Baltimore Orioles Offense – A Position by Position Review

May 8, 2014; St. Petersburg, FL, USA; Baltimore Orioles catcher Matt Wieters (32) on deck to bat against the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

CATCHER (0 = Relatively the Same)

Matt Wieters saw his batting average fall consistently over the bulk of his career to a low of .233 in 2013, even as he remained at the top of the pile as a home-run-hitting catcher. And through 26 games of this season, he had seemed to turn that entirely around while batting .308 and looking the most comfortable at the plate as at any time of his career. But then came the arm injury and subsequent season-ending injury.

With the Orioles organization always valuing defense first over hitting ability, Steve Clevenger was deemed insufficient and replaced ultimately by the current duo of Caleb Joseph and Nick Hundley.

Joseph’s impressive numbers at AA Bowie took a while to translate at all at the big-league level. While simultaneously working to provide quality defense and work with the O’s pitching staff, Joseph struggled initially at the plate. In this first 20 games as an Oriole he only batted .135; but in his past 20 games it is .281with five home runs.

Given the entire scenario and what has been accomplished in light of the great difficulty of it all, I am going to score this as a zero … perhaps if Wieters had a better year in 2013, it would be a loss for 2014.