Can someone please explain what happened this season to the O's?

[sportsfan8703]

The Adley effect. Chris Holt. The defense. The bullpen. Mateo being a GG level SS is huge. 

[DrungoHazewood]

10 hours ago, Hallas said:

So statcast had the 3 year park effect last year at 105.  This year the 1 year park effect is 98.  What I'm not sure is what park adjusted stats are using the 1 year park effect.  Fangraphs WAR calculation does appear to be using it. I don't know about other stats like OPS+.

Also the 3 year park effect this year is 101, which is clearly wrong, so hopefully no one is using that.

Why is it wrong? It's the average of the last three years.  Yes, we know the dimensions changed.

Park effects are very noisy, they vary year-to-year by 5 or 10 points or sometimes more when there are no dimension changes at all. We talk a lot about the wall as though it's some massive, impenetrable barrier, but the one-year park effect is just 98.  In 2018 the one-year factor was 96 hitting/99 pitching and they didn't change anything. 2017 it was 96/97. 2014 it was 97/96.  Yes it's harder for RHH to hit homers now, but a 98 happened every few years with the old dimensions.  In the late 90s and early 2000s OPACY was regularly a moderate pitcher's park before that horrible hotel changed the prevailing winds. In 2001 the park factor was 94/95, that may have been the year they moved the plate back and rotated the field slightly.

[DrungoHazewood]

In 2021 DRS had the Orioles as a -30 defensive team.  This year it's +34 so far.  I think DRS may overstate defensive impact compared to OAA, but I think we safe in saying 3-6 wins of the improvement are due to better defense.

Despite the dimension changes to OPACY they're 8th in runs scored this year, were 14th last year. On pace to score about 30 more runs despite runs being down across the league by about a quarter run per game.

But by far the biggest difference is that they're on pace to allow almost 300 fewer runs.  Which has to be approaching a record. I don't know a good way of systematically searching for year-to-year improvements but that's almost two full runs a game.   Last year the Orioles had the 9th-worst ERA since 1900. Truly historically bad.  This year they have the 18th-worst (or 13th-best) ERA in MLB.  The only two post-WWII teams worse that the '21 Orioles were a pre-humidor Rockies team and the '96 Tigers. This year they're above average, at least before adjusting for context. Yea, some part of this (say, 30 runs) is due to league runs being down probably due to the increased use of the humidor.

Edited August 29, 2022 by DrungoHazewood

[Hallas]

57 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Why is it wrong? It's the average of the last three years.  Yes, we know the dimensions changed.

Park effects are very noisy, they vary year-to-year by 5 or 10 points or sometimes more when there are no dimension changes at all. We talk a lot about the wall as though it's some massive, impenetrable barrier, but the one-year park effect is just 98.  In 2018 the one-year factor was 96 hitting/99 pitching and they didn't change anything. 2017 it was 96/97. 2014 it was 97/96.  Yes it's harder for RHH to hit homers now, but a 98 happened every few years with the old dimensions.  In the late 90s and early 2000s OPACY was regularly a moderate pitcher's park before that horrible hotel changed the prevailing winds. In 2001 the park factor was 94/95, that may have been the year they moved the plate back and rotated the field slightly.

Well, I just checked B-R and Fangraphs, and neither of them are using the 3-year park factor to calculate OPS+ and wRC+.  They both appear to be using the 1 year park factor.  So that's one pretty good piece of evidence that they consider the park dimensions change to be big enough to warrant a special case.

 

In Fangraphs case they use 5 year rolling averages, and roll forward as more years are played in a venue.  This would seem to indicate that all park-adjusted stats from 2022-2026 are liable to change based on new information from park effects.  source: https://library.fangraphs.com/park-factors-5-year-regressed/

 

I understand that park effects are noisy - earlier in the year statcast had OPACY's 1 year effect at like 93 and ranked 28th in the league - and I think the biggest takeaway is that there is going to be a lot of uncertainty over the O's park adjusted performance.  I think that given the drastic change in pitching and the lack of park factor data, it's at least worth considering the possibility that the pitching is worse than they're being given credit for, and the offense is better.

Edited August 29, 2022 by Hallas

[Frobby]

I think every reason given in the OP is a contributing factor.   We’ll probably need to await 2023 to see which of these factors reflect a real improvement vs. a small sample size phenomenon.   

[Aristotelian]

Pitching has gone 1.1 WAR to 16.2 WAR, so plus 15. Biggest contributors have been bullpen (Bautista 2.9, Perez 2.3, Lopez 2.0, Tate 1.4) but the rotation has been much improved too (Kremer 2.0, Wells 1.7, Voth 1.6). 

Position players went from 7.6 to 18.0, or plus 10.4. Mullins and Hays have regressed slightly. Biggest improvements have been Mateo 2.9, Urias 2.7, Santander 2.0, plus of course Adley 3.8.

With another month to go we might expect to improve a couple more wins. That would still put us at about 80 and we are on pace for 85+. So either we underperformed our WAR last year or we are overperforming this year, maybe both. 

The 2019 team put up 11.9 WAR by position players and 4.6 WAR by pitchers, so WAR seems to think last year's team may have actually outperformed their WAR despite only 52 wins! 

[UMDTerrapins]

6 hours ago, Roll Tide said:

I think he’s better than the last pen guy or two. I seriously doubt he makes it to us.

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2022/08/red-sox-designate-hirokazu-sawamura-for-assignment.html

 

Yeah, I didn't know about his contract situation when I posted this. 

[Sports Guy]

The 2021 team was also not really a 51 win team.  

[kidrock]

13 hours ago, Bahama O's Fan said:

Oh, and the wall

It really does feel like a big uptick in defense plus the wall has gotten the team out of jams/innings much faster.  Thus, preventing the gassing of the bullpen.  All it takes is one out to prevent an awful inning/game.

Having Hays with his above average speed and strong arm in left fits pretty well. 

[kidrock]

13 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

But it's been odd that the effect of the wall hasn't been equal.  Is that sustainable?

 

 

Yes I know Elias has been accumulating left handed power to take advantage, it's still a thing.

 

Do you think that part of the reason is that they have the right defender in Left?  Hays seems to have good, though not elite range to go along with a pretty good arm.  Seems to me that's what you really want with the new left field dimensions.

[kidrock]

10 hours ago, Aristotelian said:

Pitching has gone from league worst to above average despite losing our top starter and not getting our top pitching prospect. The bullpen has been outstanding despite converting our 2021 closer into a starter and then trading our All Star closer for prospects. It really makes zero sense. I think Adley has helped. Maybe something Holt is doing but that is really hard to judge.

I actually think the offense has been pretty meh but the plus defense has helped the pitching. 

Who cares? Let's enjoy it. 

I am certainly enjoying it.  Just interested to figure out why.

[kidrock]

2 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

In 2021 DRS had the Orioles as a -30 defensive team.  This year it's +34 so far.  I think DRS may overstate defensive impact compared to OAA, but I think we safe in saying 3-6 wins of the improvement are due to better defense.

Despite the dimension changes to OPACY they're 8th in runs scored this year, were 14th last year. On pace to score about 30 more runs despite runs being down across the league by about a quarter run per game.

But by far the biggest difference is that they're on pace to allow almost 300 fewer runs.  Which has to be approaching a record. I don't know a good way of systematically searching for year-to-year improvements but that's almost two full runs a game.   Last year the Orioles had the 9th-worst ERA since 1900. Truly historically bad.  This year they have the 18th-worst (or 13th-best) ERA in MLB.  The only two post-WWII teams worse that the '21 Orioles were a pre-humidor Rockies team and the '96 Tigers. This year they're above average, at least before adjusting for context. Yea, some part of this (say, 30 runs) is due to league runs being down probably due to the increased use of the humidor.

Very helpful.  Great analysis.

Seems like even in many of the games they lose this year, they are fairly close games.  You have to go back to the Jays or Rays series to find a game that they were truly out of by the 7th or 8th inning.

[Frobby]

24 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

The 2021 team was also not really a 51 win team.  

Well, they did win 52, so you’re right.  And their Pythagorean record was 54-108, so arguably they underperformed by a couple of games.   

If you’re saying you thought they’d win more games than that, well so did I, but they didn’t, so in my mind they were what their record said they were.   
 

[Sports Guy]

2 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Well, they did win 52, so you’re right.  And their Pythagorean record was 54-108, so arguably they underperformed by a couple of games.   

If you’re saying you thought they’d win more games than that, well so did I, but they didn’t, so in my mind they were what their record said they were.   
 

Yea I just don’t care about that.  You could have played that season over and that team win 63 games.  Just like this team could win 65 games in a different season.

Yes they won 52 games and that’s what counts but I don’t think that was evidence of the talent of the team.  It was just evidence of how that collection of players played in 2021.

Also, health is huge.  Outside of Means, the ML team has been pretty healthy this year.  That is always part of a season and part of the luck factor.

[kidrock]

1 hour ago, Aristotelian said:

Pitching has gone 1.1 WAR to 16.2 WAR, so plus 15. Biggest contributors have been bullpen (Bautista 2.9, Perez 2.3, Lopez 2.0, Tate 1.4) but the rotation has been much improved too (Kremer 2.0, Wells 1.7, Voth 1.6). 

Position players went from 7.6 to 18.0, or plus 10.4. Mullins and Hays have regressed slightly. Biggest improvements have been Mateo 2.9, Urias 2.7, Santander 2.0, plus of course Adley 3.8.

With another month to go we might expect to improve a couple more wins. That would still put us at about 80 and we are on pace for 85+. So either we underperformed our WAR last year or we are overperforming this year, maybe both. 

The 2019 team put up 11.9 WAR by position players and 4.6 WAR by pitchers, so WAR seems to think last year's team may have actually outperformed their WAR despite only 52 wins! 

Definitely seems like there are a bunch of non-stars contributing heavily. The ones you named are great examples: Mateo, Urias, Santander, Voth, Bautista, Kremer.  The O's just seem like a collection of average to above average players with Adley being a clear MVP level (top 20) player.

It really makes you ask the question: how to do you add to this team to make it better, especially considering the fact that there are a few really solid prospects that are .5-2 years away AND the fact that pitching is so unreliable.