Offense, not pitching is going to be the key to 2011

[Mad Mark]

Thread summary:

JTrea: Hey guys I am right, for reals

Everybody else: No, here are facts

JTrea: No you don't understand, I am right

etc for 11+ pages

You know you've crossed the fine line between posting and regurgitating when you've said exactly the same thing...32,000 times.

[Crazysilver03]

The Pirates never had the pitching like the Orioles did obviously, but they had the offense when it counted. They only lost 1 game where their pitching gave up 4 runs or less.

The Orioles on the other hand lost 9 games in April where they only gave up 4 runs or less.

So 1 of the 13 losses was due to the offense for the Pirates.

For the Orioles, 9 out of the 18 losses were due to the offense.

And based on that logic, the Pirate's pitching was the reason they lost 12 of 13 games and the Orioles 9 of 18.

[JTrea81]

And based on that logic, the Pirate's pitching was the reason they lost 12 of 13 games and the Orioles 9 of 18.

Corrrect.

But for the Orioles, offense was clearly more of an issue to start the season.

[Crazysilver03]

This is pretty simple:

Mo    R    RAAp   3.3   5.1Ma   3.6   4.8Jn   3.8   6.0Jl   3.8   5.9Au   4.0   3.6Sp   4.2   3.9

The offense was putrid in April, mediocre the rest of the year. The run prevention was terrible from April through July, and great in August and September.

The only big discontinuity in the data is that the run prevention got markedly better after Buck took over. The offense barely budged.

The O's played .586 ball over the last two months with an offense that would have ranked 11th in the American League.

Corrrect.

But for the Orioles, offense was clearly more of an issue to start the season.

Thank you for acknowledging a point that was already made.

[JTrea81]

Thank you for acknowledging a point that was already made.

The putrid offense is what sent the season into a tailspin, not the pitching.

Which is why it is so crucial that it is there to support the pitching to start the season and also throughout the season obviously.

Our pitching is going to be inconsistent just by the age and inexperience of the arms in the rotation, but when it is on, the offense has to be on as well.

The offense needs to be there to score 5 runs or more when our pitchers give up 4 runs or less.

[Crazysilver03]

The putrid offense is what sent the season into a tailspin, not the pitching.

Which is why it is so crucial that it is there to support the pitching to start the season and also throughout the season obviously.

Our pitching is going to be inconsistent just by the age and inexperience of the arms in the rotation, but when it is on, the offense has to be on as well.

The offense needs to be there to score 5 runs or more when our pitchers give up 4 runs or less.

The offense never really got substantially better. So how do you explain the team doing so well towards the end of the season.

[JTrea81]

The offense never really got substantially better. So how do you explain the team doing so well towards the end of the season.

Pitchers overachieving to try to impress Buck and save their jobs.

They had motivation to perform, and Buck helped give them the confidence in their abilities back as well.

Instead of pitching to try not to lose, they pitched to win.

And the offense was also there to back them up in August and September.

The Orioles only lost 5 games in August when the pitchers gave up 4 runs or less and that improved to only 2 games in September/October.

[Crazysilver03]

Pitchers overachieving to try to impress Buck and save their jobs.

They had motivation to perform, and Buck helped give them the confidence in their abilities back as well.

Instead of pitching to try not to lose, they pitched to win.

So then what will change in 2011?

[JTrea81]

So then what will change in 2011?

Well the "new manager" effect will have worn off. Players won't have to try to impress Buck because they will have already made the team.

There is no threat that they'll lose their jobs if they start to pitch poorly as there is only Britton in the minors to take their place and there is hardly any roster movement until June or July in terms of trades.

[Crazysilver03]

Well the "new manager" effect will have worn off. Players won't have to try to impress Buck because they will have already made the team.

There is no threat that they'll lose their jobs if they start to pitch poorly as there is only Britton in the minors to take their place and there is hardly any roster movement until June or July in terms of trades.

So Buck isn't the savior you made him out to be?

[JTrea81]

So Buck isn't the savior you made him out to be?

Well his power was less than I thought, but he clearly played a larger role in the offseason than any other Orioles manager since DJ that I can remember.

I think he could still turn this team around quickly and put them in the playoffs if he has the pieces to do so.

But the offense is going to have to show up this season in order for him to get us where we need to go.

Seeing that pitching we saw in August and September given the age and inexperience of the rotation is just unrealistic IMO so the offense is going to need to carry them on bad days and be there for them to support them when they do pitch well.

As I said, the offense is going to determine how good the pitching has to be to win games.

[Crazysilver03]

Well his power was less than I thought, but he clearly played a larger role in the offseason than any other Orioles manager since DJ that I can remember.

I can't see through mud. Please tell me how you derived this.

And this team is built around the staff pitching like they did in August/September. You may not like it but that is how it is.

[JTrea81]

That isn't clear to me at all.

When you hear the players that were acquired talk about the Orioles they talk about Buck and MacPhail.

I don't recall other managers being mentioned like that in the past. It seems like they were a duo this offseason, where that definitely wasn't the case with Trembley or Perlozzo. MacPhail has said he wanted to acquire players that Buck would agree with, but he never seemed to give Trembley that option.

Mazzilli may have had some influence, but Hargrove and Miller certainly didn't.

[DrungoHazewood]

I can't see through mud. Please tell me how you derived this.

And this team is built around the staff pitching like they did in August/September. You may not like it but that is how it is.

It's easy if you start with a conclusion, then work backwards to fill in the selected facts and half-truths that fit that conclusion while ignorning or minimizing everything else.

[melankfo]

Andy MacPhail recently said the following:

That last phrase, seems to be key, as MacPhail of course seems to think pitching is the most important facet of the game.

However it was the offense that was so dreadful last season, not the pitching, and while the pitching was stellar under Showalter, it had to be, otherwise they wouldn't have won all those games as the offense still wasn't clicking even in August and September.

What's going to happen when the pitching slips back to a more sustainable pace? The answer is the offense is going to have to be there to back them up. If the offense has a season like it did last year, this team isn't going to reach .500 let alone be considered a contender no matter how solid the pitching is. The pitching is going to hit a certain ceiling and they can only do so much. The pace they had under Buck simply isn't realistically sustainable.

Getting back to the offense, the Orioles have several question marks in their lineup, the biggest being Adam Jones, Matt Wieters and Nick Markakis.

Those three are going to be crucial to the performance of the team going forward. Guthrie, Matusz, Bergesen can all pitch lights out, but it isn't going to make a difference if those three core position players aren't performing IMO.

And then you have the players that were acquired to supplement the lineup, in Reynolds, Lee and Hardy. While good acquisitions on the surface, they too carry many question marks going into 2011. With Lee and Hardy the injury question looms large. Hardy is most certain to not make 140 starts and Lee age and injury factors in especially as he's dealing with a back problem similar to Roberts that most likely played a role in his subpar season last year. With Reynolds, you hope that he'll return to 2009 form, but again he's tinkering with his swing to cut down on strikeouts, so you hope he doesn't screw up his mechanics that gives him that valuable power.

You have aging returning vets in Roberts and Scott, both who have likely hit their career seasons and won't replicate what they did then. And with Roberts you also have the obvious health concerns.

There is no sure thing in the Orioles lineup at all, and that is very concerning IMO considering how the offense torpedoed the season in April.

The depth on the bench and in the minors is non-existant as well. If Roberts falters, you only have no-hit MIers in Izturis and Harris to replace him. If Lee goes down you have Luke Scott to move to 1B, but then you have to put a bat like Fox, Reimold, Bell or Snyder in the DH spot, all non-proven options.

There is no quality positional depth whatsoever, so injuries like last year will absolutely kill this offense and this team. And it's also the reason why we must land another bat like Vlad or Thome, but that's for another thread...

So I don't see how MacPhail can say that the continued health and development of the pitching is going to be key, not when we saw what happened last season with the offense and the fact his response was to build an offense with duct tape (albeit it extra-strength) filling the holes along with a lot of hopes and prayers.

If the offense falters, so does our entire season.

I agree that the depth chart for position players is practically non-existent, and that there are many question marks about even the healthy line-up. However, I think you have one important fact wrong. I'm away from home and don't have my stats with me, but after the season I did a little study of the offense and defense changes after Showalter. The offense picked up about as much as the defense -- as I remember the runs given up per game dropped by about 1.5 and the runs produced went up by about 1.5 per game. Both were important in why they started winning. Maybe someone should check me on this, as I'm just relying on rough memory. [