What do the starters really need to do for us to contend for a wild card spot?

[atomic]

Seems strange that we get predicted to do significantly worse than Rays.  What did they predict are record would be in 2014?

We can always pick up a starter during the season.   For us to get wild card Gasman have to pitch at least as well as last year and Tillman and Cashner are to earn some of their incentives plus the bullpen has to spectacular and our fifth starter had to be decent. 

[OFFNY]

21 minutes ago, atomic said:

 

It seems strange that we are getting predicted to do significantly worse than Rays. What did they predict are record would be in 2014?

We can always pick up a starter during the season. For us to get one of the two Wild-Card berths, Gasman have to pitch at least as well as last year, and Tillman and Cashner need to earn some of their incentives ...... plus, the bullpen has to spectacular and our fifth starter had to be decent. 

 

o

 

Good post, and I pretty much agree (although I would much rather not wait until the season starts to get that additional starter.)

 

Regarding the bullpen, last year's Orioles 'pen was the 3rd-most overworked in all of the Majors ....... only the Reds and the Blue Jays pitched more bullpen innings than did the Orioles in 2017, and both of those teams were as bad (the Blue Jays) or worse (the Reds) than were the Orioles overall. As Roy Firestone said several years back, IT ALL BEGINS WITH DECENT STARTING PITCHING. If you consistently have bad starting pitching over a long period of time, then it has a domino effect on the rest of the team, starting with putting more pressure and more of a workload on the  bullpen. It also puts more pressure on the offense when the starters regularly put them in a major hole early in the game. Considering how historically bad the 2017 Orioles starting pitching was (and subsequently how overworked the bullpen was), it's a minor miracle that the team was 71-68 more than 3 quarters of the way into the season. The 4-19 collapse over the final 23 games after the season was completely understandable ......... it was like a very shaky house trying its darndest to hang on throughout multiple storms over a 5-month period, only to finally cave in and meet its demise when brutalized one too many times.

 

o

[mdbdotcom]

First two road trips of the season are in Houston and NY (4 game weekend series in NY). The weekend after the NY series we play 4 in Boston. By April 15th we might have a pretty good idea of what the pitching (and hitting) need to do.

In addition to being Tax Day, April 15th is the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. Can we play iceberg to one of the big ships?

[sportsfan8703]

2016 level of starting should be fine, but our offense isn’t as good as that team. Just sign Lynn. That would set our pitching staff up so well. 

Lynn, Bundy, Gausman, Cashner, Tillman

Brach, Givens, O’day, Castro, Bleier, Wright, Ynoa

The bullpen is deep and versatile. Just only one lefty. Maybe Wright or Ynoa are DFA’d to keep one of Cortes/Mesa/Hart etc....  I don’t like the idea of DFA a guy that can start for a strictly reliever type. 

[Frobby]

12 hours ago, mdbdotcom said:

But there aren't better options who have proved themselves. If Davis and Trumbo produce as they did last year, it won't matter how good the pitching is. We simply won't score enough runs.

Davis had a terrible year in 2014, and we won the division.    Manny also missed half the year, and Wieters missed more than half.   You can never pin too much on 1-2 players.    Sure, it will help if they hit better.     Lots of things need to go better than last year.   

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

1 minute ago, Frobby said:

Davis had a terrible year in 2014, and we won the division.    Manny also missed half the year, and Wieters missed more than half.   You can never pin too much on 1-2 players.    Sure, it will help if they hit better.     Lots of things need to go better than last year.   

Offense has gone up since 2014, and I don't see the Orioles pitching staff replicating 2014 statistics.  Offense and pitching both have to improve for Orioles to have a legit chance at a Wildcard spot.  

[Aristotelian]

If Gausman puts up 4 WAR like he did in 2016, and Bundy matches his, we could be OK. I would expect Cashner to be fine. Even if Tillman stinks, he will be on a short leash and we should be able to replace him with a replacement level guy without hesitation. All of that could add up to improvement over Miley-Ubaldo-2017 Tillman, possibly more than just incremental improvement.

I'm not sure that will be enough to compensate for the loss of Britton and our obvious weaknesses on offense and defense.

Basically, we need to have a bunch of guys put up career years, but there's a chance.

[Frobby]

4 hours ago, sportsfan8703 said:

2016 level of starting should be fine, but our offense isn’t as good as that team. 

It’s hard to say.   Could be a little better, could be a little worse.   I guess we don’t expect Trumbo to replicate 2016, and we don’t know if Davis can get back to his 2016 level (which wasn’t anything great, but better than 2017).    But, Schoop’s probably a better hitter now, Mancini’s better than the LF’s we had then.     It could go either way IMO.

[Grt 2BA FL Gator]

5 minutes ago, Frobby said:

It’s hard to say.   Could be a little better, could be a little worse.   I guess we don’t expect Trumbo to replicate 2016, and we don’t know if Davis can get back to his 2016 level (which wasn’t anything great, but better than 2017).    But, Schoop’s probably a better hitter now, Mancini’s better than the LF’s we had then.     It could go either way IMO.

And Manny and AJ playing in a contract year. Beckham over Hardy. I agree, could go either way. Feels like a toss up. 

[bpilktree]

11 hours ago, El Gordo said:

The rotation needs to combine for at least 65 QS, Then we have a shot at 85 + W with our pen. Say Bundy gets 19 and Gausman 16 then the botton three need to average 10 each. I think that's doable. Last year Bundy had 19 Gausman 15, and the guys who filled in at #5 combined for 14 QS. Problem was #3 and #4 combined for 13.

Yeah this is my feeling as well I don't look at ERA as much as how many games do they give us a chance to win.  Last season their was so many games where we were out of the game before the number 9 hitter on our team got an at bat.  It would be the 3rd inning and we are down 3 or 4 runs already and it felt like it was already a loss.  Then we had some other games the offense would job out early with a lead then before the 5th inning the starters we so bad we were down three or four runs again.  Offense give team the lead and starters would give it back and some the next at bat.

[Beef Supreme]

15 hours ago, 25 Nuggets said:

Well, the first thing you need to do is look in-division.  Here are the current projections courtesy of Fangraphs:

1. 94-68 Boston - 5.23 RS/G, 4.41 RA/G
2. 90-72 New York - 5.17 RS/G, 4.58 RA/G
3. 85-77 Toronto - 5.04 RS/G, 4.80 RA/G
4. 79-83 Tampa Bay - 4.31 RS/G, 4.41 RA/G
5. 73-89 Baltimore - 4.91 RS/G, 5.41 RA/G

They are projecting 19.0 WAR for the Orioles position players, which is 15th in the league.  Squarely in the middle.

They are projecting 7.9 WAR for the Orioles pitchers.  This is tied for 2nd worst in baseball with Detroit, only ahead of Chicago.  Chicago is surprising - they don't have either Giolito or Kopech having good rookie seasons, and they have a rotation ERA of 5.24.  But anyway...

If the Orioles position players are in fact middle-of-the-pack, then the pitching staff needs to be middle-of-the-pack minimum.  Here are the FanGraphs projections by role:

• 2018 Starts - 939.0 IP, 5.20 ERA, 6.9 K/9, 2.03 K/BB
• 2018 Relief - 519.0 IP, 4.47 ERA, 8.3 K/9, 2.31 K/BB

Compare to last year (from BB-Ref):

• 2017 Starts (45-69) - 846.0 IP, 5.70 ERA, 1.522 WHIP, 7.7 K/9, 2.07 K/BB
• 2017 Relief (30-18) - 595.0 IP, 3.93 ERA, 1.338 WHIP, 7.6 K/9, 2.22 K/BB

So the analytics actually show a substantial improvement in the rotation, though they're still bad.  They however also show a drop in bullpen performance.

So before talking about the rotation, we need the bullpen to put up another good season.  And that's without Britton to start.

Here's the breakdown of projections in the rotation then by rWAR.

• 2.4 Gausman
• 1.3 Bundy
• 0.7 Tillman
• 0.6 Cashner
• 0.3 Wright
• 0.2 Ynoa
• 0.1 Kelly
• 0.1 Harvey
• 0.1 Scott
• 0.0 Castro
• 0.0 Asher
• 0.0 Ramirez
• -0.1 Hess

They have Cortes notably in the bullpen.  Gausman is the ONLY pitcher they have with an ERA under five.

So, where the rotation needs to improve is obvious to me.  Bundy needs to do better than that.  He must replicate his modest success last year (4.24 ERA, 2.7 rWAR), or even improve on it.  Cashner needs to do better.  Four of the past five seasons he's been a 2-win pitcher.  Heck, he's not even ahead of Tillman on this list!

Finally, Tillman needs to rebound.  But even at 0.7 rWAR, that's a rebound.  The Orioles need either a big surprise from the AAAA guys... or one more good starting pitcher.

In conclusion, this long winded response is the same as my short one.

GET LANCE LYNN

Basing an opinion on a projection of Tampa being six games better than the Orioles this season is a fool's errand. Tampa is tanking the season and is angling for 100+ losses.

[Redskins Rick]

11 minutes ago, Beef Supreme said:

Basing an opinion on a projection of Tampa being six games better than the Orioles this season is a fool's errand. Tampa is tanking the season and is angling for 100+ losses.

Does Tilly bounce back? IMO I think its more likely he does.

Is Cortes/Mesa/Cashner better than Gallardo, Miley and Ubaldo? Wouldn't take too much to be an improvement.

Bundy and Gausman improve on last year's numbers.

Lots of question marks.

But, there is light at the end of the tunnel, and no reason to drink the kool-aid, yet.

[Babypowder]

15 minutes ago, Beef Supreme said:

Basing an opinion on a projection of Tampa being six games better than the Orioles this season is a fool's errand. Tampa is tanking the season and is angling for 100+ losses.

That projection does not reflect several of the tanking moves they have made recently.

[Beef Supreme]

Just now, Babypowder said:

That projection does not reflect several of the tanking moves they have made recently.

25Nuggets said it is the "current projection." I assumed that meant "current," not recent. But Tampa was the worst team in the division before the moves of the past week.

[Frobby]

2 minutes ago, Babypowder said:

That projection does not reflect several of the tanking moves they have made recently.

One thing you can say for Tampa: they’re decisive.