Baltimore Orioles: Early Thoughts on Pedro Alvarez

The Baltimore Orioles are signing Pedro Alvarez to a one-year contract. What are O’s fans to make of this news and acquisition?

It again adds one more piece to what has been an incredible offseason of willingness to spend and enhance the team in an unprecedented fashion.

Whereas some fans may have rather seen more of these dollars go toward starting pitching, that ship sailed a long time ago.

Beyond the pitching concerns, a growing issue has been the corner outfield situation. Fueling this over the opening week of spring training games has been the (current) 0-for-18 put up by presumed left fielder Hyun Soo Kim. If this is not going to work out, the Orioles may have to put Nolan Reimold back in that position.

Added to this is the loss, at least for a time, of Jimmy Paredes. Again, he is a liability in the field, but as a lefty bat, he had to be considered. Now, he is likely out of the question for the foreseeable future.

In my opinion, the best thing about getting Pedro Alvarez is that this means the Orioles will NOT be getting Jay Bruce. There is nothing to like about his sub-.230 batting average over the past two seasons. Alvarez will be more than that and likely hit more home runs as well.

There will be home runs flying out of OPACY this year. Here is an interesting perspective …

Of course, this gives the Orioles two DH types of players in Alvarez and Mark Trumbo. To use them both, the O’s are going to have to survive with Trumbo in right field. The emphasis on defense that Showalter has brought to Baltimore is commendable, yet at the same time, it cannot be the end-all necessity that it has oft seemed to become in the minds of O’s fans. It is important, but we may have over-shot the target on valuing it.

But here is the big issue of concern in getting Alvarez: how many more strikeouts are the Orioles now going to have? Chris Davis will likely lead the league. Others have a tendency to whiff a good bit as well, including Trumbo, Jonathon Scoop, J.J. Hardy, etc.

Here are some strikeout percentages (from 2015) of Orioles players relative to total plate appearances: Davis (31%), Trumbo (26%), Schoop (25%), Hardy (21%), Wieters (24%), Machado (16%), Jones (18%), and Reimold (24%).

So Alvarez will have a lot of company on the walk of shame back to the dugout. Pedro struck out in 27% of plate appearances in 2015, while doing the same in 29% over his six years in Pittsburgh.

You might like to check out this related article on Alvarez that we wrote in early December on this site, where we give more analysis and also talk about how he and Ryan Flaherty were teammates at Vanderbilt University.

Related Story: Imagine Alvarez and Trumbo in an Orioles lineup

Included in that article is this gem of information…

This is proof that I’m too hard on Flaherty!  In 2008, he clearly picked up the power slack for Alvarez — who just five years later would lead the National League in home runs. (And by the way, Flaherty strikes out at an indentical 27% clip!)

So all in all, I think this Alvarez deal is a decent move (although would have rather had Dexter Fowler). The dollars are not huge and the commitment limited. It could be a big deal. Get your seats in right field, or hang out on the flag court this season!