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

[DrungoHazewood]

They gave up 693 runs. While that was the most among playoff teams, they weren't exactly pitching poor. Agree with the rest though.

It's always about the pitching. Always. Just ask Earl.

It's always about outscoring the opposition. That's just a fact.

How you get there is all preference, or focusing on strengths, or exploiting what is likely to get you an advantage over the competition.

The Orioles are a resource-limited team fighting against two big-market powers and two other very smart teams. They need an advantage. That clearly isn't acquiring big ticket free agent hitters. That's like going up against the heavyweight champ being outweighed by 75 lbs. and trying to match him punch-for-punch. You're dead before the match starts.

And with the state of the O's farm system over the last 25 years the advantage isn't developing All Star caliber sluggers.

The O's focus on pitching because it's a plausible path to competing with much richer teams. A team with a strong, young, cheap five-man rotation and some depth can cut the opponent's scoring by as much as a $175M team of sluggers can outscore the opposition. IMO, building a strong foundation of pitching with a good-but-not-great offense is clearly the path of least resistance for the O's to get to the playoffs.

[TonySoprano]

Starting pitching before Showalter

T&S	GS	IP	ER	ERAArrieta	10	52 2/3	32	5.47Berges.	17	95    	70	6.63Guthrie	21	132    	62	4.23Hendr.	1	5    	3	5.40Hernan.	8	42 1/3	25	5.31Matusz	21	113 2/3	69	5.46Millwd	21	125    	84	6.05Tillman	6	25    	22	7.92Vande.	0	0    	0	0.00TOTL	105	590 2/3	367	5.59

[Sanfran327]

They gave up 693 runs. While that was the most among playoff teams, they weren't exactly pitching poor. Agree with the rest though.

It's always about the pitching. Always. Just ask Earl.

It's definitely all about the pitching.

Fun fact: Sabathia, Hughes, and Rivera accounted for 474 innings last year, or 33% of their total innings for the season. Just sayin'.

[Frobby]

Going back to Andy MacPhail's statement in the opening post, I think what he's saying is that there is more variation in the range of likely possible outcomes for the pitchers than for the hitters. I agree with that. While injuries or unexpected good or bad performance can affect how our offense does in 2011, for the most part it is a veteran group that can be relied upon, I think, to be somewhere from slightly above average to slightly below average (despite last year's dismal results with a significantly different lineup). The outcome with the pitching is far less certain. The volatility we saw between the first two months, the middle two months, and the last two months shows that there is a very wide range of possible outcomes for the pitchers. Therefore, as Andy said, "the most important factor is going to be the continued health and maturation of our young arms."

[Hank Scorpio]

"This Thread" Part CXLIII

[DuffMan]

I think there's a reason we have been referring to the young pitching as The Calvary...

[bird watcher]

I visit other online forums and never in my life have I seen a poster with such an agenda get so much attention by way of reply and reputation as JTrea. I have read countless, lesser known posters who have replied on threads with coherent non-agenda laden thoughtful words, that were completely ignored by the board. It is very sad that these posts get this kind of play.

J,

I would suggest you run for politics. In the face of facts that constantly point to you being overmatched logically, you have no problem being persistent. Hats off to you.

[Moose Milligan]

It's always about the pitching. Always. Just ask Earl.

Or the Giants. Or the Phillies and why they added Cliff Lee to an already ridiculous rotation.

But yeah, pitching doesn't matter until you get to the playoffs.

[Mad Mark]

It's always about outscoring the opposition. That's just a fact.

How you get there is all preference, or focusing on strengths, or exploiting what is likely to get you an advantage over the competition.

The Orioles are a resource-limited team fighting against two big-market powers and two other very smart teams. They need an advantage. That clearly isn't acquiring big ticket free agent hitters. That's like going up against the heavyweight champ being outweighed by 75 lbs. and trying to match him punch-for-punch. You're dead before the match starts.

And with the state of the O's farm system over the last 25 years the advantage isn't developing All Star caliber sluggers.

The O's focus on pitching because it's a plausible path to competing with much richer teams. A team with a strong, young, cheap five-man rotation and some depth can cut the opponent's scoring by as much as a $175M team of sluggers can outscore the opposition. IMO, building a strong foundation of pitching with a good-but-not-great offense is clearly the path of least resistance for the O's to get to the playoffs.

Thank you for this. For small to mid market teams, it all comes back to my version of the Moneyball principle: what is the path of least resistance to becoming a quality team? Mike Flanagan and Andy MacPhail arrived at the same conclusion: quality young arms, and lots of 'em.

[statman]

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.

So our pitching improved by leaps and bounds under Buck, and our offense stayed the same...and we had the best record in the AL East through two months. That seems like a pretty good argument AGAINST the offense's importance to me.

[Sports Guy]

The word you are looking for is balance.

[ShaneDawg85]

The Orioles were failures across the board last season, in both areas:

Runs Scored: 13th

ERA: 13th

Therefore, offense AND pitching is going to be the key in 2011.

[JTrea81]

Can we agree that both offense AND pitching are the keys to winning? You need both.

You do, but the Orioles can be a .500+ team with the pitching they got in April and May instead of having to have the pitching they got in August and September.

We've already shown we have the pitching to have some success.

However, we haven't shown that we have the offense to back them up.

[Sports Guy]

You do, but the Orioles can be a .500+ team with the pitching they got in April and May instead of having to have the pitching they got in August and September.

We've already shown we have the pitching to have some success.

However, we haven't shown that we have the offense to back them up.

I do agree with you that for us to be a 500ish team, we need more improvement from the offense than we do from pitching.

HOWEVER, to be a contender, the pitching has to improve as much, if not more, than the offense...of course, the defense also needs to vastly improve but that is tied into the pitching.

[Frobby]

You do, but the Orioles can be a .500+ team with the pitching they got in April and May instead of having to have the pitching they got in August and September.

We've already shown we have the pitching to have some success.

However, we haven't shown that we have the offense to back them up.

The pitching the O's had in April and May wasn't good at all.

April - 12th of 14

May - 12th of 14

You can't expect to have a winning team with the third-worst pitching staff.

The offense hasn't "shown" anything because they haven't played a game yet. We've upgraded three positions very significantly, and if Roberts is healthy that's a huge upgrade as well. I'm very, very confident we will score significantly more runs than last year. I'm less certain as to how much improvement the pitching will show.