Baltimore Sun O's Predictions

The main Orioles writers at the Baltimore Sun put down some predictions for the team today, and I thought they were... interesting*.

* Just a little good-natured ribbing.

HR leader: Jones (Jeff Zrebiec); Guerrero (Dan Connolly); Reynolds (Pete Schmuck)
RBI leader: Markakis (Jeff); Lee (Dan); Guerrero (Pete)
Highest Avg.: Markakis (Jeff); Markakis (Dan); Guerrero (Pete)
Wins: Guthrie (Jeff); Britton (Dan); Arrieta (Pete)
Strikeout leader: Arrieta (Jeff); Matusz (Dan); Matusz (Pete)
Team wins: 75 (Jeff); 77 (Dan); 79 (Pete)
Lone All-Star: Jones (Jeff); Markakis (Dan); Matusz (Pete)
Markakis' average: .313 (Jeff); .322 (Dan); .309 (Pete)
Gregg's saves: 27 (Jeff); 24 (Dan); 29 (Pete)
Reynolds' strikeouts: 207 (Jeff); 211 (Dan); 178 (Pete)
Guerrero's homers: 25 (Jeff); 32 (Dan); 23 (Pete)
Wieters' average: .265 (Jeff); .278 (Dan); .290 (Pete)
Scott's homers: 24 (Jeff); 22 (Dan); 19 (Pete)
Guthrie's ERA: 4.23 (Jeff); 4.12 (Dan); 4.01 (Pete)
Fox's homers: 9 (Jeff); 12 (Dan); 5 (Pete)
Most Valuable Oriole: Markakis (Jeff); Markakis (Dan); Guerrero (Pete)

• Expecting Adam Jones to out-homer Mark Reynolds is unexpected (Jeff).
• Expecting Vlad to hit 32 home runs (Dan) is... I don't want to say "crazy", but he hasn't done it since 2006.
• Everyone thinks Nick will set new career high in batting average, despite being below .300 the lat two years.
• Dan think Zach Britton will lead the team in wins, which implies either (1) he's going to be the team's best pitcher by a fair bit (since he'll need to make up for lost time when he gets called up), or (2) he sees some more serious injuries to the starting five coming.
• And not votes for Matusz to lead the team in wins?
  
• I'm not sure how Nick is going to lead the team in RBI (Jeff) batting from the two-spot, but OK.
• Pete has Reynolds leading the team in home runs (a fair bet), but that implies he'll amass a lot of plate appearances. And yet, he's going to strike out less than he has in any full season in his career?
• Also (Pete), if Vlad only hits 23 home runs and Matt Wieters bats .290, it's very, very unlikely that the former will be the more valuable player by virtue of the huge disparity in defensive value (guess he's going with BA/RBI?).

Everything else looks reasonable enough, including their win totals.

Mine, for the record, are:

"HR leader: Reynolds
RBI leader: Guerrero
Highest Avg.: Markakis
Wins: Matusz
Strikeout leader: Matusz
Team wins: 76
Lone All-Star: Matusz
Markakis' average: .295
Gregg's saves: 26
Reynolds' strikeouts: 213
Guerrero's homers: 22
Wieters' average: .263
Scott's homers: 24
Guthrie's ERA: 4.15
Fox's homers: 9
Most Valuable Oriole: Matusz

2011 Baltimore Oriole Projections - My Take (Kind Of)

Now that spring training has started and the roster is a bit more projectable, I figured it was time to formulate a win projection for the 2011 version of the team. Well, I kind of formulated it. I'm using the WAR spreadsheet from Beyond the Boxscore.

Here's the work but before you look, the ground rules and caveats:

* I used Marcel Projections and I grabbed those from FanGraphs. I stuck to those pretty tightly.

* Playing time was adjusted a bit from Marcel, usually granting a bit more than less to fill in the gaps.

* I gave Felix Pie, Cesar Izturis, JJ Hardy and Matt Wieters some above average defensive value scores and a slight bump to Derrek Lee. Jake Fox, Brian Roberts and Josh Bell got defensive demerits. All others were neutral.

* Only Roberts got an adjustment for baserunning.

* I assigned all batters their exact Marcel projections with three exceptions. I selected Adam Jones as my breakthrough player for 2011. I bumped him up from a .333 to a .345 wOBA (bascially a .762 OPS to a .803 OPS). It a nice jump but not a crazy one. I bumped Nick Markakis from a .353 to a .356 wOBA (an .807 OPS to roughly an .820 OPS) and I knocked Brandon Snyder's .330 wOBA down the .300.

* I used FIP for the ERA projections.

* Since I used FIP, I adjusted Jeremy Guthrie's ERA projection down by a quarter run. All other pitchers kept their Marcel projections. Except...

* I put Jake Arrieta's name on Chris Tillman's projection and vice versa. Arrieta's projection was better but I still think Tillman can miss more bats than he showed last season. So I gave Tillman the better stats even though the combined projection remains the same.



All that gives us a Win Talent of 79.8 wins which we can round up to 80.

I don't think any of these numbers I plugged in are either crazy or overly optimistic. One thing I will say is that this team is pretty thin. Any significant injury to, say, Guthrie or Matusz on the pitching side or Markakis or Scott on the hitting side throws all of this out of whack and spiraling out of control.

But with a little luck and a couple of young guys taking steps forward (even if Jones doesn't), this team could (can't believe I'm going to say it) actually win this year. I am not alone. PECOTA has the Orioles winning 82 games in 2011.

And if the young guys keep getting their starts and at bats in the process, all the better.

For more general rambling about the Baltimore Orioles, go check out Dempsey's Army...

Final-ish WAR Projections

With the roster more or less finalized, I've done likewise for the projections for the BeyondTheBoxScore WAR project (though final touches are of course a possibility). My spreadsheet is here, and the underlying stats are below.

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Offense:

Matt Wieters:
300 PA, .289/.359/.482, 10 HR, .365 wOBA

Gregg Zaun:
300 PA, .241/.340/.374, 5 HR, .320 wOBA

Aubrey Huff:
600 PA, .280/.344/.472, 22 HR, .357 wOBA

Brian Roberts:
625 PA, .285/.365/.425, 9 HR, .358 wOBA

Cesar Izturis:
550 PA, .260/.311/.327, 3 HR, .290 wOBA

Melvin Mora:
550 PA, .271/.333/.418, 16 HR, .334 wOBA

Felix Pie:
500 PA, .267/.322/.409, 10 HR, .323 wOBA

Adam Jones:
575 PA, .273/.325/.425, 15 HR, .331 wOBA

Nick Markakis:
650 PA, .301/.401/.493, 20 HR, .395 wOBA

Luke Scott:
575 PA, .262/.343/.476, 23 HR, .355 wOBA

Ty Wigginton:
475 PA, .271/.334/.469, 20 HR, .350 wOBA

Chad Moeller:
75 PA, .229/.281/.344, 1 HR, .286 wOBA

Ryan Freel:
300 PA, .254/.327/.353, 3 HR, .321 wOBA

Robert Andino:
100 PA, .235/.281/.342, 1 HR, .292 wOBA

Luis Montanez:
75 PA, .274/.326/.432, 2 HR, .333 wOBA

Total offense: .272/.342/.429, 160 HR, .338 wOBA

In 2008, the O's hit .269/.333/.429, 172 HR, .340 wOBA so things don't look all that different. Huff and Mora probably won't repeat their '08 seasons, but the additions of Wigginton and Wieters help. A bit above average again, while putting a plus defense on the field (especially in the outfield).

Starting pitching:

Pitcher	IP	ERA
Jeremy Guthrie	180	4.15
Koji Uehara	150	4.70
Rich Hill	100	5.00
Matt Hendrickson	80	5.13
Adam Eaton	70	5.30
Alfredo Simon	70	5.43
Brad Bergesen	75	5.18
Chris Waters	65	5.51
David Pauley	55	5.40
Danys Baez	35	5.47
Matt Albers	30	4.74
Radhames Liz	25	5.52
Total	935	4.95

Relief pitching:

Pitcher	IP	ERA
George Sherrill	55	3.79
Jim Johnson	60	3.85
Chris Ray	50	4.10
Dennis Sarfate	55	4.37
Jamie Walker	35	4.72
Danys Baez	40	4.70
Kam Mickolio	35	4.24
Brian Bass	45	4.58
Brad Hennessey	40	4.52
Matt Albers	35	4.38
Matt Hendrickson	25	4.32
Radhames Liz	35	4.73
Total	510	4.31

Pitching total: 4.73 ERA

Last year it was 5.15 so that's a big improvement. It's not really "better" though, as it's really hard to pitch that poorly (5.14 FIP too) two years in a row. Only two guys in the rotation with ERA's under 5 (Guthrie and Uehara) would make games hard to watch most days, so hopefully they can stay healthy all year. And there's a decent chance that someone (anyone, please) actually lucks into a pretty good season. Alternately, it's likely that one or two guys put up an ERA above 6. The idea is that those guys get replaced quickly (if the ERA is deserved) by someone who is less bad.

Overall, that team has about 78 wins worth of talent based on Wins Above Replacement. Given that they play in the AL East I would personally be inclined to knock another win or two off of that number, but a 75-77 win season is what I'm looking at. And no September collapse would be nice.
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