SB Nation User Blog: Joltin Joe Orsulak

Catching Up With Eric Davis

Joltin Joe Orsulak — Wed, 20 May 2009 17:04:03 -0000

A nice piece from the Baltimore Sun on Eric Davis:

And, as filler, a public service reminder to everyone (especially as you get older) to have a colonoscopy. It's not a lot of fun, but it's necessary. Several years ago I lost a colleague, the brilliant historian Lawrence Levine, to colon cancer. Davis's heroic recovery and example tell one joyful story, but there are a lot of sad ones out there too.

Hot Stove Daydreaming: Billy Butler

Joltin Joe Orsulak — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 18:21:20 -0000

In a recent commentary on the Royal's potential acquisition of Mike Jacobs (which has actually happened since he wrote), Rany Jazzyjeffli [I may be spelling that wrong] mentioned something I wasn't aware of.

Most importantly, though, trading for Jacobs makes it more likely than not that Billy Butler has already played his last game for the Royals.

We know that Moore is not a fan of Butler; we’ve known that since Sam Mellinger wrote this summer that Moore had offered Butler to the Mariners for Yuniesky Betancourt two winters ago. (The Mariners, bless their hearts, declined. Betancourt’s defensive reputation is massively overrated, and he hits like a late-model Angel Berroa.)

Butler has struggled to adjust to the majors and he's a born DH if there ever was one, but he's just 22 and has incredible potential. I don't know how correct Rany's reading of the situation is, but it seems like exactly the kind of thing the Orioles should look into -- if the Royals are determined to make bad decisions, it's only right that we should do our best to facilitate.

Here's the link to the post, which is a much longer discussion of the trade and why Rany hates it: Rany on the Royals.

Asdrubal Cabrera

Joltin Joe Orsulak — Thu, 31 May 2007 18:04:00 -0000

Does anyone have any info of Asdrubal Cabrera's status? I noticed that he hasn't been in the box scores the last few days and a Google News search indicates that he's been put on the Akron inactive list. Anybody know why -- injury, personal issues, etc...?

[Filler] He seems to be having an impressive regrouping year, particularly in the plate discipline department, after being badly rushed, and I'm hoping that this isn't a serious setback.[end filler.]

The Guillen deal revisited, just for laughs

Joltin Joe Orsulak — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 15:18:15 -0000

I've noticed that Juan Rivera has been on a tear recently, with two two-homer games this week. That prompted me to look at his overall numbers and think about what could have been...

After last year's early-season success, pretty much everyone gave up on critiquing the Guillen for Rivera/Izturis deal. And you could argue that no matter what happens, the deal was a success because the Nats' great start had such an important psychological and public relations effect.

But a lot of the substance of the criticism wasn't so much about that first season, but about the deal's long-term effects. In fact, I'd argue that this deal, although it isn't really controversial in the public mind anymore, is exactly the kind of defensible but wrong-headed thing that will hurt the team in the long term. Nats fandom is nothing if not masochistic, so let's take a look at the numbers:

Guillen 2005: .283/.338/.479 in 551 AB, with 24 HR, 32 2B, 76 RBI, and 81 R.
Guillen 2006: .206/.267/.406 in 212 AB, with 9 HR, 13 2B, 33 RBI, and 26 R.

Rivera 2005: .271/.316/.454 in 350 AB, with 15 HR, 17 2B, 59 RBI, and 46 R.
Rivera 2006: .286/.349/.514 in 175 AB, with 10 HR, 10 2B, 35 RBI, and 28 R.

Guillen was clearly better in 2005, but by the end of the season, the difference wasn't as great as I imagine most people assumed it would be, particularly if you accept that Rivera could have sustained that rate of performance in a full-time role (I think so, but I suppose you could argue differently). This year, Guillen has sucked, and Rivera is doing quite well, albeit not quite in a full-time role. Guillen's injuries obviously play a role here, but when you acquire a guy headed into his 30s, that's a possibility you need to factor in to your decision making.

I'd argue that you really could (and should) have seen something like this coming -- Rivera's track record suggested that he was close to the same player Guillen was before the deal, despite Guillen's reputation as a slugger, and his age (a bit less than two years younger) and better plate discipline suggested that he was a decent bet to get better, while Guillen's track record (esp. high Ks and low BBs) and age suggested that he was a good bet to decline, at least a little and perhaps a lot.

On top of that, let's look at the money...

Guillen made $3.5 million in 2005, and $4 million in 2006. He will be a free agent in 2007.

Rivera made $390,000 in 2005, and avoided arbitration by signing a two-year deal that pays him $1.25 million in 2006 and $2.025 million in 2007. He's eligible for arbitration again in 2008 and for free agency in 2009.

So that's $7.5 million for two years of Guillen vs. $3.665 million for three years of Rivera, and he'd be under control for at least a fourth year at a reasonable salary ($4-5 million max). Guillen's contract really isn't bad at all, but Rivera would have been a tremendous bargain at least through 2008 -- enough to pay for an average-to-above-average player at another position, like pitcher, shortstop, or centerfield, perhaps.

None of this factors in Izturis. It's not clear that he would have made it as an everyday shortstop, so quantifying this part of the deal is tough. Izturis's numbers as a utility guy in the majors haven't been impressive. Although he likely would have been better than Guzman, I'm not sure that it's fair to think that that was obvious beforehand -- everyone (except apparently Jim Bowden and Tom Boswell) knew the Guzman deal was a bad one and that he was a bad player, but the level of badness he reached in 2005 was unprecedented.

So it's hard to put direct blame on the front office for not installing Izturis as the starter in the first place...but you can blame them for the Guzman deal and point out that, no matter what people could have reasonably foreseen, the fact of the matter is that the team would have been much better off if they HAD installed Izturis as the starter. At the very least, he would have provided a similar offensive performance for somewhere near the league minimum, instead of the four years of suckitude we're getting for $16.8 million for Guzman along with $1 million for Clayton and whatever other money has to be spent fixing the position over the next two years.

Ultimately, I think this deal is a tragedy of conventional thinking -- realistically, it's hard to blame the front office for the deal. Guillen was established and had an image as a slugger (and as a head case, of course), made largely by an amazing 300 AB in Cincinatti, although his year in Anaheim was pretty good too. The reality was a bit more complicated, since he had real weaknesses in his game that indicated that he wasn't likely to keep up that level of performance. Given the pressure to bring in a real major leaguer and given the unfortunate but understandable cover-your-ass bias among most GMs towards established players rather than unestablished ones (if the established player fails, it's the player's fault; if the unestablished one fails, it's the GM's fault for not bringing in an established player) it's hard not to accept the deal as a reasonable one within the realistic universe of major-league decision-making. But I think that the way that the deal has and will continue to play out has deeply hurt the Nationals' medium-term future, in terms of money spent (on Guillen, on Guzman, on Clayton, on utility guys on the bench) and in terms of on-field performance, since there's a more than reasonable chance that Rivera is likely to be better than Guillen for the rest of their careers.

Small sample size theater: Franklin Gutierrez

Joltin Joe Orsulak — Sun, 16 Apr 2006 14:38:15 -0000

After a very solid Venezuelan winter league season and World Baseball Classic, Franklin Gutierrez is off to a hot start in Buffalo, hitting .351/.442/.595 with a BB:K of 6:8 in 37 AB.

What do people think? Did he figure something out toward the end of last year, or is this just a hot streak that will play itself out? (He had a very bad spring -- at least in terms of numbers, I don't know how he looked in terms of scouty stuff -- so including those numbers might bring things back to earth a bit.)

BA love for O's system

Joltin Joe Orsulak — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 22:28:04 -0000

Baseball America recently posted their ranking of minor league systems, with the Orioles coming in at number twelve.

That's a huge upgrade from previous years, where we see numbers like "30" and "29" a lot. The development of Markakis, Loewen's return to prospectdom, and the great draft last year have a lot to do with that. Let's hope it bears some fruit over the next few years.

Breaking News: BP Says Something Nice About the Os

Joltin Joe Orsulak — Wed, 25 Jan 2006 19:02:29 -0000

In what might be the first positive statement about the Orioles from Baseball Prospectus since the late 1990s, Joe Sheehan approves of both the Benson and Patterson deals (subscription only):

Kris Benson was also a Mets' dumpee, sent to the Orioles in exchange for Jorge Julio and John Maine. Benson's three-year, $22.5-million contract kicked off a 16-month rush of silly deals for pitchers long on potential and short on production. Standing on the other side of that rush, having Benson--a league-average pitcher with some durability issues--for two years and $15 million doesn't seem like such a bad idea. Like the Dodgers with Seo, the Orioles didn't give up anything of note in exchange for a pitcher who is a good bet for 180 league-average innings, perhaps more if he can shake the nagging injuries. ...
The Orioles also added Corey Patterson, essentially for free, from the Cubs. Not to get too mainstream here, but if you're ever going to use the "he needed a change of scenery" argument for a player, you'd use it with Patterson, who was broken by the end of last year. He has flaws, especially at the plate, where he's never going to be a true leadoff man because he's not wired to work counts. If you set that aside, though, and look at him for what he is--a true center fielder with very good left-handed power and some speed--you can see a player who will be worth five wins on the cheap right now, and with a chance for more upside than that as he goes through his peak.
At the very least, I expect the Orioles to get a short-term bounce here, a kind of performance like Oddibe McDowell had in 1988 for the Braves. For a team that has struggled to find a center fielder and needs lefty pop, it's an excellent pickup.

Oh, Dear God, No

Joltin Joe Orsulak — Wed, 11 Jan 2006 21:17:42 -0000

And you thought Michael Tucker was a waste...

ESPN Deportes reports that the Nationals are in discussions with Sammy Sosa.

I guess I'll save my outrage and wait to see if this really happens, but still... I've got a lot of outrage stored up from this offseason, so when the time comes...

AND, FILLER.............................

Majewski Tidbit

Joltin Joe Orsulak — Tue, 10 Jan 2006 03:07:57 -0000

Just ran across this in Baseball Prospectus's write up of the Dominican Winter League:

Orioles OF Val Majewski continued to get at-bats with the Azucareros after missing the whole summer with a torn labrum in his left (throwing) shoulder. In 17 games he hit .293/.406/.379 with 10 walks, but without a home run, just four extra-base hits and 17 strikeouts in 58 official at-bats. Majewski, who's still unable to play defense, left the team for Christmas and is not expected to return.

All the more reason to get Patterson. I think that Markakis will need at least half a season at AAA, and it sounds like Majewski should have at least that as well.

I really am shocked at how much Cubs fans seem to hate Patterson, though. I guess we'll see how quickly Orioles' fans come to agree with them. It sure makes me want to root for him at this point, though.

Also of note -- former Orioles shortstop of the future Ed Rogers won the league batting title, hitting .366. No real significance there, but a nice little bit of trivia.

Burnitz

Joltin Joe Orsulak — Wed, 28 Dec 2005 14:28:25 -0000

Noooooooooooooo!!!!!

Rotoworld sums it up:

The Orioles are close to signing Jeromy Burnitz to a two-year deal worth $6 million per season, according to the Baltimore Sun.
What a remarkably bad idea. Maybe the worst of the winter so far, which is really saying something. Burnitz has had OPSs of 676, 786, 915 and 757 the last four years. His one good year was Coors Field aided, of course, and he had a road OPS of 775 that year. Burnitz turns 37 in April, so he's going to get worse, not better. As a one-year stopgap, he'd be tolerable. $12 million over two years is just flushing Peter Angelos' money down the toilet.

I cannot freaking believe this team.