Baltimore Orioles: Will the Starting Rotation be Sufficient?

The re-signing of Chris Davis, along with other offseason moves, positions the Baltimore Orioles with a roster expectation of scoring plenty of runs. But will the starting rotation be good enough to produce a winning club in 2016?

The fan reaction to the Davis deal has been more positive than negative, though some doubt and worry about the extent of the contract and if it will prove to be too much for too little production. It would not be the first large deal to be regrettable over time. In fact, probably more often than not, this is the reality.

The other category of fan reaction is to worry about the remaining issues of right field, and to a greater extent, the starting rotation. These were among needs on the offseason shopping list.

One can almost begin to feel some sympathy for Dan Duquette and Peter Angelos, understanding why they may feel maligned by an excessive attitude of “what have you done for me lately?”

After all, the Orioles have had their biggest offseason ever. The four big signings of Davis (161M), Darren O’Day (31M), Matt Wieters (15.8M) and Hyeon-soo Kim (7M) total to $214.8 million in commitments. This ranks fourth in all of Major League Baseball for the 2015-2016 offseason, trailing the Cubs (276.25M), Giants (251M) and Red Sox (230M).

But many O’s fans are pointing to the elephant in the room — the starting rotation that didn’t throw the ball very well in 2015 … you could actually say that they really “dropped the ball.”  And that was with new Marlins pitcher Wei-Yin Chen.

It is not just O’s fans pointing to this seeming malady. FoxSports writer Ken Rosenthal on Saturday titled a piece, “Chris Davis won’t matter unless the O’s upgrade their rotation.”  How’s that for blunt? Here is a bit more flesh on it …

"Their offense should be OK — before Davis, they re-signed Wieters after making him a qualifying offer, traded for first baseman/outfielder Mark Trumbo and signed Korean free-agent outfielder Hyun-soo Kim. They also fortified their bullpen by re-signing free agent Darren O’Day.A starting pitcher should be next. A starting pitcher has to be next. A rotation led by a front four of Chris Tillman, Ubaldo Jimenez, Miguel Gonzalez and Kevin Gausman simply is not good enough."

That’s easy to say. But where is this upgrade pitcher going to come from? The shelves of starting pitcher possibilities from free agency or trade look about like the grocery store shelves of bread and milk just before a snow storm is to arrive.

Just get Yovani Gallardo — the best loaf of bread still for sale. But it ain’t cheap! And have you seen his WHIP numbers? Scary.

Roch Kubatko keeps calling for the Orioles to just get Doug Fister for two years. Again, it’s not exactly a cheap loaf of bread from the discount bakery either. And though there is the assertion that his significant velocity drop is nothing to be concerned about (because he was injured, and that’s not his forte anyhow), it is still a pretty big risk. His ground ball ratio would be good to have, however.

There just is nothing certain at all about getting starting pitchers. They are terribly expensive and come with great risk … more than with position players, in the view of the O’s (and I agree).

But this discussion raises the bigger philosophical pitching issue. This is the assertion that the whole game, and success as a team, rises and falls with the quality of your starting rotation. Without doubt a great rotation will yield team success; but is this the only way to skin a cat, filet a Ray, fry a Jay, or tank a Yank?

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Traditional and conventional wisdom says “yes.”

But getting a top rotation piece only affects 32 games a year. Even Darren O’Day affects 60+, while the other free agents will affect most all games.

And though this is neither the first or last time I’ll write on this theme, I believe the unstated goal of the Orioles is to work from the bullpen to the front of the game, rather than from front to bullpen. It is a cheaper way of doing things and has had some success in Kansas City and a few other places.

The Orioles rotation in 2015 pitched the 13^th-most innings in the American League. And they were only three innings more than the last-place team, the Royals, with their lights-out bullpen. And to be more thorough in this analysis, those nearly identical number of innings pitched by starters had a slightly different quality. For the Orioles, starters were a combined 51-62 on an ERA of 4.53, whereas the Royals starters were 65-53 with an ERA of 4.34.  Not a huge difference.

So there is a way to win without having anything near the best rotation, though admittedly it is rarer. But times may be changing, and the Orioles may be another example of finding a non-traditional way of winning lots of baseball games.

Even so, there is no way the Orioles can compete for playoff participation and success without better starting pitching. But that pitching is increasingly looking like it is going to have to come from a roster of names we already know, perhaps with a late offseason reclamation project or something of that order. But let’s not despair in January and make assertive statements in the vein of what Rosenthal has stated above.