Law: Uehara not "best fit" for O's

[Lucky Jim]

I agree with JTrea on this one.

Leo and Chen were a horrible match.

I was happey when Leo came to Balt but, having watched the 2 of them in ATL, I was very worried about what it meant for Chen.

Leo did well with P's who fit the profile he believed in. Chen didn't.

Plus, when umps quit calling strikes for pitches low and 4 inches outside, it hurt the Leo philosophy in general.

I'm not saying that it had no effect. I'm saying that it's not the explanation for why Chen went from a mid-rotation 3.80 ERA to an ERA over 6.00.

The answer, rather than "Mazzone" would appear to be that he was neither a 3.80 guy or a 6.00 guy. (Though his FIP in 2005 was 4.9 and in 2006 over 6.)Instead, he was somewhere around a 5.00 guy with little room for error. As suggested by his lifetime FIP was 5.10.

[Frobby]

This statement of Law's I wonder about

"The signing also means Uehara has to face two of the best offenses in baseball, the Yankees' and Boston's, eight to 10 times;"

Are the Yankees really one of the best offenses in baseball????

Last year the Yankees were 7th in the AL in runs scored. They were an average AL offensive team. They scored exactly 7 runs more than the Os over the whole year. They were not a good offensive team last year, again they were an average offensive team.

They lost Giambi and Abreu off of that team, players who put up the 2nd and 3rd best OPSs for the 2008 Yankees.

They replaced them with Texiera and Swisher, overall about a wash.

Much of the rest of the lineup is getting old, Posada turns 38 this season,

Jeter, Matsui, and Damon are all 35 this season, and Arod turns 34. With aging players you can expect declining production and an increase in injuries. Jeter's OPS has dropped 60 to 70 points in each of the last two seasons. He has turned into a singles hitter with little power and few XBHs, what you would expect with aging.

Is this really going to be one of the best offensive teams in the AL? Probably not, it will probably be an average one again.

I worry about our pitchers having to face the Red Sox's lineup, but not necessarily the Yankees. The Yankees lineup is filled with big name players, but many of these guys are getting old and it is showing.

You make great points here. But, last year may just have been a down year. And every argument you make about the Yankees' offensive decline could be reversed to explain why Tampa's offense is just going to get better and better given the relative youth of that team. So on net the AL East remains a big challenge for Baltimore pitchers.

[ledzepp8]

Are they supposed to mention us when we're not doing anything?

Is it ridiculous that there is no article about the Colorado Rockies on ESPN's front page right now?

This ridiculous notion that ESPN or, even better, "the media" has a vendetta against Baltimore is hysterical.

Look I agree that the ESPN whining gets a little exaggerated on here and I don't think they have a vendetta against anyone. But I also don't think they shy away from picking on teams who's names don't rhyme with Yankees or Red Sox.

[Enjoy Terror]

Everyone had extremely low expectations for 2008: "The Lost Season". Just like this year we had "Jeremy Guthrie". Loewen was supposed to be promising in his return, Trachsel would hold down the fort and eat innings, Cabrera was the work horse, and Burres was... well Burres was Burres.

Loewen was terrible. He started 4 games and got injured for the rest of the year.

Cabrera was the work horse: until he got injured, spent time on the DL, took a couple MPH off his fast ball, and lead the league in walks and wild pitches.

Trachsel didn't eat innings; he was out by the 4th in most of his starts and we canned him.

Burres was Burres.

We tried Olson, Liz and Albers. Both Liz and Olson had 6.50+ ERAs at the end of the year.

Albers was amazing; until he blew out his shoulder in his third start.

We started Sarfate out of the pen; he was absolutely horrible.

We traded for Bass and Simon, and they were just bandaids.

And yet, after all that crap... we still didn't lose 100 games.

Uehara may not be a great pitcher. Hendrickson may be the same way. But it takes a lot of crap to go absolutely wrong to knock this team out. And last year, we didn't have much to look forward to in AAA either. This year we've got Albers, Patton, Berken, Bergesen, Hernandez, Waters, Burres, and maybe even Chris Tillman on the back burner in case things go terribly terribly wrong.

Basically, I think the O's are going to be okay next year, and probably better than 2008.

[jiminnj]

You make great points here. But, last year may just have been a down year. And every argument you make about the Yankees' offensive decline could be reversed to explain why Tampa's offense is just going to get better and better given the relative youth of that team. So on net the AL East remains a big challenge for Baltimore pitchers.

Frobby, I agree Tampa Bay is likely to get better, but I am just tired of people always talking about the great offensive team the Yankees are. They were a great offensive team back in 2005-6, but they weren't last year and I do not think they are likely to be this year.

Overall last year the AL east was not filled with a bunch teams that were offensive beasts. The Red Sox were beasts, 2nd in the league in runs, but the Yankees -7th, Os -8th, Rays - 9th, and Jays -11th just were not offensive jugernauts. The AL east was not that tough a division to pitch in last year. I am not sure it will be much different this year.

The central division was much more problematic for pitchers last year. Minn, Det, Chicago, and Clev all scored over 800 runs (the Red Sox scored 845) and were 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th in the league in runs scored for the season.

[carolinaoriole]

Do the guys at ESPN ever give up trashing us? Are we supposed to go into 2009 with no one at all?

Link - http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?entryID=3816434&name=law_keith

The only that espn is good at is broadcasting games.

Where do they find these guys.

They are always wrong about everything.

[TCAlumni9700]

Anybody who sees this article as "trashing the O's" is paranoid. Everything Law says about the HR tendencies of Uehara and OPACY is fair comment. My only nitpick is that his comment that Uehera will have to face strong lineups so many times would be true of any pitcher we signed.

At least most of the HRs he allows should be solos. In DCab's case, he didn't allow HRs that often over the course of his career (88 HR in 5 years), but 49% of them came with runners on base and 23% of them were either 3-run jacks or grand slams. By contrast, Jeremy Guthrie is fairly HR prone (52 in 2+ major league seasons), but only 31% have come with runners on base and only 8% have been three run HRs or grand slams.

I'm not paranoid Frobby, I get sick of those idiots in Bristol never saying anything but negative **** about us.

They say we should have never even put an offer out for Teixeira, then put us under the losers bracket (and the winners too).

It just gets annoying when all you hear is Sox and Yanks, blah blah blah, Cardinals and Cubs and Dodgers, blah blah blah.

We know our team sucks. We've known for almost 10 excruciating years now. But when our FO actually signs a decent pitcher, our first Asian signing at that, either say something nice or don't say anything at all. Didn't their mothers teach them any manners???

[Osfan13]

Law isn't out of line here. Uehara is a finesse guy, not a power pitcher and has been nipped by the long ball in Japan. Camden is probably a smaller park compared to most Japanese parks (although I'm not certain about that) and he will be facing much tougher line-ups (I AM sure about that).

Bruce Chen had a long ball problem and he managed to lead our starters in ERA one year, a 3.83 or something like that before he bombed.

http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/C/bruce-chen.shtml

Bruce Chen's 2005 season would be a god-send to this staff. If Uehara can replicate something like that, he would be a good investment.

Note: I compare Chen and Uehara because both of them are finesse pitchers who induce alot of fly balls and needed to hit their spots to survive. Both were hit by the injury bug at various points and both spent time in the rotation and bullpen. I'm not saying he'll be a perfect comp and I'm not saying to bank on a 2005 Chen-esk production from him, but am I that far off on this early assumption? The only thing that Uehara has on Chen is a fewer walks.

Anybody?

[byrdz]

What difference does it make how homer friendly OPACY is when the O's hit about the same number as the competition? Obviously it would be better to hit more but the O's just need a bit more power is all or have the pitching improve just a bit more which shouldn't be hard considering last seasons showing. DCab gave up 16 HR's last season at OPACY, I doubt Uehara allows much more than that.

[Sports Guy]

Not sure why people jumped on Law here but I guess that is par for the course when the OH discusses ESPN...Keith Law has been on the Orioles side a lot lately, especially about the minor leaguers.

Uehera was a decent signing...A relative low risk signing...If all he ends up being is a good reliever, then he will be overpaid but it won't hurt us that much.

I expect him to eat 350-400 innings for a 4.6ish ERA if he can stay a starter...He won't be great but should justify the contract and provide us with a decent stop gap...Plus, he gets our foot in Asia, so that is good.

[El Gordo]

If you read the comments after the original post, Law clarifies his logic further. Basically what he is trying to say is that given the ballpark and the quality of competition in the AL East, the O's need pitchers with really good stuff who have a margin for error, as opposed to pitchers who need pinpoint control because their stuff isn't so great. He argues that the O's should either spend big bucks to get pitchers with really good stuff, or just give up and go with a cheap staff if they don't have any visions of contending.

I can see his point, but I do think there is a difference between losing 85-90 games and losing over 100 games. If the O's didn't spend a time on starting pitching over the offseason, I think they were looking at losing over 100 games, given how poorly all of their holdover starters not named Guthrie performed last season and given that their better pitching prospects are likely a year or more away.

How is this inconsistent with signing Uehara? We would be stupid to spend on the SP who could be most effective in OPACY like CC, Lowe, maybe Sheets, or Garland.

[SilentJames]

Everyone had extremely low expectations for 2008: "The Lost Season". Just like this year we had "Jeremy Guthrie". Loewen was supposed to be promising in his return, Trachsel would hold down the fort and eat innings, Cabrera was the work horse, and Burres was... well Burres was Burres.

Loewen was terrible. He started 4 games and got injured for the rest of the year.

Cabrera was the work horse: until he got injured, spent time on the DL, took a couple MPH off his fast ball, and lead the league in walks and wild pitches.

Trachsel didn't eat innings; he was out by the 4th in most of his starts and we canned him.

Burres was Burres.

We tried Olson, Liz and Albers. Both Liz and Olson had 6.50+ ERAs at the end of the year.

Albers was amazing; until he blew out his shoulder in his third start.

We started Sarfate out of the pen; he was absolutely horrible.

We traded for Bass and Simon, and they were just bandaids.

And yet, after all that crap... we still didn't lose 100 games.

Uehara may not be a great pitcher. Hendrickson may be the same way. But it takes a lot of crap to go absolutely wrong to knock this team out. And last year, we didn't have much to look forward to in AAA either. This year we've got Albers, Patton, Berken, Bergesen, Hernandez, Waters, Burres, and maybe even Chris Tillman on the back burner in case things go terribly terribly wrong.

Basically, I think the O's are going to be okay next year, and probably better than 2008.

You have to be a special kind of bad to lose 100 games.

[SilentJames]

Not sure why people jumped on Law here but I guess that is par for the course when the OH discusses ESPN...Keith Law has been on the Orioles side a lot lately, especially about the minor leaguers.

Uehera was a decent signing...A relative low risk signing...If all he ends up being is a good reliever, then he will be overpaid but it won't hurt us that much.

I expect him to eat 350-400 innings for a 4.6ish ERA if he can stay a starter...He won't be great but should justify the contract and provide us with a decent stop gap...Plus, he gets our foot in Asia, so that is good.

The most important thing to me is his very low walk-rate. That can only be a good thing for us. Walks extend the inning and further tax the pen.

Plus, maybe the young pitchers can pick up a thing or two.

Low walks = good for us. His move to the pen is getting overblown, I really think there is something to the Giants banishing him because he was vocal about his desire to play in the USA.

[freethebirds]

Can I just say that for anyone who read the comments on this Keith Law article, I am "biz" who posted all those inflammatory things, somewhat facetiously.... although I did call ESPN "a worthless biased news source". Anyway, his argument is stupid. We should only go after pitchers with amazing stuff (cause theres SO many of those) since we have to face tough lineups.

[Osfan13]

Frobby, I agree Tampa Bay is likely to get better, but I am just tired of people always talking about the great offensive team the Yankees are. They were a great offensive team back in 2005-6, but they weren't last year and I do not think they are likely to be this year.

Overall last year the AL east was not filled with a bunch teams that were offensive beasts. The Red Sox were beasts, 2nd in the league in runs, but the Yankees -7th, Os -8th, Rays - 9th, and Jays -11th just were not offensive jugernauts. The AL east was not that tough a division to pitch in last year. I am not sure it will be much different this year.

The central division was much more problematic for pitchers last year. Minn, Det, Chicago, and Clev all scored over 800 runs (the Red Sox scored 845) and were 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th in the league in runs scored for the season.

This is an excellent analysis. However, it fails to explain our record against the AL East versus the rest of the league.

?