O's Sign Endy Chavez

[Nigel Tufnel]

I keep thinking that the O's just signed a left-handed version of Jay Payton. Chavez's defense is at least better than Payton's was, right?

[PaulFolk]

I keep thinking that the O's just signed a left-handed version of Jay Payton. Chavez's defense is at least better than Payton's was, right?

It has to be. I also assume Chavez isn't the malcontent Payton was.

[mikegallo]

No Frobby its defense followed by pitching. Our defense was last in the league our pitching was 24th

[mikegallo]

I agree it's important, but pitching is our ticket back to the playoffs. It doesn't matter if your baseball team if full of Brooks Robinsons and Willie Mays...(es?), if you're consistently in the bottom of the league in pitching, you aren't going anywhere.

But thats the thing thoses guys make your pitching. They turn your guys like Jim Palmer from a good solid pitcher into a hall of fame guy defense is what made our pitching in our heyday so great. Just look at Jeremy Hellickson versus Zach Britton last year.

[Skeletor]

So this will be Reimold's 4th year with major league playing time and we are still "wondering what we got"?

[DrungoHazewood]

Chavez will make for an interesting UZR datapoint. Besides a couple of outlier/SSS seasons he's always had a positive UZR. Mostly very positive. He is obviously getting older, but if he comes to OPACY and plays a decent number of innings and has a negative UZR it'll help the cause of those who say UZR doesn't account for OPACY well.

[DrungoHazewood]

So this will be Reimold's 4th year with major league playing time and we are still "wondering what we got"?

It would be nice if everyone came up at 23, progressed in a linear fashion towards their age-27 peak, then declined in a similarly predictable way. But sometimes life is messier than that.

[mikegallo]

Chavez will make for an interesting UZR datapoint. Besides a couple of outlier/SSS seasons he's always had a positive UZR. Mostly very positive. He is obviously getting older, but if he comes to OPACY and plays a decent number of innings and has a negative UZR it'll help the cause of those who say UZR doesn't account for OPACY well.

Yeah I was thinking the same thing myself. Although I think whats likely to happen is with only one year of data defensive fluctuations will make it hard to tell. My gut tells me OPACY proably does hamper outfield UZR but not enough to compenstate for Jones and Nicky to be even average fielders.

[lanslaxcj]

I like him better than Luke Scott.

[atomic]

I agree it's important, but pitching is our ticket back to the playoffs. It doesn't matter if your baseball team if full of Brooks Robinsons and Willie Mays...(es?), if you're consistently in the bottom of the league in pitching, you aren't going anywhere.

Good pitching starts with good defense. Do you think we would have all those 20 game winners without brooks at third and belanger at shortstop. They took outs away our current team gives extra out to the opposing team.

[Frobby]

I keep thinking that the O's just signed a left-handed version of Jay Payton. Chavez's defense is at least better than Payton's was, right?

It has to be. I also assume Chavez isn't the malcontent Payton was.

Payton was a pretty good defender, though his arm was awful. He also cost us $9 mm over two years, and didn't produce at the plate. Endy is costing a fraction of that.

[Frobby]

No Frobby its defense followed by pitching. Our defense was last in the league our pitching was 24th

Good pitching starts with good defense. Do you think we would have all those 20 game winners without brooks at third and belanger at shortstop. They took outs away our current team gives extra out to the opposing team.

Pitching and defense have a symbiotic relationship. Better pitching helps the defense be on its toes; better defense allows the pitchers to be more confident. But by what measure are you asserting that our pitching was 24th? xFIP? Forget it! That is a hypothetical construct that does not account for where balls are hit or how hard they were hit. There was a study recently published in BP that showed BABIP (which feeds xFIP) is directly correlated to how hard balls are hit coming off the bat (which is not accounted for in xFIP). Defensive stats don't account for this yet, and it is a gaping flaw in current measurements.

[mikegallo]

Pitching and defense have a symbiotic relationship. Better pitching helps the defense be on its toes; better defense allows the pitchers to be more confident. But by what measure are you asserting that our pitching was 24th? xFIP? Forget it! That is a hypothetical construct that does not account for where balls are hit or how hard they were hit. There was a study recently published in BP that showed BABIP (which feeds xFIP) is directly correlated to how hard balls are hit coming off the bat (which is not accounted for in xFIP). Defensive stats don't account for this yet, and it is a gaping flaw in current measurements.

Yeah that makes sense that balls in play would correlate to how hard balls are hit haha. But to say that our pitching would have still been last in the league with a much better defense is not reality. I would bet money that the huge difference between our ERA and FIP or xFIP is because of our historically bad defense. Now the exact performance of our staff with a league average defense can be debated but the current trend of the smartest teams in baseball should tell you something about the signficant impact defense has on a pitching staff.

[NCRaven]

Payton was a pretty good defender, though his arm was awful. He also cost us $9 mm over two years, and didn't produce at the plate. Endy is costing a fraction of that.

The bolded portion is key, as FRobby points out. At 1 year and $1.5 mil (assuming he doesn't hit or play much and fails to achieve his $500k in incentives) Chavez won't provide nearly the disruption that Payton did. Additionally, he seems content, at this point in his career to fill a utility role. None of Teagarden/C, Chavez/LH'd/LF/CF/RF, Antonelli/2B/3B, or Flaherty/LH'd INF are game changers. But, they do give us the best, most flexible bench that we've had in some time. Especially since Davis and Reynolds are interchangeable at 1B and 3B.

This lineup can compete. But, if we don't add a top of the rotation starter, the bottom line this year will again depend on the development of young pitchers - Britton, Arrieta, Hunter, and Matusz (possibly Tillman, at some point).

[BaysoxFan39]

This was a likely although uninspiring move. Duquette did exactly what he said he was going to do. We have our left handed hitting fourth outfielder. I expect similar moves over the next two months. Nothing exciting. It looks like the O's are going with what they have plus one or two more pitchers for next year. I'm not too hopeful about Chen.

Looks like more of the same from the Orioles. Nothing to get excited about.