Though the Giants have made putting together a starting rotation look easy, most teams struggling to contend know how complex a process building a competent pitching staff can be. Bullpens are fickle, so consistency in run prevention is best guaranteed with a reliable rotation.
The Baltimore Orioles know the challenge better than most. The rotation at Camden Yards finished 26th in 2021 by measure of fWAR, but last with a 5.99 ERA and 5.41 FIP. In fact, their rotation has finished in the bottom-10 by ERA AND FIP in every season since 2014. That’s a pretty remarkable run of incompetence. It’s almost impressive, especially considering they were able to overcome those subpar rotations to make the playoffs in 2016 and finish .500 in 2015.
The Orioles invested in their rotation this offseason for the first time in GM Mike Elias’ tenure. Small as that investment was (they signed Jordan Lyles to a one-year, $7MM guarantee with a team option for a second season), it’s a step in the right direction. Lyles alone isn’t going to keep the Orioles from an 8th consecutive season with a bottom-10 rotation. He made 30 starts in 2021 and finished with exactly 0.0 fWAR, after all. But he also tossed 180 innings, which makes a difference in saving a bullpen and providing enough breathing room for young rotation arms to thrive.
Forget productivity for a moment. The Orioles rotation will have a watchable rotation if and when D.L. Hall and Grayson Rodriguez establish themselves in the Majors. That duo is likely to start next season in Triple-A, but they’re close. When they arrive, there’s going to be some honest-to-god excitement around Baltimore’s rotation. That duo probably won’t have a full season in the bigs until 2023, however.
There’s at least one more season of fungible, fill-in-the-blanks taking the bump in Baltimore. Just because the big-name prospects aren’t set to arrive doesn’t mean there’s no progress to be made this season. After all, with Lyles and presumptive ace John Means, they’re in a better place than usual.
Rich Dubroff of Baltimorebaseball.com went through each of their internal candidates to fill out the rotation behind Means and Lyles. Dubroff lists Keegan Akin, Mike Baumann, Dean Kremer, Zac Lowther, Alexander Wells, and Bruce Zimmermann as the incumbent candidates, with Zimmermann as the most accomplished of the group, even if he was most successful as a long man out of the pen.
The other way to build out the rotation, of course, is through free agency. The Orioles aren’t probably going to spend any more than they already have in terms of a one-year salary, but for free agents at the bottom of the hierarchy, Baltimore offers more opportunity than most other rotations around the game. Matt Harvey is the mold, a former star looking to rehabilitate his image.
Harvey posted 1.9 fWAR but only a 6.27 ERA, but he did make 28 starts and toss 127 2/3 innings in 2021. A 4.60 FIP suggests Harvey might have something left in the tank. Besides, amazing though this is, Harvey’s 2021 ranks as the 13th-best output by fWAR during this seven-year run of Orioles’ bottom-feeding. There simply hasn’t been much success of any kind, even the tempered brand of success offered by Harvey in 2021.
Unfortunately for Baltimore, most teams looking for mid-season upgrades have higher standards than the Orioles. Their goal for 2022 should be to add arms that might actually be flippable at the deadline. Lyles qualifies, even if his numbers from last season aren’t all that inspiring.
Other names that might be available to Baltimore are Jose Urena, Mike Fiers, Aaron Sanchez, and/or Mike Foltynewicz. Guys with slightly more upside, say, Chris Archer, Drew Smyly, Chad Kuhl, or Steven Brault might cost a little more than Baltimore wants to spend. Carlos Martinez or Matthew Boyd might present the highest upside, either in terms of their current ability or their eventual trade value, but even those arms are higher up the totem pole than Baltimore has ventured in years past.
What could change that calculus is a trade of Means. There’s not a real high likelihood that Baltimore wants to move Means at this juncture, but if it means selling high on the southpaw, they might consider it. There are enough teams in need of pitching to make Baltimore listen to pitches. If they do move the 28-year-old, they’d probably be better off in the long run, but it all but guarantees another disastrous finish for their starting staff in 2022.
Frankly, Means isn’t unique enough of a talent to hold onto, should the prospect return be right. But teams also haven’t been eager to move prospects of value recently. The longer they hold onto Means, the more his salary will rise, and the lesser of a trade piece he becomes.
Then again, teams generally aren’t as desperate in the offseason because there are more options available and more margin for error with a full season ahead. If they hold onto Means to start the year, he will still have a year plus of team control at the deadline, and that might be just the right calculus to make a deal happen.
It’s not hard to blame the Orioles for holding onto Means. Prospects aren’t a sure thing. Kevin Gausman had the best season by fWAR (2016) of any Baltimore starter in this current era, and when they traded him, Zimmermann was a big part of the return. So it’s not as if trading off their starters has yielded the path to a turnaround.
The rub here is that GM Mike Elias has yet to actually try to build a winning rotation. His goal since his arrival has been to build a long-term competitive engine, a process that’s still very much in the works. So they can sign more free agents, and they can trade Means or hold onto him, but until Elias is willing to really give it a go, expect Baltimore’s rotation to stay in the bottom 10.
12 Years an Oriole
In my lifetime I think Bedard and Tillman (if you count him) are the best guys to come through the system. Means as well. No disrespect to those guys but thats bad. I think Grayson is good enough a prospect to make it on his own, but I won’t believe in DL hall until I see it. Matusz, Bundy, Gausman, Arrieta, and more have made me lose all hope in this teams ability to develop starting pitching. They were able to make the playoffs in recent time because of the offense and the bullpen. I do think this team is headed in the right direction though.
going back to looking at the international pool was the most important move they made i think. for too many years they stayed on the sidelines. I know you said your lifetime, so ill mention before your lifetime the Orioles were very good building talent. the likes of Mussina, Rhodes and Mesa, latter two moved to RP, but started as SPs. my uncle is almost 80 and still wears an Orioles cap. more so he lives in SW CT, so setting up MLB TV so he can watch Orioles games was nice since its rare to catch a game unless they are playing the Yanks. I remember a MLBTR article after they hired a new front office, it went indepth about the lack of intl’ signings, it was a good article, probably 3-4 years a go, should look for it. I loved the late 90s battles between the Yanks and O’s. also was a big fan of Adam Jones and how he approached the game and how much he puts in off the field for camps and community. real stand up guy.
Mike Mussina?
To be fair in Gausman’s case he was a bit of an enigma. The Braves really liked him when they traded for him but even they couldn’t figure him out. They sent him to the minors to add another pitch and it seemed to help. When he got back to the majors he just refused to throw it for some reason. Then the Braves released him. The Reds couldn’t figure him out and non tendered him. After that season with the Reds MLBTR didn’t even rank him as a top 50 free agent. I don’t know what the Giants did to get him turned around. For the Blue Jays sake I hope he wasn’t just benefitting from the Giants stadium. Once the Reds let Gausman go I really thought his career was pretty much over. I never in a million years thought he would get a $110 million contract. It’s a shame he couldn’t get it together earlier in his career. Part of me still expects him to regress back to his old Reds/Braves days once he starts pitching for a team that isn’t the Giants.
According to an interview with Farnhan I listened to on the radio months ago, the difference with Gausman was that they made him throw the splitter way more often than he did with the Orioles, and it turned out to be his best pitch in 2020 and the first half of 2021. The league kinda figured that out in the second half though, and swung at it way less in the second half.
I don’t think he’s going to be the same pitcher he was in early 2021 moving forward, but he should still be a strong #2 for the Jays
I disagree. In 2019, Gausman threw the Splitter 37.7% of the time compared to 35.3% in 2021. The former year saw him post a 5.71 ERA.
Rather then just how often he threw it, it’s how he sequenced it…that and a better command of his pitches. He threw his Splitter often in 2021…but he also continued a trend (started in 2020) of pounding the strike zone more and allowing fewer walks.
When your hitting your spots, you get more 2 strike counts, which means more opportunities for hitters to swing at pitches at eye level and in the dirt. A generic but true pitching mantra.
His out pitch is his splitter. He had it in Bmore, including learning from Ubaldo who had an excellent one. But they built Gausman around his fastball. A mistake. Righting his pitch mix and his mechanics (hard for a tall guy like him) have been key to his development elsewhere.
That said, the new Baltimore regime is getting these things right now too.
The also traded E-Rod for a month or so of Andrew Miller
Great, aggressive move by the O’s at the time for a team that had a chance to win it all. Disappointing they didn’t extend him plus he then went to the Yanks. E-Rod a big disappointment for the Red Sox, never lived up to expectations they had for him and now with another team.
I think Harvey could be a sleeper pick as an opener for a team. His problem seems to be running out of gas around the 5th. He pitched well at the beginning of last season for a few weeks and the same happened post-All Star break.
How is Lyles a 0 WAR player but Matt Harvey and his 6.27 ERA was a 2 WAR player? Neither are very good but I would definitely take Lyles over Harvey any day. 2 wins above replacement is a huge difference. Especially when one of them has zero.
fwiw, Baseball Reference had Harvey at -0.7 WAR. I’m assuming Fangraphs has to do with Harvey’s relatively decent 4.60 FIP.
Although I don’t know why MLBTR references fWAR when all of their player links go to B-Ref. They must like the way Fangraphs calculates pitching WAR better because they usually cite rWAR for hitting. Personally, at least in the case of Harvey, I would use rWAR. There is no way Harvey was a 1.9 WAR pitcher last year, especially in only 127 innings. It’s a ludicrous assessment.
That’s definitely over valuing FIP. I don’t consider FIP a very valuable statistic at all. I see a lot of players like Heaney and Smyly always put up these tiny FIP stats but they rarely ever pitch well. I think SIERA is a far more accurate statistic. I never really understood the logic behind the way they calculate FIP. I know it’s supposed to remove fielding from the equation but it seems like the way they calculate effects other things as well. It’s like it doesn’t penalize pitchers at all for giving up any singles, doubles or triples. You can’t just assume all of those hits would have never happened or that defenses would know how to shift every single one of them.
I’m generally a huge analytics supporter but FIP seems to be a bit extreme in emphasizing what SHOULD have happened (supposedly) as opposed to what actually DID happen.
Yeah. I don’t get it. I think it only gives pitchers credit for strikeouts but it only penalizes them for walks and home runs. Is that how it works? I guess the concept is that as long as the ball stays in the yard it’s up to the fielders to make the out so they don’t punish the pitcher for the fielders not making players because a fielder on another team might have. It also doesn’t give pitchers credit for things like ground out and pop outs though because the fielders had to make those plays and other fielders might not have. It doesn’t make sense to me though because a strike out pitcher who gives up a ton of hits that don’t leave the park is a lot less valuable than a ground ball pitcher who gives up the occasional solo homer. I guess the stat is suggesting if the ground ball pitcher has a worse defense he could be really bad and if the strikeout pitcher has a great defense who knew exactly where the ball was going to land every time he would be really good? I don’t know. It doesn’t seem to play out in reality. Pitchers who give up a ton of doubles should be statistically punished for it and a ground out is just as valuable as a strikeout. Sometimes more valuable because you can get a double play or triple play on a ground out.
Well, you’ve hit the point of FIP. Strikeouts, walks, and home runs will all (well mostly) have nothing to do with the rest of the team’s defense. Thus we can determine how effective a pitcher is regardless of defense.
It works out in average but you are right that it is a stat (like frankly all baseball stats) that will fail without taking into account it’s context.
There is no single stat out there that can determine the effectiveness of a player. Batting average used to be considered a great metric for a hitter, batting .300 was once considered a gold standard. Today though if you have a .300 hitter with a .310 OBP, well it’s a red flag. Likewise a question should be asked about FIP, what stats support or contradict a conclusion.
While not perfect, xFIP does a decent job by taking into account the quality of contact, exit velocity, etc..
That’s not how xFIP works. It’s FIP except the HR total is changed to be fly balls times league average HR/FB rate. xERA is what you’re referencing.
Well said
@freeland1787 Thanks, I posted faster then I was thinking.
You do know that Matthew Boyd had elbow surgery and will miss at least half the season, right?
Passive aggressive condescension is for the weak
You do know that you just …
Never mind.
This is one tank job that isn’t succeeding. You look at teams such as the Astros, Cubs & White Sox, who all tanked and came our with winning clubs, and you think it’s easy. But then you look at teams like the Bucs & Os and you realize it’s harder than it seems. At some point you have to spend significantly or you end up in mediocrity (or worse) cycle forever…
The O’s and Pirates both have had a way longer term rebuild than those other teams and the fact they still are resistant to spend on any legitimate FA (I mean c’mon Lyles?) and are still looking to trade off talent is a shame. Hopefully this new CBA forces ownerships of teams to try to put a respectable team on the field year in and year out… Wishful thinking, I know.
Not sure how you can consider them not succeeding when they haven’t even tried winning yet? The’ve turned their farm club from bottom 5 in lg to top 5 in league with possibly the top bat and arm in the minors that’s succeeding all in itself.. let’s let the talent grow and arrive before we call it a failure.. the astros had 324 losses in 3 years during their rebuild as well….just saying
You do realize that the Astros tank job started with three years of no less than 106 losses and year 4 presented 92 more losses. It wasn’t until year 5 they posted a winning record and returned to the playoffs. If the O’s use them as a measuring stick they appear to be a year behind the pace set in Houston. Considering the O’s latest 4-year years include the covid season where there was no minor league ball to develop their youngsters, it’s reasonable they’re a bit off the pace. WIth that in mind how can you state unquivocally that the tank job isn’t succeeding? Now if the O’s don’t take a good turn in the next year or two I would completely agree they failed, but not yet.
You dont pay attention to these clubs then. As great as Jeff Luhnow was the Astros had Jose Altuve, Dallas Keuchel, and George Springer already cooking in the minors before he took over. Mike elias took over quite possibly the worst shape team ive ever seen. Zero international prospects to speak of and near zero top prospects. The Baltimore rebuild to me was a 5 year job. This guy has had to reshape every aspect of the organization save for the owner.
Add in the fact that they have 2 of the top 3 spending teams in the sport and maybe the smartest team as well in their division. Its no wonder theyre not ready to compete yet.
It’s really not that hard because they have time on their hands to waste. Baltimore just needs to care a bit less about winning, which shouldn’t be too hard. These prospects they get just feed them to the wolves sink or swim. Take a bunch of former top prospects that have bounced around for other teams and just see who sticks. Here’s your 10 start audition. No? Ok here’s your 20 game BP audition.
What do the Os really have to lose? They have to climb ahead of 4 teams in their own division who will out spend or out talent them every year.
It would be cool to see a team think outside the box and literally start all minor league prospects. Give them one year in the minors then bring them up and see what happens. I mean some of these guys in the majors pitched so bad, can a talented 21 year old in A ball really be any worse? Only issue is keeping full minor league teams, but you’ll just have to sign filler and keep shifting guys around. It could be a lot of fun.
Maybe a less extreme version of what you’re mentioning could work. Like any one at AA ball or above who is having success makes a debut. Could start a new trend.
@hole I don’t think the issue with A ball guys would be talent…but it takes years to build up a MLB starter’s stamina.
When i read the headline it sort of implied that Angelos broke a mirror or something…
Def a little early to say the O’s rebuild is failing when they are not trying to win yet. I think 2022 will be another rough year with a top 5 draft pick in 23′, but 23′ will also be the first year the O’s have a .500 or better record.
2023 should be full years from Rutschman, Rodriguez, Hall, Henderson, Westburg, Stowers and possibly could see the MLB arrivals of Kjerstad, Cowser and Coby Mayo.
By that time the O’s will be 2 starting pitchers away from being a very good team.
Rebuilding for 7 years is a failure in my book, not to mention that in 2023 that team is no lock to compete. If the O’s idea of rebuild was being uncompetitive for 7 years or maybe more than that’s a terrible plan and a bit much for a team not as cash strapped as most other bottom dwellers.
But it hasn’t been seven years. They were bounced from the playoffs in ’16 but it’s not like the rebuild started immediately after that. The great liquidation of talent didn’t begin until the summer of ’18.
I don’t know if it’s the Orioles exclusively, but the lack of basic knowledge about their rebuild is pathetic. I don’t know how many times you have to explain that 2018 was a legitimate try at contending, they entered with a League average payroll and refusal to trade rentals until the season was lost. The main point of anger with people who hate the O’s is that they aren’t spending to field a competitive team. You can’t say that about the 2018 team.
So to be fair, the rebuild either started August 2018 or November 2018 (Elias Hire). The team just finished year 3 of the rebuild, and that is assuming that you found 2020 as a full year.
It just annoys me that the Astros, Cubs, Marlins, and even the Pirates get a pass, but the entire world focuses on Baltimore.
The Orioles tank job is abhorrent. They are so far from serious contention it’s ridiculous. Rodriguez & Hall are both 3 years from development at best and more likely 4, so this team is at least 4 years from being a contender, maybe more. That’s 8+ years of dreadful losing.
What they should do is start using their brains. Roster a team capable of winning half of their games instead of rostering a team for the draft pool money. This just might get a few fans excited and the players thinking of winning again. It also will get a little more competitive balance restored to the league.
Watching Brandon Hyde “guide” this team to 333 losses over the last three full seasons has been the MLB equivalent to watching Hugh Jackson “guide” the Cleveland Browns to 36 losses in 2.5 seasons. No matter what stage of the rebuild when is it time to move on from the babysitter to the manager that will push actual improvement on the team?
Gosh you sound intelligent. An O’s scholar. Thanks for your insights.
I’m waiting to see how Lyles makes out, seeing that he led the A.L. in home runs allowed and now has to do half of his pitching in that bandbox.
Probably time to trade Means.
Lyles won’t make it out of April in that park.
“The Orioles rotation will have a watchable rotation…”
Proofread game weak
Lyles and his 5.21 ERA? It’s a joke right?
This is what is wrong- Baltimore continues to tank making a less than desirable experience for fans. This is why the new CBA needs to have different draft rules that does not reward tanking. Maybe even a rule like- after 3 years of rebuild you must spend at least $75m the following years until you at least win 82 games. Give the fans something to cheer about and go spend some money.
I get that and there is lots of other examples of owners not trying trying to accumulate top picks.
But another thing we have to remember about the O’s is that they are in the worst possible division for quick turn arounds.
I’m hoping as part of the new CBA they move to balanced schedules and no divisions. It will help teams feel more incentive to try and lead to quicker turn arounds. Even adding an additional WC spot barely helps teams like the O’s when they have to play four 90 plus win teams in 50% of their games
They’ve talked about an NBA style lottery. The draft lottery doesn’t necessarily discourage full-on tanking it just changes the odds for which of the worst will actually get the number one pick. Given how volatile MLB draft picks are and how few of the top picks actually seem to make a difference in MLB in any given draft i don’t understand the overall point of tanking. Unlike the NFL/NBA your draft picks do not usually go right on to the ML roster and it takes literally years for some to make it to the show.
MLB should consider stripping teams of draft picks for tanking, not rewarding them
Competitive balance is determined by having on-field talent. So it’s about the talent, not the payroll.
That said, the payroll goes a long way to determine what type of talent that’s on the team. Large market teams have the financial ability to have a large payroll. Can Baltimore outspend Philly for Harper? NYY for Cole? Dodgers for Betts? Angels for Trout? Mets for Lindor or Scherzer?
Unless the CBA changes to help small/mid-market teams have more consistect access to top-tier talent, then there will be no competitive balance. Having a payroll floor only means that small/mid-market teams have second/third rate talent going against teams with first rate talent up/down the roster?
If small/mid-market teams can’t sign top tier talent in FA, they have to get it some other way. Draft? International? Smarter trades/signings? Better development? Lots of options, but at the end of the day, the margin for error for having top tier talent for smaller market teams is razor thin.
The thing that drives me crazy about the orioles rebuild. Oriole fans seem to think that every player they have drafted the last few years are going to be great players in a few years it does not work that way. Kjerstad has never even played in what 2 or 3 seasons. Mayo and Cowser have yet to reach high a ball and each have not had 250 at bats in pro ball. hall seems to break down after 50 innings or so every year. some of the others adley and grayson will be fine. but not everyone drafted makes it..
I can speak for the educated O’s fans and we don’t assume everyone is going to make it. That is where a deep farm allows us to miss on prospects, instead of a top heavy farm. Players like Means and Mullins always can come out of the bottom of these lists, and busts can assuredly come from the top as well. There are some real replacement level prospects at the bottom of their list, something you couldn’t say before.
Orioles fans? Are you sure? You seem confused. Os fans are by necessity perhaps the single most realistic and least assuming base in MLB. Your comment is…insane.
IMO, the tank/rebuild is a model that’s thankfully run it’s course & is done in baseball. Teams that have done it before are not going to do it again. Too much pain & damage when things don’t go as planned.
Retools- yes. Always have been.
Tanking is terrible for fans, organizations & communities. The 5-8 YEARS of “uncompetitive” play with an expectation/promotion that the results of the Astros will take place is unrealistic.
Intentionally being uncompetitive in a competitive industry is silly. Imagine if your local hospital took that approach. (We’re getting rid of all our experienced/high paid surgeons by the end of the month & going with cheaper unskilled people. We’ll focus on recruiting the best students coming right out of college. They’ll be cheaper, have to learn on the job & more people will suffer, but our prospect pool will be better & more receptive to the technology of the day.)
Those who contend that owners are pocketing too much & players aren’t getting paid their worth are hypocritical if they support this way of building an organization.
The players both past & present, who’ve commented on this site, have prioritized wanting every team to compete. Seems like a reasonable idea.
Jordan Lyles is a good signing for the Birds. I saw him pitch live at Petco Park when he was a Friar. Orioles are at least moving in the right direction for 2022 in terms of who is being tasked to man their Hill every fifth night.
It’s disheartening to see teams put out such lousy rotations like the O’s and the Pirates. There’s such a competitive imbalance and also shows incompetence and laziness when there’s teams that have 3-4 aces and we have these teams who have literally fringe AAA-5th starters.
Maybe some of their guys retired too soon and left a void, Brooksie is 84, and Boog is 80, Palmer is 76…….maybe these guys can still play until the rebuild is over. Palmer played in all 6 world series that the Orioles have ever been in, and has 3 rings….
Well, lessee … the O’s need pitching and the Yankees need a center fielder. The O’s have a studly young center fielder and the Yankees have a nice stable of young pitching talent. Maybe … ?
The Marlins are actually in the same situation and can definitely make a better offer than NYY. 😉
Baltimore’s biggest problem is geography. The AL West is a beast. They are a long way from even being a 3rd place team.
Archer? Kuhl? Brault? Upside? Been there, done that.
The alarming part is the author suggests that most of those retread SPs in that paragraph would come at a price that might be a little more than the O’s wanna spend. Those guys are unemployed for a reason. Most of them should be available on 1-year deals worth between $4M and 8M just like Lyles. How is that too expensive for an org that has such a low payroll. Somebody has to pitch.
As painstaking as this rebuild is, I’m glad the O’s actually have a plan to be terrible vice the early 2000’s plans of signing FA hitters but having no clue how to get competent pitchers and still failing to win 75 games every season.
With the current draft implications of getting the largest bonus pool & top pick, the O’s are milking that system just like the Phillies, Cubs, Astros, White Sox, Royals, and Tigers have all done. Not every team can spend their way to compete so mid market teams usually have windows of opportunity and the few small market teams that don’t (Rays, A’s) take drastic measures to keep their windows open like trading their stars away as their prices go up for younger, cheaper talent. I love how so many big market teams get praised for rising from the ashes to build a sustainable winner yet when the small market teams like the O’s and Pirates follow the model, they are treated like black eyes on the sport. I agree that the CBA needs to alter the system, but the Os are following a proven strategy for regaining relevance.
Personally, I’d love to see a “loss cap” instituted. Set it at 100 losses and if a team loses 105, then they get treated as a 95 loss team for the draft purposes. Then you walk the cap number forward two losses a year so by the end of the CBA it’s at 90 losses. This lets the small market teams continue to rebuild via higher draft picks yet clearing your roster of all MLB quality talent will cause you to exceed the loss cap which isn’t productive in the long run. We will see what happens.
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