Orioles’ first half report card — Pitchers

Over the weekend, I published my report card for the position players on the Baltimore Orioles. I gave out one A, three B’s, one C, four D’s and one F. Now it’s time to grade the pitchers. I’d imagine this will be a tricky task for me since there are so many young pitchers on the staff, so it’s difficult to evaluate what realistic expectations are for them since their potential is still murky and their growth processes can be so inconsistent.

Also difficult is figuring out what starters have pitched enough in order to be graded. As much as I want to include my thoughts on Jake Arrieta and Chris Tillman, I just can’t give them a grade based on their number of starts – six for Arrieta and four for Tillman. Relievers are also tricky because of the nature of relief pitching — if a reliever gets shelled once, it can send their statistics through a loop. Also, grading middle relievers is tough because middle relievers tend to be the weakest link on a team, so does one artificially lower their expectations for them even though the innings they’re pitching can be just as valuable as someone else?

Grades will be determined the way they were for the hitters, per the criteria used by Japers’ Rink for their Washington Capitals’ “Rink Wraps” when grading individual players: Grades will be determined based on performance relative to potential and expectations.

The pitchers that I will not be grading are Arrieta, Tillman, Mike Gonzalez (I’ll be nice about him for once and just classify his performance this year as “incomplete”), Jim Johnson, Koji Uehara (he started the year injured and then pitched in about three games before going on the disabled list for six weeks to recover from heat exhaustion), Kam Mickolio, Frank Mata and Alberto Castillo (what am I going to say about Mata and Castillo that you don’t already know? They suck). Let’s get it started. First up: the starters. The relievers are later in the post.

Kevin Millwood

Acquired in December to be the ace of the staff and mentor the young pitchers in the organization, Millwood began the season pitching extremely well with nothing to show for it in regards to wins. Millwood recorded a 3.26 ERA in his first seven starts (spanning from April 6 to May 8), and gave up more than three runs just once in those seven starts (he allowed four runs against Seattle on April 21). Millwood logged 47 innings in his first seven starts, walking a total of 14 batters and 46 hits (seven homers).

In his next handful of starts, Millwood looked like he was “regressing to the mean” of his career totals, putting up a 4.29 ERA in May and finishing May with an overall ERA of 3.89. Then June happened, in which he pitched to an ugly 8.82 ERA. Over his last seven starts — including his July 5 one-inning disaster start against the Detroit Tigers — Millwood has given up 37 runs. In those seven starts, which span 33.2 innings, he’s allowed 18 walks and 58 hits (eight homers). In his last 11 starts, Millwood’s ERA has steadily climbed from 3.26 to his current mark of 5.77.

It’s been the tale of three Millwood’s this season — a good Millwood in April, an average Millwood in May, and a horrible Millwood in June. Correspondingly, his trade value has gone from good to decent to non-existent. Millwood isn’t as good as he was in April, but he isn’t nearly as bad as he was in June — he’s a career 4.10 ERA. What we saw in the May was what everyone expected out of Millwood the entire season when the Orioles traded for him in the offseason.

Something is certainly amiss with Millwood — although he has always had average stuff with pretty average results during his career, Millwood is just not a 5.77 ERA. That something may very well be a recently-sustained injury, as Millwood was put on the disabled list with a forearm injury, but probably doesn’t explain his last 10 or so poor starts. Millwood seems to be getting more and more hittable with each start — his stuff was actually pretty good early on, but seems to have flattened out as the season has gone on, and he’s finding a lot more of the plate with his pitches.

Anyone who has watched Millwood on a consistent basis this season knows that Millwood, for whatever reason, always seems to be the pitcher on the team who gets the rawest deal with the defensive support behind him. Even though the Orioles have defenders out of position all over the place behind any pitcher, they seem to inexplicably fall apart with Millwood on the mound.

For the season, Millwood has fallen on some hard luck, with a .344 BABIP (batting average on balls in play). Millwood, a 0.5 WAR, has a very high home run to fly ball ratio, with 14.8% of his fly balls leaving the yard – no doubt some of the blame going to pitching in hitter-friendly Camden Yards, as his 4.35 xFIP seems to support.

Millwood is doing well in two aspects of the game that luck plays no part in, as Millwood is striking out 7.02 batters per nine innings — his highest rate since 2004 — and is walking just 2.93 batters per nine innings. Millwood, though, has given up 20 homers (the other part of the game that luck isn’t involved, at least at a high level), tied for the league lead. Henceforth, his FIP of 5.05 indicates that he’s pitched a little better than his ERA would indicate, but if he hadn’t given up so many homers, his FIP and corresponding ERA would be a lot lower. Like I stated before, which his FIP and xFIP supports, Millwood is not a 5.77 ERA.

One of the primary reasons that Millwood was brought to the team was to mentor the young pitchers. I obviously can’t say whether Millwood’s helped the young pitchers, but the knowledge and experience he brings — five teams in 14 seasons — certainly cannot hurt when he’s in the clubhouse talking with guys like Brian Matusz and Chris Tillman. If Millwood wasn’t injured, then I still think he would have been a valuable piece at the back end of a contender’s rotation, especially if the home park is a pitcher’s park (San Diego?). Given that he’s on the disabled list now, Millwood has no trade value, which is unfortunate because one of the perks of trading for Millwood was supposed to be that the Orioles could flip him for some prospects at the trade deadline. The August 31 waiver deadline could net the Orioles a prospect for Millwood, though. Grade: C-.

Jeremy Guthrie

Guthrie had a rough season in 2009, pitching to a 5.o4 ERA and a 5.31 FIP, third-worst in the majors. The addition of Millwood to the top of the rotation was supposed to take the pressure off of Guthrie by putting him a position in the rotation where he wasn’t expected to be the ace. The first half results haven’t been great, as Guthrie has posted a 4.64 ERA, 4.83 FIP and a 0.8 WAR in 106.2 innings (17 starts). The home runs allowed are still high (14), but his walks are down at a good rate (2.45 per nine innings).

The problem for Guthrie has been, to me, his lack of an out-pitch, which hurt him last year, too. Guthrie has a good enough fastball to consistently get ahead in the count, but he has no out-pitch in order to put away a hitter. His fastball isn’t good enough to blow by hitters for strike three — hitters will often prolong at-bats against Guthrie with foul balls — and his breaking pitches aren’t good enough to get hitters to swing and miss, either.

Guthrie just doesn’t miss enough bats to be a consistently good pitcher — he’s only striking out 4.73 hitters per nine innings and his contact rate on swings is a 88.6%, the third-highest mark in the league among pitchers. Of the pitches that are in the strike zone, hitters are making contact on 92.7% of their swings — also high. Hitters are making contact on 81.1% of Guthrie’s pitches that are outside of the strike zone, fourth-highest in the league.

Guthrie is your typical “pitch to contact” kind of a pitcher, and if he hadn’t gotten so lucky this year — Guthrie has a low .271 BABIP — he may have been put in the bullpen by now. The best thing one can say about Guthrie is the amount of innings he’s logged this year, as he’s one BABIP reality check away from having his ERA sail north of five. Still, this kind of performance thus far is pretty much what everyone should have come to expect from Guthrie. Grade: C-.

Brian Matusz

After Matusz posted a 4.63 ERA and 4.08 FIP in eight big league starts after ripping through the minor leagues last season, Orioles fans were pretty geeked up that Matusz, a highly touted left-hander coming out of college and through the minor leagues, would take the next step in his progression this season in becoming a legitimate staff ace.

Matusz has predictably become the Orioles’ best starter this season, but it hasn’t been without the also-predictable growing pains of a pitcher who is technically still a rookie in the brutal American League East. Matusz has very much progressed this season, just not to Cliff Lee levels that some fans were expecting.

Matusz has pitched to a 4.56 ERA, 4.14 FIP and a 1.5 WAR, the best mark by any Orioles’ pitcher and second-best on the team save for Nick Markakis. His BABIP, which currently stands at .316, indicates he’s been slightly unlucky. Matusz, who was probably big league ready as soon as he walked off of the University of San Diego campus, has four above-average pitches — the fastball, slider, curveball and changeup. While no pitch is particularly dominating every start, his vast repertoire is plenty good enough to get AL East hitters out on a consistent basis, which is something that can’t be said for the vast majority of pitchers the Orioles have trotted out to the mound for the last 13 years. Already a very polished pitcher for his age, once he fully develops his ability, Matusz should, in my opinion, be a legitimate frontline starter in the big leagues. While the lack of one truly dominating pitch is a minor concern, he usually has an out-pitch on any given night — although that out-pitch may vary from start to start.

Matusz is throwing his fastball 63.8% of the time this season — up from 59.8% last season. Matusz has used his slider for 7.0% of his pitches; 9.6%, curveball; and 19.7%, changeup. It’s important to note Matusz’s increase in the use of his fastball — it’s very important in the majors to get ahead in the count consistently with the fastball, whereas in college and the minor leagues, Matusz could strike out hitters at will with his secondary stuff. Matusz is getting plenty of swings and misses with his stuff already, and I think he’ll get even more when he fully develops his stuff. Hitters are making contact on 81.5% of the pitches Matusz throws of their swings against Matusz, which is a good rate for Matusz, especially at this point in his development. He is getting swings and misses on 9.0% of the pitches he throws, also a good rate.

Perhaps the most encouraging aspect of Matusz’s season is that he has often matched up against the AL East monsters and has more than held his own in those starts. In eight starts against the AL East (no starts against the Toronto Blue Jays), Matusz has a 2.90 ERA on the year. Very impressive. He struggled in May, giving up 22 runs (20 earned) in 24.0 innings of work, but I have to chalk that up to the usual development of a young pitcher and hitters adjusting to what Matusz was offering. In May, Matusz was also not attacking hitters like he usually does, but instead was falling behind a lot of hitters and paid the price for it. Grade: B+.

Brad Bergesen

It’s been an odd year for Bergesen. He injured his arm while filming a commercial shoot for the Orioles during the offseason (tell me another team whose best pitcher the year before actually injures himself during a commercial shoot). He started 2010 with the Orioles, but he struggled mightily, so he went back down to Norfolk for one start to try to fix whatever was ailing him. He came back up, only to eventually be sent to the bullpen and then back down to Norfolk again. Now he’s back up. Doesn’t seem like quite the way to instill continuity in the young man, but whatever.

April went about as poorly as it could have gone for Bergesen, as he was pitching for the first time since Billy Butler broke his leg with a line drive last July 31. In three April starts, Bergesen pitched to a 12.19 ERA, allowing 21 hits and five hits in 8.1 innings, striking out just five men. Bergesen, a groundball pitcher, had induced 31 fly balls as opposed to 15 grounders. Some were speculating that Bergesen was still affected by the multiple injuries he had sustained in a relatively short time period, while I worried that it was because of his limited stuff.

As limited as his stuff may be, no one can argue that last year, Bergesen was a very effective starter. Bergesen went to Norfolk briefly and returned to Baltimore to make seven starts with the Orioles, which he accumulated 40.1 innings, allowing 50 hits, 12 walks and recorded nine strikeouts en route to lowering his ERA 6.75. Obviously, that’s still not good enough, so the Orioles sent him to the bullpen and eventually to Norfolk, and now he’s back up again. In his two starts since being recalled to the majors, he gave up five runs on six hits and two walks in four innings against the Washington Nationals, and put together a wonderful performance at Fenway Park against the Boston Red Sox, allowing three runs on five hits and no walks in 7.2 innings. He was victimized by two solo homers by J.D. Drew.

All told, Bergesen has pitched 65.2 innings (12 starts, two bullpen outings) and has a 6.44 ERA, 5.62 FIP, and a -0.1 WAR. His strikeouts are low (2.88 per nine innings, down from 4.74 last season) and his walks are up from last year but are still at a low level (2.74 per nine innings this year as opposed to 2.34 last season). Bergesen’s home runs allowed per nine innings has gone from 0.80 per nine innings last year to 1.37 this year.

Bergesen isn’t missing as many bats as he was last year, either. In 2009, hitters made contact with 85.5% of their swings against Bergesen, while 6.6% of Bergesen’s pitches went for swings and misses. While not great, those statistics are livable. This season, hitters are making contact with 91.7% of their swings against Bergesen, while only 3.6% of Bergesen’s pitches are going for swings and misses. That’s recipe for disaster. It means his sinker isn’t sinking.

Here’s another aspect of Bergesen that’s changed from last year — Bergesen stranded 75.2% of his baserunners in 2009, and this season, he’s only stranding 58.8% of his baserunners.

Bergesen is primarily a sinker-slider pitcher – 67.1% of his pitches this season are his sinking fastball and 21.2% are the slider. From what I’ve seen — and this is totally to my naked eye — Bergesen’s stuff is just not nearly as sharp as it was last season. To me, Bergesen could consistently keep his sinker down in the zone last year and hitters would beat the ball into the ground when he was on his game. This year — as his ugly statistics support — the ball isn’t sinking for the most part. Bergesen’s mechanics have to be just right for him to get his pitches to effectively sink, otherwise, he’s going to get hit very hard.

Bergesen’s grade is hard to figure out because of all of the moving parts of his situation, including his injuries and his inconsistent pitching schedule. Still, a 6.44 ERA is a 6.44 ERA, any way you look at it. Grade: D.

David Hernandez

Even though Hernandez beat out Tillman in spring training for the No. 5 starter spot, everyone seemed to know that Hernandez was probably bound for the bullpen once Tillman fixed what he needed to at Norfolk. Indeed, Hernandez made eight unimpressive starts for Baltimore, posting a 5.31 ERA in those starts (42.1 innings), surrendering 39 hits and 28 walks and striking out 28 batters.

28 walks is what ultimately sent him to the bullpen. I watched him go 5.1 innings in Washington against the Nationals, only giving up one hit, but he allowed five walks. He needed 105 pitches to get through the 5.1 innings. Despite the fact he gave up just one hit, it was excruciating to sit through. Hernandez was sent to the bullpen after that start.

Due to the Orioles’ bullpen issues, Hernandez was handed a late-inning role pretty much right away. The results have mostly been good aside from a blown save in San Diego and giving up a walk-off homer to Johnny Damon against the Detroit Tigers on Tuesday night. In Hernandez’s 14 outings out of the bullpen, he hasn’t given up a run in 11 of them. The most encouraging aspect of Hernandez’s stint in the bullpen is that he can throw straight smoke. Hernandez went from throwing 93-95 MPH as a starter to throwing 97-99 MPH out of the bullpen. That’s some serious heat. In 16.0 innings of relief, Hernandez has walked six, struck out 20, and pitched to a 2.81 ERA.

Hernandez’s heat was best displayed in a relief appearance against the Nationals at Camden Yards on June 27, when Hernandez got the Orioles out of an eighth inning jam by blowing six fastballs right by Josh Willingham and Roger Bernadina to record two strikeouts. The first five pitches were swings and misses. Hernandez gets a solid grade despite his 4.63 ERA and 4.76 FIP. Grade: B-.

Alfredo Simon

Simon began the 2009 season as the No. 3 starter for the Orioles, but shortly after the season began, he blew out his arm and needed Tommy John surgery. Simon made an incredibly quick recovery and returned to the club in late April. Annointed the closer as soon as he joined the team, Simon has saved 10 of his 12 opportunities.

I was present for one of his implosions against the Cleveland Indians, as he gave up four runs, including a three-run homer to Austin Kearns that gave the Indians a 4-2 lead in the ninth inning. The crack of Kearns’ bat was the loudest crack of a bat I had ever heard at a ballgame. His other blown save was Tuesday night when he tried to get a five-out save — Miguel Cabrera’s homer is currently orbiting around the earth.

Even for most of his saves, there have been baserunners everywhere. Of Simon’s 22 apperances — with only three being more than one inning – he’s allowed baserunners in 16 of those appearances. Of his 10 saves, six have included baserunners. In 22.0 innings pitched, Simon has walked 13 batters and struck out 20. He’s allowed 23 hits (two homers). His 4.50 walks per nine innings must come down.

Simon is a fastball-splitter pitcher, throwing his fastball 64.0% of the time and his splitter, 26.3%. His fastball sits around 95 MPH and tops out around 98, and split-fingered pitch, if sinking, is unhittable. It’s filthy. If it hangs, though, it can indeed be sent into orbit. Simon gets a decent grade for giving the Orioles something resembling a closer, but he must improve the command of his pitches. Walks in the ninth inning tends to be bad news. Grade: B-.

Jason Berken

Berken had a brutal rookie season in 2009, posting a 6.54 ERA and 5.31 FIP in 24 starts spanning 119.2 innings. He allowed 164 hits while striking out 4.96 hitters per nine innings, walking 3.31 per nine and giving up 1.43 homers per nine. And yet, I kept saying to myself, “I really like this kid. For some reason, I really like this kid.”

How many pitchers with ERA’s north of 6.50 can anyone have a good feeling about? For some reason, I just really liked Berken. I think it was because he looked as if he was tough as nails out on the mound despite getting shallacked repeatedly by the AL East monsters. Berken just kept coming right at hitters. He never backed down. Berken got the crap kicked out of him, but he kept coming right after hitters.

All he’s done this year is progress like I’ve seen no Orioles’ pitcher progress over one offseason. Converted into a bullpen arm, Berken’s strikeouts per nine innings have jumped from 4.96 last year to 6.89 this year, his walks have gone down from 3.31 per nine innings to 2.49 this year, and his homers allowed per nine innings have dropped from 1.43 last year to 0.57 this year. Berken’s BABIP has normalized from last year’s freakishly high .348 and is down to .288. All told, Berken has a 2.11 ERA and 3.26 FIP as the lone consistent arm out of the Orioles’ bullpen. Berken had a 0.7 WAR as a starter last season, but he’s already attained a 0.8 WAR as a reliever.

The key to Berken’s turnaround is sharper stuff, in my opinion. Berken was a four-pitch pitcher last season, but has basically turned himself into just a fastball-slider pitcher this year. Berken is throwing his fastball 56.4% of the time this year and his slider 34.0% — up from 16.0% last year. Berken has essentially abandoned his curveball and changeup. In the bullpen, Berken only has to go through a lineup once and he can just throw his two best pitches and doesn’t have to worry about the hitters adjusting to his two pitches their second and third time through the order.

Berken’s slider has some serious bite to it — in a game against the Florida Marlins in late June, Berken made Hanley Ramirez wildly swing and miss at three straight filthy sliders. Also, I’ve seen Berken touch 95 MPH with his fastball this year — that simply didn’t happen last season. Hitters are only making contact on 77.7% of their swings against Berken this season, and 10.0% of Berken’s pitches are resulting in swings and misses. Berken is getting whiffs, which bodes well right now and in the future. Grade: A+.

Will Ohman

Ohman seems like a really fun guy. My buddy and I were talking to a Nationals fan when we were in Washington for the interleague series in May, and the Nationals fan said, “If I’m having a party, I’m inviting that guy (points to Ohman).” So yes, if I’m having a dinner party, a pots and pans party, or a full-on rager, I’m going to invite Will Ohman.

Oh yeah, baseball. Ohman’s a typical journeyman left-handed specialist. Lefties hitting .179 against Ohman; right-handers, .318. Ohman has a 2.79 FIP against lefties; 5.38 FIP against righties. Pretty much exactly what anyone could have hoped for. Grade: B-.

Matt Albers

…is a slob. Grade: F.

Cla Meredith

Josh Willingham is still lawling at you, Cla Meredith. Grade: F.

Mark Hendrickson

If it’s any consolation, he’s by far the best basketball player on the team. Maybe he’ll announce his intentions to play basketball in Europe for a year on ESPN2 to a viewing audience of 12. Grade: D.

So there you have it. My first half report card for the pitchers. All statistics are as of Tuesday’s results via FanGraphs.