Baltimore Orioles: The Antonio Bastardo Buzz

With reports on Tuesday that the Baltimore Orioles are said to be interested in perhaps securing the services of reliever Antonio Bastardo, let’s take a look at why this might make sense.

There are several things that immediately give an Orioles fan pause when reading or hearing about this interest. Beyond the first daily moment of skepticism that the O’s are said to be interested in almost everyone (which I can personally assert is true, since they scouted me in college 40 years ago!), it would not seem that another relief pitcher is the crying need of the hour … or offseason.

Orioles fans would rather hear about an additional left fielder or a rotation starter … or about progress with a particular big fellow that played first base not long ago.  (Not talking about Boog Powell)

So what is this all about?  Is it about anything?  It was old Buster Boy building buzz ‘bout Bastardo…

Yesterday’s article here on The Baltimore Wire about the depth of the Orioles’ bullpen said that you can never have too many relievers. Even so, it is difficult to see how he fits with so many other presumed pieces. As a lefty, there is the closer Zach Britton, but also Brian Matusz and T.J. McFarland. In getting Bastardo, would one of these lefties be expendable?

Could the Orioles offer Brian Matusz in a trade and at least for one year save the money it would essentially cost for the first year of a Bastardo contract?  We may suppose this is possible, though we would assume that if this was going to happen, it would have happened long before now.

Or could it be that the Orioles might be addressing the starting rotation by strengthening the bullpen and stretching Matusz (or even McFarland) into a starting role?  Just an opinion here, but if that happens, the bullpen had better be strengthened indeed. But it would be a way to go (for better or worse, or much worse) to economize in this way to make possible a bigger splash signing of a Justin Upton or Yoenis Cespedes.

Let’s take a look at Bastardo’s numbers, strengths, weaknesses through his six years with the Phillies and last year with the Pirates …

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The good stuff — He keeps the ball in the park. Bastardo has only given up 10 home runs in his past 181 innings, which is a very fine number. He is a strikeout pitcher, averaging 11 K’s per nine innings. And he only gives up about six hits per nine innings. There are all great stats.

The OK stuff — Bastardo’s WHIP (sounds like something from Greek Mythology) was 1.134 last year and is 1.198 for his career.  In 2015 his ERA was 2.98, but is 3.58 for his seven-year career. Bastardo is currently age 30.  His last five years have been good, poor, good, poor, good.  If that’s a trend line …

The not so great stuff — Bastardo can lose the strike zone and walk some people… like 4.1 to 4.8 per nine innings over his entire career. Does this sound like anyone else we know who is also from the DR? Yes, that Ubaldo guy has a career number of 4.1 per nine, though he lowered it to 3.3 last year. More mechanical work for the coaches?

Next: The strength of the O's bullpen examined...

Overall summary — He is a decent big-league relief pitcher. He will not likely be on the AL All-Star team. If he pitches in relief following Jimenez, nine inning games could go four hours in length.

This does not seem like the prioritized move the Orioles should make, but he could prove to be a good addition. The bullpen would be better, but the O’s are going to need to score more runs in one way or another, and that is an issue that yet needs to be addressed in a bigger way than this Bastardo buzz will do.