Offseason Plan #2: Baltimore Orioles Edition

Earlier this week, Nelson Cruz officially became a Seattle Mariner. And yesterday (well, it was yesterday when I started this…), Nick Markakis became a member of the Atlanta Braves for the next few years. As an Orioles fan, Cruz moving on was expected for more or less all of 2014. And Markakis, while a sentimental favorite as a nine-year veteran of the Orioles, seemed gone as soon as rumors began to surface that he and the Orioles had hit a rough patch in negotiations.

However, that doesn’t change that the team has lost two outfielders (or “outfielder”, in the case of Cruz) in a week (this also isn’t even to mention that the surprisingly effective Delmon Young might also depart, as he’s a free agent). So where does the team go from here? Well, first it helps to look at what they’re losing. (Note: While reliever Andrew Miller, I won’t focus on him as much both because they only had him from the Trade Deadline on and because it’s easier to limit the scope of this article to what the Orioles can do for their offense.)

Let’s start with Cruz. In 159 games, the slugger put up 40 home runs to lead the league. However, that doesn’t tell the full story; his weighted Runs Created+ was only 137, indicating he was only 37% better than league average. That’ll happen when you have a .333 OBP. Granted, that’s still respectable (tied for 17^th in the majors last season), but it’s not like leading the league in homers. And to be fair, at 34, it’s unlikely that Cruz himself will duplicate that performance in 2015. Add in that he was primarily a DH, and that when he did field, he did so poorly, and you have yourself a player who was worth just shy of 4 Wins Above Replacement in 2014 (3.9, Fangraphs).

By WAR, Markakis is an even easier replacement. The right fielder was worth 2.5 Wins on the strength of a 106 wRC+ and better fielding metrics than he’s posted in years. Like, a full win better than anything he’s done in five seasons (although still not deserving of the Gold Glove award he received), in fact, which makes me expect regression in that department in 2015. Add in that he’s apparently facing neck surgery (albeit offseason surgery), and I’m even more glad that the Orioles didn’t get into a bidding war with Atlanta.

But still, those are two players the Orioles will have to replace. What are their options?

Retired Numbers Series: Los Angeles Dodgers

The Dodgers, as one of the more storied teams in baseball history, have one of the more extensive lists of honorees I’ll cover in the Retired Number Series. They also choose to recognize franchise cornerstones from before their move, unlike many other teams, which helps demonstrate that rich history.

Like the Red Sox and the Mariners, the Dodgers have a rule limiting who can have their number retired with the team. But, like the Red Sox, the Dodgers have made an exception to that rule, meaning any player is fair game in terms of speculation.

On to the numbers.

Notes on the Numbers

Some quick notes on the stats: the two most prominent stats I used are similarly named. Both are called WAR, or Wins Above Replacement. They both try to account for every part of a player’s game, including, but not limited to: offense, defense, position, and playing time. So, it is a counting stat, like hits or home runs (with the small difference that bad seasons can actually decrease your WAR, if you are worse than a replacement player). WAR credits a player with how many wins they have provided to their team. They aren’t perfect, but for my purposes (a single number showing roughly how good a player has been), they work perfectly.

There are two major sites that provide WAR, Baseball-Reference (henceforth called bWAR) and Fangraphs (fWAR). The two are mostly the same, with the biggest difference coming from the different fielding stats the two use. Fangraphs has a fairly good summary of what makes up WAR and how it is calculated (for those wanting a more general summary, the introduction works just fine). Pitching is slightly different: Fangraphs’ WAR for pitchers only goes back to 1974, so for my purposes, I stuck to just bWAR for them.

Awards Season Explanations, Part 3

So, I didn’t quite get this up before the MVPs were announced, but I still want to explain my voting. And so I shall. Let’s jump right in. (The first two explanation articles can be found here and here.)

AL MVP-1. Jose Bautista

2. Jacoby Ellsbury - This was the hard part, really. The two were more or less equal, with each one bettering the other in different categories. Ellsbury was the better fielder (at a harder position), Bautista was the better hitter (while playing multiple positions). Ellsbury led the AL in fWAR (9.4 to 8.3), while Bautista led in bWAR (8.5 to 7.2). In both of those cases, they were 1-2 (with Verlander tying Baustista in bWAR; however, I trust fWAR for pitchers a little more, and I have already explained my reasons for not voting for him repeatedly).

In the end, I went with Bautista for 2 reasons: first, a lot of Ellsbury’s value came from his fielding, which was suddenly improved. Fielding stats are both less certain than hitting stats and more prone to random fluke fluctuation, meaning that we can be much more certain of Bautista’s value. Second, Bautista played about two dozen games at third base. While Ellsbury did play the harder position (center field is definitely harder to play than right, although it’s similar in difficulty to third base), WAR (both versions) accounts for position difficulty; it does not account for versatility. So, I felt comfortable using that as a sort of tiebreaker. Really, though, both were fine choices, and would have made fine MVPs (the next five players or so would also be decent choices, although I don’t think any of them had as good a claim to the trophy as these two).

The Great 2011 Awards Cheat Sheet

Well, Award Season has more or less wrapped up. So, for some reason, I decided to create a giant summary of the winners, listed by awards and voting block. No, I don’t understand how my mind works either.

In any case, the results in question are from myself, the General Chapter voting of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance, the full Baseball Bloggers Alliance, and the Baseball Writers Association of America (aka, “The Official Awards”). As an added bonus, I’ll throw in some commentary on the results, because what good is an awards summary without remarks containing varying degrees of sarcasm?

Baseball Bloggers Alliance Awards: Final Six Ballots

Here is the second and final part of my awards ballot. Part 1 can be found here. Again, I will explain my ballots during the actual awards season; for now, I'm just submitting my vote.