Five Things We Learned about the Orioles in the first half

My favorite post-game reading after any Ravens game is unquestionably Kevin Van Valkenburg’s “Five Things We Learned,” which can be found on Ravens Insider on www.baltimoresun.com. It’s the most thoughtful analysis on any mainstream Baltimore news outlet that I’ve found, and quite frankly, I don’t know if there’s a close second. Assuming there’s a 2011 football season (and there will be – no games will be missed), start reading Van Valkenburg’s post-game blogs immediately upon the start of the season if you don’t yet do so.

Anyhow, I asked Van Valkenburg on Twitter (@KVanValkenburg) if I could use his template for the Orioles’ first half, and he graciously said yes. So without further ado, here are the five things we learned about the Baltimore Orioles in the first half.

1. Matt Wieters is a damn good baseball player. Wieters has been called a bust. He’s been called a disappointment. He’s been labeled just another in a long line of failed Orioles prospects. Lost in all of the negative critiques is that Wieters has turned in a damn fine catcher. Wieters is probably the best defensive catcher in the game at this point, and the defensive metrics seem to vehemently agree with that. Wieters is throwing out about 44 percent of attempted base-stealers and ranks fourth among big league catchers in fWAR at 2.3, based largely on his defense.

Granted, if we were told this time about 25 months ago (when Wieters was called up to the big leagues amidst much hype) that Wieters would soon become the best defensive catcher in baseball with the offensive numbers that he has put up, would we be disappointed with that? I’d imagine so. Fans and pundits around baseball were expecting a middle-of-the-order, franchise-changing, dual-threat catcher in Wieters. The hopes of that kind of player are dimming by the day, but don’t let the disappointment of what Wieters was supposed to be* cloud the fact that there are at least 25 other teams around the big leagues that would love to have Wieters behind the dish.

*Fans seem to get upset directly towards Wieters in reference to his modest offensive output thus far in his career. I do wonder why none of this disappointment is viewed towards those who projected Wieters to be God in Cleats. Wieters didn’t ask to be ranked as the No. 1 prospect in baseball. Others did that. Maybe what we’re seeing is always the kind of player Wieters would become, and the prospect analysts just missed on this one. It happens. Maybe Wieters will “just” be one of the better catchers in the game for a long time, rather than Johnny Bench.

Wieters is a work in progress with the bat, showing improvement from last season’s .249/.319/.377 output in 502 plate appearances. This year, Wieters is hitting .264/322/.406 in 301 plate appearances. I don’t think we’ll ever see the .900 OPS Wieters that we all hoped for, but more steady improvement would be wonderful to see from Wieters. Even with the offensive production not being other-worldly, Wieters has cemented himself as a future building block for the organization.

2. I don’t have any answers, but questions absolutely have to be asked of the Orioles’ player development chain, from the big leagues all the way down to the Gulf Coast League. Finding talent is only part of the equation when it comes to fielding quality young talent at the big league level, with developing the talent being another huge factor. Joe Jordan and his staff can only draft and sign players – they can’t develop them, too. The past two seasons have seen an unsettling trend of young players succeeding in the minor leagues, only to stagnate and/or regress in the big leagues.

Chris Tillman is probably the poster boy of this. Tillman came up to the big leagues in 2009 as a potential top of the rotation starter with a fastball up to 93 mph and a hard 12-to-6 curveball. But Tillman now struggles to even hit 90 mph, usually sitting in the 86-88 mph range with his fastball, with the rest of his offerings also being softer than they should be. What happened to Tillman’s velocity? Why did it steadily disappear? No one seems to know. Which, of course, reminds us all of Brian Matusz, the organization’s first round pick (fourth overall) in 2008.

Matusz was lights out in 2010 once Buck Showalter took over, but a back injury sidelined him for the first two months of the 2011 season. Upon his return, Matusz’ velocity was down to 86-87 mph, with spotty command and control. What happened to his velocity? Is it possible (maybe even probable) that he’s still hurt but not telling anyone? Is his back still ailing him? Is it something else?

So why is Matusz still pitching at Norfolk? Shouldn’t be shut down, at least for now? I don’t care if Matusz says he’s healthy – give him MRI’s, blood tests, whatever to see if he’s hurt and/or ill. Either would explain his lack of strength. (This probably classifies as more of a front office issue that Matusz still hasn’t gotten checked on, but it all intertwines anyhow.)

Why hasn’t Adam Jones still figured out how to get into hitter’s counts in order to take advantage of his well above-average hitting ability? Why was Wieters a Zeus-like figure in the minor leagues, only to stagnate with the bat in the big leagues? Why has Nick Markakis regressed like no one’s business since his monster 2008 season? Why, as other big league organizations put together quality starting rotations via youth, are the Orioles’ young pitchers seemingly regressing and overwhelmed by their competition?

If any of these issues with one player occurred in a vacuum, one would think that the struggles would be limited to strictly that particular player and situation. And who knows? Maybe each of the Orioles’ young players was over-hyped from the beginning. Maybe all of the Orioles’ young talent just peaked at a very early age. It could be that the Orioles are just the unluckiest organization in baseball. But those explanations seem far too convenient given that this is an organization-wide downturn in the progression of young talent.

(And why did former pitching coach Mark Connor suddenly resign from his position with no warning? Call me cynical, but I’m not totally buying Connor’s reasoning that he just couldn’t hold up throughout a 162-game season.)

Questions about the player development chain have to be honestly answered by the front office (whether the front office is headed by Andy MacPhail at the end of the year or someone else) and the issues need to be addressed immediately, with more qualified instructors at the minor league levels (and big league levels) being brought in.

If those player development issues aren’t addressed, are Manny Machado, Jonathan Schoop and Dylan Bundy next in line for Orioles prospects that succeed in the minors only to stagnate and/or regress in the big leagues? I’d rather not find out.

3. The lack of quality depth at Triple-A has always been an issue for as long as I can remember, but it came to a forefront this year even earlier than it usually does, and it will likely be an issue in 2012, too. I highlighted the Orioles’ alarming lack of depth in the upper levels of the minor leagues in an earlier blog post. As I mentioned in that blog post, the lack of talent in the upper minors ready to help the big league club has stood out this year when players have missed significant time due to injury. If you’re in the mood to be severely depressed, check out the roster for Triple-A Norfolk here. The Tides are 35-56 for a reason – it’s because they’re devoid of talent. (Hey! That record looks pretty similar to the big league club! And the reason for said record looks pretty similar to the big league club, too!)

There’s a pretty significant gap between the last wave of potential impact prospects to hit Baltimore (the Bergesen to Britton group) and the next wave of impact prospects (led by Machado). Britton arrived in April 2011. Machado will likely arrive some time in 2013. That’s far too much time in between impact prospects being called up to the big leagues. Tampa Bay and Toronto are now constantly pumping out prospects, which is the only way for these three clubs to compete in this division. Baltimore, Tampa and Toronto can’t afford to have gaps of potential impact talent in the minor leagues. There needs to be constant waves of it.

But in the Orioles’ case, we’re not talking about just potential impact talent that has ceased coming to Baltimore through the farm system for the time being. We’re talking about any talent to help fill some holes in the roster, specifically the holes in the starting rotation. To be honest, I don’t even know who is in the starting rotation anymore. What’s worse is I don’t think the Orioles know, either.

As Matusz, Tillman and Britton try to work out the kinks in the minor leagues, the options out of Norfolk to fill in the big rotation include Mitch Atkins, Chris George, Rick VandenHurk, Mark Hendrickson, Troy Patton and Steve Johnson. I’m sure these are all nice, personable dudes. But they can’t be anywhere near a big league rotation (and probably not a Triple-A rotation, either). But Atkins has already made two starts. Alfredo Simon has made a start.

When there’s no quality depth at Triple-A, 6-21 stretches during the season – which is how the Orioles finished the first half – are totally feasible. I’d suggest being more active in the minor league free agent market than they are in order to fill holes at Norfolk that impact prospects cannot yet fill. Otherwise, the same problem with a lack of quality depth will be an issue next year, too.

4. There is no window for the Orioles to compete in the AL East, at least as of now. This time two years ago, when Wieters was called up, everyone seemed to be pointing towards 2011 as the season that the Orioles would begin to make noise in the AL East. At that point, Jones and Wieters would be superstars at up-the-middle positions, Markakis would be one of the best outfielders in the game, the rotation would be full of stud home-grown pitchers, and MacPhail would fill the holes on the roster with free agents in the winter of 2010 to put the team over the top.

(To be fair, it sounded great in theory.)

None of those things have transpired, with all of the young talent on the team stagnating, regressing, hurt, or some combination thereof. We were probably guilty of over-estimating what a group of young pitchers could do as soon as 2011, especially in the AL East. We probably put too much stock into Markakis’ monster 2008 season. We probably were too eager to call Jones and Wieters superstars. But none of those things I mentioned working out like we had hoped? That has to be at least somewhat unlucky.

Alas, he we are. The Orioles have somewhere between one and four position players on the big league squad that they could legitimately build around for the next five years. Wieters is definitely such a player, with Jones, Markakis and Reimold being on the fence. (We could find out more about Reimold this season, but the front office thought it was more important to give $8 million to a 36-year-old designated hitter. I personally think Reimold could be a league average left fielder on minimum salary, but we can’t find out about that this year.)

They have between one and three starting pitchers that the team could possibly build around.** Britton seems like he is certainly a future rotation piece, with Matusz and Arrieta being on the fence. I don’t know what to think about Matusz until his velocity ticks back up, and Arrieta could be more of a reliever than a starter if his command doesn’t improve.

**I’d like to see Jim Johnson get a shot as a starter, and I think he might in spring training next year. But I won’t include him amongst the starting pitchers for now because he’s not a starting pitcher, at least not yet.

Altogether, this means between two and seven players that played on the big league squad this year could be a building block for future success. It’s a 25-man roster. You do the math. The current outlook isn’t pretty. The farm system is probably better than it was at this time last year, but it’s probably still a bottom-third farm system, with the biggest impact talents – Machado, Schoop, Dylan Bundy (only if he signs, but he will) – arriving at some point in 2013 at the earliest.

With only two to seven potential impact talents on the roster and a “meh” farm system, how in the world is this organization as currently constructed going to compete in a division with two teams (Tampa Bay and Toronto) boasting top-five farm systems and the other two teams (New York and Boston) being tops in the league in available resources?

The only way out is through player development and that starts with the acquisition of young talent. At this point, every veteran – and by veteran, I mean players who have been in the big leagues for awhile now – should be available via trade right now. That even includes Adam Jones. He’s not improving in key spots of his game, namely plate discipline and pitch recognition. He’s getting expensive in arbitration. His final year under team control is 2013. The Orioles won’t be competitive by then. The Orioles are probably hesitant (and should be) to extend Jones due to his faults. However, some team would probably give up a large package of young talent to acquire such a toolsy outfielder oozing with potential like Jones.

If J.J. Hardy fetches a trade package on the open market that the club perceives to be of higher value than the draft picks they’d get for him as compensation for losing a Type-A free agent, Hardy needs to be traded. Any veteran without a burdensome contract (like Markakis and Roberts) must be traded if there’s value to be brought back via trade. It’d be worth it to just release Vladimir Guerrero or Derrek Lee to give Reimold an everyday spot without being blocked by expensive veterans.

It’s time to start over. Fans will rightfully be wary of another rebuilding project, but failed rebuilding efforts don’t mean to immediately go to a short-term plan and wildly overpay for Prince Fielder. It means a better rebuilding plan is needed. If the Orioles have any hope of competing in the AL East, they need to regularly have one of the top five farm systems in baseball. As I stated, it starts with trading all veterans of value for youth. The next step is to figure out the issues in the player development chain. The next step after that is to allocate resources properly to the draft and international market.

5. Andy MacPhail is not the man to lead this monumental of a rebuild. Andy MacPhail, whose contract with the Orioles is up after this season, is a good baseball man. He led the Minnesota Twins to two World Series titles, in 1987 and 1991. He brought credibility to an organization sorely needing it when he became general manager in the middle of the 2007 season. He seemed to have the organization headed back on the correct path when he traded Miguel Tejada (the first time) and Erik Bedard for a combined 10 players.

Talent began accumulating in a farm system that was once desolate. He knows how to acquire talent via trade. (I still don’t know how he got Hardy for basically nothing.) Look at the Orioles’ record though his time in Baltimore, and it’s a whole lot of fail, but the organization is in a better place than it was when he took over.

(I will admit that even I could have probably taken over the organization in 2007 and have it in a better place now. The organization in 2007 was in such bad shape that the bar for improvement was incredibly low.)

And I’ll concede that if MacPhail’s batch of young talent did work out like a lot of people thought it would – with Wieters and Jones becoming superstars and the rotation being totally homegrown studs – MacPhail could have turned out to be the king of Baltimore.

But over the past two years, I’ve become increasingly impatient with some of MacPhail’s moves and philosophies. Over his tenure in Baltimore, I’ve mostly given MacPhail the benefit of the doubt. Rebuilding an entire organization from the ground on up takes quite awhile, and so for the first few years of his tenure, I didn’t get too worked up over anything he did. But over the last two years, three things about MacPhail have been made abundantly clear that will probably keep him from ever fielding a competitive squad in Baltimore if he were to continue: 1) An inability to properly allocate a finite number of resources, 2) An insistence on not acquiring a lot of talent internationally, and 3) Ignorance.

The Orioles, as everyone knows, do not have the resources of the Yankees or Red Sox, but continue to spend the resources that they do have in the wrong places. MacPhail added a healthy amount of payroll to the big league roster in the off-season, with the only quality returns on the investments being from Hardy and, to a lesser extent, Mark Reynolds. Guerrero, Lee and Kevin Gregg have all been terrible (although Gregg could blow every save from this point forward and I’d still respect him for sticking up for himself and his teammates in Boston). This comes off the heels of last-season, in which MacPhail added Mike Gonzalez and the corpses of Miguel Tejada and Garrett Atkins.

The Orioles are not a team that should be adding payroll at the big league level in this fashion. There’s no way in hell the Orioles, a team with no shot at competing, should have trotted out an Opening Day payroll just under $87 million. Whether the payroll was that high to make fans think that the front office was “doing something” and “trying to win,” or whether it was to continue The Quest For .500, I’m not sure. It was probably both. But you know where that money could be better spent? Oh, I don’t know, how about the draft? The international market? How about scouting and player and development?

The Orioles drafted high schooler Nick Delmonico in the sixth round in this year’s draft, and is widely considered a very tough sign, which is why he slid down the draft the way he did. Are the Orioles going to hesitate to give Delmonico the extra cash in order to get him signed? Or are they going to let him go to college over, say, $500,000? (Which I understand is a lot of money, but it’s not a lot in baseball terms, and especially not when compared to what they spent the past two off-seasons.)

And take this past draft, for example. Why were so many safe college pitchers taken after Bundy instead of younger players with more upside? Is it because the Orioles needed to draft a lot of players on the less expensive side because their resources for the draft are limited because so much money was wasted on free agents? A general manager needs to understand where to apply the resources he does have, and MacPhail clearly lacks that understanding.

That lack of understanding on where to spend a limited number of resources connects with the Orioles’ other huge issue, which is largely ignoring the international market. I detailed the Orioles’ putrid track record of acquiring Latin American talent here. MacPhail shouts from the rooftops that he doesn’t want to spend a ton of cash on the international market, but he continues to waste money on aging free agents and relievers.

MacPhail’s comments to Steve Melewski of MASN (here and here) are downright depressing. In the interview, MacPhail consistently drives home the idea that he doesn’t want to spend $4 million to $5 million on one 16-year-old in Latin America, which is fine. But why not go the route of the Colorado Rockies and use your resources to sign a bunch of players to what end up being relatively small signing bonuses (in the grand scheme of the baseball economy)? It makes no sense. The Orioles need to attack all routes in which youth can be added, and with MacPhail’s bizarre stance on international spending, it’s become increasingly clear that MacPhail is not a general manager that explores all avenues for acquiring young talent.

I also listed “ignorance” as one of MacPhail’s issues that have become increasingly clear over the past two years. What I mean by that is simple. Some of the moves he makes would be stupid moves even if the Orioles weren’t in the position that they’re in as bottom feeders in the AL East. Signing a Type-A reliever. Handing multi-year contracts two years in a row to relievers. Signing a 36-year-old designated hitter when the last thing the club needed was a designated hitter. These are dumb moves whatever position your team finds itself in.

So MacPhail isn’t the best man for the job as general manager of the organization that is in perhaps the toughest spot in all of sports. The organization is in the same division as four teams, two of which are tops in baseball in terms of resources and the other two have perhaps the best farm systems in baseball. It’s an organization with a farm system that is probably in the bottom third in all of baseball. The player development chain is in need of an overhaul. The Orioles have plenty of dead weight on the major league roster, a lot of which is largely coming off the books after this season. But who’s to say MacPhail wouldn’t add more dead weight if he stayed on as general manager?

So who is the man to lead this rebuild? Are we really entrusting Peter Angelos to hire the right man for the job, to hire someone better than MacPhail? Assuming MacPhail leaves the Orioles upon his contract expiring – and my gut feeling is that he will – we have to trust Peter Angelos to make the correct hire for an organization that needs nothing less than a near-flawless general manager?

Like I said, there’s currently no window to compete for a playoff spot.