OK, maybe Harvard wasn't the best example, given that the bottom 35% are probably all "legacy" admissions. Let's go for Oberlin then. Or Bowdoin, that's always fun to say.

Given how vituperative this thread has been, I can only say thanks for either missing or not bothering to point out something really stupid I wrote earlier: . Take our mythical 800 OPS CF, but instead of 30 walks we'll give him 80 walks, leaving him with 520 AB's (and a 250 BA by the way). If he's still 350/450, he'd still reach base 210 times, but his total bases would be just 234, and that's nearly identical in value to Singleton. Boy was that dumb. It's always annoyed me (statistically speaking) that OPS adds together two fractions with different denominators for this very reason -- sometimes I forget to correct for that. Our 250/350/450 OF would indeed reach base only slightly more often than Singleton and would have fewer total bases, but if we look at his total total bases (which I just made up), i.e. his TB plus his walks, he's significantly better than Singleton (234 TB plus 80 walks vs. 246 TB plus 30 walks -- quite the no-brainer). I knew that didn't look write when I wrote it so I'll blame it on trying to get out the door for a 3-day weekend.

Someone else (many posts ago now) asked about why limit my Singleton comparison to 156 "qualified" hitters and the reason is obvious -- because that's the only sort of useful cut that ESPN's otherwise very handy sortable stats provides and I was too lazy to go through the entire list and single out guys with, say, 300+ PA (esp. since their formatting gets all screwy with long names). But as to why omit Drew et al -- because next year there will probably be a few top hitters injured too, so it's unlikely to change Singleton's standings among full-time OF/hitters (unless he gets hurt of course). Also, to compare beyond the qualified, I did earlier look at where the O's would have ranked in terms of team production at CF if they got a full season of 750 OPS out of Singleton, and they would have ranked 9th in the AL, a nice move up from the 13th where they did finish. Note, that's not park-adjusted. Voros predicts a 735-740 OPS for him this year which would probably move him down a notch or two.

As to his defense, the only appeal to authority I can make is that the Diamond Mind 2000 season disk (the latest I have) has him rated as excellent both in range and throwing -- they may not be the Bible, but Diamond Mind certainly puts a lot of effort into their defensive stats. Unless Singleton lost a lot in 2001, I see no reason to think he's not still at least above average defensively.

Now, is this part of an Orioles plan? Near as I can tell they don't have a plan. Given they have no plan, we could reasonably argue that all moves, including inaction, by the O's are bad moves since they're not part of a plan. Is Singleton part of a future contending O's team -- maybe as a 4th or 5th OF, but not unless they start some serious talent acquisition. Does Singleton make them a better team right now? I think so, and given that there is no plan for the O's future, a better team now is a positive step. So it's a choice between winning 68 games this year and still not having a plan next year, or winning 71 games this year and still not having a plan next year.

If the O's have a plan, I assume it's tread water with ".500" teams at the ML level until either they acquire sufficient young talent or sufficient free agent talent becomes available. Normally I wouldn't think that's a good plan. But, with other front office and development people, I think maybe it could work for a team with the O's resources. This isn't (or doesn't have to be) a case like the A's where a million or two spent on a competent veteran necessarily detracts from the farm system -- the O's seem able to spend enough to both field a middling big league team and invest substantially in the farm system. They just seem to have little interest/talent in doing either.

Anyway, I remain in the apparently kind of unique position of agreeing some with both sides. In the O's situation, if I was GM, I'd act more like Voros recommends -- gamble on some kids and hope they pay off even though they probably won't. But from a pure talent perspective and given that the O's don't seem to have a plan for the future, I think the O's improved themselves now. And given that the O's still have 3 gambles (Bigbie, Matos, Raines), all they did was give up a 4th gamble (Harris) for more of a sure thing now, so I don't see how this precludes the Voros plan. As Robert keeps saying, there's not likely to be much if any harm in giving any of those three guys a half to full season in AAA.

Just curious, should they dump Bordick and take a shot with Brian Roberts? (maybe that will get us to 200 posts)

Roberts looks like a promising hitter (without much power), but I was a little troubled by his defense. If he gets more time in the minors, I hope it is so he can work on improving his defense, so that maybe if and when the Orioles deal Bordick he'll be ready to step in.

Trevise wrote:

"BTW: Does this mean the fences are going "out" during the bottom halves of even numbered innings? ;-) ..."

The fences will be moved out, but alternate panels will be removed, so that balls getting past outfielders have the opportunity to roll all the way out to the Baltimore Harbor. This option will necessitate the return of the "Ground Rule Triple".

David Jones wrote:

"Roberts looks like a promising hitter (without much power), but I was a little troubled by his defense."

A little troubled? As worthless as fielding percentages are, the fact that Roberts' .939 was the lowest of any AL shortstop (by a large degree) who had anywhere near as many innings, is the sort of hit-you-over-the-head number that FP is useful to demonstrate.

The Singleton thread was falling off the Hot List. Attention must be paid. Someone seems to have started another thread about how Chris is not related to Ken in order to throw us off track.

So it occurred to me last night that the Devil Rays are following the Voros plan (no offense). They dumped most of their high-priced veterans (except Vaughn) and are playing the marginal prospects they have, plus Grieve. And some of their prospects (Abernathy, Hall) seem a good bit better than anything the O's can muster at the moment. They've not yet perfected the Voros plan (Sandberg over Huff, signing Chris Gomez), but we may have a natural experiment here. The two teams even have roughly equally pathetic GM's.

I didn't realize that Roberts had that much sabermetric respect. From his Rochester stats last year I see he walks a lot but I must admit I'm always a bit wary of guys whose OBP's are higher than their SLG's, and Roberts was 50 points higher (376 vs 323). Of course, that was less than 200 PA, but I couldn't find his earlier minor league stats on the web.

Oddly, his walk rate in the majors last year was awful (13 in 273 AB) while his SLG was a bit better (341).

Players out of college tend to move quickly through the farm system (that's one reason I'm skeptical about Bigbie).

If Roberts can handle shortstop defensively then he'll be okay, but he won't be a star.

I think Walt is right when he say that the Rays' prospects are more impressive than the Orioles'

I would guess no 90+ loss team (from last year) has a less impressive group of young position players. That's what makes the Orioles' sitaution so difficult.

Voros,

I saw your 2000 and 2001 projections for Singleton. I found it interesting that the 2000 projection closely matched the 2001 actual.

I think the main difference between the 2000 actual and the 2000 projection was that Singleton played hurt for most of 2000.

The reason I bring this up is that your 2002 projection for Kenny Lofton seems believable, yet his 2001 numbers were way down from his career numbers mostly due to his playing with injury. Obviously Lofton has a longer career in which to make the projections a little more accurate.

Only 193 comments? Come on, people. You're slipping.

Walt:

Now, is this part of an Orioles plan? Near as I can tell they don't have a plan. Given they have no plan, we could reasonably argue that all moves, including inaction, by the O's are bad moves since they're not part of a plan. Is Singleton part of a future contending O's team -- maybe as a 4th or 5th OF, but not unless they start some serious talent acquisition. Does Singleton make them a better team right now? I think so, and given that there is no plan for the O's future, a better team now is a positive step. So it's a choice between winning 68 games this year and still not having a plan next year, or winning 71 games this year and still not having a plan next year.

Well, frankly, I think you're overestimating their talent by about 8 wins, but yes, that's basically the tradeoff. And that's the complaint I have about getting Singleton. Going from 68->71 wins is a cover-your-ass move for Syd Thrift, not a team-building strategy. I don't think having 71 wins instead of 68 is a "positive step." I think it's completely irrelevant. Signing Juan Gonzalez might not be a great long-term move, but at least in the short term, it's something interesting. But Marty Cordova and Chris Singleton are not interesting. Hell, Jose Canseco would have been better than Marty Cordova, for that very reason.

If the O's have a plan, I assume it's tread water with ".500" teams at the ML level until either they acquire sufficient young talent or sufficient free agent talent becomes available.

Yes, that was their plan, a few years ago. And that doesn't result in a winning team; it results in a 100-loss team, eventually.

Robert:

<I>Perhaps you are assuming that the Orioles' performance last year represents their true level. I kind of doubt that - teams that lose around a 100 games usually have guys that are having bad years and/or major injury problems.

"Gay Jibbons"?

There is no COST to having Bigbie and Raines start the year in AAA.

Marginal prospects like Bigbie usually play a heck of a lot more games in AAA (and in the minors in general) than he has so far.

Raines Jr. is very young and played at 4 different levels last year. He's not a superstar in the making at this point, so I'd argue that giving him a starting job with the Big Club out of spring training is just setting him up for failure.

He'll most likely have his hands full with AAA pitching in 2002. If Baltimore wants a productive centerfielder by 2004, then Raines is the best candidate in their organisation at the moment, but not if he is rushed. If he does well this year, he can win the job in 2003 and perhaps be ready to produce by 2004.

There is no evidence that I can see that bringing a player to a major leagues later than his minor league record would warrant is detrimental to his long-term performance. Lots of players that were kept in the minors longer than they needed to be developed into above average or even star players (Brian Giles, Lance Berkman and Shannon Stewart come to mind). In fact, we don't have that situation here, as the players in question haven't yet established that they can handle AAA.

I'm flabbergasted by the "as much youth as soon as possible" approach. It's much more sensible to wait until players are actually READY for the big leagues (i.e. have shown they can handle AA and AAA by playing a 150 or so games at those levels combined)

I think the O's All Star rep will end up being a young pitcher if one of them comes out of the gate with decent numbers. They've got a bunch of 24-25 yo starters that could get struck by lightning and do well for a couple months.

Of course, if Conine or Segui is hitting .310 with 18 HR at the break Torre will probably call on him to provide leadership in the AL clubhouse.

200th post! Whooooo!

Signing Juan Gonzalez might not be a great long-term move, but at least in the short term, it's something interesting. But Marty Cordova and Chris Singleton are not interesting. Hell, Jose Canseco would have been better than Marty Cordova, for that very reason.

I don't think it's fair to lump Cordova and Singleton into the same boat. Singleton is a 1-year commitment at $1.4 million and he's not limiting the playing time of a young-ish player. Cordova is 3 guaranteed years at $3 million (or was it more?) and he'll be cutting into Richard's time when he gets back. Add Segui, the most atrocious signing.

Getting a cheap "starting worthy" CF at $1.4 million and a borderline prospect while you wait to see if any of your young CF options develop at AAA still strikes me as a perfectly reasonable, even good move. That the O's screwed themselves by neglecting their farm system and signing Cordova/Segui and as noted trading for Conine doesn't really change the "wisdom" of picking up Singleton. A bunch of stupid moves and a decent move are evidence that Thrift doesn't know what he's doing, but it's not evidence that the decent move isn't decent.

>>If the O's have a plan, I assume it's tread water with ".500" teams at the ML level until either they acquire sufficient young talent or sufficient free agent talent becomes available. <<

Yes, that was their plan, a few years ago. And that doesn't result in a winning team; it results in a 100-loss team, eventually.

Actually, that's not the plan the O's had in place. The plan they used to get to this point has been to have a $100 million payroll to field a ".500" team and neglect your farm system. Given the resources they have, they could have had "build a mediocre (or better) major league team for $50-$60 million, leaving tons of money to invest in your farm system and contend in 3-4 years" plan. Few teams are in the position to implement such a plan (basically only the ones that can afford $100 million payrolls). I have a hard time imagining that a competent GM and development staff couldn't have success with that sort of plan -- I mean with $40 million (plus whatever the O's were spending) you oughta be able to build a heck of a minor league system.

I don't think it's fair to lump Cordova and Singleton into the same boat.

True: Cordova had a good year once. No, that's snide, and it's not really true. (BTW, I think you mixed a few metaphors there.) They're lumped together because they were both signed this offseason, because they're both mediocre on a good day, and both past the age where we expect them to be of long-term use to the Orioles. I agree that Segui is even worse than either of these, but I was only focusing on this offseason right now.

I simply don't see how acquiring Singleton does anything for the team.

As for the rest of your comments, I don't think the Orioles "neglected" the farm. They just hired incompetent scouts, scouting directors, and general maangers. But they didn't neglect the farm. They had plenty of top picks, and spent the money required to sign them. They simply wouldn't know a baseball player from a lukewarm bowl of chili.

I would love to hear how Chris Singleton takes away at bats from Jay Gibbons or Chris Richard. Unless you want Richard to butcher center field again next year.

No, Singleton takes away at bats from Melvin Mora. The end.

David J,

David,

Don't forget that the O's are determined to get their money's worth out of Bordick until he hits mandatory retirement, meaning that Mora will also be in the outfield. That means 7 players, 5 spots. Assuming they keep Mora in the IF, I honestly don't see 6 players in 5 spots being a problem, as at least one of them (probably more) will get hurt or just plain suck, plus they will all need to be rested at some point. 6 players over 5 spots seems about right to me.

Ryan

Ryan

"David J,

Robert,

Crazy_Horse

I'm curious to see if you can find any justification in the numbers for your statement that Matos is more than a marginal prospect. He's got speed, but very little power at this point and a very mediocre K/W ratio, He's 23 years old.

David N.

Chris Singleton had significantly more speed, slightly less power and a slightly worse AVG in his minor league career at Bigbie's age so I don't consider him a good comp. I'll freely admit that Bigbie is as good an overall prospect as Singleton was, which is to say a decidely marginal prospect. Bigbie can't play CF because he's too slow now, so imagine what his mobility will be like when he puts 20 pounds on his frame to increase his power.

Well, we could have saved 150 or so posts by all agreeing that the Orioles don't have good management, have a lack of talent at the major and minor league level, and no big name free-agent wants to play for them.

Would it change anything if they decided to go with the kids this year and bench most of the veterans? No. They'd end up investing a lot of playing time in decidedly marginal prospects while waiting to come up with some better ones. They'd lose 100 games this year instead of 90 and be no further ahead in the game because they'd find out that their youngsters are either not ready (like Raines and Roberts) or will likely never be (Bigbie, Matos) or both.

The one thing that the "youth conquers all" brigade seems to forget is how few prospects make an impact as quality major league players - and that even applies to very good prospects.

A mixed approach - trying to improve the team's on-field performance in the present and developing talent for the future is the only sensible way out of the Orioles' predicament.

Of course there is literally no chance that the Orioles will take this approach. The chance that they will do what David N wants them to do is just as small.

Indeed, Matos has great range, excellent instincts, an above-average arm, and absolutely no idea how to play major league baseball.

Crazy Horse,

It's only 45 ABs (plus 1 PA in which he walked). That 280 OPS is worrying, though.

How's Willie Harris doing for Chicago's AAA team?

It's only 45 ABs (plus 1 PA in which he walked). That 280 OPS is worrying, though.

How's Willie Harris doing for Chicago's AAA team?

It's only 45 ABs (plus 1 PA in which he walked). That 260 OPS is awfully Hacking-Masserific, though.

How's Willie Harris doing for Chicago's AAA team?

It's only 45 ABs (plus 1 PA in which he walked). That 260 OPS is awfully Hacking-Masserific, though.

How's Willie Harris doing for Chicago's AAA team?

It's only 45 ABs (plus 1 PA in which he walked). That 260 OPS is awfully Hacking-Masserific, though.

How's Willie Harris doing for Chicago's AAA team?

Auggh - Sorry for the duplicates. Moderator, please kill 'em all.

Greg,

204/245/278

Struggling, in 49 AB. It's early.

Don't forget Melvin Mora, the guy that absolutely had to be replaced: 254/401/410.

Don't forget Melvin Mora, the guy that absolutely had to be replaced: 254/401/410.