However, in the last few years my optimism began to fade as I realized that the Orioles were not getting better. Names and faces changed, but the team had become the epitome of baseball mediocrity, and I saw no signs of marked improvement on the horizon. My interest in the O's began to erode, and baseball fell behind in the competition for my attention. Damaging matters further were the revelations about steroid and human growth hormone use that disproportionately implicated current and former Orioles.
Bottoms up
This year, however, is different. True, on the field will be another losing team. Most rational observers think that the Orioles are going to be worse than last year, or even the last seven, with the betting market placing the over/under on the Orioles' 2008 win count at 65.5, the lowest of any MLB team.
What's changed is that there's actually some reason for optimism with the new regime led by Andy MacPhail. Having hit rock bottom after a decade of losing, the Orioles have given up trying to field even a mediocre squad this year at the big-league level. With MacPhail in charge, they have aggressively begun to prune the roster to a core of talented youngsters from which to build an eventual contender.
MacPhail has finally committed the club to all-out rebuilding, something his predecessor, Mike Flanagan, could not do in the last two years because doing so would have essentially confirmed that his work (with and without Jim Beattie) since 2003 had fallen short of the mark.
MacPhail's first offseason was telling. Instead of signing mediocre free agents to plug gaps, MacPhail traded two of the team's best players, Erik Bedard and Miguel Tejada, receiving bundles of legitimate prospects and youngish spare parts in return. He also took steps toward improving the club's international scouting efforts, long an organizational weakness. Brian Roberts, arguably the team's best and most popular remaining player, reportedly is next in line to be shipped from the Warehouse if a suitable package of prospects comes along.
]]> Gibbons: the decline and fallThe latest evidence that the organization has turned the page on its mediocrity-coddling ways is Sunday's release of Jay Gibbons and the $11.9 million remaining on his contract. Gibbons, a decent power hitter when healthy, was a popular player who wanted to stay in Baltimore at a time when top-tier free agents were shunning the O's. That, combined with the gaping lack of power hitters in the farm system, convinced the Orioles' brass that he was worth the risk of a contract extension in January 2006, the offseason before he was to become a free agent. But they were overly generous with the years (four) and the money ($21.1 million), and Gibbons smartly accepted the offer, which the Orioles now regret in light of his last two years, which were punctuated by injuries, poor performance, and his admitting to the use of human growth hormone.
Unfortunately, the Gibbons contract was not an isolated case. Melvin Mora's extension (3 years, $24 million with a no-trade clause), signed in May 2006, had much in common with Gibbons's. Mora was a soon-to-be free agent, a local favorite with some good years behind him who wanted to stay in Baltimore, and there were no viable replacements for him ready to be promoted from the minors. But given his age (34 then), the Orioles should have anticipated a decline in his productivity and been a bit less generous or just allowed him to leave as a free agent.
Also in the term of Flanagan and Jim Duquette were the free-agent signings of past-their-prime Kevin Millar, Aubrey Huff, and Jay Payton, along with a passel of iffy relievers, to contracts of length and dollars that were suspect at the time and look foolish now. The club, it seemed, was reverting to the Syd Thrift habit of overpaying for middling, aging talent.
Aspirations of mediocrity
Basically, the Orioles got stuck in a rut because of their inability to take the rational, long view of things. Despite their lip service to trying to build a contender through the farm system, they lost patience with the farm and instead wasted time and dollars trying to field a .500 major-league team, falling short of even that lowly goal.
A reputable outsider was needed to make the necessary excisions and course corrections, and that's just what MacPhail has done so far. It remains to be seen whether he has the patience to see the work through to completion, but the early indicators, at least, are encouraging.
]]>The announcement was so long expected that it came as no surprise, but yesterday, the word came that Cal Ripken Jr. was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown in his first year of eligibility. The kudos are coming in from all over, so why not from here, too? Congratulations, Cal. You deserve it.
In the headlines
Close to home, the Baltimore Sun has given its local boy made good the special-edition treatment in its newspaper and on its web site. The Washington Post has a story by Dave Sheinin, who covered the late years of Ripken's career. And of course, with the annual Hall election results being a major national event, there are articles all over the Internet on the topic, but I'll leave you (and your search engine of choice) to find the ones that suit you.
According to the voting results posted on the Hall's official site, Ripken was named on 537 of the 545 ballots cast by the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA). His total was five more than the 532 earned by the other enshrinee in this year's class, Tony Gwynn, and Ripken's vote percentage of 98.53% was the third highest in the history of the voting, narrowly trailing Tom Seaver and Nolan Ryan's near-unanimous totals in 1992 and 1999, respectively. Ripken put up lots of impressive numbers in his playing career, and the Orioles' #8 is still putting them up even in retirement.
]]> BlankfacedSomething about those vote totals makes me wonder, though, about another eight — I mean, the eight writers who submitted ballots without voting for Ripken. What were their reasons for not voting for him? And if they voted for anyone else, then who deserved to be in more than him? When, if ever, were they going to vote for him? (No, I'm not trying to channel Hillel's questions; it just turned out that way.)
According to the Hall's news release, there were two blank ballots submitted this year. Apparently both were meant to draw attention to the so-called steroid era of the 1990s that has placed many players' accomplishments under a cloud of suspicion. One of the blank-ballot protesters was kind enough to reveal himself in his column: Paul Ladewski of the Daily Southtown in the Chicago area. In the face of uncertainty, Ladewski decided to do nothing. That is, not knowing who took performance-enhancing drugs and who didn't, he erred on the side of extreme caution by voting for no one, effectively making his the ballot to be named later:
But tell me, except for the players themselves, who can say what they put into their bodies over the years with any degree of certainty?
I mean, Hall of Fame hopeful Rafael Palmeiro swore under oath that he was innocent, right? The same Rafael Palmeiro who played with Ripken for five seasons, by the way. Palmeiro tested positive for steroid use during the 2005 season.
Now let's suppose a player is voted into the Hall of Fame, then a short time later, a former teammate steps forward to Canseco him. And another. What to do then? Keep him there? Take him out? Drape black crepe over his plaque?....
Better one year too late than one year too soon, I say.
I suppose that kind of logic is fine in ideal circumstances, but the world we live in often requires us to make decisions using imperfect information, and this is one of those cases. To date there has been no evidence that Ripken (or Gwynn, for that matter) did anything improper to enhance his playing ability — certainly no evidence that would challenge (let alone invalidate) his Hall-worthiness. That's not to say the next fifteen years (the maximum amount of time a player can remain on the ballot before he is dropped from BBWAA voting) won't turn up any new information. But apparently most writers saw enough in Ripken's twenty-plus years as a player to discount the possibility of discovering damning truths about him in the next fifteen years.
Ladewski has a point: Better safe than sorry. But ultimately, hewing to his logic would make the Hall voting job harder for the writers, and most of them just weren't willing to go to such lengths, at least not for Ripken and Gwynn. (They did show restraint, however, for Mark McGwire, whose suspected steroid use contributed to him earning just 23.5% of the vote in his first election.) To find the information Ladewski needs — i.e., to find out who did what substances and when — the writers would have to get their hands on the relevant federal grand jury testimony from the BALCO case. They'd have to wait for the results of George Mitchell's investigation (ongoing, and with no end in sight) to be published. If that proves insufficient, they had also better interview everyone who intimately knew each potential Hall of Famer: ex-teammates, coaches, agents, trainers, family members, doctors, personal chefs, pets, etc. And if the facts are still inconclusive after that — which is quite possible — maybe we can wait for someone to invent a time machine, so a messenger can go back in time to surreptitiously get urine samples from players such as Ripken and Gwynn while they were still active.
You see where this is going? Everyone has to draw the line somewhere, and most writers gave Ripken and Gwynn the benefit of the doubt. I don't blame them, yet neither do I condemn Ladewski's stance. Perhaps he felt he just didn't know Ripken or Gwynn well enough to completely rule them out of the witch hunt. Ladewski deserves credit for being bold enough to publicly explain his reasoning, which in my opinion adds to the uncomfortable but necessary discussion of baseball's drug controversy. Maybe Ladewski would penalize innocent candidates by making them wait longer to gain induction, but as long as the Ladewskis of the world don't bring the whole election process to a halt and prevent deserving candidates from ever being elected, I can accept their differences.
The one who speaks for the trees?
The other "blankface" voter remains unknown to my knowledge, but one of the other six who left Ripken hanging had his own reasons.
The following is from an Associated Press report:
Bill Shannon of Sports Press Service, who also does freelance writing for The Associated Press, omitted Ripken and Gwynn because he wanted to vote for 10 other players - the maximum allowed.
“I thought they were such obvious candidates they didn't need my vote,” he said. “I wasn't thinking in terms of a 100 percent.”
While that sounds reasonable, were ten other players' candidacies really so deserving that Shannon couldn't fit Ripken and Gwynn on his ballot? He sounds like someone in favor of a larger, more inclusive Hall, one that would contain, say, Dave Parker and Jack Morris and the dozens of others who had good but not outstanding careers. I am in the opposite camp, which prefers a small Hall with a high bar for quality, because if the bar is set too low, then the Cooperstown plaque loses its stature.
I also think Shannon violated the spirit of the rules by intentionally excluding two of the most qualified candidates from his ballot. However, there is nothing in the Rules for Election to the Hall of Fame that explicitly outlaws what Shannon did. The directions to BBWAA voters are general enough that they can be interpreted in any number of ways:
5. Voting — Voting shall be based upon the player's record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played.
That's it. There's nothing saying that a voter must select the candidates who he thinks best meet those qualifications, although I think it is implied. So Shannon did not clearly act in violation of the Hall's rules, mostly because the Hall's rules are unclear.
The main problem I have with Shannon's ballot is his assumption that Ripken and Gwynn already had enough votes to get in. But what if several others had acted as Shannon did and named a couple of less-qualified candidates while assuming everyone else would vote for the top guys? Fortunately, most didn't. As long as voters such as Shannon and Ladewski represent a tiny minority of the group, they can be tolerated because their tendencies do no significant harm to the process.
After accounting for Ladewski and Shannon, that still leaves six no-votes who remain unidentified, to my knowledge. Perhaps their names will come out eventually; most of the writers who did not vote for Seaver and Ryan named themselves in subsequent years.
Personal reflections
In the beginning was Cal, and the O's were with Cal, and Cal was the O's.
Okay, maybe not in so many words, but you get the picture. I started following the Orioles shortly after Ripken joined the club, so for many years the Orioles and Cal were inextricably linked in my mind. Here are a few of the personal memories I have of his career:
Ripken's famous competitiveness sometimes got the better of him. On September 25, 1987, Ripken was ejected from a game in the bottom of the first inning for arguing a strike call. Listening to the game on the radio, I was initially shocked that Ripken, who seemed such a level-headed man, had lost his temper so early in the game over a such a minor issue. The pitch that he contested wasn't even the third strike. Then I became concerned that Ripken's streak was over because he did not complete an at-bat in the game before he was ejected. Of course, since he had played shortstop in the top of the inning, the streak was still intact. Another ejection under similar circumstances occurred on August 7, 1989. (It did make me wonder where the line is crossed that makes a player's appearance count as a game played. What if it had been a road game and Ripken had been ejected in the top of the first inning before he was announced in the game as a batter? If he was merely listed on his team's lineup card, would that count as a game played in the record books? According to rule 10.21, yes: “When a player listed in the starting lineup for the visiting club is substituted for before he plays defensively, he shall not receive credit in the defensive statistics (fielding), unless he actually plays that position during a game. All such players, however, shall be credited with one game played (in ‘batting statistics’) as long as they are announced into the game or listed on the official lineup card.” Of course, this would have been a dubious way to continue his streak if it had occurred.)
Ripken was (and remains) a constant presence in advertisements for cars, food, and all sorts of other products, but his milk commercials were among the most memorable for their ubiquity if nothing else. My favorite was the one in which a boy Ripken (played by an actor) comes to the plate in a neighborhood game, and the opposing team's fielders, respecting his power, start racing back to the outfield fences while a woman warns people across the street to move their cars to prevent them from being hit. Sure enough, the little Ripken wallops the next pitch to kingdom come. The obvious message was that he was so big and strong because he always drank his milk. I admit that those ads probably led me to drink more milk than I would have otherwise during the '80s and early '90s. Keep in mind that I am mildly lactose intolerant and have never liked milk's slightly phlegmy texture. (Maybe if I had drunk more milk as a child, I would have made the major leagues. On second thought, probably not.)
In the summer of 2001, after Ripken had announced his retirement would take place after the season, the P.A. system at Camden Yards took to playing the introduction to Aaron Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man" before Ripken's at-bats. (I'm not sure if he requested it or if the deejays selected it for him. I suspect the latter, because I didn't hear it in any of his final games.) Despite its humble-sounding title, the music is actually rather high and majestic in tone, and I once overheard one of the ushers call it "the God music."
It's no secret that Ripken is interested in owning part of the Orioles someday. Many Oriole fans have also wondered when Ripken will return to the team in a baseball-related role, whether as a coach, field manager, or general manager. Shortly after Cal retired, I was at an event where he and his wife, Kelly, answered questions about his post-playing career, and I remember Kelly stating adamantly that Cal would not go back to baseball full time until their kids had left home. So assuming he sticks to that pledge—and I see no indication that he won't, because he seems to value spending time with his children—the year to watch is 2011, when his son, Ryan, will turn eighteen and presumably graduate from high school. Cal will be 51 then.
Writing this reminds me that I never got around to completing my write-up about the greatest Oriole shortstops from a couple years ago. In honor of Ripken, I'm going to dig up my notes and finish that article in the next few days. Maybe I'll have sufficient momentum after that to tackle the other positions I left incomplete: outfield, DH, and pitcher. But as usual, no guarantees.
]]>The Baltimore-Norfolk pact makes winners out of both teams financially and logistically, yet the pairing came as a surprise to many (including me). The Tides had been the Triple-A squad of the New York Mets since 1969, making for the second-longest affiliation in professional baseball, and little evidence of a rift emerged until the last few weeks.
Norfolk officials recently said they had become disenchanted with the lack of attention shown them by the Mets' management, namely General Manager Omar Minaya and assistant general manager Tony Bernazard. But they had a far more compelling reason to end the relationship: namely, the ripe opportunity to associate with a geographically closer club, such as in Baltimore or Washington, that would offer better cross-marketing possibilities. The Mets' games once were viewable nationwide on cable TV superstation WWOR, but that has not been the case since 1995. So for Tides followers, keeping up with the parent club in New York had become difficult without a subscription to MLB Extra Innings. (The Mets also had a tendency to treat prospects as trade bait for more established players.) Meanwhile, the Orioles have had a media presence in the Norfolk area for years—this season, many Orioles games can be seen there on Comcast SportsNet and over the air on WSKY, and for the upcoming season, the Orioles are expected to make their MASN channel, with a full slate of Orioles and Nationals games, available on Cox, the main cable provider in the region.
A key development came in July, when the Tides' president and part-owner, Ken Young, formed a partnership that purchased the three Oriole minor-league affiliates in Maryland—Low-A Delmarva, High-A Frederick, and Double-A Bowie—from Comcast-Spectacor. Consequently, it seemed to make business sense to align Triple-A Norfolk with Baltimore as well, although contractual rules prevented negotiations or public speculation from the two parties until this month. (Young has a lot on his plate. He is also president and partner of the Albuquerque Isotopes, the Florida Marlins' Triple-A affiliate in the Pacific Coast League; and of the Norfolk Admirals, a minor-league hockey team. Young's background is primarily in the recreational food business; currently he is president and part-owner of Ovations Food Services, which supplies concessions for entertainment venues across the country.)
The Orioles, for their part, saw the many potential benefits of partnering with the Tides. For starters, the southern Virginia weather promises to be more hospitable to players and coaches than Ottawa's often snowy springs, and the elimination of Canadian border crossings should minimize customs and immigration holdups.
Another big plus for the players is Norfolk's Harbor Park, which overlooks the Elizabeth River and has been called one of baseball's top minor-league stadiums since it opened in 1993. It was designed by HOK Sport not long after that company revolutionized the stadium business with Oriole Park at Camden Yards, and the brick facades of the two ballparks have a more than superficial resemblance to each other.
In an Associated Press report, Baltimore manager Sam Perlozzo mused that the new Triple-A location might put the Orioles in better position to sign experienced minor-league free agents who could provide depth to the major-league team—depth that in recent years has been frequently tested and found lacking.
A significant advantage gained by the Orioles is reduced travel time and costs for staff and players, as Norfolk is a 4½-hour drive from Baltimore and has daily direct flights to BWI and many other major airports. The Orioles now have most of their minor-league affiliates within a relatively close orbit—the farthest is rookie-level Bluefield, West Virginia, which is about 7½ hours away by car. Such "clustering" is an increasingly widespread practice among major-league clubs, as detailed in a September 20 Wall Street Journal article (reprinted in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette), because of the economies of proximity:
Now, a number of major-league teams are hoping to consolidate their baseball operations -- including their handful of minor-league teams -- in closer proximity to the city where the major-league team is based. The idea is that that will it easier both to move players up and down between the majors and minors, and that it will help build fans' interest by exposing them to players earlier in their careers.
"A lot of teams have gone in that direction," says Jeff Luhnow, vice president of player procurement for the St. Louis Cardinals. Mr. Luhnow says "clustering" minor-league affiliates is not only "a good way to build up the regional fan base," but also allows major-league executives to spend more time with their player prospects. ....
As major-league clubs have come to rely more on team-owned television networks and the revenue they generate, they've also realized it pays to have their minor-league clubs within the areas those networks reach. That's another big reason why the Orioles and Nationals are aggressively pursuing Norfolk, the Mets and Yankees are considering Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, and the Phillies will relocate their Triple-A operation to Allentown.
The Norfolk partnership is important to the Orioles in that gives them a tangible presence in Virginia and, to a lesser extent, North Carolina. In the past two years, more than a few baseball fans south of the Potomac have turned their attentions toward the Washington Nationals in lieu of the Orioles. (The number could have been greater if Comcast had not so stubbornly pursued its lawsuit against MASN, preventing many Nats games from being seen on cable TV.) Had the Nationals affiliated with the Tides, the attrition of O's fans in Virginia likely would have accelerated. But with Oriole farmhands playing in the Old Dominion, the Baltimore connection is strengthened, as fans will be able to watch prospects graduate from the minors to the big leagues. MASN may allow Baltimore-area fans to keep up with the Tides by showing Norfolk scores, highlights, or even complete games if sufficient demand exists. A proposed annual exhibition between the Orioles and the Tides at Harbor Park also could improve visibility of the Baltimore club in southern Virginia.
For all those reasons, the two sides took a full swing by agreeing to a four-year contract instead of a more conservative two-year deal.
Independent coverage of the Tides can be found at the web site of the local paper, The Virginian-Pilot.
The Orioles and Tides were two of the beneficiaries of the busy Triple-A shuffle that took place in the past two weeks, but they weren't the only ones. The Phillies did well for themselves by acquiring a movable property in the Lynx and arranging to bring them to nearby Allentown, which is practically an exurb of Philadelphia, after next season. When the Yankees snapped up the Phillies' former affiliate, the Scranton/Wilkes Barre Red Barons, the substantial Yankee fan base in northeastern Pennsylvania responded by buying thousands of Red Barons tickets for the 2007 season.
Who ended up on the short end of the stick? The Mets had hoped to compete with the Yankees for the Scranton/Wilkes Barre Red Barons, but lost that battle, then found the Tides and the Columbus Clippers had hitched their wagons to other teams. Thus the Mets ended up with the New Orleans Zephyrs of the Pacific Coast League—hardly an ideal situation for the Mets.
Left behind by the Yankees, Columbus signed a two-year agreement with the Washington Nationals, forming an arrangement viewed by both sides as a stopgap. In 2008, the Clippers plan to reassess their options, particularly if the Cincinnati Reds or Cleveland Indians have openings.
Baseball America has written three synopses of this month's affiliation changes:
The city of Norfolk anchors the busy Hampton Roads region on the southeastern coast of Virginia. Encompassing Newport News to the north, and Portsmouth, Norfolk, and Virginia Beach on its southerly end, Hampton Roads is one of the largest commercial seaports on the eastern coast of the U.S. Situated at the intersection of the James, Nansemond, and Elizabeth River estuaries, with the Chesapeake Bay to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, the port serves as a major hub for shipping and naval vessels. Besides commercial shipping, major industries include shipbuilding and tourism. The area is a historical treasure trove of sites: Williamsburg, Jamestown, and Yorktown are a few miles up the James River from Norfolk. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the population of the Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News, VA-NC metropolitan statistical area was about 1.65 million in 2005.
(If you detected a vulgar double meaning in the title of this piece, then shame on you. Or should I say, shame on me?)
]]>I guess it's hard to blame Perlozzo too much for the team's poor performance this year; it's not as if this roster was projected (at least not by me) to be any better than this. And I guess there's something to be said for stability and continuity; shuffling managers every year is just a recipe for chaos and confusion, and without fixing the roster, what's the point? Still, a day after the Orioles clinched their ninth straight losing season, extending the worst streak since the St. Louis Browns moved east, it's not exactly a decision designed to fire up the fan base, now is it? And no matter what his excuses are, so far Perlozzo is hardly distinguishing himself in the annals of Orioles managerdom:
]]> Manager W - L Pct Luman Harris 17 - 10 .630 Earl Weaver 1480 - 1060 .583 Davey Johnson 186 - 138 .574 Hank Bauer 407 - 318 .561 Joe Altobelli 213 - 168 .559 Johnny Oates 291 - 270 .519 Billy Hitchcock 163 - 161 .503 Phil Regan 71 - 73 .493 Paul Richards 517 - 539 .490 Ray Miller 157 - 167 .485 Lee Mazzilli 129 - 140 .480 Frank Robinson 230 - 285 .447 SAM PERLOZZO 86 - 114 .430 (Through Wednesday's game) Mike Hargrove 275 - 372 .425 Cal Ripken Sr. 67 - 101 .399 Jimmy Dykes 54 - 100 .351Yes, that's right: for all the talk of Oriole improvement and a promising future, the team's record under Perlozzo is significantly worse than it was with his recent predecessors Lee Mazzilli and Ray Miller, and on par with Mike Hargrove's. (Gee, wouldn't it be nice if Peter Angelos hadn't run Davey Johnson out of town?) And if we're not going to blame Perlozzo, then I think it's time to start pointing fingers at the other culprits: Angelos, Duquette, and pitching-coach-turned-broadcaster-turned-pitching-coach-turned-broadcaster-turned co-general manager Mike Flanagan.
(Finally, for all you nitpickers, let me note that I know that the line "Play it again, Sam," was never actually said in Casablanca. Ask me if I care.)
]]>Karl, Georgetown, Del.: Now that John Maine is a starting pitcher with the Mets, and considering his recent scoreless inning streak, do the O's have any second thoughts about having traded him away? Jeff Zrebiec: I don't think so Karl. I certainly haven't heard anybody from the organization express second thoughts.If I were the sort of person who were snarky, I'd note that having second thoughts require that a team have first thoughts, but since I'm not snarky, I won't say that.
Kris Benson, who they got for Maine and Jorge Julio, has had his moments, and everybody from Leo Mazzone to Sam Perlozzo to Jim Duquette feel like the Orioles starter should probably have about 14 or 15 wins by now if not for some bad luck and bullpen mishaps. They also give him some of the credit for helping out with Erik Bedard.That's the sort of spin I expect from the front office; it's also the sort of lack of analytical thinking I expect from the local media, which so often uncritically parrots what the team tells it. Before I break that quotedown, though, I want to continue quoting, the part that really raised my blood pressure:
Team officials projected Maine as a No.5 starter No.4 at best. He's obviously improved dramatically. I haven't seen that much of him, but he seems to have improved his velocity and is getting more movement on his fastball. I watched him in his starts with the club last year and he was extremely hittable. Obviously, you have to give him a lot of credit, but I can't imagine that he would have the same numbers if he were pitching in the American League, specifically in the A.L. East.Yes, and that's the whole point of having young players. They "improve dramatically." Not always, of course. But when you've got a 25-year old (Maine), he's a lot more likely to do so than a 31-year old (Benson). The Orioles never seem to realize that point, and what's worse, they never seem to care. Anyway, on to the numbers. First, let's just directly compare the players involved:]]> Pitcher IP W-L-Sv ERA OAVG K/9 BB/9 WHIP9 K/BB IP/GS
Year ERA K/9 BB/9 WHIP9 K/BB QS%Quick: without looking it up, tell me which was Bedard's 2005 season (without Benson) and which was Bedard's 2006 season (with Benson)? (Answer: x is 2006; y is 2005.) Unless one is prepared to argue that a 0.06 difference in ERA is significant -- and even if one is prepared to argue that -- I think this virtually defines the phrase "grasping at straws." ]]>
200x 3.94 7.61 3.08 12.10 2.47 61%
200y 4.00 7.94 3.62 12.45 2.19 58%
April 2006 - 182/270/288 (558 OPS) May 1 - Aug. 31 - 340/394/531 (925 OPS) June 1 - Aug. 31 - 366/414/588 (1002 OPS) July 1 - Aug. 31 - 376/418/659 (1077 OPS) Aug. 1 - Aug. 31 - 354/400/740 (1140 OPS)
Add it all up, and his seasonal totals are: 312/372/488.
(What does the above chart mean? Essentially, he had a miserable April, and a mediocre May, which bring down his early numbers. As the season went on, he got better and better. Of course, those months count, but they illustrate that since he became acclimated to the majors -- remember, he had never played above AA ball before April of this year -- he has been on a complete tear.)
]]>Also nice: he didn't sacrifice walks for power; although he's hitting everything he sees, he still tied his best monthly walk total, with 8. (I'd still like to see a few more walks from him -- he's only on pace for about 40 for the year -- but if he continues to hit like he has, it won't matter.)
There's a lesson here somewhere for the Orioles about having patience with younger players, I think. Of course, they've rarely had anybody as talented as Nick Markakis -- I'm certainly not going to argue that Larry Bigbie would have been a star if only the Orioles had stuck with him -- but Markakis had about 100 miserable at-bats to start the season, and if they had written him off at that point, Markakis would go down with names like Calvin Pickering as failed Orioles prospects. (Believe it or not, for as long as it seemed like Pickering was hanging around, he only got 61 at bats in an Oriole uniform.)
]]>Daniel Cabrera's breakout season likely won't happen this year, and if he can't corral his pitches consistently, it might never happen. He still has great stuff, as his high strikeout rates indicate, so he manages to survive despite his wildness (9.1 BB/G as computed by THT).
As was reported last year, the Orioles' Triple-A affiliate, the Ottawa Lynx, will move to Allentown, Pennsylvania, in 2008. But it appears that the Lynx will no longer be an Orioles farm team by then. Recent reports have confirmed that Ottawa's owners-in-waiting have decided to switch the Lynx's major-league parent to the Philadelphia Phillies as soon as this September. So in all probability the club will be a Phillies affiliate when it ultimately arrives in Allentown.
That means the Orioles must find a new franchise to be their Triple-A extension in 2007 and beyond. The most likely candidate to replace Ottawa is the Phillies' current Triple-A outpost, the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons. The Red Barons are an International League club in northeastern Pennsylvania, about a four-hour drive from Baltimore. Lackawanna County, which owns the Barons, retains a Triple-A license and plans to keep a team in Lackawanna County Stadium for the foreseeable future.
But the Orioles likely will face competition for the Red Barons from other major-league teams seeking a Triple-A club closer to home. Rival suitors for Scranton/Wilkes-Barre may include the Washington Nationals, whose AAA affiliate is in New Orleans; the New York Mets (AAA team in Norfolk, VA); and the Yankees (Columbus, OH). The Chicago White Sox (Charlotte, NC) also are a possibility.
Out of the running for the Red Barons are the Pittsburgh Pirates, who recently renewed the contract with their Triple-A club in Indianapolis through 2008. Ditto for the Cleveland Indians (Buffalo, NY), Detroit Tigers (Toledo, OH), and Cincinnati Reds (Louisville, KY), all of whom have player development agreements through 2008. The Toronto Blue Jays (Syracuse, NY) and Boston Red Sox (Pawtucket, RI) already have Triple-A squads nearby, so they are unlikely to be in the hunt when their contracts come due at the end of the summer.
(Player development contracts between a major-league franchise and a minor-league affiliate are signed in even-numbered years and typically last two or four years. For more information, see the list at Mike McCann's Minor League Baseball Page.)
]]> News from upriverHere are links to stories about the Lynx's impending change in affiliation and relocation to Allentown, and the uncertain future affiliation of the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons. I've added some relevant excerpts as well.
From The Express-Times, Lehigh Valley, PA:
“New Allentown stadium brings Phils' affiliate” (June 10)
“‘The Lehigh Valley will be home to the AAA Philadelphia Phillies,’ [Lackawanna] County Executive Don Cunningham said....
“‘The Red Barons would still in all likelihood be called the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons,’ Finley said. ‘You're guaranteed an affiliation. It's just that the Phillies would no longer be there. They could have the Orioles.’”
From The Morning Call in Allentown, PA:
“Home Run: Valley Scores Phillies' top farm team for '08” (June 10)
“[Joseph] Finley and [Craig] Stein are buying the Ottawa Lynx franchise, which is affiliated with the Baltimore Orioles. A shuffling of franchises could put the Baltimore affiliate in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and will bring the Philadelphia affiliate to Allentown, Finley said.”
“Planning unit gives thumbs up to Allentown stadium” (June 14)
“Plans for a $34 million minor league ballpark in east Allentown got the go-ahead from the city Planning Commission Tuesday [June 13]....
“The Phillies' Triple-A club, currently playing in Lackawanna County as the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Red Barons, will play in Ottawa, Canada, next year and in the new Allentown ballpark in 2008. Franchise owners are guaranteed a major league affiliation. Although it's considered likely that Lackawanna County would become affiliated with the Baltimore Orioles, that outcome will only be known for certain by the end of September, according to Finley.”
“Red Barons fans say it's all for love of the game” (June 12)
“Although fans expressed support for Scranton/Wilkes-Barre baseball, Red Barons per-game attendance has been dropping in the last five years.... For 2006, the Red Barons rank 10th of the 14 teams in the International League, according to official minor-league attendance figures.”
“.... The Phillies are far from a unanimous favorite in northeast Pennsylvania. The New York Yankees and Mets, in particular, have strong fan followings as well....
“The team's general manager, Jeremy Ruby, said a new affiliation would give the Red Barons a ‘fresh start’ after 18 years. The Red Barons recently built a new home clubhouse, and the team is looking at new artificial turf — two upgrades aimed at attracting big-league teams and their Triple-A franchises.”
From The Times-Tribune, Scranton, PA:
“Phillies moving Triple-A” (June 10)
“[Red Barons] officials can’t start looking for a new partner until this season ends. Lackawanna County officials have been pulling together a plan to attract possible suitors. Upgrades to the stadium’s home clubhouse and completion of the left-field party deck will be two major selling points.”
“Red Barons GM answers pressing questions” (April 23)
[Jeremy Ruby, Red Barons GM:] “Your hope is to have someone within a drivable distance. Somebody within about a five, six hour window. Obviously everyone would like to see the Yankees come here because this is a Yankee-rich community in this corner of Northeast Pennsylvania.... Everybody wants to have the ultimate franchise here and that’s the New York Yankees.
“If that doesn’t work out, I think the Mets would fit in here. I thought the Pirates would fit in here but obviously they’re off the table. The Orioles are a possibility. Toronto Blue Jays, I don’t know if things are going that well with Syracuse, but the Blue Jays may be another possibility. I know that the Washington Nationals are trying to get into our league just for travel reasons alone. There’s potential for a bunch of teams....
“I think once the beginning of August rolls around, we’ll have a pretty good idea of who’s in the pot. Hopefully by August you’ll see five or six teams and affiliates remain unsigned, then hopefully by the end of that month there are still three or four that are out there for us to talk to when it’s time to talk.”
From the Ottawa Citizen:
“Lynx left in tough spot,” a lament by columnist Wayne Scanlan (June 13)
“Enough has been said and written about the reasons for the demise of International League baseball in Ottawa over the past several years.
“Suffice to say the culture of minor-league baseball didn't fully take hold. Called on to establish our own tradition, fans didn't heed the call....
“Just to the north and east, along the Queensway, sits the lovely forsaken ballpark, perhaps the future home of some short-season or independent-league team, though the place was hardly built for the lower bush leagues.
“Professional sports franchises tend to run in cycles. Welcome to Ottawa's outdoor downturn.”
Scranton and Wilkes-Barre are adjacent cities with a long history as former coal-mining centers. Scranton (pop. ~75,000), the seat of Lackawanna County, is in the Lackawanna River valley. A few miles southwest in Luzerne County, Wilkes-Barre (pop. ~40,000) sits in Wyoming Valley, straddling the Susquehanna River. Both cities have moved away from coal mining in recent decades, shifting to industries such as manufacturing, retail, and knowledge-based services. (Perhaps the most famous local business is the fictional Dunder Mifflin paper supply company.) Among the local attractions is the Steamtown historic site, which celebrates the area's railroad heritage. To the east, the Poconos provide all-seasons recreation and respite for Northeasterners. Several smallish institutions of higher education dot the region.
Grammatical/etiological note: The hyphenated place name Wilkes-Barre honors two colonial-era heroes, John Wilkes and Isaac Barre. To avoid confusion, a slash is usually used to separate Wilkes-Barre from Scranton (i.e., Scranton/Wilkes-Barre or Wilkes-Barre/Scranton) when the two cities are mentioned together. I suppose an en dash (–) could be used instead of a slash if you have a thing for en dashes.
Nearby road connections are Interstate 81 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike's northeast extension (I-476). The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport (AVP) is a few miles away in Avoca, but it offers no direct flights to or from Baltimore as far as I can tell, so the quickest way there is probably by car.
The Red Barons play their home games in Lackawanna County Stadium in Moosic, a town on the outskirts of Scranton on the way to Wilkes-Barre. The stadium, which opened in 1989, is sort of a miniature replica of Philadelphia's old Veterans Stadium, mimicking the artificial turf and symmetrical outfield dimensions. While that type of ballpark design has been out of vogue for a while, the stadium is still relatively new and provides a decent fan experience, based on reports I've read. Seating close to 11,000, the venue is also used for other local events such as football and soccer games. The home clubhouse was renovated last winter at the cost of $2.5 million, and a left-field party pavilion was to be completed during the 2006 season.
While the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre region has shown a decent amount of interest in minor-league baseball, it hasn't been outstanding by Triple-A standards. According to attendance figures on minorleaguebaseball.com, as of June 16 the Red Barons have been the 10th-best draw in the 14-team International League at 4,849. The Red Barons' attendance figure was 20th out of 30 Triple-A teams, but still far ahead of the Lynx, who were drawing a mere 1,260 fans per home game, last in Triple-A and nearly 2,500 fans behind the next lowest-drawing team, Colorado Springs. (Ottawa trailed all Double-A teams and most Single-A teams in attendance as well. To use a racing analogy, Ottawa is being lapped by the field, so it's difficult to make an argument for keeping a Triple-A team there.)
Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, on the other hand, has shown that it can support a Triple-A baseball team. But its market upside is relatively limited. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre metropolitan statistical area, encompassing Lackawanna, Luzerne, and Wyoming counties, is home to some 550,000 people. That's about one-third less than the 750,000-odd residents of the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton MSA, and it's roughly half of the 1.1 million that reside in the Ottawa metro area. Scranton/Wilkes-Barre is at the lower end of Triple-A cities as far as population; most Triple-A cities are located in MSA's of close to a million people. The only other MSA's of around 500,000 in population that have Triple-A teams are Durham, Des Moines, and Colorado Springs. (Durham is out if you lump in neighboring Raleigh, which also serves the Double-A Carolina Mudcats.) And according to Census estimates, those three cities have grown over the past decade and a half, whereas the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre population has been ebbing slightly in that period.
The implication here is that Lackawanna County should not take its Triple-A baseball status for granted. If current trends continue, other urban areas will surpass Scranton/Wilkes-Barre in population and vitality, and they may look upon the Red Barons with increasing covetousness.
Given a choice, the Orioles would probably rather have a bigger, more promising market than Scranton/Wilkes Barre for their top minor-league affiliate. And the Red Barons' GM sounds like he'd prefer to be associated with a New York team. But the two parties may not have much of a choice—the inertia of relationships between clubs and affiliates is strong, and those bonds are rarely broken willy-nilly. And Lackawanna, compared to Ottawa—well, it's a no-brainer. Combine Ottawa's distance from the home base in Baltimore, the complications of crossing the border, the frigid Canadian springs, and the anemic fan support for the Lynx, and you have a place that the O's would love to leave. Lackawanna County, while not perfect, is no Ottawa. This fall, we'll see if the Birds' Triple-A players migrate there or further south, but either way an improvement is in the offing as far as the Orioles are concerned.
]]>The first day of the amateur draft has become perhaps the most crucial day of the year for the Orioles, primarily because of the new economic reality they now face with the Washington Nationals in the region. No longer do the O's have one of the nation's largest audiences for baseball all to themselves. Now they must face the long-term possibility of becoming a mid-market team with a diminished fan base and a concomitant loss of revenue. The last two winters have shown that Baltimore no longer spends as liberally on free agents as it once did, as the club's white-collar leadership has increasingly turned its focus towards scouting and player development. That new focus is personified in Joe Jordan, hired as director of amateur scouting in fall 2004, who had by all accounts a superb first draft in 2005.
Some articles related to the Orioles and this year's draft:
“Hoping for draft repeat,” by Jeff Zrebiec in today's Sun, recaps the encouraging early results from last year's top draftees and previews the strategy Baltimore will take this year.
As the Orioles prepare for this year's draft, which starts today, they will adhere in the early rounds to the same game plan from last year. Regardless of need or position, the club will select the player who it feels has the most ability.
“Best player available” is always a sensible draft method, but especially so this year because many scouts and analysts have described this June's draft-eligible crop as one of the weakest and thinnest ever. (Scouts and analysts aren't always right, of course, but when they agree so uniformly, they're usually in the ballpark.) Apparently, the pool of position players is particularly shallow.
Regarding whom the Orioles will select in the first round, Jordan says that if the “right position player is there, you probably have to go try and get it and then get pitching later.” But doesn't that go against the logic of selecting the best player available? Seems to me that if pitching is the strength of the draft, you should aim for that strength if you want to maximize your chances of getting a quality player. But I'm thinking in general terms. Perhaps there may be scenarios in which a position player is indeed the best player available, and so taking him would be the right thing to do.
Follow-up: A recap of the first day, “Slugging 3rd baseman tops O's draftees,” appeared in Wednesday's paper.
In “Tuesday Morning Mock Draft,” editor Jim Callis of Baseball America predicts that Baltimore will take Bill Rowell, a New Jersey prep third baseman, with the ninth pick of the first round. That's if Clayton Kershaw, a high-school left-hander out of Dallas, is no longer on the board. He also suggests three collegians as possibilities: University of Texas outfielder Drew Stubbs and right-handed pitchers Tim Lincecum from the University of Washington and Daniel Bard from the University of North Carolina.
“Orioles scouts ready for draft day,” a May 31 article by Spencer Fordin of MLB.com, summarizes Baltimore's draft strategy like this: “[The Orioles] pick for best player available early and draft for need late, and they don't value college players more than prep prospects.” The story contains telling quotes from Jordan about the Orioles' draft philosophy:
He [Jordan] didn't give any indication as to which way he's leaning with his top pick, but said it would be hard to take a defensive stalwart that high. If he does, they'll likely have some offensive potential.
“Higher in the draft, the bat has to be there. They can be a plus-plus defensive player, but if they don't have the bat, they won't be able to play in today's game,” he said. “The draft dictates when you start drafting for need. Last year, we didn't start thinking about need until the second half of the first day.
“This year, the draft isn't as deep, so it might be a little earlier.”
Follow-up: a story about the Orioles' first day of the draft appeared late Tuesday along with a rundown on the team's first pick, Billy Rowell. The Orioles also issued a press release about Rowell and the rest of their first-day picks.
The Examiner, a free newspaper printed in tabloid size, recently began distribution in the Baltimore market. “Jordan calls the shots on draft day for the Orioles” and “Pitching likely to dominate draft” are their stories previewing the Orioles' draft. They followed with two reports on the Orioles' top draftees, “From Jersey to Camden?” and “Pitcher beats injury, improves draft status.”
Another free tabloid-format newspaper started up this spring: Press Box, a weekly publication covering sports in the Baltimore area. Their Orioles Draft Report appeared on the web site on June 7.
Update (1:30 p.m.): The Birds indeed took Rowell (who goes by both Billy and Bill, and whose last name rhymes with "vowel") with the ninth overall pick. The first high school position player selected, Rowell played shortstop at Bishop Eustace Prep but is projected as a third baseman or outfielder in the pros due to his size (6-5, 215 lbs.) and concerns about his range.
Like Brandon Snyder last year, though, it's Rowell's potent bat that is his best asset. He has what people call "light-tower" power, and since he bats left-handed, he could be launching balls onto Eutaw Street in years to come. Recent articles about Rowell in the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Gloucester County Times describe his power-hitting exploits in mythical fashion. He has frequently been compared to a young Troy Glaus.
But Rowell is also a well-rounded athlete who hit over .500 in his prep career; who has the hands, range, and arm to have played shortstop for a championship-winning high school team; who owns enough speed and instincts to have swiped over twenty bases his senior year; and who has the hitting smarts to take walks and hit the outside pitch to the opposite field when opponents pitch around him.
Rowell sounds like he is mentally well equipped, too. He is a disciplined worker who lifted weights six days a week in preparation for this season. He is highly motivated, having set goals for himself such as winning the state baseball championship (which his team accomplished in 2004, and might again this year), becoming a first-round draft pick (done), and becoming a Hall of Fame player (to be determined). He is extremely confident in his playing abilities. And he is mentally resilient, being able to put previous at-bats behind him and start anew.
Rowell was pleased to be drafted by the Orioles because Baltimore and its farm teams are close to his home; he hails from Sewell, New Jersey, which is a few miles south of Camden and Philadelphia. Although he was offered a scholarship to play for the University of Alabama, he sounds like he wants to begin his pro career as soon as possible.
In other first-round news, one of the interesting names to be drafted was Evan Longoria, the third baseman from Cal State-Long Beach taken third overall by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Apparently he's not related to Eva (of "Desperate Housewives" fame). I wonder if there was a Terry Hatcher in the draft pool, or for that matter a Marc Cross, a Felix Huffman, or a Nicholas Sheridan.
The O's took Pedro Beato (beh-AH-toh), a hard-throwing right-hander from St. Petersburg Junior College, with their selection in the supplemental first round. Last year the Mets selected him in the 17th round out of high school, but he didn't sign despite garnering recent interest as a draft-and-follow prospect. Callis wrote about him in the May 25th edition of Ask BA.
In the second round, the Orioles went for Ryan Adams (no, not the singer), another high school shortstop who may move to third base in the pros. Three more shortstops followed in the fourth, fifth, and eighth rounds.
As in past years, the last thirty-odd rounds were aimed at stocking the lower-level affiliates and taking draft-and-follow candidates. On Wednesday, Baltimore selected David Cash III in the 40th round out of the University of Florida. He's the son of Dave Cash, the Orioles' now former first-base coach, who earlier Wednesday was reassigned to an as-yet-undetermined coaching slot at one of the organization's minor league affiliates. Two other second-day picks of note: 39th-rounder Neal Davis, the Catonsville High School left-handed pitcher who was the only Marylander selected by the O's in this year's draft; and in the 45th round, Isaiah Stanback, the University of Washington starting quarterback who hasn't played organized baseball since high school. The ultra-athletic Stanback will likely be coveted by the NFL, but if his football options don't pan out, Baltimore will be waiting for him to give baseball another try.
Update (June 8): The final breakdown of the Orioles' 51 picks:
Educational attainment:
By position:
22 position players:
29 pitchers:
So in a nutshell, the Orioles' 2006 draft class is balanced in age, slightly biased towards pitchers and heavily represented by catchers and shortstops, two areas of organizational need. And the number of shortstops could have been one more if Rowell, who played shortstop in high school, had not been listed as a third baseman by the O's.
]]>On October 9, 1996, I was watching Game 1 of the ALCS on TV with a bunch of Yankee-rooting friends (don't ask) and was struck with disbelief, then rage, when the long arm of Maier reached over the right-field wall at Yankee Stadium, turning a deep fly ball by Derek Jeter from a possible out into a home run. When the replays showed Maier's glove extending over the wall into the field of play and pulling the ball into the stands — clearly a case of fan interference — none of the Yankee fans in the room denied that the umpire, Rich García, had made the wrong call in crediting Jeter with a game-tying homer. One of them said, "Well, too bad. That's the way the ball bounces." And then Bernie Williams hit a home run in the 11th to give the Yankees the win, making for a lot of smug faces in the room — and one glum one.
Yesterday, Washington Post baseball writer Dave Sheinin served up an underhanded story about Maier, the kid who helped steal a World Series appearance from the Orioles ten years back. In the article, Sheinin catches up with Maier, now 22 and a recent graduate of Wesleyan University with a degree in government and economics, and gets reflections on the incident from Maier and members of both teams who were at the scene of the crime ten years ago.
Ordinarily that's where the story would end. But it turns out that Maier had a standout career as an outfielder and third baseman on Wesleyan's Division III baseball team. So Sheinin can't help but suggest the outrageously ironic possibility that Maier could be drafted by the Orioles in the upcoming amateur draft and wind up playing for the very team he once robbed of a crucial playoff win. Or, he could be selected by the Yankees, his hometown team (he's from north Jersey), and continue to torment the O's with his glove and his bat. Never mind that few Division III players get drafted, and almost none advance to the majors. Talk about journalistic license — the lengths to which writers will go for a good story! Maybe Sheinin should write sports-themed novels instead.
]]> Despite such absurd suppositions and the unusual length (over 2,000 words), the story is an engaging read. Sheinin interviewed all sorts of people, including:The most curious part of the story involves Angelos. Sheinin reports that when Maier phoned Angelos out of the blue a few weeks ago and advertised his collegiate baseball accomplishments, the owner's response was not bitter, but conciliatory: "To forgive is divine." Well, well, full of surprises, isn't he? But what Angelos tells Sheinin next is either uproariously funny or profoundly disturbing — I'm not sure which:
"I wouldn't be at all opposed to [drafting Maier]. In fact, I'd say it's a very interesting development," Angelos said. "You can say the Orioles are very seriously considering him. I know this much: I was at that game, and he certainly did seem to be a heck of an outfielder. Sure, we'd take him. In fact, I like the idea more and more, the more I think about it."
I really, really hope Angelos is joking there. (The story doesn't make clear if he is.) Because if he sincerely meant that the Orioles are "very seriously considering" a Division III player of middling athletic ability, and if he actually thinks Maier seemed "a heck of an outfielder," he is bordering on delusional. Maybe he is just trying to con the Yankees into selecting Maier with one of their picks.
I can see it now: Tuesday in the Orioles' draft room, before the club's first selection (9th overall), Angelos forces his way in and yells to the scouts, "I know you guys are eyeing that toolsy high schooler in the first round, but we're not going to take him. And not a college pitcher either—remember that Townsend guy two years ago? Sorry about how that one turned out, by the way. You know, I've been thinking. How about that Maier kid? I hear he's pretty good. A heck of an outfielder, too. Did you see that catch he made as a twelve-year-old? What a talent!"
(I'm just kidding around... I hope.)
Realistically, Maier is not a serious pro baseball prospect. If not for his infamous grab in '96, he would be just another of hundreds of good Division III players, and even the best of that lot would be fighting for jobs if they played for Division I programs.
Should Maier come into the employ of a major-league club, most likely it will not be because of his glove or bat, but because of his mind and his initiative. Given that he studied at Wesleyan, a high-ranking liberal arts college in Connecticut, he may have the aptitude for a front-office job in baseball. He could assume the career arc of the Orioles' Jim Duquette, who was a Division III baseball star at Williams College in Massachusetts (generally regarded as one of the top three liberal arts colleges in the country) before breaking into pro baseball as a player development assistant with the Mets in 1991.
Or maybe Maier could go to law school, pass the bar, and get a job... in Angelos's firm. Still ironic, and more realistic to boot.
Update (June 8): Maier went undrafted, as could have been expected. According to a follow-up story by Sheinin, Maier "hopes to have a career in baseball as a front-office executive." He has made plans to break into pro ball as a scout this summer, though he won't be working for the Orioles, which is probably best for him and for the O's.
]]>"We may suck, but at least we suck less than you [the Nats]."
Honestly, though, it was a beautiful night in the neighborhood, and even more so if you were an O's fan. Although Nationals supporters clearly had the edge in numbers at RFK yesterday, a sizeable contingent cheered the Orioles as if Baltimore was the home team and not the visitors. (Nats fans now understand how it feels when throngs of Yankee and Red Sox followers invade Camden Yards every year.) These Baltimoreans (or Baltimorons, depending on your point of view) came to Washington with a chip on their shoulder, as if they wanted to prove that their loyalty to the Birds was not the Johnny-come-lately kind, that it was not a love "like a red, red rose / That's newly sprung in June," but a diehard devotion forged by season after season of ups and (more recently) downs. In other words, these faithful followers of the Orioles weren't the kind to change their feathers just because another baseball team set up camp in D.C. with a bigger bird as its mascot. (Have you seen the Nationals' mascot, Screech? Eech!) Proudly wearing their orange-and-black gear, Oriole fans made sure the "O" was accentuated in the last couplet of the national anthem. They filled the stadium with persistent cries of "Let's go, O's" throughout the game. They roared enthusiastically whenever the Orioles scored. They made sure they were seen as well as heard. Sometimes it seemed like they were trying a little too hard to be noticed, like a neglected middle child.
Meanwhile, the genteel Nats fans, seemingly unaccustomed to such an intrusion, failed to garner much of a response—their attempts at a "Let's go, Nats" riposte were generally overpowered by the visiting fans' cries. And the home team gave them little to cheer for on this evening, as the Orioles' Kris Benson quieted the Nats' bats in a complete-game five-hitter. Only a late upper-deck smash by Alfonso Soriano kept Washington from being blanked in the runs column.
]]> A once and future rivalryEarlier Friday, Jason Brennan of the Frederick News-Post had an insightful and prophetic commentary about the first regular-season meeting between the Orioles and the Nationals, predicting rightly that "Orioles fans will be just as loud at RFK as Nationals fans are this weekend" and that "the 'Oh' in ... the National Anthem will sound like you're in Baltimore." He quoted the wrong line for the "Oh"—it's not the one from "O say can you see" but the one in "O say does that star-spangled..."—but anyway, we know what he meant.
(Apparently the "O" has been shouted in the anthem at RFK even when the Orioles haven't been in town. Chalk that up to fans who grew up learning baseball—and the Star-Spangled Banner—the Oriole way. To twist a MacArthurism: old habits never die; they just fade away.)
Towards the end of his column, Brennan takes a sanguine stance on the long-term health of the Orioles and Nationals; he implies that time will eventually add fuel to the rivalry. To me, it seems likely that someday the Nationals will gain the upper hand in the so-called Battle of the Beltways, at least economically; Washington's population demographics are just too strong to ignore, and the new stadium that is being built will undoubtedly help attract a new generation of fans. But Baltimore has its own large and fervent baseball following built on a tradition of winning, a tradition that still survives in memory, if not in recent evidence.
Baseball, more than any other sport, loves to draw on its history, and more specifically it loves to commemorate winners. The Orioles at least have a rich, continuous history stretching back over half a century, whereas the Nationals are somewhat disconnected from their schizoid past, which contains two branches of failure—on the one hand the former Montreal Expos, and on the other the bumbling Washington Senators.
That doesn't mean things will necessarily stay that way. With the Nationals providing competition for loyalties (and dollars) in the Orioles' backyard, winning becomes doubly critical from now on. To minimize fan attrition, the Orioles need to reverse their losing ways and become a self-sustaining, competitive team, preferably before the Nationals' new stadium opens in 2009. If not, Baltimore's fortunes could sink in a southerly direction, if you catch my drift.
Baseball-related game notes: I was skeptical of Baltimore's acquisition of Benson over the winter, and I wasn't extremely impressed with the trade for Corey Patterson either, but on Friday night those two National League imports acquitted themselves well. Benson shut down an underpowered Nats lineup, never getting into serious trouble—of his 110 pitches, he threw 73 strikes (66 percent) and allowed just two walks, staying close to the strike zone and making use of his fielders and RFK's expansive greenery.
Meanwhile, C-Pat was at his scampering, free-swinging best. He chased down everything hit his way in center field, making several running catches in the gaps with ease. And he was an offensive standout as well, reaching base three times in five plate appearances and scoring two runs. His triple to right drove in the game's first run in the sixth, and he added a walk, a single, and a stolen base. When Patterson's on his game, he can really fill a box score. Trouble is, he hasn't shown much consistency or growth in his game over the last few years. More on him later.
Addendum: A somewhat different take on the game by Thomas Boswell, “A Little Noise Says Something,” appeared in Saturday's Washington Post.
]]>Most prognosticators (human and computer-assisted) have the Orioles pegged for yet another fourth-place finish this year. Given the nearly static nature of the AL East's order of finish in the last eight seasons, it is only sensible of them to expect more of the same. But it would be nice to see someone show a little creativity every once in a while. Virtually everyone has New York and Boston maintaining their lock on the top two positions in the division, though they disagree on which will finish first. Toronto usually ends up in a respectable third, while Baltimore and Tampa Bay (usually in that order) pull up the rear. Some links to preseason predictions:
]]>Baseball Prospectus - Preseason Predictions: a poll of BP's numerate writers gave the Orioles a mean rank within the division of 4.08 with a standard deviation of 0.64.
Update (May 31): Lee Jenkins of the New York Times has written an elegiac retrospective of the Scott Kazmir-Víctor Zambrano trade. With Zambrano sidelined for the season with an elbow injury and Kazmir pitching like an all-star, the trade is looking even more lopsided as time passes. Of course it's still early, but Jenkins boldly suggests that "maybe it really was [the Mets'] worst deal since they sent Nolan Ryan to the Angels for Jim Fregosi in 1971." In the article, Duquette blames the trade on "too many cooks in the kitchen" in the Mets' decision-making camp, plus he accuses the Devil Rays of downplaying the severity of Zambrano's elbow condition. At least he didn't try to defend the transaction as a good one.
Since Duquette came to Baltimore last fall, he's helped steer swaps for Kris Benson and Corey Patterson that have yielded promising early returns. Acquiring LaTroy Hawkins for Steve Kline has been less successful, but hardly a total loss yet. Nevertheless, if Kazmir keeps pitching like he is now—right now he's one of the ten best starting pitchers in baseball—Duquette may never be able to live down that one bad trade, no matter how many good ones he pulls off with his new team. The New York media and Met fan base will surely remind him about it whenever he comes back to visit the Big Apple, and as long as Kazmir is in the AL East, he'll provide several annual in-person reminders whenever he pitches against the O's. I bet Duquette secretly hopes that the kid's 22-year-old arm falls off.
]]>