It’s now time to look ahead to the second half of this dreadful Baltimore Orioles’ season.
The first half went about as bad as it could possibly go. The team managed to put together a 29-59 record by the All-Star Break, good for a .330 winning percentage, which is incredibly putrid, especially when one considers that a baseball team should win a third of its games on accident — that’s just the way the baseball season is built. There’s a reason the worst teams in the league still manage to win around 60 games per year.
Whatever could go wrong, has gone wrong. If the team was to have a relatively successful season this year (over 75 wins), the player it would most depend on was second baseman and leadoff man Brian Roberts, for a multitude of reasons. Roberts, though, came to spring training with a bad back and is just now starting to get into rehab games after aggravating his back in the fourth game of the season. Roberts was absolutely the player the team could least afford to lose.
And Mike Gonzalez happened, too.
Those two events were the catalysts for the Orioles’ 2-16 start, and the team could never recover, as the young players struggled to carry the load and the talent deficiencies among the veterans became very apparent.
Luke Scott injuring his hamstring during a home run trot typifies this season. Again, whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.
You know what? The first half is done. It’s over with. Let’s look ahead. Below are my five biggest questions for the second half of the season.
1. Can the young pitchers hold their own?
Given that the hopes of the franchise hinge on the young arms within the organization, this is the most important question that will be answered in the second half of the season. For the likes of Brian Matusz, Jake Arrieta and Chris Tillman – three pitchers that will hopefully make up part of the Opening Day rotation in 2011 — they need to be able to hold their own in the brutal American League East during the second half. Obviously, I’m not looking for complete games two-hitters out of these pitchers (although one of those might be nice) – I’m looking for these pitchers to not look overmatched.
Now, these pitchers will get hit around a little bit. But at the same time, the last thing anyone wants to see are these young pitchers – the hopeful future of the big league squad — getting hit around like Tillman did in mid-June in San Francisco. A pitcher going two innings and getting hit around like a pinata is not particularly productive, but what is productive are these pitchers consistently going more than five innings and giving their team a chance to win ballgames. At this stage in their careers, are these young pitchers good enough to hold their own in the AL East? If they can indeed hold their own, then they can build off of that next year, when they hopefully take the next step in their development.
More specifically, though, I want to see these young starters — and to a lesser extent, the young bullpen arms — being able to make adjustments from start to start and at-bat to at-bat. Big league hitters are constantly going to adjust to them, but will the Orioles’ young pitchers be able to make the adjustments on the fly that they didn’t have to make in the minor leagues? Also, will these pitchers begin to really develop their repertoire — like Tillman developing a cut fastball — that helps them get big hitters out? Again, we’ll see.
2. Will we see the same Brian Roberts that we’ve seen in the past?
Roberts is coming off of a serious back injury, and it’s fair to wonder whether we’ll see the same Roberts that we’re all used to. A healthy Roberts gets on base at a good clip at the top of the order for three-hole hitter Nick Markakis. Roberts creates havoc for opposing pitchers on the basepaths. Roberts provides solid defense up the middle. So when Roberts comes back from what will be a nearly four-month absence (Roberts is aiming to be back by August 1), will this be same Roberts that we all know and love?
Remember, Roberts is 33 years old. It’s possible that Roberts’ productivity would have started to decline this year (especially given the physical brand of baseball that he plays), even without the back injury. Throw in the back problem, and the team has a major concern about his productivity moving forward for a player in the first year of a four-year, $40 million deal. For a veteran like Roberts who management probably hopes can take some pressure off of the young hitters on the team, Roberts’ productivity is a major question mark in the second half.
3. Do the Orioles have any tradeable pieces aside from Ty Wigginton?
Wigginton appears to be the only Oriole attracting any sort of interest from contenders, presumably because he can play three positions around the diamond (first, second and third) — although none of the positions particularly well – and supply some right-handed pop off the bench. He’d be a useful piece for a contender looking for a player who could provide occasional rest for their everyday infielders and a little extra pop off the bench. I wouldn’t be crossing your fingers, though, that Orioles’ general manager Andy MacPhail can pull off the type of highway robbery that he did last summer when he sent left-handed reliever George Sherrill to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Don’t expect a Josh Bell-type to come this way in exchange for Wigginton.
Other than Wigginton, is there anything else to trade? Kevin Millwood is hurt, and his production is such that no contender would be interested anyway. Miguel Tejada can only hit singles and make outs these days.
Julio Lugo? Cesar Izturis? Are you kidding me?
If he was healthy, the true wild card here would be Luke Scott, although the Orioles don’t seem all that hot to trade him — rumors have been circling around Wigginton for about a month now and Scott’s name doesn’t really pop up that much. But Scott would be the player that the Orioles could get the most return for — Scott’s a career .361 wOBA and career 6.1 UZR per 150 games in left field. Given that Scott’s injured and the Orioles don’t seem too hot on trading him anyway, I don’t think he’s going anywhere.
I’d imagine that the best case scenario on the trade front is that the Orioles can trade Wigginton for something of value and they can pull off a trade for Millwood before the August 31 waiver deadline, assuming Millwood is more productive once he comes back from his DL stint than he was before it (5.77 ERA, 5.03 FIP).
4. Will Matt Wieters’ bat come alive?
Struggles from Wieters were expected last season, but everyone — and I mean, everyone — was expecting Wieters to start littering Pratt Street with home run balls and shattering Warehouse windows. Although Wieters brings quality defense to every game he plays in, everyone was expected a whole lot more from Wieters this season with the bat. Wieters, a highly advanced hitter in college and the minor leagues, has struggled to drive the ball. Instead, we’ve seen a ton of weak grounders to second base and a whole lot of harmless fly balls and pop-ups. The bigger concern may be that he’s shown an inability to handle an above-average fastball. Wieters’ struggles, along with those of Adam Jones and Nolan Reimold, have brought about questions in regards to the team’s processes of developing young hitters at the big league level.
Although Wieters probably spends much his time and preparation working with the team’s young pitchers and handling a pretty crappy pitching staff, Wieters just should not have a .672 OPS and .298 wOBA in his second season as a big leaguer. Before Wieters hurt his hamstring and landed on the disabled list (eligible to come off of the DL on July 25), I was seeing what I thought to be better at-bats from Wieters — much more authoritative swings rather than seemingly kind of feeling for the ball. I think we see Wieters get hot shortly after he comes off of the disabled list. Well, at least, I sure hope he does.
Will the Orioles end up with the No. 1 pick in next June’s draft?
The Pittsburgh Pirates are undoubtedly a worse team than the Orioles, but the Orioles currently hold the worst record in the majors — one game worse than the Pirates’ 30-58 mark. So here it is: the Orioles are a better team than the Pirates but have to play an AL East schedule. The Pirates are the worst team in the big leaguse and don’t have to play an AL East schedule. The race is on for the No. 1 pick!
Typical of the Orioles’ luck, though, projected No. 1 pick Anthony Rendon (Rice University) fractured his right ankle on Wednesday in a Team USA game against Korea. It appears as though the Orioles’ incredibly awful luck has extended all the way down to a possible Orioles’ draftee 11 months from now. It’s not the first time that Rendon has injured his right ankle (in 2009, according to the link above from Baseball America, he tore two ligaments in his ankle but there wasn’t a fracture), so even if he gets healthy, mashes at Rice next year and remains the projected top pick, we’ll probably still hear a ton about his ankle.
All statistics for this post are via FanGraphs.