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Did Luke Scott not play enough 1B innings to get a rating there?
No prospects aren't blocked, but there's always the missed opportunity to take a high-risk flier on someone who could help the team cheaply for few years.
Someone like Ryan Shealy and $7 million could be sure as hell a lot more valuable to the team's future than going from 67 to 70 wins. The Orioles are not going to be run like a large-market team, so why flush $8 million down the crapper? It's certainly not an attendance issue - the Orioles played the Plug In The Veteran Name To Keep Fans Happy game for a decade and lost 50% of their attendance. The O's have already lost the interest of the "We'll Pay Money To See A Slightly Less Horrible Team With Names We Remember!" crowd.
The bullpen looks like a train wreck, although hopefully Uehara and some of the failed starting pitching prospects will provide some support.
The offense is slightly below average, and could be slightly above average if they ignore Dan’s advice and sign stopgaps at the corners. I agree with #5 that they should go down that road if they aren’t able to acquire any interesting young major league talent at those positions.
This team is going to have to bring in some premium free agent talent to supplement for a run in the next couple years, and I do think that’s somewhat easier for an 80 win team than a 70 win team.
Did Dan forget the minus sign?
Is there any indication at all that Brandon Wood is available? With Figgins almost certainly gone from Anaheim, I thought he would be under the category of near-untouchable.
If it doesn't work -- if Delgado is mediocre or bad -- it's purely wasted money. On the other hand, if it does work - if Delgado has a good year -- then it does interfere with rebuilding. Because if you do this, what happens in 2011? Your team has just unexpectedly improved thanks to a good year from your FA. Is the front office going to let him walk away and let the team take a step backwards? Or will they try to squeeze just one more year out of him?
Moreover, as for Yeargh's "if Snyder's tearing it up they can trade Delgado," there is no player who (a) will want to sign with the Orioles, (b) will sign a "reasonable short term deal," and (c) will have any trade value. I really wish people would stop with the "sign a FA and then flip him at midseason" notion.
The bottom line is that the signing of a Delgado is a consumer fraud; it's a way to pretend to the fan base that one is further along than one is in the rebuilding process, by adding a few extra short term wins that won't be in the long term plans. As Dan notes, it doesn't even work; it's pretty clear at this point in the Orioles' history that fans just don't care about the difference between 65 and 75 wins, even if the FAs could make up that kind of difference. Fans aren't coming back until this team shows that it's a good team again.
(That having been said, Dan, 2012/2013? That's too late. The Orioles can't, unfortunately, do anything in 2010, but they need to be looking at 2011. In 2012, Roberts will already be 34, and we'll actually have used up much of Markakis's contract extension. If we're not going to spend big bucks anymore, we can't squander the pre-arb years of all of our young players.)
Let's hope the baseball gods didn't choose to re-read "J Henry Waugh ..." this offseason.
MetkovichCatfish [Jones' #2 comp]
Oh, c'mon, you made that one up!
Any system that projects Wieters' OPS+ at 98 is clearly broken!
It's a typo. There's supposed to be a 1 in front of that. Still disappointing I know.
It's kinda sad to see the Markakis projection -- I think it's probably accurate but this means that he's 26 and just an average corner OF. His upside now is, what, Shawn Green?
I was hoping for a better Felix Pie projection.
But there is something to like about the O's offense. They're above-average at C, 2B and CF. That makes it a lot easier to create an average or better offense when the time comes. But, as DN points out, that time better come quick.
EDIT: and, yikes, that is one thoroughly crappy pitching staff. How can anybody have a bullpen that projects that badly? I didn't think it was possible. And it's bad enough that none of the starters project very well but the O's also have to hope they all stay healthy. This team is in desperate need of some innings-eaters. Even Livan pitching BP every 5th game might not be a bad idea.
Catfish Metkovich was a minor Pacific Coast League star who had a brief major league run with the Red Sox as a 1B/OF during and just after WWII and then came back to the majors a few years later, kicking around some of the lesser teams. He's probably best remembered for a story that Joe Garagiola told about the 1952 Pirates, for whom Metkovich toiled. After a particularly nasty days of line drives at 1B, Metkovich turned to the umpire and said "What are you waiting for? Grab a glove and help me out!" He's about as comparable to Jones as I am. The nickname "Catfish" came about after Metkovich stepped on a catfish while trying to remove it from the hook, injuring his ankle in the process (catfish have sharp fins).
-- MWE
How does that follow? Markakis was terrific in 2008 and mediocre in 2009. There's no way to know which version (or an average of the two as ZIPS projects) is the more likely future path.
Sorry, it's projecting 98 moles of OPS+.
I should note, that on the Montanez vs. Wieters .300 issue, Montanez has a better chance of hitting .300 in the number of at-bats projected. Wieters is projected to have 50% more at-bats than Montanez, so of course Montanez's rate numbers are going to have higher upside and downside. If I had projected Montanez to only have 10 at-bats, he'd have a 10-15% chance of hitting .400!.
Aww, are you going to have to settle for an upside of a guy who had a 4 year run from 26-29 as a 140+ OPS+ OF, before trashing his shoulder?
Almost any team out there would be thrilled to have aguy with Sean Green's upside.
Paulino, Davis and Willard - the Holy Trinity of suckitude.
It's not like ZiPS is projecting Wieters to hit like Scott Servais. It's "merely" projecting a 24-year to be one of the better catchers in the league. I'd love for Wieters to be an MVP candidate right now, but that's just not the way to bet from his play so far.
Sure, but you'd feel comfortable that you <u>haven't</u> found a long term answer if you sign Delgado.Me too, but the difference is that minor league free agents are not only really cheap, but they're freely available; they don't even cost a 40-man roster spot.
Scott Moore hasn't been very healthy (he only played in 32 games in AAA this year). And he hit .728 OPS in AAA last year. That's probably what did him in. Cherry isn't getting any love from anyone. He's available though as a minor league free agent.
Sure, but you'd feel comfortable that you haven't found a long term answer if you sign Delgado.
Depends if you flip him at the deadline for prospects. Again, it's not likely but neither is finding a diamond in the rough among the minor league free agents.
And they are also spectacularly unlikely ever to be major league regulars if no team is willing to offer them a guaranteed deal.
You yourself say that the Orioles should be looking to compete in 2011, so when do you propose they fill this massive talent gap between themselves and the rest of the division?
Right now they are at least a 1B, 3B, SS, 2 starters, and several relievers short of a competitive team in 2011. They’ll likely have even more holes to fill due to injuries and unexpected performance declines. Without adding some serious talent to the organization, the only way this team will be competitive in 2011 is if Snyder and Bell and Arrieta and Erbe and Britton all miraculously pan out.
The Orioles are sitting on a $45 million payroll right now. I’m no fan of signing Delgado, but if the right two or three year deal for a Beltre or Haren or Scutaro or Figgins or a league-average innings-eater comes along, I hope they take it.
So who are the best bets to suddenly up their value in 2010? Guys coming off injuries, like Delgado and Glaus (and Beltre), guys who haven't yet lived up to their potential, like Blalock and Kotchman (if the Sox non-tender him), or guys who are decent hitters near the middle of their career, like LaRoche and Johnson? Lacking the useful scouting info that (I hope) the O's have, I still lean towards whoever will sign a reasonable short term deal. At $8 million, Delgado's not worth it, but is he really going to get an offer like that?
Among the candidates, Johnson is the best bet to hit well in '10, but he's also a good bet to suffer some crippling injury in May. I wouldn't be surprised if some team offered him a multi-year deal.
I always thought that the best way to evaluate whether a projection system is "broken" or not is to pick my favourite player and see if the system is as wildly optimistic about said player as I am. If it's not, then the system is clearly broken. I'm glad to see that other people use this evaluation method also.
The famous "we love prospects" Bill James method projects Wieters at an .865 OPS. Clearly his system is in fine shape. AROM chimes in at .791 so his system is clearly broken too, just not quite as hopeless as the dismal state of ZIPS.
Oh well, at least Adam Jones has a OPS projected above .800.
Best Regards
I always thought that the best way to evaluate whether a projection system is "broken" or not is to pick my favourite player and see if the system is as wildly optimistic about said player as I am. If it's not, then the system is clearly broken. I'm glad to see that other people use this evaluation method also.
Yet another great moment in online sarcasm detection.
Paulino wasn't all that bad for Florida a year ago, either.
Dan's point is well-taken. Sandy Alomar Jr., another highly-touted young catching prospect, is another example pf what can happen to a young catcher. As a 24-YO rookie in 1990, he won RoY with numbers not a whole lot different from Wieters's (although in a different offensive context which made them more valuable). He then played 340 games over the next five seasons due to assorted injuries, and while he normally hit fairly well when he could play he never again played as many games in a season as he did as a rookie.
The thing that concerns me most about Wieters is that he is a big guy. Bill James once wrote that while teams had the opinion that big catchers were a good thing to have, they actually *weren't* as durable as smaller catchers; James opined that the larger frames created additional knee and back stress. I don't know that James was entirely correct (Fisk was a pretty big guy and Piazza was 6'3" although not overly large-framed) but I think his broader point has some validity.
-- MWE
I was trying to think of somebody a little better than Green but, y'know, a man has to get on with his life at some point. Green had a career 120 OPS+ which is probably low for a Markakis "upside" (note I use upside as "realistic upside" not "best possible outcome") but probably not by much. Markakis is projected to a flat prime -- he's 26 and not projected to hit better than his career average -- which, followed by a standard decline, is not going to add up to a 120 career OPS+. In fact, I'm pretty sure that adds up to about a 108 career OPS+, so a 120 career OPS+ is pretty upside-y.
(Hey Dan, the Markakis comps look whack. Not only is everybody from 50+ years ago -- which is odd for a guy who projects as pretty average -- but Chapman's the only one who hit close to Markakis by OPS+ standards.)
Aww, are you going to have to settle for an upside of a guy who had a 4 year run from 26-29 as a 140+ OPS+ OF, before trashing his shoulder?Almost any team out there would be thrilled to have aguy with Sean Green's upside.
For comp purposes, it doesn't really matter how Green ended up with the career that he had. What I'm saying is that a guy who projects as a league-average RF at 26 would be "reasonably lucky" to end up having a few seasons of killing the ball followed by a few seasons back at league average. His chances of turning into a true 140 OPS+ hitter from, say, ages 26-33 -- which Green might have been sans injury -- strike me as "unrealistic upside".
And, no, I'm not sure that many teams would be "thrilled" if their best hitting prospect, the guy they expect to be the star of their team for years to come, had an upside of a career 120 OPS+.
This was my reaction too. If Tillman only gives up 24HR in 168 innings, that'd be a shocker. But still wet behind the ears. I'd love to see 4 starters all around league average. That team might win 75 games as is, and that would be quite the trick.
I was a little bummed to see Wieters OPS+ south of 200, but I'm pretty sure computers live in fear of him too.
(although maybe you're saying that Nolan Reimold should be the DH)
Probably not. Branyan, Johnson, LaRoche, Nady are as good or better than Scott. Maybe even Hinske and Blalock and that's just what's available on the ML FA market not to mention Scott types floating around the minor-league FA market, plus other trade targets. He can be a good guy to move at the trade deadline though.
Bergesen's is a joke. 4.99? Really?
I love comments like this because when I first read them, I'm not sure whether they think it should be higher or lower.
I should note, that on the Montanez vs. Wieters .300 issue, Montanez has a better chance of hitting .300 in the number of at-bats projected.
Wouldn't it be more useful to, in those probabilities, list not the chance of Player X tallying Y in his projected Z plate appearances but rather his chances of doing Y if he ends up getting enough playing time to qualify? Like you said, if a guy (Rocco Baldelli squared?) is only projected to get a handful of PAs, who cares that he's somewhat likely to luck into a .400 average? I would think people would be interested in sizing up the chances of Ted Williams' 1941, not his 1953.
Dat sounds like dat dere racial profiling dere, Lena.
Hopefully Andino will get a few more chance at SS; Izturis was wonderful with the glove last year and he single-handedly won several games with great fielding and timely hitting but if the Os are to grow better they need a breakout or greatly improved year from Andino.
I also like the outfield of Reimold, Jones and Markakis, especially if Nick reverts to the 2008 version. But even if he doesn't all 3 guys should have better slugging rates the next few years as their bodies mature.
Hitting and fielding will be the least of the team's worries.
Its the pitching I dont like.
How can you win 80 games with an MLB staff that sports a 6 run ERA?
Not yet, TY only has a lead of 64 games/ 93 PAs, plus he was brutal in 2009 as well
Was Kearns only worth <u>a bench role</u> for the Washington Nationals because he was out of options? Brutal is as brutal does.
Dioner Navarro - farm system product
Carlos Pena - *minor league deal* (kind of defeats that theory that you can't find good ML quality players on minor league deals)
Akinori Iwamura - international free agent on a club-friendly, long-term deal
Jason Bartlett - acquired in a trade as a cheap club-controlled player
Evan Longoria - farm system product
Gabe Gross - acquired in a trade, on a league minimum salary
B.J. Upton - farm system product
Carl Crawford - farm system product
Cliff Floyd - there's a stopgap, only cost $3 million though
Eric Hinske - only cost $800,000
we all know that their pitching staff was full of farm system products, players acquired in trades, and at the back end of the bullpen you saw Grant Balfour (minor league deal), Dan Wheeler (paid $2.9 million that year), and Troy Percival (paid $3.9 million, for below replacement level production)
so I see 3 players who might fall under the "expensive stopgap" category - they each cost in the $3-4 range. that's the equivalent of guys like Ty Wigginton, Cesar Izturis, Ryan Freel, Mark Hendrickson, and Gregg Zaun last season. I do expect us to go after one or two of these players (Pedro Feliz looks the most likely), and obviously Wigginton and Izturis (and probably Hendrickson) will still be on the team next season. but there's no $8 million free agents on this Rays roster, and I hope there aren't any on the 2010 O's. the only position I could possibly see us taking on that much salary is a salary dump innings eater like Millwood or Arroyo, since we do have a lot of free payroll space.
Once again ZIPS has dissed someone's favourite player. So sorry.
You don't know that it's a diss. It's entirely possible that he believes that there's no way that Bergesen will produce anything as good as a 4.99 ERA.
Perhaps we have somebody who is prepared to project all the players and then compare his results to ZIPS to show us how broken ZIPS really is. Nah, I didn't think so. Better to make an off the cuff ignorant remark if our favourite player is perceived to be snubbed.
I would really like to see the analysis that supports the conclusion that players like Wieters and Bergesen should be given better projections. Then maybe a proper discussion could ensue. Maybe there is something wrong with the way ZIPS looks at players such as Wieters and Bergesen. But we'll never uncover it with comments like this.
You're obviously not familiar with the running "Weiters is God!" joke around this place. That comment about the 98 OPS+ wasn't a real complaint.
It's not "entirely possible" that he believes that Bergesen should be projected with a much higher ERA.
Bergesen has posted minor league ERA's of 2.19, 2.08, 3.22, 2.45 with tremendously impressive K/BB ratios and posted a 3.43 ERA in 123 IP in his first major league season. It's pretty clear the guy thought that Bergesen should have a lot better projection for 2010.
So, yes I do know that he thought his guy was dissed.
You just blew my mind.
Wieters projection looks reasonable considering he posted a 97 last year and he's a catcher, a little low, but not way out of line, I would have guessed 105 or so.
Bergesen.... I don't know, eyeballing it looks off, but his minor league K rate was very low, 87 in 165 IP in 2008, that's what, 70 in 165 as an mle? If his K rate drops that far and his .285 BABIP gravitates up to league average, then yes I can see a 4.99 ERA .
Bergesen is interesting because he’s massively overrated among Orioles fans because of his lucky ERA last year, but he’s probably a bit underrated in general because pitchers of his type (very low Ks, but excellent BB and GB rates) don’t get a lot of hype.
I don’t have any coherent reason to think ZiPS is projecting these guys incorrectly, but if I had to bet on the Orioles starters ERA, I’d take the under on Bergesen and Matusz, and the over on Guthrie and Tillman.
Wieters mystifies the hell out of me, with BABIPs of .383, .383, .358, and .359 in the A, AA, AAA and the majors, and those all seem too high for a slow catcher. Even Mauer only has a lifetime BABIP of .349.
Depends on which fans you're talking about. The average guy listening to sports radio probably thinks Bergesen is an ace, but I think most serious and semiserious fans expect him to be a middle of the rotation guy with a league average or slightly above ERA, which I think is reasonable. But I agree with your over and under predictions, although Tillman is very difficult to predict and I wouldn't be surprised if Guthrie reverts back to his 2007-2008 form (nor would I be surprised if he falls apart completely).
Issues about projections for guys like this (or Cook, Wang, and Lannan) do seem to come up all the time. Is GB rate fairly stable/repeatable year to year? If so, do pitchers with high GB rates tend to have better ERA's than FIP? Aaron Cook's ERA (4.33) is pretty close to his career FIP (4.36), though if you account for park effects the gap is probably around 0.40. Is that an unusual gap over 1080 career innings?
You're thinking of Ray Chapman. If Markakis takes after Ben, he'll spend his time tormenting Adam Jones and trying to drive him out of the league.
And if Wieters takes after Ben Davis, hey, knuckleballers can win a lot of games...
It doesn't fluctuate as much at the same level of ability. It's still going to go up advancing through the minors. A minor league pitcher with a .300 BABIP and lets a lot of balls in play is extremely risky.
Moreover, his BB/9 projection is signficantly higher than at any other point in his career. That's an egregious error in my view
That's only the case if you assume that BB/9 doesn't go up as the level of play improves. It does, however, and significantly.
There are a *lot* of warning signs with Bergesen. Limited track record at high level. ERA much lower than his peripherals. HR rate lower than you would expect from his flyballs allowed. Terrible K rate. Performance significantly better than what his minor league performance suggests.
I'm guessing I'd get a lot of similar reactions from Oriole fans if I went back in a time machine and projected Jeff Ballard to go 9-15, 5.01 in 1990 (I ran it a few years ago). Now, Bergesen has more going for him than Ballard did, but there are a a lot of reasons to be wary about Bergesen's performance going forward.
From the instructions in the Twins TO:
Defense is given both as a range number in the same quintiles (EX/VG/AV/FR/PO). The number after
the range is the projected error rate as a percentage of league average, with higher numbers being
worse.
So, does that mean that Pie is projected to be very good in the OF, and have an error rate 29% higher than average?
Thanks!
Any chance of Kevin Millwood and/or Garret Atkins projections as Orioles?
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