The Orioles Warehouse

I've heard of impatience, but this is ridiculous. Laura Vecsey -- who, in a town graced with bad sportswriters over the years, has to represent rock bottom -- is already clamoring for the Orioles to make a trade. The season hasn't even begun, and she has already decided not merely that the Orioles aren't going to win -- a position I would agree with -- but that the team needs to make a trade for a pitcher because none of our prospects can produce.

As is typical for Vecsey, unfortunately, she starts a column with a brief thought -- that the Orioles should make a trade (a common theme of hers) -- and provides a complete lack of follow-through. She thinks the team needs a starting pitcher and a designated hitter. (Her explanation for why the team needs a designated hitter is limited to the claim that David Segui, Jack Cust and B.J. Surhoff present "issues." The only "issue" I see there is, "Can the Orioles tell a good player from washed up ones"? ) But she can't manage to make a proposal as to who the Orioles should trade -- not surprisingly, since the Orioles don't have any trade bait -- or who they should trade for.

Well, that's not quite true. She does manage this confusing set of statements:

Ponson, Ainsworth and DuBose? Oh, no. The Orioles' good young arms of tomorrow are just that. Tomorrow. Talk to Adam Loewen now about how he feels about demanding a major league contract. There's a reason they call this the big leagues. Time to find a No. 2 or 3 starter to bolster this rotation. Kris Benson, Odalis Perez, Danny Haren, Jarrod Washburn.

The Orioles have gone out and spent a lot of money this offseason -- it's true. But this is not a team built for short term success, and one more pitcher isn't going to change that. Particularly not the sort of pitcher the Orioles are going to be able to pick up. Why not see what the guys the team has can do, before rushing out to make a trade?

Oh, and doesn't Vecsey have a fact checker?

Snag Vazquez from the Expos, who smartly took Nick Johnson and Miguel Cairo from the Andy Pettitte-less, Roger Clemens-less and David Wells-less Yankees.

Jack Cust, the power-hitting prospect obtained in the Chris Richard trade last spring, has yet to break through in the major leagues, and he is out of minor-league options. An article by Joe Christensen in today's Baltimore Sun gives a positive assessment of Cust's chances of making the Orioles' roster:

Though Cust's numbers are down this spring and he is viewed as a one-dimensional player -- all bat, no glove, and ... please ... no base-running -- team officials privately say he's a lock to make the roster.

First in a series of articles about the Orioles' most prominent newcomer, Miguel Tejada

Shortly after Miguel Tejada signed with the Orioles last December for six years and $72 million, ESPN.com columnist Rob Neyer wrote in a column that the Orioles may have landed a bargain. Neyer contended that Tejada, of late, has been about as good as fellow shortstops Derek Jeter and Nomar Garciaparra, and considering what Jeter and Garciaparra will make in upcoming years, Tejada might actually be underpaid. Neyer is probably the most widely read columnist in sabermetric circles, so his opinion carries considerable weight. But he made this comparison with a broad brush, using only Win Shares and salary estimates to illustrate his point. This article will take a closer look at that trio. Is Tejada really as good as Garciaparra and Jeter? How much bang are the Orioles and their fans getting for their 72 million bucks?

With less than a week left before the regular season starts, the Orioles have most of their roster in place. By my count, 19 players are locks to make the Opening Day squad, which leaves six slots open to competition. (Three injured players—four, if Mark McLemore is added to the roster—will start the season on the disabled list.)

The starting lineup has been determined, and four-fifths of the pitching rotation is set. The fifth starter will be either Rodrigo López or Erik Bedard, according to today's Washington Post. Five relievers are assured places in the bullpen. Depending on how many position players Mazzilli wants on his bench, he may choose to keep eleven or twelve pitchers, leaving room for one or two relievers from among Bedard, López, and Rick Bauer.

That leaves four or five spots on the bench for position players. As reported last week, Jack Cust is likely to make the roster as a backup outfielder/DH. Another spot will be given to the backup catcher, who will be either Gerónimo Gil or Keith Osik. McLemore's injury allows either Clay Bellinger or Luis López to fill the backup infielder role for at least the initial part of the season, although Jim Beattie was quoted in the Post as having interest in Damian Jackson, recently released by the Rockies.

The final decision on the bench will likely be whether to keep untested Rule 5 draftee José Bautista or aging local favorite B.J. Surhoff. If the team goes with an eleven-man pitching staff, it may be able to keep both Bautista and Surhoff for the early part of the season. Carlos Méndez is a longshot to squeak onto the roster as an emergency catcher and pinch-hitter.

The latest camp depth chart appears below along with some of the likely starters at Triple-A Ottawa.

Second in a series of articles about the Orioles' most prominent newcomer, Miguel Tejada

The same week of his December 2003 column on Miguel Tejada, Rob Neyer was asked in an ESPN.com chat if Tejada, who hit a superficially unimpressive .278/.336/.472 (BA/OBP/SLG) in 2003, was really worth $12 million a year. Neyer responded succinctly, "Yes, I think [Tejada] is worth $12 million in this market. You're talking about a player who's every bit as good as Nomar Garciaparra."

If you've been following the Orioles' Opening Day coverage in the mainstream news media and still find yourself unsatiated, Ben Jacobs of The Hardball Times has posted a hard-hitting analysis of the 2004 Orioles called "Five Questions: Baltimore Orioles." The questions he asks (and attempts to answer) are:

1) How much will Miguel Tejada, Javy Lopez, and Rafael Palmeiro help the Orioles?
2) Haven't we seen this before from the Orioles?
3) What does 2004 have in store for Melvin Mora?
4) How good is Baltimore's young outfield?
5) Is there any hope for Baltimore's starting rotation?

I think that Jacobs's assessment of the team is largely spot-on, although he doesn't really say anything groundbreaking. Most of the information in the article should be common knowledge to any Orioles fan worth his salt.

I will also add that the use of statistics in the article is on the heavy side, even for an inveterate stathead like me. Who really needs to know Erik Bedard's minor-league strikeout rates to two decimal places?

For those who are unfamiliar with the source, THT is an online publication of pro baseball analysis. It was begun not long ago as a collaboration of several fine writers from across the country, including distinguished bloggers Aaron Gleeman and Larry Mahnken.

Third in a series of articles about the Orioles' most prominent newcomer, Miguel Tejada

The previous article in this series looked at various facets of Miguel Tejada's offensive game, including his home-road splits and hitting with runners on base. To further add to the picture of Tejada as a hitter, here are a few more cross-sectional slices of Tejada's hitting statistics.

After the Orioles designated Jack Cust for assignment on April 9 to make room on the big-league roster for Erik Bedard, there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth in the Orioles' sabermetric community. I discussed Cust earlier—he is a flawed player, but he still has too much promise as a hitter to be surrendered for nothing.

However, I have yet to see a commensurate level of surprise at what happened after that: not a single major-league team claimed Cust off waivers. After ten days, the rights to Cust then reverted to the Orioles, who assigned him to Triple-A Ottawa.

I have to say that I was shocked. After all, one week earlier the Orioles had let go of John Stephens, another flawed prospect held in high esteem among performance analysts, and saw the Red Sox (who have the vanguard of the sabermetric movement on staff as an adviser) claim him and add him to their 40-man roster. I expected something similar to happen to Cust. Despite Cust's defensive deficiencies, I thought that surely an American League team with a weak farm system (Red Sox, Yankees) or a sabermetrically savvy front office (Athletics, Blue Jays) or a weak major-league roster (Devil Rays) could find a place for him. Perhaps an NL team needing bench depth (Giants) would find a role for him as a pinch-hitter and spot starter. But no one bit. And it's not like some teams fell asleep at the waiver wire, either, because the move drew extra attention when MLB found the Orioles guilty of calling up Bedard too early after the transaction was announced and reversed it, forcing the Orioles to place Cust back on their roster for a few more days. One reason for the other teams' hesitation was that (to quote MLB.com beat writer Gary Washburn) "any team that claimed Cust would have had to place him on the 25-man roster." This was not true in Stephens's case.

But the total lack of interest from 29 big-league teams showed just how far Cust has fallen in the eyes of MLB talent evaluators. This is the same guy who made a lot of top-50 and top-100 prospect lists just a few years ago, who has an impressive .299 BA/.436 OBP/.551 SLG in his minor-league career, who was one of the Orioles' top hitting prospects when he was acquired from the Rockies in March of 2003, who has nearly three full AAA seasons under his belt, who posted an impressive .878 OPS in a limited role last year, and who is still just 25 years old. What happened? Are all those teams dunderheads for passing on him? Or were they right, and have the stat-heads overrated Cust and turned a blind eye to his flaws?

B.J. Ryan is off to an outstanding start, making him the subject of a profile by Dan Connolly in Friday's York Daily Record.

Baseball is and always will be a quintessentially American sport, but there's no denying that other countries have increasingly contributed talent to the game at the major-league level. The Orioles typify this trend: by my count, eight players on their 25-man active roster (32%) were born outside of the United States. Here they are, listed next to their nation of origin:

While the Orioles' bullpen has been sharp overall this year, Mike DeJean (pronounced day-zhahn) has been so dismal that I'm wondering why manager Lee Mazzilli has sent him out there in six of the last nine games, three of which have resulted in DeJean taking the loss. If DeJean had not come to the Orioles with such a sturdy backing from the front office, he would be a top candidate to be released. His pitching line speaks an ugly truth:

Dave Sheinin of the Washington Post has a story today on Rodrigo López, the savior of the Orioles' pitching staff so far this season. López has quietly contributed several exceptional performances in long relief, often bailing out aborted outings by the team's struggling young starters. He's held batters to a .138 average and a .348 OPS, allowing just 17 baserunners in 23 2/3 innings. Only three out of his eleven inherited runners have scored, and his ERA is an infinitesimal 0.38.

Washington Post columnist Thomas Boswell's latest column discusses the Orioles' attempt to break with the modern orthodoxy of bullpen usage. Instead of going for lefty-lefty and righty-righty matchups that typically last one or two batters, manager Lee Mazzilli has often gone with "the next best pitcher" regardless of handedness.

No single person is credited with the strategy, but if the quotes from the story are any indication, team co-VP Mike Flanagan is a key proponent.

"We finally got sick of seeing our games being lost by our 11th or 12th best pitcher in some matchup situation," said co-general manager Mike Flanagan. "Too often, we never even got the game into the hands of our closer because we'd lost somewhere along the way with one of our worst pitchers. Now, we usually only warm up one reliever, then we bring him in -- our Next Best Pitcher -- regardless of who is hitting."

Flanagan also broached this philosophy in a Peter Gammons story on ESPN.com in February.

The O's bullpen should be deep, but Flanagan says, "we want to get away from the lefty-righty thing. We could have from three to five left-handers out there, but John Parrish gets right-handers out better than left-handers, and the rest are equally good against either side. That knee-jerk matchup thing is something we're trying to get away from."

The story in town today is the return of Jerry Hairston to the Orioles' active roster, and the debate over how the Orioles should play him now that Brian Roberts has staked a claim for the second-base job.

From the Sun: “Emerging Roberts second to none with Orioles” (Joe Christensen)

From the Washington Post: “For O's, an Unusual Position” (Dave Sheinin)

The Hairston-Roberts dilemma has been hashed and rehashed and mashed to microscopic little fragments, including on this blog, but it looks like decision time is coming up for the O's. For the near term, Roberts will stay at second and Hairston will DH and bat ninth. Writes Sheinin:

"I don't know that the prototypical DH [has to be] a [number] 3, 4 or 5 hitter, that power-type guy," Manager Lee Mazzilli said. "With our lineup and the way I like to run our guys, [Hairston at DH] fits in with our style of play."

That sounds all well and good, but it would be foolish for the Orioles to play Hairston at designated hitter every day unless he significantly outhits his .691 career OPS. Moreover, his slick defensive skills, which are the strongest part of his game, would be completely wasted at DH. On the surface, making Hairston the DH doesn't make sense in the long term.

Here's an update on some subjects that have been discussed earlier on this blog.

The Hairston/Roberts quandary: Jerry Hairston has returned to the lineup as a more-or-less everyday player, with two starts at second, seven at DH, and one in left field. So far, he's looked extremely rusty, batting .250/.242/.344. This could have been expected, as Hairston missed most of spring training and served a brief one-week rehab stint, but he's going to have to pick up the pace soon if he wants to stay in the lineup. Unfortunately, Brian Roberts has slumped offensively of late—his OPS has fallen by 93 points since Hairston came off the DL—making for two black holes in the Orioles' lineup. (Some of you may be wondering how Hairston's OBP could be lower than his batting average. The reason is that sacrifice flies count in the denominator for OBP but not for BA, and Hairston has one sacrifice fly and no walks or HBP.)

Rodrigo López: After watching their starters get bombed for most of the last month while Rodrigo (R-Lo? Rod-L? Rod-Lo?) put the clamps on the opposition, the Orioles did the logical thing and reassigned him to the rotation essentially to take the place of demoted Kurt Ainsworth. In his first start on Thursday, Rodrigo looked initially like the ace reliever that he had been, holding the Mariners scoreless for the first four innings. But then he hit a wall and got torched for six runs in the fifth. Although his ability to pitch deep in games is iffy, at this point, he's better used as a starter until the young arms get themselves on track.

Mike DeJean: The sad story continues. DeJean has continued to get rocked nearly every time he's been out there. Michael Wolverton's Reliever Evaluation Tools Report currently ranks DeJean as the worst major-league reliever in Adjusted Runs Prevented. DeJean managed to notch his first hold of the season last Wednesday against Seattle, but was hardly impressive in doing so. Inheriting a 4-1 lead in the seventh with runners on first and third and two outs, he gave up a run-scoring hit and a bases-loading walk before receiving a merciful strike call on a borderline full-count pitch to Édgar Martínez. On Friday against the Angels, he took a 3-1 eighth-inning lead and gave up three straight hits without recording an out. Recent callup Darwin Cubillán relieved DeJean and promptly coughed up the lead, resulting in an agonizing 5-3 loss.

B.J. Ryan: In that Friday game, Lee Mazzilli went to DeJean in the eighth because Ryan had pitched on Tuesday and Wednesday and had told Mazzilli that he was not feeling well that week. That might have given Mazzilli plausible justification for not using Ryan. But DeJean? And in a two-run game against the Angels, who have scored the second-most runs in the league? Ryan, who currently ranks 16th in ARP, eventually entered that game in relief of Cubillán and put out the fire—too late to save that game, unfortunately. Ryan continues to pitch well: left-handed batters are still hitless off him, while righties have managed just a .734 OPS. But the lack of decent bullpen options beyond him and Jorge Julio is hurting the Orioles. It's turning the search for the next-best pitcher into a coin flip.

Calvin Pickering ("He Can't Pick It, But He Sure Can Hit It") has cooled down a little since his scorching start, but he's still hitting an impressive .320/.465/.820 at Omaha. Why isn't this guy DHing for someone?

Speaking of DH's, Jack Cust has not ravaged Triple-A pitching like I thought he would. This year, he's posted a feeble .233/.353/.384 at Ottawa, with just three taters and 32 K's in 118 PA's. That puts him just slightly ahead of shortstop Eddy Garabito (.311/.344/.378) as a hitter. Maybe there was a real regression in Cust's hitting approach this spring that justified the Orioles' decision to take him off the roster. Meanwhile, Cust's Lynx teammates José León (.342/.405/.711) and Pedro Swann (.328/.396/.613) are hitting like there's no tomorrow, and Robert Machado (.319/.372/.487) isn't doing too badly for himself either. Too bad none of them is young enough to be considered a prospect. Anyway, it's nice to have viable options in Triple-A in case of an injury on the big-league club. On the pitching side of the Lynx, recently promoted starter John Maine is struggling for the first time as a professional, with a 6.20 ERA and an 11/8 K/BB ratio in four starts. Looks like he's finally being challenged; let's see how he responds.

Earlier I commented that Miguel Tejada has been a slow starter in his career. Well, this year he had a relatively strong start (for him), with a .326/.374/.453 hitting line in April for an OPS of .827. This bodes well for his season overall, if he heats up during the summer like he normally does.

Anyone who has read Michael Lewis's bestselling book Moneyball knows the story of Oakland A's General Manager Billy Beane as a player. Extraordinarily gifted in virtually every physical tool a baseball player could want, Beane was one of the top prospects in the nation coming out of high school. He even had a football scholarship waiting for him at Stanford despite the fact that he had not played football for two years.

Selected in the first round of the 1980 draft by the New York Mets, Beane signed with the team and eventually made it to the majors, yet he never lived up to his athletic promise as a professional because he lacked the right mental traits to succeed. Part of his problems could be traced to a lack of motivation, confidence, and emotional control. His most visible shortcoming was that he did not handle failure well. Whenever Beane struck out, his teammates made sure to keep their distance to avoid suffering collateral damage from his vicious outbursts. His reputation for destructiveness grew to mythical levels, so even his opponents would watch his tantrums for their entertainment value.

Beane's foil in the book is Lenny Dykstra, Beane's teammate coming up through the Mets' system. While Beane carried his mistakes with him everywhere he went, Dykstra never let a little failure bother him. Dykstra was unflappable; he quickly put bad experiences behind him and was able to move on to the next inning, the next at-bat, or the next game. To Beane, Dykstra had the ideal temperament to play baseball, and that conclusion influenced him when it came to making decisions on players as a general manager.

While this little psychological study is a fascinating subplot in the book, the overarching story of Moneyball is the Athletics' ability to find undervalued players by weighting statistically meaningful measures of baseball performance over traditional, overrated metrics. Psychological traits were just one of many pieces of information that went into Oakland's decision-making.

The Baltimore shop

The Orioles' current administration bridges the old and new schools of baseball management. Their top prospect is a high-risk player touted by traditional, tools-based scouting analysis, but team officials have also publicly acknowledged the importance of on-base percentage and have entertained an unorthodox philosophy regarding bullpen usage. But while the Orioles may not be at the forefront of the sabermetric movement, they do appear to have made significant gains in the area of psychological profiling of prospects.

This past Sunday, the television program "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" featured an interview of Dave Ritterpusch, the Orioles' director of baseball information systems. On the program, Ritterpusch described the psychological profiling method that he developed to evaluate players for the Orioles, and how it figures into the Orioles' personnel decisions. This topic was previously covered in an article by John Eisenberg that appeared in the Sun on February 22. On Sunday Ritterpusch expanded on his method, although he stopped short of revealing the most critical details.

For those who are unaware of the show, "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" is a weekly half-hour program that airs on local television station WNUV 54 (Baltimore's WB affiliate) on Sunday mornings during the baseball season. It is essentially the equivalent of "Meet the Press" for the world of Orioles baseball. Like NBC's Tim Russert, local sports reporter Tom Davis conducts studio interviews of high-profile guests, but instead of grilling policymakers and heads of state, Davis talks one-on-one with Orioles players, coaches, and decision-makers present and past. The tone of the show is informal, but the long format of the program makes it possible for guests to expound in ways that are rarely seen in the mainstream, sound-bite-oriented news media. For Orioles fans seeking coverage of the team in more depth and from a different angle than is available from most news outlets—and if you're reading this, you probably are one of those people—"TMOB" is a unique and valuable resource.

Next: A look into the Ritterpusch interview.

Part One

Welcome back

First off, a little background on Dave Ritterpusch (digested from John Eisenberg's February 22 article in the Sun and a 1996 story by the venerable John Steadman): after graduating from college, serving in the military, and becoming a bank executive at Equitable Trust Co., Ritterpusch was recommended to the Orioles' management by then-minority owner Zanvyl Krieger. Ritterpusch soon became scouting director, a title he carried from 1973 to 1975 in the front office led by General Manager Frank Cashen. Back then, Ritterpusch was one of the first to adopt psychological testing for athletes. His greatest find was Eddie Murray in the third round of the 1973 draft, and that year he also selected Mike Flanagan in the seventh round. Another fruitful pick was Rich Dauer in the '74 draft.

But Ritterpusch was jettisoned when the Orioles' front office turned over in the mid-'70s, and after a failed attempt to latch onto another team, he returned to non-sports jobs. Still, he remained in touch with people in baseball and in the psychological testing community. In the 1990s, he helped Flanagan, then the Orioles' pitching coach, to review pitcher Arthur Rhodes's psychological profile and decide that the best role for Rhodes was in middle relief. When Flanagan and Jim Beattie were selected to lead the Orioles' baseball operations in late 2002, one of their first signees was Ritterpusch as director of baseball information systems.

Ritterpusch, now in his early sixties, has spent most of his life working outside of baseball. His educational record includes a finance degree from Lehigh (1963) and a master's in business administration from Penn State. His work record includes several military positions, including paratrooper and military intelligence officer; he retired from the service with the rank of colonel in 1991. He then served as an assistant secretary of labor in the first Bush administration and has also worked in the private sector for consulting and contracting firms serving the defense industry.

First impressions

Judging from his appearance on Take Me Out to the Ballgame, Ritterpusch looks like he never quite left the '70s—or the military—behind him. On the program, his dark brown, slicked hair was tautly combed and parted to the side. He had on a black suit and a powder-blue, buttoned-collar dress shirt. The knot of his splotchy necktie often disappeared beneath his jowly jawline. It was not hard to imagine that Ritterpusch once worked in military intelligence. Large, brown-tinted aviator sunglasses with gold rims obscured his eyes throughout the interview, making it tough to read his facial expressions. Often pausing to consider his thoughts before answering a question, Ritterpusch spoke in a steady tone of voice that was low-key yet confident, in a manner akin to Dick Cheney. His every utterance sounded carefully measured and vetted to demonstrate the soundness of his knowledge while providing no more detail than necessary.

Ritterpusch began by describing the Orioles' reports on Flanagan and Murray from when they were being scouted as potential draftees. He immediately gravitated to his specialty and emphasized the mental aspect of each player. Flanagan, he said, "had terrific makeup, terrific mental toughness, terrific composure." Ritterpusch added that he had checked with Baltimore doctors about a prior arm injury of Flanagan's and was reassured that it would not be a problem.

Murray is clearly the crown jewel in Ritterpusch's prospecting history, and on the 2003 Hall of Fame inductee he said: "Any of us who have seen Eddie and know Eddie well know that he is an extremely composed individual.... We had used our psychological profiles and knew he had very high drive, and we knew it was masked by something called emotional control. Now, we really didn't realize how important emotional control would be in Eddie's career, but of course that's one of the things that enabled him to be a selective hitter and hit over .400 with the bases loaded." Ritterpusch also noted with some satisfaction that while the psychological profile attracted the Orioles to Murray, other clubs did not even have Murray on their draft lists.

I'll briefly interrupt the psycho-profiling series to address a recent chorus of criticism in the print media about the Orioles' pitching woes. No fewer than four columns have addressed the issue in the last four days:

• “Mazzilli's Introduction as Manager” by Thomas Boswell of the Washington Post.
• “It's time for O's to deal” by Dan Connolly of the York Daily Record.
• “Orioles' bosses are losers, too” by Thom Loverro of the Washington Times.
• “Attempts to fix spoil good mix” by Peter Schmuck of the hometown Sun.

The outcry came in the wake of the Orioles' six-game losing slide of the past week, particularly the three taterrific Yankee games in which the Orioles allowed 41 runs to the Bronx Bombers. The pitching slump eased during a three-game sweep of the Tigers this weekend, but with a game tomorrow in Boston immediately followed by a three-game set in New York, it looks like it may be another long week ahead.

Of the four writers, Loverro was by far the most scathing. He took several shots at the Orioles' brain trust for going with such an inexperienced starting rotation, leading to a pitching situation that is "in chaos." Loverro compares the 2004 O's to the 2003 Texas Rangers, a team that was undone by its league-worst pitching. He includes this bon mot as a word of advice to manager Lee Mazzilli: “It might be a good idea to have a few choices words [sic] for your team, and particularly Sir Sidney Ponson, who clearly misunderstands the role of being the No. 1 guy on the staff. It doesn't mean the guy with the highest ERA on the staff.”

Boswell did not dwell as much on the Orioles' pitching problems in his column; he saw the losing string as the first big test for Mazzilli in his first season as a big-league manager. Boswell tried to avoid convenient second-guessing, but he did make one concrete recommendation about the pitching staff. He wrote, “Mazzilli should reverse one decision quickly: Send Rodrigo Lopez back to the bullpen, where he was becoming a star. That's probably the only significant mistake Mazzilli has made.”

Connolly, in his Friday column, turned up the pressure on the Orioles to deal one of their second basemen to fill holes on the team, particularly in the starting rotation: “A trade seems essential if the club is serious about playing competitive baseball this season. Heck, a trade is essential if the club wants its relievers to last through July.”

Schmuck, in his Sunday Orioles Focus column, agreed with Boswell's point about López and echoed Connolly's suggestion to deal a second baseman:

[López] certainly earned the chance to start again when Matt Riley came up sore and Kurt Ainsworth came unglued. It just wasn't the best thing for the team, and now it should be obvious to all that he needs to go back to the bullpen as soon as possible.

.... The first step toward addressing the pitching crisis and restoring the continuity of the batting order is pretty obvious. The Orioles need to make a deal. They need to trade Hairston as quickly as possible for a veteran starting pitcher who can get into the sixth inning and allow Lopez to return to the middle relief role he filled so well.

That might also require the club to give up a quality pitching prospect, something Jim Beattie and Mike Flanagan don't want to do, but something dynamic has to be done before this turns into a seventh straight lost season.

The sky is falling! Give me the head of ___! Don't just stand there—do something!

In evaluating the Orioles' stumbles, Schmuck's central assertion is that "the 2004 season started to unravel when the club began fixing all the things that weren't broken." But in the Orioles' defense, there was and is no easy solution for the second-base logjam. Although playing Hairston at DH hampers the club in the short term, he needs at-bats to get his swing back and convince other teams that he has fully recovered from his injuries of the last two years. The Orioles have also been able to spot him a couple of starts in the outfield to increase his utility while they examine possible trade avenues. Hairston's weak start and Roberts's slump have especially smarted during a time in which the Orioles have faced several challenging opponents, but there is no concrete evidence that their offensive struggles have been caused by the uncertainty of their situation. While the Orioles have not turned lemons into lemonade, they have not mishandled the situation either.

Likewise, López's move into the rotation was not an easy decision; it was warranted because of the struggles and injuries of Riley and Ainsworth. After two starts, it's too soon to conclude that the best place for López is in the bullpen—even good pitchers can have two bad starts in a row. But Riley is apparently healthy enough to return after his four perfect innings for Ottawa on Saturday, and he clearly did not adapt well to relieving earlier this month. So the best move for the team may be to send López back to his long relief role.

It's not often that an Oriole wins the American League Player of the Month award, as Melvin Mora has done for his scalding month of May at the plate.

MLB.com: “Mora named AL Player of the Month” (Gary Washburn)

Baltimore Sun: “Mora adds Player of Month to All-Star bid” (Joe Christensen)

Mora's .402 batting average, .480 on-base percentage, and .701 slugging percentage last month all led the league. For the season, he's at .377/.459/.598. He ranks first in the league in batting average and runs scored, and he's second in OBP, fourth in slugging, and ninth in RBI.

Needless to say, those numbers represent a phenomenal level of production, comparable to what he accomplished in the first half of last year. Yet Mora is still not making much of an impact on the national radar. In the first month of All-Star voting, for example, he did not get enough votes to be listed among the top five AL third basemen, according to numbers released Tuesday by the Associated Press. As the reigning MVP, Alex Rodríguez should get the benefit of the doubt in the early voting, but Mora has out-hit all of his peers at the hot corner this year. Even after taking his fielding struggles into account, he is one of the top two or three third basemen in baseball right now. But a lot of people still view him as a flash in the pan, a guy playing above his head who will come back down sooner or later.

Part 1

Part 2

Profiles in reflection

With the amateur draft scheduled to take place Monday and Tuesday, the Orioles no doubt have compiled their list of the top eligible players. As discussed earlier, the psychological ratings of their director of baseball information systems, Dave Ritterpusch, will have a significant influence on the selection process—greater, perhaps, than for any other team. The psychological profiles help winnow the field by eliminating those who are least mentally prepared to play baseball at an elite level. They also provide a tipping factor when deciding among prospects of similar ability.

There is a danger that the Orioles could go overboard with their perceived competitive advantage in psychological profiling. The mental side of the game is important, but prospects who are mentally strong and motivated still need the physical aptitude to succeed against first-rate competition, as Ritterpusch himself acknowledges. From what I've seen, I'm not terribly confident in the Orioles' ability to go beyond typical scouting metrics like the five tools and assess the more subtle assets that show up only on the field in live competition (and in certain statistics). Does the player have the ability to pick up the nuances of the game and to make the proper adjustments when necessary? How good is a hitter's command of the strike zone? How well does a pitcher create movement on his pitches and deception in his delivery? How quickly does an outfielder pick up the ball off the bat? Ritterpusch's confidence in his findings may cause the Orioles to overrate players who have strong psychological and physical profiles but lack the "baseball intelligence" that is necessary for success in the game.

There is also the possibility that the Orioles could miss out on some very good players by discounting psychologically suboptimal prospects from their consideration. Ritterpusch indicated that an "overwhelming majority" of star players score highly in certain key traits. But just how small is that underwhelming minority of stars who are deficient in one or more of the key traits? Ten percent? Twenty? Albert Belle was a seeming exception to the rule, a highly motivated player with All-Star talent who also exhibited antisocial behavior. His frequent outbursts directed at fans and the media (and, sometimes, inanimate objects) suggest that he may have rated low on emotional control. I guess the bottom-line question is: at what point is it appropriate to allow for exceptions to the key traits?

Ritterpusch did not mention by name any players who did poorly on their psychological tests, probably because of legal repercussions—aside from the possibility of a libel suit, there are probably privacy and confidentiality protections involved. But I'd still like to know how certain players profiled. Could the troubles of Steve Blass disease sufferers—among them Steve Sax, Mackey Sasser, Chuck Knoblauch, and Rick Ankiel—have been predicted? What were the profiles of oddballs like Mark Fidrych, Jim Walewander, and Randy Myers? And a psychological contrast between Moneyballers Billy Beane and Lenny Dykstra would be interesting for its own sake. Although many players' personality traits become obvious in press reportage, it's still interesting to know what goes on inside the heads of the most unusual athletes.

What about profiles for managers and coaches? For them, leadership and responsibility would intuitively be important. The ASP, however, is not the ideal test to determine a managerial candidate's fitness for the job, since it is customized for athletes. A test designed to measure aptitude for business managers would probably be more appropriate.

And further tests for players may come if the trend continues and clubs are willing to contribute to some up-front costs. In addition to psychological questionnaires, high-profile players may need to take physicals before the draft and make them available to interested teams. Pitchers may be asked to have an MRI scan done on their pitching arm and submit pitch-count and injury histories. Technology advances are making the accumulation and dissemination of such data extremely convenient.

If all this testing sounds like overkill, it's not. It's becoming an increasingly common practice in industry. A recent AP story indicates that businesses such as the Pathmark supermarket chain are incorporating computerized screening tests (which include some personality-related questions) into their hiring processes. As long as the test methods and accuracy are sound, it makes a lot of sense. A résumé and interview can only tell so much about a person. The more relevant information that hiring managers have in hand, the better equipped they are to make decisions on the hiring and placement of personnel.

There will always be uncertainty in any process involving human beings. But as long as it exists, people will always be looking for economical ways to reduce it. And that is true in life as well as in baseball.

The Orioles made seventeen picks in the first eighteen rounds on the first day of the amateur draft. (Their second-round pick went to Oakland as compensation for Miguel Tejada.) Their first day's haul was a relatively even mix of eight pitchers and nine position players. There are no runts in this litter: every one of the picks is over six feet tall, and only one is listed at under 180 pounds.

For the third straight year, the Birds went with a heavy concentration of college players in the initial part of the draft. This year is their most college-loaded yet: so far they have selected fourteen university products and just three high-schoolers. All fourteen of their college draftees are from four-year institutions. The league has been trending towards college players in the last few drafts, but Baltimore has gone farther than most of their peers in that direction.

Baltimore's top pick, eighth overall, was right-hander Wade Townsend, one of the vaunted triumvirate who pitched Rice University to the NCAA championship last year. The other two, Philip Humber and Jeff Niemann, were selected third and fourth overall. Townsend is a stud both physically (6'4", 225 lbs.) and statistically (12-0, 1.80 ERA, 11.1 K/9 IP, 3.29 K/BB in 2004, his junior season). Because of his burdensome workload during the college season, which ended on Sunday, I would expect the Orioles to rest his arm for most of the remainder of this summer. But it's hard not to get excited about a talent like Townsend, and it will be interesting to see which pitcher of the Rice trio ends up with the best major-league career. This longitudinal study suggests that only one of every three first-round picks becomes a significant contributor in the majors, although the draft data used in the study are from fifteen years ago, so its conclusions may not be quite the same in today's draft.

A rundown of Oriole-related draft articles (in order of decreasing informativeness):

• MLB.com: “Orioles stock up on arms” and “Orioles go with Townsend first” (both by Gary Washburn)
• Baltimore Sun: “O's draft Townsend with No. 8 selection” (Roch Kubatko)
• Washington Post: “Orioles Go Out on a Limb” (Dave Sheinin)
• Washington Times: “Orioles nab pitcher with top draft pick” (rehash of wire reports)

The Orioles' second pick, which came in the third round, was Jeff Fiorentino, a power-hitting outfielder from Florida Atlantic University. Baltimore selected him as a catcher, but he only recently started playing the position, so it may be a stretch to expect him to handle it at the professional level.

An updated list of the Orioles' picks, with scouting reports on several of them, is on the 2004 Baltimore draft page on MLB.com.

On the second day of the draft in recent years, the Orioles have veered toward a mix of mature college seniors to fill out the farm system and high-school and junior-college "reach" picks with draft-and-follow potential. Given that the quality of talent decreases rapidly after the first ten rounds or so, it's as good a strategy as any, and I would expect the Orioles to continue that tactic today.

Head over to Michael Wolverton's Support-Neutral starter rankings at the Baseball Prospectus site and at the top of the "Flakiest ML Starters" rankings, you will find a name familiar to Orioles fans:

Flakiest 10 ML Starters (ranked by variance of SNVA):
(7 starts minimum)

Pitcher       Team   APW  SNVA   SNVA Var.
------------------------------------------
Ponson,S       BAL  -2.1  -1.6    0.088
Hampton,M      ATL  -0.8  -0.4    0.081
Valdez,I       SDP  -0.5  -0.6    0.079
Estes,S        COL  -0.5  -0.4    0.079
Willis,D       FLA   0.6   0.8    0.077
Dickey,R       TEX  -1.1  -0.8    0.077
Pineiro,J      SEA  -0.4  -0.4    0.076
Ainsworth,K    BAL  -1.7  -1.2    0.075
Gobble,J       KCR  -0.5  -0.2    0.075
Lackey,J       ANA  -0.8  -0.4    0.074

(as of June 14, 2004)

Less mathematically versed readers may want to know what "variance of SNVA (Support-Neutral Value Added)" is. Essentially, a high SNVA variance means that a pitcher has had wide swings in the quality of his starts. And sure enough, a look at Sidney Ponson's game log indicates that among his fourteen starts this season, he has had four quality starts (at least six innings pitched with at most three earned runs allowed) but also seven starts in which he has allowed six earned runs or more.

Contrast that with last season, in which he had quality starts in 58% of his outings and not once allowed as many as six earned runs in a start. That kind of consistent quality attracted the interest of the San Francisco Giants going into the stretch run and made the Orioles feel confident enough in January to offer him $22.5 million in guaranteed money for 2004-2006.

A royal riddle

Ponson's 2004 failures have largely mystified him. After some of his poor starts this year, he has told the press essentially that he didn't think he pitched all that badly, but that opposing batters got hits on a lot of good pitches. This kind of remark can be interpreted in two ways. It could come across as a charitable act of sportsmanship that gives credit to a worthy opponent. Or it could look like a denial of personal responsibility that blames his lack of success on bad luck or even poor defense. As former Oriole Mike Mussina has learned in New York, fans and journalists will usually take the latter view and label the commenter a whiny complainer.

Either way, Ponson has refused to accept complete responsibility for his frequently gruesome results, and in particular he has never admitted that his weight (initially 265 pounds, now reportedly in the 250's) may have played a role in his struggles. This combination of unsatisfactory performance and a defensive posture with the press has irked everyone in the Orioles community, from the badgering media and demanding fans to Baltimore's coaches and management. The following articles indicate the scope of the unrest:

• Washington Post: “Heavy Concern for O's” (Dave Sheinin)
• Baltimore Sun: “Ponson's woes a weighty issue” (Roch Kubatko)
• MLB.com: “Notes: Ponson answers critics” (Gary Washburn)

Ponson thinks that his command of his pitches has gone awry just enough to make him ineffective. As quoted on MLB.com:

“I am throwing the ball one or two inches the wrong way right now,” he said. “Sometimes in this game, that's all you have to be off is by a few inches. I feel good when I am pitching but I am not throwing the ball where I want to throw it.”

More than his command, Ponson's weight has provided a convenient target for his detractors. Jim Palmer, who at 58 years old is still trim enough to credibly pose in Jockey briefs, has been an especially shrill critic of Ponson's lack of fitness. In the Sheinin story, he delivered this scathing rebuke:

“Part of the responsibility of being a professional athlete is you show up in shape,” Palmer said. “The tragic irony of Steve Bechler's death is that the one guy came in overweight. The other guy came in overweight. One guy makes a minor league salary; the other makes $4 million. The one guy dies tragically, and the other guy keeps carrying around extra weight and gets a huge contract. That's irresponsible.”

Ponson's overweight is certainly a concern, but it is hardly a new phenomenon. He carried about 250 pounds last year, too, and it did not appear to hamper his pitching all that much. So there are probably other, less obvious factors that have led to his problems this season. What are these factors (if they exist)? Are they likely to change in the near future?

Perusing the news reports of the Orioles' third straight loss to the Dodgers, I noticed this paragraph buried deep in Dave Sheinin's story in the Washington Post:

Los Angeles's Kaz Ishii was the second in a string of five straight left-handed starters the Orioles will face during this road trip, including three straight this weekend at Colorado -- a fact which bodes poorly for their chances, given the team's collective .236 average against lefties (last in the league) entering Thursday.

I hadn't really noticed that the Orioles were struggling so much against left-handers this year, and I would not have guessed that such would be the case before the season started. After all, only three regulars, Rafael Palmeiro, Jay Gibbons, and Larry Bigbie, are left-handed hitters, and all three had held their own against lefties prior to this year.

I caught this note in the Sun's Orioles notes this morning:

The Orioles signed Texas Rangers infield prospect David Newhan last night to give them another left-handed bat off the bench, and he'll be in uniform tonight when they begin a three-game series in Colorado.

Given the team's struggles against left-handed pitching, it hardly seems urgent to get another left-handed bat. Newhan is not a bad fellow to have on the bench, though. While not good enough of a hitter to be a regular, his minor-league record indicates that he has some on-base ability and enough power to occasionally turn on a pitch. And he can fill in at first, second, or third base. That makes him more attractive than current sub Luis López, who has never really hit well anywhere he's been.

Newhan, incidentally, is the son of esteemed L.A. Times baseball writer Ross Newhan. That family link should immediately put him in good stead with the local press.

Yesterday the Orioles traded Double-A pitcher Denny Bautista for reliever Jason Grimsley from the Kansas City Royals. Bautista, who flopped in a two-game stint with the major-league club last month, was one of two pitching prospects acquired from the Marlins in the Jeff Conine deal last August. (The other, Don Levinski, has been ineffective at Single-A Frederick due mostly to shoulder problems.) As part of the deal, Grimsley signed a one-year contract extension for 2005, apparently for $2 million.

Selected citations:

• Baltimore Sun: “O's bolster bullpen, acquire Grimsley” (Roch Kubatko)
• Washington Post: “Orioles Get a Bit of Relief” (Dave Sheinin)
• MLB.com (O's beat): “O's acquire Grimsley from Royals” (Gary Washburn)
• MLB.com (KC beat): “Royals send Grimsley to O's” (Dick Kaegel)

This swap looks like an attempt by the Orioles to save face and stabilize their pitching staff after last week's seven-game losing streak dropped Baltimore to last place in the division. The Birds need pitching help, having by far the worst ERA in the American League at 5.45 (KC is next at 4.96). The injuries of Rick Bauer, Eric DuBose, and Kurt Ainsworth have left the staff short on arms with no ready replacements at Triple-A Ottawa. (That is not entirely true. Bruce Chen and Aaron Rakers have put up respectable stats for the Lynx and merited a look-see. But neither is a great prospect, and since neither is on the 40-man roster, someone would have to be removed from the Orioles' roster for one of them to be called up.)

The Orioles sent in their "White Flag" lineup last night to combat Tampa Bay's soft-tossing lefty Mark Hendrickson:

(OPS figures were from before last night's game. By the end of the game, all of those numbers had dropped except the Lópezes'.)

Right-hander Rick Bauer fired several parting shots at Oriole management on his way back to the minors. His cross remarks came immediately after being informed of his demotion—and likely exclusion from the ballclub's future plans—by manager Lee Mazzilli, pitching coach Ray Miller, executive vice president Jim Beattie, and director of baseball administration Ed Kenney after Wednesday's game.

As reported by the Baltimore Sun (“Told he's unwanted, irked Bauer demoted, perhaps for last time”):

“I'm extremely surprised. The move probably shouldn't shock me with what's been going on this year. I probably shouldn't put it past them....

“They said I'm the 13th guy, I can't pitch for this team, they didn't think I could pitch here at all and they're trying to get rid of me—to be almost word for word. I like Baltimore, but I really don't have a choice. I don't get to make that decision.

“To flat-out hear I can't pitch here, that's kind of a joke because I've done it the past two or three years. Now all of a sudden, no? I had one horrible outing in Chicago. Minus that, and I'm probably one of the more effective guys on the team. But I guess that doesn't really count for anything.”

As transcribed by MLB.com's Gary Washburn (“Hot Bauer sent down”):

“Deep down, yeah, I'm hurt. Because I busted my (tail) for this organization. So to hear that, especially getting kicked to the curb. You are washed up and you're 27. I am going to go put up zeroes [in the minors] like I always do, every time. And maybe somebody will pick me up, who knows? They said they were pretty much going to get rid of me. I have a bad ERA, that's it. I have no idea how to take that. Do I take it as a guy who (stinks)? Or as a guy who's looking for an opportunity.”

“I had one horrible outing in Chicago, besides that I am one of the more effective guys on this team,” he said. “But I guess that doesn't really count for anything. I am going to go deal in Triple-A as I always do for the past four years. Maybe somebody will give me a shot, I don't care if it's in the bullpen, anywhere. I just want to go back to the majors.”

Bauer's comments were unusually candid and undiplomatic. The opportunistic media, always looking for a fresh quote, lapped up his frustrations right after he had received the bad news—and, presumably, before he had taken the time to calm down and internalize the information. So while his words at the time were emotionally honest, if asked again today Bauer would probably put things differently, having had the benefit of some reflection. But let's parse his initial reaction and see if his thoughts were valid. (Apologies in advance to Linda Ronstadt.)

With the Orioles carrying a record of 37–48 at the All-Star break, discontent reigns in Birdland. Owner Peter Angelos has publicly expressed his disappointment with his team, and rumors have circulated that manager Lee Mazzilli's job status for next year is up in the air. It's true that the Birds have underachieved in their first half-season under Mazzilli. But their problems go far beyond the purview of a manager's influence. The main culprits so far have been wildly ineffective pitching and leaky defense. The offense, as expected, has been better than last year, but has also been impaired by lousy situational hitting, a suddenly punchless outfield, and weak production from the DH spot.

The Washington Post's Orioles beat writer, Dave Sheinin, has penned a scathing report on the Orioles' underwhelming first half of the season. In the lengthy article, Sheinin shines a harsh spotlight on rookie manager Lee Mazzilli, turns the lens to Peter Angelos's renewed meddlesome ways, and recaps the many things that have gone wrong on the field for the Birds this year. The most disturbing revelations:

• Mazzilli has “lost the clubhouse,” according to two anonymous veteran players.
• Angelos used his veto powers in last month's draft to dictate that the Orioles' first-round pick be a college pitcher.
• Angelos became so infuriated with Sidney Ponson's woes that he checked into the possibility of voiding the pitcher's contract because Ponson had failed to keep himself in first-class physical condition.
• Mazzilli has not blended in with the returning contingent of Oriole coaches as seamlessly as hoped: “According to clubhouse sources, Mazzilli's relationship with his coaches is distant at best, cool at worst.”
• In the season opener, Maz actually wanted to bring in left-hander Buddy Groom, not right-hander Rodrigo López, to face the left-handed hitter Johnny Damon, but a mix-up led to López entering the game. Mazzilli, as we know, was subsequently praised for going against convention while giving the demoted López an immediate chance to make an impact.
• Maz made another blunder on June 17 when he went on the field to make a switch before López was ready to enter the game.

Two developments of note from Monday:

DeJean gone, García is here-ah

Our long regional nightmare is over. The Birds traded pitcher Mike "I Give No Relief" DeJean to the New York Mets for journeyman outfielder Karim García. The Baltimore Sun speculates that other trades may be forthcoming.

The two teams essentially swapped one problem child for another. Opposing hitters blasted DeJean's ERA to the outer reaches of the solar system at the beginning of this season, and although he had been pitching better over the last month or so, he was not really an asset to the bullpen. Moreover, last month's acquisition of Jason Grimsley made DeJean redundant.

According to today's Baltimore Sun, “the Orioles are giving serious thought to trading closer Jorge Julio before the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline, with multiple teams showing interest in acquiring him as a primary setup man.” Potential trading partners mentioned are the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland Athletics.

My "coming-real-soon-now" research articles on the Orioles are in a perpetual state of construction, reconstruction, and redaction, so to keep this blog from sinking into total paralysis I'll add my thoughts on Jerry Hairston's move into center field yesterday.

This was a surprisingly bold and creative move for manager Lee Mazzilli and rest of the Oriole braintrust. It was spurred in part by the injury of Luis Matos, which led to Karim García, Larry Bigbie, Tim Raines Jr., a