Looking at the Big Picture

[srock]

Plus he didn't deal any prospects.

Given his restraints, he probably couldn't have done a better job than he did.

At his point I will it be surprised if he isn't done.

What a turn around in perception.

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[scOtt]

I think Duq has more or less pulled it off. I can't say with any certainty that we'll make the playoffs, but our chances have improved this offseason. Meanwhile, he hasn't badly hamstrung the team in the longer run. We still have the expiring contracts to deal with over the next two years, and we'll have to see how that goes.

I think one big thing that all these signings do is free up a LOT of parts to be traded. I could see DD getting some decent MiL parts between now and Opening Day. Take the excess and fill the minors.

[Bahama O's Fan]

I am thinking/hoping that with the Cruz signing, we will be scoring more runs than last year. This should mean less pressure on our starters and less save opportunies for whoever our closer is. We shall see, but hopefully.

[srock]

I think one big thing that all these signings do is free up a LOT of parts to be traded. I could see DD getting some decent MiL parts between now and Opening Day. Take the excess and fill the minors.

Agree but I hope dd is judicious about trading pitchers. The staff isn't that deep, we will need Britton at some point. He should be better then Freddy Garcia provided. Hopefully.

However, option crunch will force a move of some kind.

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[JayThomas]

Agree but I hope dd is judicious about trading pitchers. The staff isn't that deep, we will need Britton at some point. He should be better then Freddy Garcia provided. Hopefully.

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We have McFarland down there for LH starter emergencies. We definitely have enough pitchers to move some - especially if guys like De La Cruz are really impressive and show something filling in for Patton.

[srock]

We have relievers to trade not starters.

We need 8 capable starters at the beginning.

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[scOtt]

Agree but I hope dd is judicious about trading pitchers. The staff isn't that deep, we will need Britton at some point. He should be better then Freddy Garcia provided. Hopefully.

However, option crunch will force a move of some kind.

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Agree on being judicious trading pitchers... I EXPECT that from DD. But we have so much excess, at 2B/UTIF, LF, extra middling arms, guys with no options that other teams can fit in. Granted their all worth is less BECAUSE they have no options... but I could see DD making 3 or 4 deals for minor league parts. MiLers with options.

[Frobby]

I've been trying to step back this fall and look at the Big Picture when it comes to the Orioles. Overall, I'm a little nervous about what I see.

The good:

Overall, we have a very nice core of position players. Our group ranked 5th in MLB in fWAR at 26.6. The team finished 4th in the AL in runs, and made the fewest errors in major league history, finishing second in the AL in UZR. Six players were nominated for Gold Gloves, three of whom won, including the Platinum Glove winner. We had three players win the Silver Slugger. Three players started the All Star Game, and a fourth made it as a reserve. We had the HR and RBI champ. The everyday lineup is good enough to be a playoff team now, when you consider offense and defense combined.

We have built an excellent team culture. These guys have each others' backs, they work hard, and they're hard nosed. They play great defense every night and make few mental errors. It's a very easy team to root for.

We have an above average group of pitching prospects. Bundy/Gausman/Harvey/EdRod is a very nice top four, and Davies/Wright/Berry are a pretty nice second tier.

The bad:

Our present major league pitching staff is not playoff caliber, in fact, it's below average. We don't have a true ace, and everyone is pitching "up" one slot at least.

The talent we have in the minors is not ready to help. As I look back on 2013, the biggest tragedy was that Bundy needed to have TJ surgery instead of completing his minor league apprenticeship. Yes, there's a good chance he bounces back to be as good as we hoped, but he's not going to impact the major league team until 2015 at the earliest. Gausman was rushed a bit last year and needs another half-year in the minors at least IMO, and the others are further away than that.

Meanwhile, our offensive core is not that young (except Machado), and not under contract for that long. Hardy and Markakis could be gone in a year, and Davis and Wieters could be gone in two. If we are able to keep them, they'll be expensive and in their 30's. We may be precluded from keeping them and acquiring significant supplemental talent. (In Markakis' case, it's not clear he will be worth keeping at any price; it depends whether he bounces back to form in 2014, and even then, he'd need to take a significant pay cut.)

We have very little offensive talent in the minors. Schoop is the only player likely to make an impact in the next two years, and he is not ready and seems to have some holes in his offensive game.

So how good is this team for 2014-15, and where does that leave us?

We won 85 games last year, and to me, that's exactly what we were and figure to be if changes aren't made. I think our pitching could be a little better in 2014 if we resigned Feldman (after all, our ERA dropped from 4.39 to 3.93 in the second half). Our bullpen could get better results and we could have a better record in one-run games. So, there's a 90ish win upside if we leave the team "as is," but there's also an 80ish win downside if the team experiences injuries to one or two of its six core offensive players, none of whom had a single DL stint in 2013.

For me, "stay the course" makes little sense, unless we are trying to mimic the 2006-10 Toronto Blue Jays, who won 87, 83, 86, 75 and 85 games. Yet, the alternative courses are also dangerous. The free agent market is pretty mediocre, and the guys who clearly would help us will be very expensive and cost a draft pick. Even the guys who won't cost picks figure to be expensive with the new TV money that teams have available to spend. Shopping Hardy, as has been suggested, is not a bad idea, but it carries its own risks, as the infield defense is the strength of this team and it's unlikely that the combo of Machado at SS and whoever at 3B is going to be as good as Hardy/Machado have been. So, Hardy would have to bring back someone who very clearly would improve the pitching for a trade to make any sense.

Overall, I don't envy Dan Duquette. He's got his work cut out for him over the next two years, with a "pretty good" team that has a relatively short window in which to win, and very little help coming from the minor leagues in the foreseeable future. He's going to have to be both smart and lucky to put this team back in the playoffs while at the same time positioning the team to remain contenders in the longer run.

Bump...I thought this thread would be interesting to revisit considering our position in the standings. The OP was before the free agency period had begun, so we hadn't signed Cruz, Jimenez and others. Although the post was more about the long term than the short term, it did discuss the current team and the prospects for 2014. My observations are as follows:

1. The acquisition of Cruz turned out to be very important, and he wasn't that expensive, though he did cost us a pick. Our offense is a tick behind last year's, but would be way behind if we hadn't acquired Cruz. Needless to say, Young and Pearce have been important as well.

2. I underestimated the pitching staff, including how soon Gausman would be ready to help, but just how the staff has been in general. Jimenez was expensive and cost us a pick, and hasn't helped us as much as hoped, though I'd argue he protected us from having to use a lot of non-Gausman AAA fodder when other guys needed to miss a few starts, and also gave us the luxury of letting Gausman develop in the minors for 10 weeks or so.

3. The team does have a better bullpen and a better record in one-run games, as I'd hoped.

4. I was right that Schoop is not really ready for the majors offensively, yet he has still made some contributions and is better defensively than I thought.

5. We did have injuries to some of our core hitters, as I feared, but the pitching staff has been remarkably healthy.

Longer term, I still think Dan Duquette has huge challenges ahead. Big decisions with Markakis, Hardy, Davis, Wieters, Chen, Norris and others in the next two offseasons, and not a huge flow of high-end minor league talent to the majors. But he sure did the job for 2014, in hindsight.

[Aristotelian]

Cruz was huge but somewhat offset by Davis's regression. We are leading the league in HR but we did that last year too. I would say overall our offense has been about the same as last year although Cruz has been a big part of preventing it from regressing.

I would say the big factors are:

1. With the exception of Jimenez, all of the starting pitchers (not just Gausman) have performed at the high end of what seemed like realistic projections. Whether they are just pitching better or Joseph's catching, or improved overall defense (Schoop?), their numbers are incrementally better across the board. We are now sitting at 3.90 ERA vs 4.57 last year. That's half a run better per game = 109 runs over the season = about 11 wins. That is most of the difference right there.

2. The emergence of Zach Britton as closer. I liked the JJ trade but anticipated our bullpen taking a hit. Actually we have gotten way better.

3. Jimenez has not performed to expectations but still better than Hammel/Freddy Garcia

[waroriole]

It's all about the pitching. Always is.

[Frobby]

Thanks. I loved re-reading this thread.

You're welcome! Here's a few posts I liked from the thread.

By the way, I thought the Sox were nuts to offer Victorino 3/$39 mm. It paid off pretty well in 2013; we'll see about the next two years. I'm astounded that the Mariners made a QO to Morales, and equally astounded that he didn't take it. Drew is a little less surprising to me.

[in response to weams' comment that he only wanted to go forward, not backwards:] Ever hear of the expression "take one step back to take two steps forward"? Sometimes taking a step back will get you to where you ultimately want to go faster than just trying to stay where you are or take one step forward at a time. If your goal is to field an 80-88 win team over the next two years and then have a bunch of holes in to fill in 2016, that's one strategy.

An 80 to 88 win team can get luck a couple times and win 95 games.

Hmmm, prescient? Dave Cameron seems to think so!

[Il BuonO]

It's all about the pitching. Always is.

Well, I agree with you there. Especially at PO time.

As long as those pitchers aren't taking the regular season awards from the guys who play everyday.

[Frobby]

I've been trying to step back this fall and look at the Big Picture when it comes to the Orioles. Overall, I'm a little nervous about what I see.

The good:

Overall, we have a very nice core of position players. Our group ranked 5th in MLB in fWAR at 26.6. The team finished 4th in the AL in runs, and made the fewest errors in major league history, finishing second in the AL in UZR. Six players were nominated for Gold Gloves, three of whom won, including the Platinum Glove winner. We had three players win the Silver Slugger. Three players started the All Star Game, and a fourth made it as a reserve. We had the HR and RBI champ. The everyday lineup is good enough to be a playoff team nowU, when you consider offense and defense combined.

We have built an excellent team culture. These guys have each others' backs, they work hard, and they're hard nosed. They play great defense every night and make few mental errors. It's a very easy team to root for.

We have an above average group of pitching prospects. Bundy/Gausman/Harvey/EdRod is a very nice top four, and Davies/Wright/Berry are a pretty nice second tier.

The bad:

Our present major league pitching staff is not playoff caliber, in fact, it's below average. We don't have a true ace, and everyone is pitching "up" one slot at least.

The talent we have in the minors is not ready to help. As I look back on 2013, the biggest tragedy was that Bundy needed to have TJ surgery instead of completing his minor league apprenticeship. Yes, there's a good chance he bounces back to be as good as we hoped, but he's not going to impact the major league team until 2015 at the earliest. Gausman was rushed a bit last year and needs another half-year in the minors at least IMO, and the others are further away than that.

Meanwhile, our offensive core is not that young (except Machado), and not under contract for that long. Hardy and Markakis could be gone in a year, and Davis and Wieters could be gone in two. If we are able to keep them, they'll be expensive and in their 30's. We may be precluded from keeping them and acquiring significant supplemental talent. (In Markakis' case, it's not clear he will be worth keeping at any price; it depends whether he bounces back to form in 2014, and even then, he'd need to take a significant pay cut.)

We have very little offensive talent in the minors. Schoop is the only player likely to make an impact in the next two years, and he is not ready and seems to have some holes in his offensive game.

So how good is this team for 2014-15, and where does that leave us?

We won 85 games last year, and to me, that's exactly what we were and figure to be if changes aren't made. I think our pitching could be a little better in 2014 if we resigned Feldman (after all, our ERA dropped from 4.39 to 3.93 in the second half). Our bullpen could get better results and we could have a better record in one-run games. So, there's a 90ish win upside if we leave the team "as is," but there's also an 80ish win downside if the team experiences injuries to one or two of its six core offensive players, none of whom had a single DL stint in 2013.

For me, "stay the course" makes little sense, unless we are trying to mimic the 2006-10 Toronto Blue Jays, who won 87, 83, 86, 75 and 85 games. Yet, the alternative courses are also dangerous. The free agent market is pretty mediocre, and the guys who clearly would help us will be very expensive and cost a draft pick. Even the guys who won't cost picks figure to be expensive with the new TV money that teams have available to spend. Shopping Hardy, as has been suggested, is not a bad idea, but it carries its own risks, as the infield defense is the strength of this team and it's unlikely that the combo of Machado at SS and whoever at 3B is going to be as good as Hardy/Machado have been. So, Hardy would have to bring back someone who very clearly would improve the pitching for a trade to make any sense.

Overall, I don't envy Dan Duquette. He's got his work cut out for him over the next two years, with a "pretty good" team that has a relatively short window in which to win, and very little help coming from the minor leagues in the foreseeable future. He's going to have to be both smart and lucky to put this team back in the playoffs while at the same time positioning the team to remain contenders in the longer run.

Another bump to this thread from last offseason. Bottom line, I misjudged the potential of our starting rotation. That's why we're a much better team than I thought. I still don't envy Dan Duquette's job in the upcoming offseason, but he's done himself proud in 2014.

[wildcard]

The one additional element that needs to be factored in is the hiring for Dave Wallace and Dom Chiti and what it has meant to the development of the pitching staff and what it will mean to the future of the pitching staff. The O's pitching in 2014 is third in the AL in ERA and the top two ERA teams play in larger parks. As such the O's have one of the best pitching staffing in the AL and all pitchers on the staff are under the O's control for 2015 with the exception of Andrew Miller. This bode well for the O's future.

After the 2015 season Chen and Norris are eligible for free agency leaving the O's with four starters. However, Bundy is expected to be in the rotation by that time. Davies, Wright, Wilson, Harvey and Tim Berry are all starters in development. So starting depth in likely to be in place for the future.

The 2014 season under Wallace and Chiti has changed the O's future direction to a pitching and defense first team with enough hitting for accomplish winning seasons.

Dan Duquette has proven to an opportunistic VP of Baseball Operations who has developed a network of scouts that bring talent in the O's in many forms. The results have been outstanding and there is no reason to believe that this will not continue in the future. The combination to the scouting staff that Dan built and the teaching coaching staff that Buck has built allows the O's organization to find and development a flow of major league talent. This is a major change for the past.

[hoosiers]

This has been a crazy year - not just winning the division, but winning it by a very large margin with substantial contributions from players like Pearce and Britton.

Our FO should get due credit for winning this division, though the division has proven to be significantly weaker than expected (due to injuries of which the Os suffered a few) and our FO moves have been rather extreme in terms of success (Cruz, Pearce) and failure (2B, Ubaldo) and breakeven/positive (Norris) and lucky (Britton, Pearce, Joseph, Balfour). The cost of the major acquisitions (Ubaldo, Cruz, Miller and Norris) has been quite high (three top 60 draft picks, two possible BA top 100 prospects and Jake Arrieta - dealt for Feldman).

I spent a large portion of last offseason advocating dealing quality veterans mostly in an effort to re-load for 2015 and 2016, but this team (and/or the overall talent base overall) would have been significantly better if Hardy, Wieters and Davis had been dealt for appropriate prospects - as advocated - though I clearly did not realize that Joseph would be a capable everyday MLBer. Hardy's production would have been difficult to replace, but the overall impact of the "veteran 3" would not have been IMO. The Os could have landed several very important pieces which might have helped this season and provided for a brighter future. The Davis for Rendon sample trade from Stotle would have been unbelievably positive, but it was of course a hypothetical.

Credit is due to our FO for having more pitching depth than most teams (thought I would not have done what they did) and for putting a their best team on the field in case things played out our favor (both in terms of the quality of our team and the way the year developed in the AL East). Our GM not only found a very valuable piece in Pearce, but his machinations at the bottom of the roster and the bottom of the rotation eliminated all the WAR drag that hits almost all MLB teams. I am not sure if this is luck or if it is repeatable, but the impact has been profound.

Nice thread. Nice to review it. Nice to review it in the context of a team walking away with its division.