SB Nation User Blog: CoachOfEarl

Let's say we get Chone Figgins

CoachOfEarl — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 18:13:25 -0000

since he's a FA 3B (complete list here) next year. Who would you lead off with? What would the lineup look like?

They are the same age, 32 next year. Both switch hitters.

Both guys are consistently above avg in AVG and OBP, AVG comparison yearly

What's troubling for Bob is the trend in BB% and K% BB/K comparison

Who has more speed? G AB SB CS SB% AVG (career)

Brian Roberts 1055 4176 242 62 .796 .283

Chone Figgins 855 3272 262 87 .750 .292

Figgins has playoff experience, which has been shown to cause mid-30s career declines. (See Mora, Melvin and Walker, Jaime)

For me, Figgy swipes more bags, by a lot, so he leads off. It's a tough choice and a good problem to have. Here's a crack at the top halfish

Figgins

Roberts

Markakis

Huff

Jones / Reimold

Other 3B FAs include Adrian Beltre, who can pick and is injured and expensive. Maybe he'll get cheaper as an injury risk. Brandon Inge can pick and is a bad hitter having a good year at the plate, so his price is going up. There are others, maybe an obvious choice that I missed? Which leads me to the poll...

Poll

Who plays 3B next year?

NASA Astronaut Richard Arnold, a native of maryland, hands a baseball jersey that flew on board the...

CoachOfEarl — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 16:09:23 -0000

NASA Astronaut Richard Arnold, a native of maryland, hands a baseball jersey that flew on board the space shuttle during the STS-119 mission to Brad Bergesen

Welcome To The Show, David Hernandez

CoachOfEarl — Thu, 28 May 2009 21:52:18 -0000

Welcome To The Show, David Hernandez

From Fangraphs. Someone actually suggests watching an Orioles game

Hernandez is one of those divisive prospects who puts up numbers that dwarf his physical abilities. His numbers, especially the strikeout rates, are ridiculous. In 2007, he posted a 10.4 K/9 in High-A ball. Last year, he put up a 10.6 K/9 in Double-A. This year, he's up to 12.46 K/9 in Triple-A. He's consistently been at the top of the league leaderboards in strikeouts at every rung of the ladder.

However, the reaction from scouts has been relatively mild. He was a 16th round pick in 2005, and even with his minor league dominance, Baseball America left him out of the Orioles Top 10 prospects over the winter. The concerns have mostly centered around questionable command of a four seam fastball and a lack of a third pitch. His slider is definitely an out pitch, and it's the reason for his crazy strikeout rate, but heavy reliance on a breaking ball will get scouts talking bullpen very quickly.

Predictions for Eaton vs. Greinke

CoachOfEarl — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:10:29 -0000

Please choose one of the following: Feel free to discuss, explain your choices. I'm babbling because I need 75 words. I'm rooting for B but expecting C. I think Pie is starting to heat up. I hope Reimold stays hot. Nick Markakis is good at baseball.

A) No hitter, 17Ks

B) ESPN: Greinke gives up 7 runs in blowout loss to OTHER_BASEBALL_TEAM

C) Eaton is Eaton, Greinke is Greinke, KC 7 BAL 1

D) None of the above.

Mark Hendrickson is overrated! 9. Mark Hendrickson (Orioles) -- 26.1 IP, 5.13 ERA, 6.75 FIP, -1.62...

CoachOfEarl — Wed, 13 May 2009 18:20:44 -0000

Mark Hendrickson is overrated!

9. Mark Hendrickson (Orioles) -- 26.1 IP, 5.13 ERA, 6.75 FIP, -1.62 E-F, 7.09 tERA
When your ERA is over 5.00 and you've been lucky, that's not a good sign. You don't need me to tell you that Hendrickson won't be a serviceable pitcher any time soon. The only good news for Baltimore fans is that the faster Hendrickson's ERA flies north, the sooner they'll start to see the glut of Oriole pitching prospects called up to the majors.

From Beyond the Boxscore

Pitching statistics for April

CoachOfEarl — Fri, 01 May 2009 14:54:53 -0000

We know the pitching is a problem, but I'm going to try to dive into the numbers and pinpoint what the exact problem is. Reference links at the bottom of the post.

K/9: 7.01 (14th in MLB, 5th in AL)

Our strikeout leader is...Adam Eaton. Guts and Koji have a K rate in the 5's, which isn't very good at all, and Ray is at 11. Overall, respectable. This may be the low point between Bedard and Good Danny, and the Cavalry we are continuously being promised. For now, if our two main starters could miss a few more bats, we'd be in much better shape. More on that in a bit.

BB/9: 3.25 (4th in MLB)

How weird is that? Our spare parts pitching staff has division-best control. I think getting rid of Death Cab dropped that by at least two points. Capt Kirk keeps telling them to throw strikes, and they're actually doing it now.

HR/9: 1.86 (29)

Giving up more HR than everyone but the Phils...of course, Simon with his videogame-like 7.11 HR/9 won't be back, and Bass seems to have gotten it out of his system, at least for a while, our bright spot here is...Adam Eaton (2 in 21.1IP). Guts/Koji have each given up 5, that tall lefty has served up 7 meatballs, and I haven't even mentioned Fly Ball Sherril, as he hasn't gotten started yet. We need to work on this. Badly.

WHIP: 1.63 (30)

So how can we be so stingy with free passes and have the highest WHIP in the bigs? We let them hit the ball. A lot. Why take a walk when you can hit a hanging curveball or an 88 mph fastball to Pie or Wigginton or to a fan out in the bleachers?

Opponents are hitting .308 against us, highest in the majors. SLG is an ugly .541, thanks to 40 HR and 58 2B. The second worst SLG in the AL is CLE with .485. It's like everyone we face turns into a team full of Ryan Brauns, except for Ian Kinsler, who would probably take a pay cut to face us more often.

Our current rotation (H/9): Guts (11.1) KOJI (8.4) Handu (12.8) Bergy (13.0) Eaton (12.2). One of these things is not like the other. One of these things is acceptable. The number of hits we give up is so bad that it's turning our advanced defensive statistics into a statistical anomaly. We're rated last here, but we know that's not true, with certain exceptions. Don't get me started on defensive stats.

GB% (MLB avg: 43.3%): Guthrie (30.3), Eaton (29.0), and Uehara (23.9) are sub-poor to poor here. Bergesen is a rock start here with 61.1%, and Baez and Bass are also above 50%, probably Bass's saving throw.

FB% (MLB avg: 28.4%): Guthrie (51.5%), Uehara (58.8%), Hendrickson (46.4%), Eaton (47.8%). See the problem? Sherril (51.5%) is our closer. Bergy, JJ, Bass, and Baez are the only pitchers below average here.

Summary: When we're pitching, we're throwing strikes that batters like to hit. We need to get the ball down and past the hitters. Relying on the defense is great to an extent, but we're overworking the defense, and the opposition is exploiting the weak points.

Our rotation and our bullpen are about the same overall. The bullpen is the most overworked in the majors, but if you didn't see that coming, you don't know much about baseball and pitching and the Orioles. I don't think that's a bad thing, as we have lots of guys ready and willing and semi-able to do the job, and while we need our starters to last longer, we need to plan for them not to.

One thing I'm wondering about, and that's if the way we dealt with pitching in ST (bringing 37 guys in and letting them all fight it out) didn't set us back in the development department. By not focusing on the important guys (since we didn't know who they were going to be for the most part) I wonder if we didn't give them enough opportunity to build up per a plan. Guts in the WBC was probably a bad idea, and his early struggles hopefully stay early. Simon probably got hurt puching himself too hard too early. Bass was a nightmare early but he seems to be in a groove lately. Koji is climbing his learning curve, Bergy will probably have fits and starts and pitch a couple of gems and get hammered a bit. Eaton will be crappy and pretty good. By now everyone should be ready to be competitive, at least conditioning wise. Winter is now behind us and we need to work on getting velocity up and pitches down. We actually have a fighting chance to be a decent team if we can do that.

References:

Trembley defends Eaton, butchers logic and English

CoachOfEarl — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 17:22:01 -0000

Thanks to Roch:

"I'd like to dispel this with Adam Eaton," Trembley said. "I don't think every time that Adam Eaton pitches, it's a critical situation or a crucial situation. I think with hitters, you give them at-bats. I think you give them 75-100 at-bats. Adam Eaton has pitched for a long time. I don't think the notion ought to be that, every time he pitches out there, if he pitches good, he's on the team. If he doesn't pitch good, he's going to get replaced. I don't think that's real fair.

"If he pitches great tomorrow, everybody's going to jump on the band wagon and say, 'Hey, what a great pitcher he is.' And if he doesn't pitch well, people are going to say, 'Well, is that the last time you're going to start him?' Let's see how he does and evaluate from there.

"I think it's important that, as a team, we have an opportunity to win a series against the White Sox. We lost tonight. We didn't play well enough to win. They pitched better, they caught it better, they got timely hitting, and we didn't. Tomorrow is a new day and we have to pitch better than they do tomorrow. We have to catch it better, we have to hit better. And I don't think it's solely Adam Eaton. I think it's the team. I think it's this group. Certain guys on one particular day are better than others. That doesn't mean you cast them aside in a corner and just say, 'Hey, we've got to change this thing and do something different.' What we have is what we have. We'll do the best we can and show confidence in our guys."

No Dave, if he pitches great tomorrow, we'll all say something like 'a broken clock is right twice a day'. He's so inefficient that he's averaging 20-25 pitches an inning. I'd rather have Garrett Olsen back. He's better than Trachsel, I guess.

And did he just let slip the Pie at-bat countdown?

Pull your pants up son

CoachOfEarl — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 22:45:57 -0000

Pull your pants up son

PECOTA now puts the BJ's in the cellar

CoachOfEarl — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 04:00:08 -0000

PECOTA now puts the BJ's in the cellar

They run this thing every night or something, yesterday we were tied. We lost 30RA and 10RS in the last couple of weeks. Was this from the Adam Eaton signing, or the rest of the cavalry?

Can we do this? Also, this is gonna be a tough freaking division next year.

East W L RS RA AVG OBP SLG
Boston Red Sox 98 64 849 696 .270 .347 .433
New York Yankees 97 65 811 672 .265 .340 .419
Tampa Bay Rays 92 70 812 719 .255 .336 .417
Baltimore Orioles 76 86 822 893 .269 .336 .436
Toronto Blue Jays 75 87 704 762 .254 .319 .403

Sorry for the formatting

SUN POLL: Orioles biggest offseason acquisition?

CoachOfEarl — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 18:33:05 -0000

SUN POLL: Orioles biggest offseason acquisition?

Go here and vote. Can one of the mods turn this into an actual poll here, or explain to my dumb az how to do it myself?