Roadmap to Contention 2020

[canonfaz]

The benching of Davis would be a good start to contention.

[VaBird1]

1 minute ago, canonfaz said:

The benching of Davis would be a good start to contention.

It is definitely the first step to trying to win any Major League Baseball  

game.

[ScGO's]

Not sure how accurate this is, and I know some of these guys are playing in foreign leagues, but there are couple Free Agents still out there potentially.  Says Andrew Cashner is still available. Any other names that seem intriguing for OF, SS, or SP that could provide depth for us if we are in contention?

 

https://www.mlb.com/news/2020-mlb-free-agents-by-position

[25 Nuggets]

Road Map to contention - through 16 ish games:

• Athletics 13-6 (.684)
• Yankees 12-6 (.667)
• Rays 11-8 (.579)
• Orioles 9-7 (.563)
• Tigers 9-7 (.563)
• White Sox 10-9 (.526)
• Indians 10-9 (.526)
• Rangers 8-9 (.471)
• Astros 8-10 (.444)
• Royals 8-11 (.421)
• Blue Jays 6-9 (.400)
• Angels 7-12 (.368)
• Mariners 7-13 (.350)
• Red Sox 6-12 (.333)

Remaining games (as of now?)

• 3 vs ATL
• 7 vs BOS
• 4 vs NYM
• 8 vs NYY
• 3 vs PHI
• 7 vs TB
• 10 vs TOR
• 4 vs WAS (1 partial w/ lead)

I believe .500 ball from here on will certainly get the Orioles into the playoffs.  Over half the teams in the AL will.  I thought Miami would be one of the few easy spots on the schedule but it ended up being crazy scheduling and the team went 0-4 against them.  Note they also lost both games against the Yankees during make up for the Marlins.  In games played as scheduled, the team is 9-1.

 

[MurphDogg]

What I find most interesting here is that the Orioles at 9-7 (possibly including their being heavy favorites in the suspended game against the Nats tomorrow) have MUCH better odds than the 8-4 Marlins (30.1 percent) and the 9-7 Tigers (13.0 percent).

[Can_of_corn]

I wonder if that includes their suspended game against the Nats?

[makoman]

9 hours ago, Bubble Buddy said:

And then I think there’s a difference with the guys acquired to supplement the core. Chris Davis, Jason Hammel, JJ Hardy, Tommy Hunter, DOD, McLouth and Mark Reynolds are different than what we have this year. None of those guys had been sent down to the minors or outright released. All of them had some level of a major league track record or minor league pedigree, and they were acquired in trades. 

Plus the core of Wieters, Machado, Jones, Markakis, Hardy, Jim Johnson, etc.

What was kind of crazy about that team to me was none of the “cavalry” had hit at that point. Hammel and Chen were huge. 
 

O’Day was a waiver claim. McLouth was signed after being released. Hardy was traded for Carlos Gomez then a year later we got him for Jim Hoey and Brett Jacobson. Davis was 25 when traded and probably where Stewart is now, on the verge of being a failed prospect. Tommy Hunter was nobody. Miguel Gonzalez came out of the Mexican league. Machado was a highly rated rookie who couldn’t even dominate AA. Jim Johnson was Mychal Givens without the strikeouts. Buck didn’t trust Tillman for the playoffs. I’ll grant you Jones, Markakis, and Wieters are more established than anything this year outside Iglesias, but these weren’t exactly the ‘27 Yankees. 

[Bubble Buddy]

3 hours ago, makoman said:

O’Day was a waiver claim. McLouth was signed after being released. Hardy was traded for Carlos Gomez then a year later we got him for Jim Hoey and Brett Jacobson. Davis was 25 when traded and probably where Stewart is now, on the verge of being a failed prospect. Tommy Hunter was nobody. Miguel Gonzalez came out of the Mexican league. Machado was a highly rated rookie who couldn’t even dominate AA. Jim Johnson was Mychal Givens without the strikeouts. Buck didn’t trust Tillman for the playoffs. I’ll grant you Jones, Markakis, and Wieters are more established than anything this year outside Iglesias, but these weren’t exactly the ‘27 Yankees. 

I mean that’s one way to look at it. I still think there’s a pretty stark difference between 2012 and today for the reasons I stated. And many of those guys we brought in had solid major league experience or track record, even if we were able to “buy low” at the time. Even Davis and Hunter had solid rookie years with Texas. 

[Il BuonO]

12 hours ago, canonfaz said:

The release of Davis would be a good start to contention.

Fixed

[BohKnowsBmore]

14 hours ago, Bubble Buddy said:

The difference with 2012 is that that team took years to build with top flight talent.

I wonder if there’s a precedent in baseball for having 5ish “scrap heap” players hit at once. I’m still expecting regression from Severino, Ruiz, Alberto, Santander, Sisco etc. Hell, even John Means was scrap heap. Castro, Sulser.

Whereas 2012’s core were pretty legitimate MLB talents.

 

 

 

I don’t think Sisco can be considered “scrap heap” under any realistic definition. 

[BohKnowsBmore]

6 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

I wonder if that includes their suspended game against the Nats?

Doubt it, would have to factor win prob for the game and adjust accordingly. Maybe the could brute force it into their model, but unlikely IMHO. 

[Filmstudy]

11 hours ago, MurphDogg said:

What I find most interesting here is that the Orioles at 9-7 (possibly including their being heavy favorites in the suspended game against the Nats tomorrow) have MUCH better odds than the 8-4 Marlins (30.1 percent) and the 9-7 Tigers (13.0 percent).

This is in stark contract to Fangraphs including the 8/13 win:

https://www.fangraphs.com/standings/playoff-odds

Where the Orioles are shown with a 16.0% chance to make the postseason, worst in the AL East.  Further fascinating is that Fangraphs estimates their probability of a WS win at 0.0%.  For that to be true (assuming rounding is handled normally), they would have to have less than a 1 in 320 shot of winning the WS if they make the playoffs.  In my estimation, the Fangraphs model is not granting credibility to 2020 play at a fast enough rate nor capturing the chance a team like the Orioles may make decisive moves to improve via trade, promotion of Mountcastle, AR, a pitcher, or just jettisoning some less productive players.

In the mean time, Why Not enjoy the underdog role, ponder the significance of each passing game, and party like it's 1989.

[Roll Tide]

15 hours ago, 25 Nuggets said:

Road Map to contention - through 16 ish games:

• Athletics 13-6 (.684)
• Yankees 12-6 (.667)
• Rays 11-8 (.579)
• Orioles 9-7 (.563)
• Tigers 9-7 (.563)
• White Sox 10-9 (.526)
• Indians 10-9 (.526)
• Rangers 8-9 (.471)
• Astros 8-10 (.444)
• Royals 8-11 (.421)
• Blue Jays 6-9 (.400)
• Angels 7-12 (.368)
• Mariners 7-13 (.350)
• Red Sox 6-12 (.333)

Remaining games (as of now?)

• 3 vs ATL
• 7 vs BOS
• 4 vs NYM
• 8 vs NYY
• 3 vs PHI
• 7 vs TB
• 10 vs TOR
• 4 vs WAS (1 partial w/ lead)

I believe .500 ball from here on will certainly get the Orioles into the playoffs.  Over half the teams in the AL will.  I thought Miami would be one of the few easy spots on the schedule but it ended up being crazy scheduling and the team went 0-4 against them.  Note they also lost both games against the Yankees during make up for the Marlins.  In games played as scheduled, the team is 9-1.

 

 

Quote

Baseball-Reference.com now projects the Orioles as a wild card team in the American League, a reversal that could cause whiplash. From worst to much closer to first.

 

[Ruzious]

On 8/12/2020 at 4:42 PM, Moose Milligan said:

No, this is Joe King.

 

[DrungoHazewood]

4 hours ago, Filmstudy said:

This is in stark contract to Fangraphs including the 8/13 win:

https://www.fangraphs.com/standings/playoff-odds

Where the Orioles are shown with a 16.0% chance to make the postseason, worst in the AL East.  Further fascinating is that Fangraphs estimates their probability of a WS win at 0.0%.  For that to be true (assuming rounding is handled normally), they would have to have less than a 1 in 320 shot of winning the WS if they make the playoffs.  In my estimation, the Fangraphs model is not granting credibility to 2020 play at a fast enough rate nor capturing the chance a team like the Orioles may make decisive moves to improve via trade, promotion of Mountcastle, AR, a pitcher, or just jettisoning some less productive players.

In the mean time, Why Not enjoy the underdog role, ponder the significance of each passing game, and party like it's 1989.

A true talent estimate of the Orioles in normal circumstances would be something like 50 wins.  Certainly no more than 60, since they won 54 last year and subtracted talent.

It's not terribly unlikely for a .325 team to go 10-7 at some point in the schedule.  Last year they had some periods of 15-ish games at .500, and at least one run of 7-3.  I think there's about a 25% chance of a .325 team going 10-7 in any 17 game stretch in a 162-game schedule.

I think they're going to need to be around .500 to sneak into the playoffs this year.  That means they're going to need to go 20-23 the rest of the way.  So we need to know the odds of a .325-ish team going 20-23 or better.  You can estimate that with a binomial probability calculation, and the odds of a .325 team winning 20 or more of 43 games is 3.8%.

But I'm guessing optimistic Oriole fans think the O's are not a .325 team, but in fact a .400 team or better.  To get a 50% chance of 20 or more wins you need to assume that they're now a .455 team, or the equivalent of a 74-win team in a 162-game schedule.  To me that seems a little wacky given last year's results and the current roster composition.  But I guess we'll see.

I agree that 0% odds of winning the Series seems wrong.  An average playoff team would have a 6.25% chance (1-in-16).  If you assume the Orioles are a .455 team playing .550 teams their odds wouldn't be good but they'd be better than 0%.  Using that same binomial distribution, a .400 team wins a 3-of-5 series something like 30% of the time, and a seven-game series just a bit less.  So winning three straight would be about (.3)^3, or about 3%.  So 50% chance of getting to a playoff where you win it all 3% of the time, so I'd peg the O's optimistic odds at a trophy at about 1.5%.