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

[Pedro Cerrano]

Look again, Huff was a DH. Millar was our 1B man.

Ok and this has nothing to do with anything.

If they had started Huff at 1B and DH'd Millar we'd have had almost the same record.

[Austin]

Look again, Huff was a DH. Millar was our 1B man.

I don't really see how that matters. We still had those numbers in the lineup which are about on par with what you would hope for out of a top first baseman. It's not like we have an awesome DH now to compliment that.

[OFFNY]

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It's daddy's birthday.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/f/fieldce01.shtml

[El Gordo]

If we were to do a poll as to which was more important to the current O's development, pitching/defense or offense, I wouldn't be surprised if there was only one person who voted for offense. Which makes me wonder why people bother with threads like this. It is akin arguing with the chief spokesman for the flat earth society.

[olehippi]

From the FWIW department......

Orioles who have played 1B this year have produced 27 HR's and 79 RBI's. Not spectacular, but not all that bad.

Lee 12 41

Reynolds 12 22

Davis 2 10

Scott 1 5

Snyder 0 1

[El Gordo]

From the FWIW department......

Orioles who have played 1B this year have produced 27 HR's and 79 RBI's. Not spectacular, but not all that bad.

Lee 12 41

Reynolds 12 22

Davis 2 10

Scott 1 5

Snyder 0 1

Projecting Reynolds at 1B over a 162 season that's 55 HR and 101 RBI.......:scratchchinhmm:

[Hank Scorpio]

Look again, Huff was a DH. Millar was our 1B man.

Someone print this out and frame it, please.

[LookinUp]

Not one single position has had as much non-production from it as 1B has.

From 2006 through 2011, we've ranked 13, 13, 13, 14, 13 and 13 (through 154 games) in AL ERA (average = 13.333...there are only 14 teams).

During that same time, we've ranked 10, 9, 8, 11, 13 and 7 in AL Runs scored (average = 9.67).

This tells us we stink at many things, but we are consistently the worst or nearly the worst pitching staff for 6 years now. I understand our 1Bs aren't very productive, but we have a whole team of moderately or less productive players. Truthfully, we should be looking to upgrade everywhere, but how can you look at those rankings and not have pitching as a top priority?

[JTrea81]

If we were to do a poll as to which was more important to the current O's development, pitching/defense or offense, I wouldn't be surprised if there was only one person who voted for offense. Which makes me wonder why people bother with threads like this. It is akin arguing with the chief spokesman for the flat earth society.

Well you can flip that to position players vs. pitchers. The defense component is the one that skews the value and defense is much more a factor for position players than it is for pitchers.

Thus position players are more valuable than pitchers.

So in reality, I should have said offense and defense are going to be the keys to 2011. Had we had better defense, our pitching may not have looked so bad and with a better offense, the run support would have been there to back up the mediocre pitching we did get.

[Sports Guy]

Well you can flip that to position players vs. pitchers. The defense component is the one that skews the value and defense is much more a factor for position players than it is for pitchers.

Thus position players are more valuable than pitchers.

So in reality, I should have said offense and defense are going to be the keys to 2011. Had we had better defense, our pitching may not have looked so bad and with a better offense, the run support would have been there to back up the mediocre pitching we did get.

The Orioles staff has given up the 4th most walks in the AL...and the most homers.

Not only have they given up the most homers, they are THIRTY ahead of the second place team. That's insane.

They also strike out the 12 least amount of batters. As a staff, they only miss 13% of bats...2% below league average. If I did the math right, that means the Orioles staff has a chance to put 463 balls in play over the average team that throws the same amount of pitches thrown.

What do all of these numbers have in common? They have nothing to do with the defense.

Our pitching blows. Our defense blows. Our hitting is ok at best.

EVERYTHING needs help. You only want to do it one way and you are wrong...wrong..wrong...wrong.

[El Gordo]

From 2006 through 2011, we've ranked 13, 13, 13, 14, 13 and 13 (through 154 games) in AL ERA (average = 13.333...there are only 14 teams).

During that same time, we've ranked 10, 9, 8, 11, 13 and 7 in AL Runs scored (average = 9.67).

This tells us we stink at many things, but we are consistently the worst or nearly the worst pitching staff for 6 years now. I understand our 1Bs aren't very productive, but we have a whole team of moderately or less productive players. Truthfully, we should be looking to upgrade everywhere, but how can you look at those rankings and not have pitching as a top priority?

Agreed. We have a number of guys who are fine hitting 5-9 but very few if any who should be hitting 1-4. We need at least 2 bats; one to hit a legitimate 3-4 and the other to hit a legitimate #1. But we need at least 2 SP one a #1 and the other a #2.

[LookinUp]

From 2006 through 2011 (AL Only)

Year Wins ERA Runs Fld %

2006 12 13 10 10

2007 12 13 9 1

2008 13 13 8 10

2009 14 14 11 7

2010 13 13 13 7

2011 13 14 7 10

Please tell me which statistic is most correlated with wins.

[Sports Guy]

The Orioles staff has given up the 4th most walks in the AL...and the most homers.

Not only have they given up the most homers, they are THIRTY ahead of the second place team. That's insane.

They also strike out the 12 least amount of batters. As a staff, they only miss 13% of bats...2% below league average. If I did the math right, that means the Orioles staff has a chance to put 463 balls in play over the average team with the same amount of pitches thrown.

What do all of these numbers have in common? They have nothing to do with the defense.

Our pitching blows. Our defense blows. Our hitting is ok at best.

EVERYTHING needs help. You only want to do it one way and you are wrong...wrong..wrong...wrong.

Just some clarity on this...Obviously since our pitching sucks, our staff will throw more pitches.

According to BBR, the Yankees have thrown 21,985 pitches and have a swinging str% of 15%. The Orioles have thrown 23,172 pitches. That's almost 1200 pitches more.

If the Orioles pitchers had thrown the same number of pitches the Yankees had, there would be a chance of about 440 more balls being put in play.

[Frobby]

In terms of the causal connection between bad pitching and losing, just a reminder that the O's are 1-62 when allowing 6 runs or more. Allowing 6 runs or more in 63 games is awful, and that's not the half of it:

6 runs - 19 games

7 runs - 7 games

8 runs - 15 games

9 runs - 7 games

10 runs - 3 games

11 runs - 2 games

13 runs - 5 games

15 runs - 2 games

17 runs - 2 games

18 runs - 1 game

I just don't see how anyone could look at those numbers and not conclude that pitching is by far the biggest problem we have.

[Orioles_Magic]

In terms of the causal connection between bad pitching and losing, just a reminder that the O's are 1-62 when allowing 6 runs or more. Allowing 6 runs or more in 63 games is awful, and that's not the half of it:

6 runs - 19 games

7 runs - 7 games

8 runs - 15 games

9 runs - 7 games

10 runs - 3 games

11 runs - 2 games

13 runs - 5 games

15 runs - 2 games

17 runs - 2 games

18 runs - 1 game

I just don't see how anyone could look at those numbers and not conclude that pitching is by far the biggest problem we have.

So that means we've allowed 6+ runs in 40.9% of our games this year. And we've won 1.6% of those games.

We've allowed 5 or less in 91 games and are 63-28 when doing so.

Contrast that to Tampa Bay, who has six less runs scored than we do. But has only allowed 6+ runs in 36 games. Or 23.5% of its games. They're 21.5 games in front of us in the standings.