Baltimore Orioles: How to Spend Millions of Dollars
Sep 11, 2015; Baltimore, MD, USA; Baltimore Orioles outfielder Nolan Reimold (14) is congratulated by teammates after hitting a grand slam in the eighth inning against the Kansas City Royals at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Mandatory Credit: Evan Habeeb-USA TODAY Sports
The Baltimore Orioles have an unprecedented number of millions of dollars to spend in preparation for 2016. Well, they did have a lot more a couple of days ago before Matt Wieters accepted the qualifying offer and now claims $15.8 million of that amount.
So how are the Orioles going to spend the rest of their money? And how much money is there to spend?
These are essentially the two big questions for the offseason, and the answers have more moving parts than does the Ubaldo Jimenez windup and delivery.
Let’s talk money. How much? We really don’t know. Might the ownership throw in more than historically allotted? Yes, I know what most fans would think about that. The best guess is that, apart from such an infusion, there is likely about $40-45 million for free agents, and maybe a few more if the O’s non-tender someone like Brian Matusz or make a trade.
So, about one-third of that is already gone; and if the Orioles are going to re-sign Chris Davis, the bulk of the rest of it disappears. So much so, that, there is only just possibly enough to sign Darren O’Day … just maybe. But there is certainly not enough for a top-tier starter.
So this is the problem facing the Orioles. As I wrote graphically about it recently …
"The scope of the challenge for the Orioles is seen in this simply-stated fact: Baltimore cannot actually even afford to return the exact team that went 81-81 in 2015. So how do they improve? The six former O’s who are free agents are predicted by MLB Trade Rumors to collectively pull down a total of $77.5 million next year. … There is no easy solution, and this is why there are national writers out there who are predicting a return to the dark days for the Baltimore Orioles."
Actually, it is even worse than that projected number above. The 77.5 was factoring Wieters as a free agent with a multi-year deal, so it is over $80 million going to these six guys.
So what do you want? Chris Davis, or a top starter? Davis will play in 160 games, the starter in 32-34 if all goes well.
But it has to be the starting pitcher, right? The rotation killed the Orioles in 2015, right? It is an undeniable fact of baseball life that pitching is the key to everything, right? The answers are “no, maybe, and not so fast.”
One of the best baseball articles I have read recently is that of MASN’s Steve Melewski just this past Friday. While not discounting the great value of a good rotation, he points out that the World Champion Kansas City Royals were not carried to victory on the strength of such. Their starters ranked 12th in the AL in team ERA at 4.34 (the O’s were 14th). And it was not like they put it all together for the playoffs either, as they were 4.97 in those games.
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The Royals win in other ways — some ways in which the Orioles are also strong: defense, bullpen; but some other ways in which the O’s are notoriously week: team speed, contact hitting and on-base percentage.
Let’s consider some of these strengths. In a statistical category called “contact rate” the Royals were 1st in the AL at 82.5%, while the O’s were 14th at 75.7%. In BABIP (batting average on balls in play), KC was 3rd at .301 while Baltimore was 12th at .291. In on-base percentage, they were 7th, while the O’s were 12th. KC was 3rd in batting average (.269), while the Birds were 10th (.250).
The Royals struck out only 973 times for fewest in the league, 146 less than the next team. The Orioles fanned a total of 1,331 times, which surprisingly was not the worst … it ranked 13th. KC stole 104 bases, second only to the Altuve Astros — demonstrating team speed as much as simply how many bases were swiped.
This is all to say that there is more to the game of baseball than a starting rotation. Without doubt, a lights-out group of starters who are pitching well at the end of a season can indeed be the difference-maker. Every play (well, almost every play) in baseball begins with a pitch, so if the guy throwing it is great, that is a key component. Call it “component #1” … but there is more to the world’s greatest sport than that.
Melewski’s summary:
"Let’s not act like having an ace pitcher isn’t huge. It is. But the Royals proved it can be done without one."
Next: Matt Wieters signing perspectives
And if the Baltimore Orioles are going to have success in 2016, it is probably going to need to be a lot of people doing a lot of things right: continuing to hit home runs and play defense, a strong bullpen, situational hitting, AND, a rotation that does indeed perform better than in 2015, even if they do not have an “ace” or two.
And yes, that is asking for a lot to go well, even after millions upon millions have been spent.