TT: This is who the Orioles are right now (23-27 in last 50 games)

[Tony-OH]

The team we were in May and early June is long gone and it's times to face facts that this is not a slump, but what this team is at this point. When your 23-27 and your last 50 games, that's who you are currently.

So the question is why is this team not very good and is there anything that can be done about it?

Injuries
This team has been decimated by injuries but according to Fangraphs they've only lost 4.7 fWAR to injuries this year which is 20th worse. Now I don't know how accurate that is but it does go to show that this team hasn't been bit by injuries more than most other contending teams. 

Losing Bradish, Wells, Means, Rodriguez, Coulombe, Mateo, and Westburg for significant amounts of time have certainly hurt, but out of them, only Rodriguez, Coulombe, Mateo, and Westburg have been out during this poor run and Rodriguez only for what, the last two weeks or so? 

So let's look at the players who replaced these four:

Urias/Mayo for Westburg: Urias is who he is at this point and has slashed .229/.263/.400/.663 in 38 PAs since Aug 1st and we know Mayo was a disaster slashing .059/.200/.059/.259 in his short 20 PA stint. So the loss of Westburg has been pretty big.

Suarez for Rodriguez: In the two starts Rodriguez would have made since (he would have pitched last night too but Suarez was pushed back to today) Suarez has not allowed a run 11.2 innings. So while we lose Suarez in the pen, where he hasn't exactly been nails, He has done well replacing Grayson.

Mateo: Until bringing up Livan Soto the other day, the Orioles never have really replaced the utility expert but have gone with a series of infielders and outfielders as extra guys, none of which were ever used very effectively by Hyde and more of so less sat in the bench. Norby, Stowers, Maton, Kjerstad and more playing time for Urias all were his replacement. 

Perez/Soto/Krook/Vespi/Baker/many others for Coulombe: Now the biggest loss in my opinion was when Coulombe went down on 8 Jun. The Orioles have not been able to find another high leverage lefty to help in the pen so that means Perez got bumped up from his 6th/7t inning role to higher leverage. 

Now Perez hasn't been terrible in high leverage situations:

But he absolutely struggles with two outs and runners in scoring position.

His 27% inherited runners scored is the best of his career, but Coulombe hadn't allowed an inherited runner to score all season, stranding all 13 runners he inherited after having a 22% rate last season.

We all know Soto has been an utter disaster for the Orioles, Vespi was more of a mop up guy, and Krook is a AAAA lefty. So in the end, losing Coulombe has certainly hurt.

Clutch Hitting:

The Orioles offense overall since June 21st (50 game stretch) has been the 4th best for fWAR (9.4) that is dragged down a bit by their -11.3 fWAR defense. But how clutch are they over this period? Well, according to Fan Graphs Clutch rankings, the Orioles are the 20th best clutch team.

So how about that bullpen, how clutch are they? How about 24th or 6th worse in the MLB over this span.

How many times has the bullpen just come in a shutdown the opponents in close games? As per fangraphs "A Shutdown is when a reliever accumulates greater than or equal to 0.06 WPA in any individual game. The number of Shutdowns are scaled to Saves + Holds, which is where the .06 thresholds originated."

How about 27 of 30?

So basically we have an offensive team and a bullpen that are anti clutch. This why this team is so frustrating to watch. Those close games and comebacks that the Orioles were known for last year has been replaced by one of the worse clutch teams in baseball.

So basically we have a team that when they win, they do it without needing clutch situations to win. Luckily they do have an offense and a few starters that generally give them a chance to win like that. But when this team is in those tie games or down or up by one late, don't get your hopes up with this crew. 

So what can be done about this? Honestly, not much now that the trade deadline has come and gone. Elias' trades netted three guys who have helped in Eflin, Dominguez and Jimenez to a lesser extent, and two guys who have been disasters so far in Soto and Rogers. 

The Orioles are now living and dying with Urias at 3B, McCann starting more than he should because of Adley's back, and a bullpen that literally has not one guy you feel totally confident in coming in a shutting a team down. When you add in their unclutchiness, you get a team that is not a lot of fun to watch late in close games and there's not a lot Elias can do at this point but hope guys snap out of there funks and become the guys they were last year.

[Chelsea_Phil]

Face it, we suck big time. 

[Sports Guy]

Who we are right now doesn’t mean it’s who we are 6 weeks from now.

Today I would say the defense and bullpen isn’t good enough to win in October. 
 

But we have the ability to be good enough in those areas and if we get the key guys back and they are what they usually are, the Os can beat anyone.

The good news is that the other teams aren’t that great either.

[Sanity Check]

13 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Who we are right now doesn’t mean it’s who we are 6 weeks from now.

Today I would say the defense and bullpen isn’t good enough to win in October. 
 

But we have the ability to be good enough in those areas and if we get the key guys back and they are what they usually are, the Os can beat anyone.

The good news is that the other teams aren’t that great either.

I don't always agree with SG, but I found myself wondering if Texas may have had a similar run last year later in the season, before they got on a heater in the playoffs....so the "six weeks from now" scenario is really what matters.  If we can get everyone hot at the same time at the end of September and make the playoffs, then good things can happen.  But, all of that is just hope right now.  I guess we'll see when we get there, but I'm not currently inspired by how we've played recently, and I don't have a lot of confidence that we will make a deep playoff run.  I hope I'm wrong. 

[Three Run Homer]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't the sabermetricians pretty much debunked the idea that clutch performance is a true skill?  Last year we overperformed in clutch situations and we won a lot of games.  This year we are underperforming in clutch situations. and we are losing more games than we should.   But if clutch performance comes and goes, there's no reason to think that we won't play well in the clutch from here on out.  

The bigger issue to me is a lack of overall talent in the bullpen.  The fact that Cionel Perez and his 4 ERA is considered one of our "trustworthy" guys is very telling.   Unfortunately, there's no reason to think that our bullpen will get better this season.  It is what it is.   Elias and Rubinstein need to devote some real re$source$ to the bullpen this offseason, and then we have to hope that Felix can return to form.   And Elias will have to get over his hoarder mentality that says we have to keep mediocre pitchers like Akin and Baker around just because they are under team control.   

[52520Andrew]

I think this goes to show that a lot of the clutch stats are more statistical noise than anything else, at least on the hitting side. It also makes a difference when other teams are giving us their best and setting up their rotations to have their top guys pitching vs us. We also really need consistency from the middle of the rotation, when you have 2 good starters and the rest of the guys are inconsistent at best, it is tough to do well.

Right now, the Orioles basically need to survive until October and still hold a playoff spot. If they can get Westy, Coloumbe, Grayson, and Webb back healthy they have a shot but a lot has to go right. There isn't really much wiggle room left if the ultimate goal is a world series.

[Frobby]

7 minutes ago, Sanity Check said:

I don't always agree with SG, but I found myself wondering if Texas may have had a similar run last year later in the season, before they got on a heater in the playoffs....so the "six weeks from now" scenario is really what matters. 

Texas was all over the place last year running hot and cold.  They got hot at the right time and made their run. That could happen for the Orioles - but will it?  Play the games and find out.  

Tony posted some stats showing that the O’s have been “anti-clutch.”   But those things sometimes turn on a dime.  We’ll see if they do. 
 

[now]

17 minutes ago, Three Run Homer said:

The bigger issue to me is a lack of overall talent in the bullpen.  The fact that Cionel Perez and his 4 ERA is considered one of our "trustworthy" guys is very telling.   Unfortunately, there's no reason to think that our bullpen will get better this season.  It is what it is.   Elias and Rubinstein need to devote some real re$source$ to the bullpen this offseason, and then we have to hope that Felix can return to form.   And Elias will have to get over his hoarder mentality that says we have to keep mediocre pitchers like Akin and Baker around just because they are under team control.   

Agree the bullpen is our achilles heel. If only it were that easy to stock it with good, reliable hired guns. Some research could prove me wrong, but my sense is that bullpens are by far the most unpredictable, variable, inconsistent components of a team, year to year and over shorter spans. Is there even much of a correlation between reliever performance and salary, draft number, past performance, organizational approach, or any other metric? Throw in injuries and you're back to square one. A good bullpen is baseball's secret sauce, but the recipe remains mysterious. 

[Prodigyx]

While I agree we are nowhere near the team we were earlier in the season, this year across baseball has been weird.  The A's have the best record in the AL over the last 40 plus games so does that mean they aren't who they were?   For as bad as we've been, no team is pulling away from anyone at this point. 

[Safelykept]

Pack it up, were out it. More rinse and repeat.

[clapdiddy]

Personally, I don't think this team is good enough to win it all.   The rotation, bullpen, and defense are all mediocre.  The hitting is too sporadic.  A lot of this is due to injuries, for sure.  I still think they can make the playoffs (where anything can happen), but I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't.

[bpilktree67]

The offense has been pretty similar the entire year guys get hot and cold but when all is said and done they are averaging about the same number of runs each game.  There not hitting as good with runners on base but are hitting more homers and scoring more runs.  I could care less how they get the runs as long as you continue to put runs on the board.  The pitching has been the issue the last few months.  The last 50 games we have had 1 turn through the rotation where we had 3 quailty starters in the rotation. Burnes, GRod, and Efflin the rest of the time we have had 2.   That was right after the deadline and is also the best little streak we had going winning 4 out of 6 games before.  The next game GRod gets pulled from the start and we were back to two quality starters, 2 average starters and 1 bad starter.  It’s tough to go on a win streak or get on a good roll winning 7 out of ten type with that pitching.   On the positive sign GRod threw yesterday which sounded positive.  If he can get back in 2-3 weeks it changes everything imo.  We just have to keep ship afloat til then.  Burnes, Efflin, and GRod is as good as anyone in the playoffs top 3 pitchers.  

[HowAboutThat]

Sloppy defense is the worst thing. Sloppy defense leads to unearned runs, extends innings, increases the load on the pitcher, and for relievers, who need to ration their pitches, it means extra pitches, additional relievers in a given game, and less flexibility the next day. Added to Hyde’s typical bullpen usage, it is a recipe for Doom.

If our defense were even average, we’d still be comfortably in first place. How many games have we lost that could be blamed on a specific gaffe? Three? Four? 
Games we’d have almost certainly won except for that bonehead play, despite everything else. There are LOTS of boneheaded plays. But at least 3/4 games, which makes the difference.

Westburg and Mateo are the most severe losses we’ve had, but even before losing them, the defense was sloppy. Henderson STILL refuses to set his feet when he throws. Holliday lacks power and accuracy.  Cano almost threw the ball over MC’s head last night, on a routine ball to the pitcher.  Fortunately, Mc was able to leap and grab it and get back to the bag.

Wells never pitched at all this season, Means only pitched 20 innings(excellent innings, but only 20) Bradish only pitched 43. Losing them was bad, but we never really had them anyway, so their loss doesn’t really affect on-field performance.

Elias has picked up free relievers, or traded for “we can fix his problems” guys, almost none of whom have produced over time. I don’t know why he didn’t actively target better pitchers(what kept him from getting Mark Leiter, for instance? We’ll never know.) But even so, if our defense were as clean as it has been, we’d be in first place and icing the Division Champagne.

Here’s hoping that 2023 won’t become an outlier.

[baltfan]

Right now we are similar to the Rays last year.  Injuries have taken a toll and we just aren’t as good as we were.  Good news is that we will have guys come back. Yankees and Sox have been pretty fortunate injury-wise, especially with pitchers.  Team needs to just keep grinding.  
 

Bullpen could be quite good in the postseason.  Cano is better than our sense of things. Hyde almost always brings him in against the toughest part of the lineup.  Soto has the stuff to be really good for short periods. Dominguez has closer stuff.  Perez is good against lefties.  Get Danny and Webb back and we could be formidable.  
 

The guy that really needs to get going is Adley.  They need him to be more than an automatic out. Get him back on track and get Westy back and all of the sudden this lineup is really deep. 

[Sports Guy]

In the offseason, I had originally said we could be as low as 88 wins, which some people scoffed at. After Burnes, I think I went from 88 to 90 as a minimum total.

Part of my concern was injuries. The Os have been pretty lucky with injuries the last few years. This year obviously not so much. Even with the more emphasis put on the pen in recent years, I still feel it’s underrated and how you build it is so important. I don’t really agree with how Elias has generally built a pen. I’m good with the concept of not paying big money and things like that but qualities he looks for and the lack of drafting relief arms is where I’m bothered by how he does it.

But the BP is so vital imo. Look at Cle. Their starting pitching is meh but the pen is so good, it really doesn’t matter.

Edited August 18 by Sports Guy