The pieces are in place for a winning team

[wildcard]

The O's enter Spring Training with the position players pretty much set. We know who is likely to start. Markakis, Jones and Reimold in the outfield. Davis, Andino, Hardy and Reynolds in the infield. Wieters catching. We know that Teagarden and Chavez will be on the bench. When the power of that lineup is projected it probably exceed 200 home runs. Its not hard to imagine the team putting up 760-770 runs. That places them around 5th in the league.

The team goes as far as the pitching takes it. I think most (but not all) agree that the talent is on the team to have 5 starters, each that can win in double figures if they get the offense that is stated above. Britton, Arrieta and Matusz are projected as high ceiling pitchers. Hunter has already had a 13 win season. His problem is health and he has been working with Brady to try to insure he gets through the season. Chen, Wada and Hammel all have starter credentials that mean that at least one and maybe more could win in double digits.

The pen with Johnson, Lindstrom, Strop, Patton, Ayala plus some overflow of starters is good enough to win.

The question is how many of the pitchers are able to fulfill their potential or some part their potential this year. When I say the pieces are in place, that does not mean that it is ready to all come together. The parts all fitting together is the piece that is unknown. Will it or won't it happen in 2012? Will it happen before September, which is what we have seen that last two years?

So I think the pieces are on the team.......its reaching of their potential this year that is the question.

[JohnnyK27]

Spring hopes eternal ...Reality will soon set in

[osfan83]

Best time of the year to be an O's fan...It all starts to go downhill in about 6 weeks.

[canonfaz]

I wish I shared your view, but to me, just because we have our positions filled, doesn't mean they are much better than what we trotter out last year. For example, Chris Davis could fall flat on his face an have the same year that Derek Lee had last year. And on the pitching side, I have zero faith in any of our starters being above average.

As far as the bullpen is concerned, we are 1 lower back injury away from seeing Gregg close games for us. yuck.

EDIT: What a depressing post. I hope I'm wrong!!!

[Oriology]

The O's enter Spring Training with the position players pretty much set. We know who is likely to start. Markakis, Jones and Reimold in the outfield. Davis, Andino, Hary and Reynolds in the infield. Wieters catching. We know that Teagarden and Chavez will be on the bench. When the power of that lineup is projected it probably exceed 200 home runs. It not hard to imagine the team putting up 760-770 runs. That places them around 5th in the league.

The team goes as far as the pitching takes it. I think most (but not all) agree that the talent is on the team to have 5 starters, each that can win in double figures if they get the offense that is stated above. Britton, Arrieta and Matusz are projected as high ceiling pitchers. Hunter has already had a 13 win season. His problem is health and he has been working with Brady to try to insure he gets through the season. Chen, Wada and Hammel all have starter credentials that mean that at least one and maybe more could win in double digits.

The pen with Johnson, Lindstrom, Strop, Patton, Ayala plus some overflow of starters is good enough to win.

The question is how many of the pitchers are able to fulfill their potential or some part their potential this year. When I say the pieces are in place, that does not mean that it is ready to all come together. The parts all fitting together is the piece that is unknown. Will it or won't it happen in 2012? Will it happen before September, which is what we have seen that last two years?

So I think the pieces are on the team.......its reaching of the potential this year that is the question.

Sure, this team could potentially win 82+ games this year. However, considering that the offense, which is largely the same this season, scored only 708 runs last year, it's hard for me to expect 760-770. The bullpen might be good. The rotation might be decent. However, in my mind, it is much easier to envision the offense regressing and the rotation struggling, resulting in another 65-70 win season. To me, the problem lies in the fact that we have to conjure up scenarios in which the team might succeed rather than conjure up scenarios in which it might fail. This could be the year the O's over-achieve and break out of their 14-year rut, I just don't see it as being in any way likely.

[hallmt18]

It's a long season. I choose to invoke my right to be foolishly optimistic for the next few months. Go O's.

[Lucky Jim]

I'm a relatively optimistic person when it comes to the O's, but seriously? The pieces are in place only to the extent that we'll have 25 players on the team. Could it happen? Sure. But it will require some of those "pieces" to look entirely different than they do right now. That's not being in place. That's called "chrysalis".

[Frobby]

BP projects us to score 701 runs this year. I might be a little more optimistic than that, but I think the chances that we score 760+ runs are well under 20%. And while I do expect improvement in the pitching, we have to recognize that last year we allowed 152 more runs than we scored. So, the improvement would have to be immense for us to reach .500 this year.

Long and short, I'm not ruling out a .500+ season, but a lot of things would have to break our way.

[Sports Guy]

We have some secondary pieces that could be part of a contending team but they need to play better for that to be the case.

Otherwise, this thread(not surprisingly) is incredibly optimistic and ignores many things...one of which being the lack of talent.

[Orange]

Yep, hope springs eternal. I do agree with the sentiment that we will go as far as the starting pitching takes us. I expect that the offense will be above average and the bullpen will be solid. I also expect the defense will be about average... It's actually pretty spotty with some excellent defenders and some questionable ones.

The difference will be the SP's. The good news is that the only way they can go is up. The bad news is that there isn't a single SP in the organization you can point to and feel confident that that individual will be a league-average SP. There are a lot of reasons for hope, but I wouldn't bet any money on any of the starters. That sucks.

It's the best we could do, though... aside from keeping Guthrie. Without the ability to payi for guys like Darvish, Buerhle, or even Edwin Jackson we did the best we could... We got a couple of retreads (proven in MLB, but middling at best: Eveland, Hammel, Hunter) and a couple of low-cost and high-upside guys from NPB (Chen, Wada). Let the 5 or 6 young guys battle it out for the last spot and let the rest go to Norfolk for more seasoning. This allows the young guys to build for 2013 while we have a decidedly "blah" rotation in Baltimore. After last season maybe I'll take "blah"... especially if that means the Norfolk guys will come up in 2013 and stick for a few years.

[NewMarketSean]

We have some secondary pieces that could be part of a contending team but they need to play better for that to be the case.

Otherwise, this thread(not surprisingly) is incredibly optimistic and ignores many things...one of which being the lack of talent.

This.

Unless multiple players get their Jose Bautista on (pitchers included), there are no "pieces in place for a winning team".

This is a mediocre team that is probably going to be pretty awful.

But don't let me rain on your parade, playa.

[Jimbo81]

I am worried most about false hope.

If this team goes .500+ and it comes mostly from the older players who somehow have a career year w/ little growth from the young players. I could see the FO going ape over themselves, make stupid moves and we end up like the early 90's again.

Yes, '89 was a good time but, in the grand scheme of things it just derailed what the team was trying/should do...rebuild for the future. Instead of concentrating on fixing the farm they went with pay'em what they want. Of course they made the playoffs twice but look were we are now.

I just don't want history to repeat itself...again

[wildcard]

BP projects us to score 701 runs this year. I might be a little more optimistic than that, but I think the chances that we score 760+ runs are well under 20%. And while I do expect improvement in the pitching, we have to recognize that last year we allowed 152 more runs than we scored. So, the improvement would have to be immense for us to reach .500 this year.

Long and short, I'm not ruling out a .500+ season, but a lot of things would have to break our way.

I can see the infield defense being much better this year. The O's made 13 errors at 1B last year. Davis has a .997 career fielding pct at 1B. That is about 4 errors per season. Add a couple of errors for whoever plays when Davis rests.

If Reynolds is really is in much better shape maybe he goes from 31 one errors to his 2010 rate of 18. That is still below average defense but a move down of 13 errors would help the team.

Andino had a .990 fielding pct at 2nd last year and a good part of that was while he was learning to play 2B. I think we could see the O's have two or three less errors at 2B. That is 22 less errors from the 110 they made last year for 88 team errors which would have placed them 3rd on the AL last year. That would effect the pitches the pitcher need to make, lower the runs scored against the O's and lead to more wins.

[Frobby]

I can see the infield defense being much better this year. The O's made 13 errors at 1B last year. Davis has a .997 career fielding pct at 1B. That is about 4 errors per season. Add a couple of errors for whoever plays when Davis rests.

If Reynolds is really is in much better shape maybe he goes from 31 one errors to his 2010 rate of 18. That is still below average defense but a move down of 13 errors would help the team.

Andino had a .990 fielding pct at 2nd last year and a good part of that was while he was learning to play 2B. I think we could see the O's have two or three less errors at 2B. That is 22 less errors from the 110 they made last year for 88 team errors which would have place them 2nd on the AL. That would effect the pitches the pitcher need to make, lower the runs scored against the O's and lead to more wins.

Sure, all that could happen. I think it's fairly likely we get fewer errors than last year, though 22 fewer would be a lot. In addition to having fewer errors, we need to see Reynolds covering more ground at 3B, and better defensive play in LF (where Pie was abysmal last year). Those things could save some runs for our pitchers. But most of the improvement needs to come from the pitchers themselves. They allowed 210 homers, 31 more than any other AL team and 51 more than the league average. That has very little to do with the defense. (I didn't say "nothing" because extra outs means more HR opportunities, but that effect is pretty trivial when you are talking about this big of a gap.)

[MrOrange82]

What people fail to realize is that, were it not for hopelessly optimistic threads like this (which counterbalance the staunchly cynical threads that frequently populate the OH), the very fabric of the universe would start to unravel. Up would be down, Purple Rain would fall from the sky, cats and dogs living together...mass hysteria!

OP, I applaud your vital, opposing delirium. Gotta love spring