If a player is weak against left handers then a good manager benches him against lefties and only starts him when a righty is starting against his team.

That’s why the term manager as a job description is appropriate. A manager manages the talent the front office has acquired. This also means that if the talent is limited, so too is the manager.

For most of the season the Orioles have had a slugging percentage of under .400. If that’s the case, unless the team has an ERA under 3.50, it won’t do well. The Orioles just don’t have the talent to compete and even bringing back Earl Weaver at the height of his powers (if that were possible) won’t make this a winning team.

Later on Connolly refers to a poll of Sun readers

The Orioles haven’t had a screaming, in-your-face general since the most successful manager in club history, Hall of Famer Earl Weaver, hung up his dirt-kicking spikes in 1986.

Because of Weaver’s success, however, the perception here is that winning and a fire-breathing leader are as intertwined as hardshell crabs and Old Bay seasoning.

In last week’s Sun/baltimoresun.com baseball poll, readers were asked what trait they most wanted in a manager, and more than 40 percent said “a fiery mentality,” easily trumping “ties to the Oriole Way” and three others.

The problem again, is that Weaver didn’t win because he was fiery. Perhaps his personality motivated some players, but the underlying talent was there. Weaver knew how to exploit the talent to his advantage. He maximized the output of the players he had in his charge because he understood platoon splits and the value of a walk and the (negative) value of an out.

(Famously, Weaver supposedly responded to the late Pat Kelly’s admonition that he “… walk with God” with “Pat, I want you to walk with the bases loaded.”)

In other words, Weaver was using the same sort of analysis that Bill James popularized, 25 years before MoneyBall appeared. (Davey Johnson did too.) And the Orioles during Weaver’s tenure were excellent at developing talent.

True the Orioles now have some offensive talent in Brian Roberts and (hopefully) Nick Markakis. And some pitching talent in Eric Bedard and Jeremy Guthrie. (Daneil Cabrera for all the hype, has not as yet been any better than average. He still allows too many base runners. The Orioles best hope for Cabrera is for him to have a breakout year and then trade him to a team that gambles that Cabrera will sustain his success.) Of those four only Markakis is young. Counting on Adam Loewen at this point is ridiculous. But there still isn’t reason to hope that the Orioles lack of success is coming to an end any time soon.

Mike Flanagan might be ranked as the 10th best General Manager in baseball by Forbes, but his record so far from a baseball standpoint is not the so encouraging.

It’s true, that I’d probably prefer a General Manager who subscribed to Bill James’s ideas, but that isn’t necessary. Brian Sabean has had success with the Giants (despite statistically inclined naysayers) and Bill Stoneman has had success with the the Angels, though neither seems much enchanted with statistical analysis. Still each has shown an ability to evaluate talent effectively and build a consistently good team.

As far as manager is concerned, the one person I’d love to see wearing an Orioles uniform in the dugout right now, is Larry Dierker. He did a great job with Houston in part because he’s statistically inclined. (He did have a lot of talent to work with.)

The Orioles may wonder which manager will help the team the most, but unless the Orioles get a General Manager who is effective in recruiting and developing talent, the Managerial revolving door will continue, because all the team is doing is addressing the symptom, not the cause of the futility.

Crossposted at Soccer Dad .

O say can you start over again?

The firing of Sam Perlozzo on Monday was the first of a number of changes that the Orioles will make.

Tim Marchman of the NY Sun hails the hiring of Andy MacPhail as a savior for the club – come 2009.

Among the contracts they’re paying out this year are $8 million each for starters Kris Benson and Jaret Wright, $3 million each for relievers Chad Bradford and Jamie Walker, $5 million each for outfielders Jay Payton and Jay Gibbons, and $8 million for Melvin Mora. All of these players have their uses, even at these prices, but you can’t build a team around midlevel players making market salaries. This is basic common sense: Two $8 million no. 4 starters are nowhere near as valuable as a $16 million ace and a fringe no. 5 starter.MacPhail, having overseen the building of two very good farm systems, is a good bet to build a third, and the way he’s spent money on stars like Puckett and Sammy Sosa shows that he’s very aware that in baseball, two nickels don’t add up to a dime. Because the Orioles have money and as long as they’re simply run soundly, they’ll be competitive once they’ve flushed the pipes of players like Wright and readied the farm system to start producing some cheap, usable talent.

The other thing that might help the Orioles is finding talent discarded by others. Jeremy Guthrie, the winner of last night’s game is a prime example. Guthrie’s got a WHIP of less that 1 and if not for the bullpen would be something like 6-1. Clearly the Orioles made a good guess here with a talent another team had discarded. But what Marchman is suggesting is that MacPhail understands the value of players, at least in terms of salary. That alone would be an improvement over the current situation. (Hopefully he also understands the value of players in terms of talent.)

While it’s true that the Twins did win two World Championships with MacPhail as GM, the Cubs, Baseball Musings notes, were not so successful with him as club president.

During MacPhail’s twelve seasons running the Cubs (1995-2006), Chicago’s record was 916-1011, a .475 winning percentage, 22nd in the majors. Twenty third were the Orioles at 911-1014, .473. If they’re going to hire someone new, shouldn’t it be someone with a track record that’s different from your team’s own history?

Hardball Times notes that MacPhail in taking the position with the Orioles might be giving up the chance to succeed But Selig as commissioner.

MacPhail, though, will not be Sam Perlozzo’s boss.

Perlozzo seems like a nice guy and I wonder how much his firing will affect the team’s play, it’s not like there’s a lot of talent, though the Orioles have scored 13 runs in two games since his dismissal.

Last night on a radio show, Perlozzo was asked about his best memory with the Orioles. He credits Angelos for hiring him as Davey Johnson’s third base coach, affording him the opportunity to be near his dying father for the last month. He also said that when Flanagan fired him, he had a message from Angelos that if he wished to return to the club in some capacity, he should let the owner know. Perlozzo said that the offer made him feel appreciated. Despite some of the negative things he had to say about the club, he didn’t seem to rule out the possibility of returning to the club in some capacity. Perlozzo also indicated that Leo Mazzone plans to stay on, but that they’ve talked very little since his firing. Mazzone, Perlozzo said, has a professional interest in continuing to overhaul the pitching staff.

Thomas Boswell who celebrated Perlozzo’s hiring wrote in All too familiar

Ten years ago, the Orioles parted ways with a manager, Davey Johnson, who clashed with owner Peter Angelos, then left town on the very day he was voted AL manager of the year.So, let’s get this straight. In ’97, the Orioles didn’t want a smart, cocky manager who made his players bristle (even Cal Ripken) and who didn’t give a fig about his relationship with Angelos. Now, a decade later, Baltimore’s dream candidate is Girardi, who laid down the law to young Marlins players and gave his boss a piece of his mind worthy of Davey.

Being a good manager isn’t just about relationships with others, it’s about knowing how to utilize your resources, and managing the talent you have for the best result. I suspect that that’s a bigger reason for Girardi’s (and Johnson’s) success than the fact that they were strict.

And if you’re interested the Baltimore Sun has quotes from different members of the Orioles’ organization accompanying the hiring and firing of managers since 1994.

“In looking at his background, we felt he was the man. It’s not that we felt Davey Johnson wasn’t the man. We weren’t comparing him against Davey Johnson. We just had the feeling Phil was the right man for this job.”- Assistant GM Frank Robinson, Oct. 16, 1994

And he was the right man, at least until the season started. Regan, a highly regarded pitching coach, lasted one year. (His pitching coach that year is current GM, Mike Flanagan.)

Not everyone thinks that Girardi should take the job if offered. Ken Rosenthal has written that Girardi ought to wait until the end of the season to see what his options are. Former Mets GM Steve Philips was even more emphatic

This morning on the same show, Steve Philips called the Orioles managerial job the “worst in baseball” and said the team is afraid to take a risk — and, if he was Joe Girardi, he’d stay away from that job “with a 10-foot pole” because it might hurt his chances for successful career as a manager. He added that bullpens are where GMs make the biggest mistakes because of the inherent uncertainty with the position.

Still, while it’s uncertain if the O’s have actually made an offer to Girardi (according to the Sun the Orioles are actually in negotiations with him. Other sources have indicated that the O’s have not completed their interview process.

Will the Orioles change? Certainly they’ve changed personnel. But will they adopt a consistent, effective philosophy and long term planning? I’ve been watching them for too long to be convinced that anyone hired this week will be around past 2009.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad

Orioles Fire Perlozzo

The Baltimore Orioles have fired manager Sam Perlozzo and hired Andy MacPhail for a front office job, the Sun‘s Jeff Zrebiec and Dan Connolly report.

Sam Perlozzo was fired as manager of the Orioles this morning, according to a club source.

Perlozzo, 56, a Cumberland native who called managing the Orioles his dream job, will be removed about 2 1/2 months into his second full season leading the club.

The team is set to leave this afternoon for a six-game West Coast trip that starts tomorrow night in San Diego.

Bullpen coach Dave Trembley, a longtime minor league skipper who has occasionally subbed for bench coach Tom Trebelhorn this season, has been named interim manager while club executives begin the search for a long-term replacement.

In addition, ESPN’s Buster Olney is reporting that the club has hired Andy MacPhail, former Chicago Cubs president, as the Orioles’ chief operating officer, presumably replacing Joe Foss, who left the Orioles earlier this season. And, according to Olney, they are attempting to set up a meeting with former Florida Marlins manager Joe Girardi to replace Perlozzo.

The Orioles, who are currently in last place in the American League East with a 29-40 record and in the midst of an eight-game losing streak, are expected to announce changes this afternoon.

Somehow, I suspect the O’s will continue to suck.

via Jeff Quinton, who has some local color to add.

Take this job …

The Baltimore Sun’s David Steele doesn’t think that the Orioles ought to hire Davey Johnson. In “Office needs to tell Johnson Thank you but no thank you” Steele writes

If you hear it once a day, you hear it a thousand times from the increasingly unfaithful: Everything was just fine while Davey was here, and everything has stunk since he left. Even if Johnson’s departure didn’t directly cause the Orioles to slowly sink to the bottom, it sent up the first real warning flare that something was terribly amiss in the House of Angelos – that the honeymoon was pretty much over.Burying that hatchet would go a long way toward healing the rift between Baltimore and the Orioles, or at least delay it from becoming a canyon.

It wouldn’t do that as well as winning would, though.

And if the prodigal manager does come marching through the gates, he’d better start winning, and winning fast – or else the clock will start ticking on his honeymoon, too.

Which means the Orioles had better be absolutely, positively, lead-pipe-lock sure that the manager really is the problem. Not just a problem. The problem.

This isn’t 100% correct. The Orioles were already in decline in 1996. At that time Gillick was much better in building a team for the present than for the future. During Johnson’s tenure as manager, the Orioles staved off decline. But the main point, that if the problem isn’t just the manager don’t change him, is valid.

Thomas Boswell made a similar argument in Orioles Have to Learn To Lay Off the Change-Up

Once again, when a relief pitcher torches five games in two weeks or two players scuffle in the dugout, it’s the manager’s fault. Welcome to dysfunctional business as usual by the Warehouse. The crazy kids run the family, not the parents. The chain of command is a pretzel. Winning and losing isn’t as important as who gets the blame. And, often, the best man takes the fall.Before the Orioles brass decides whether to dump the competent, honest Perlozzo alongside the managerial carcasses of Ray Miller, Mike Hargrove and Lee Mazzilli, it should look at the team’s long dismal history of similar decisions. Since ’85, a span in which Baltimore is 186 games under .500, the franchise has had 11 managers in 23 seasons. If Perlozzo doesn’t survive this season, he’ll be the eighth Orioles manager I’ve covered who got fired within months of finally furnishing his office. Johnny Oates was so fretful he didn’t truly unpack his memorabilia until his third season. Perlozzo, in his 12th year with the organization and third year as manager, has seen it all.

Well put. Though if you’re arguing about Perlozzo’s competence pointing out that he overused Baez when Baez was floundering sort of undermines the point.

It turns out that Davey Johnson wasn’t much interested in the job anyway. In a tirade worthy of Curt Schilling Johnson told Adam Kilgore of the Washington Post

“I don’t even know that he’s on the hot seat,” Johnson said. “I don’t even know why we’re having this conversation. I guess there’s nothing to write about, so you guys start dreaming up stuff. I wish him the best. I’m not going to lend any credence to that.”That’s why people write, because they dream up stuff and want to put pressure on people. Leave me out of these sordid little games you play.”

Though Roch Kubato of the Sun takes a shot at Johnson’s response because

keep in mind that Jeff Zrebiec’s story in yesterday’s edition of The Sun stated that the Orioles had internal discussions about Johnson. It’s pretty hard for the guy to dispute that statement. How would he know what’s being said inside the warehouse?

Well that’s a very good reason for Johnson to shoot down the rumors. If unnamed sources are bandying about names as replacements for the current manager, the potential replacement ought to be emphatic that he’s not been contacted. Those unnamed sources were (intentionally or not) undermining Perlozzo.

After the 1994 season, it was rumored that Angelos wanted a big name manager for the team, perhaps even Tony LaRussa. Then it turned out that Angelos (or a representative) had actually contacted LaRussa. Angelos realized then that if it was public that he was seeking a replacement for the late Johnny Oates, it would be classless to leave him twisting in the wind, so he fired Oates at that point.

Johnson, who presumably was once friendly with Perlozzo – and maybe still is – was right to berate Kilgore. He was standing up for the manager.

Related thoughts at Beltway Sports Beat.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad .