The other day on the radio, I heard some argument as to whether or not the Orioles should sign Matt Wieters to a $10 M a year contract. The part that got me was that even the people in favor seemed to assume that Wieters would take such a deal. When I expressed that idea, I received a fair bit of push-back - it seems like people don't think that Wieters is actually that good. These people are mistaken.

The bar for offense at the catcher postilion is not very high. The bar for offense at the catcher position is really not very high when said catcher also saves you upwards of 10 runs a season with the glove. Therefore even a league-average hitter is going to be quite valuable (in the neighborhood of 3-3.5 wins above replacement), if he's also a plus defensive catcher. Such a player, if he were a free agent now, might be expected to sign for something like $15 M a year (with the influx of money into the sport recently driving up salaries it seems).

So, is Matt Wieters such a player? Maybe, but he's probably better. In 2011, Wieters started to hit for some more power. Over the next two seasons, he hit a combined .255/.329/.442. That doesn't look that impressive, but it's good enough for an above average .335 wOBA. Combined with his plus defense, that allowed him to average 4.3 fWAR over the two years. That's quite good, obviously - tied for the third highest mark for all catchers for '11-'12, behind Yadier Molina (signed a 5 year, $75 M deal; is four years older than Wieters) and Buster Posey (signed for 9 years and $167 M; not arguing Wieters is in Posey's class). 

But Wieters' poor start to 2013 means he's no longer that guy, right?

The batting line is down, but the walks, strike-outs, and power numbers are all pretty much the same. The only real difference is a drop in BABIP. Wieters is hitting more flyballs so far this year, which probably has something to do with it. I imagine it will come up though, and if it was actually at  the .275 level like the last two years then his batting line would be more like .249/.320/.443 - not too far off from the first line in the table. And once again, while that doesn't look like much it's actually a bit better than what the average Major League batter has done this year - walks plus power makes up for a mediocre batting average quite well. On the other hand, the BABIP might come in a bit lower if Wieters keeps hitting a lot of flyballs, but the flip side to that is that the extra balls in the air might allow him to a few extra home runs. Either way, I expect him to finish the season as around a league average hitter, and that's after getting off to a slow start.

Someone actually suggested to me that Wieters has gotten worse as a hitter since he came up, which I guess is based on his batting average being .288 as a rookie (buoyed by a .356 BABIP that was just not going to be sustainable for a slow-as-molasses catcher). He's mostly the same guy, but just double the home run power - which seems like a plus to me. Maybe people allow their expectations to get the better of them - Wieters surely isn't the guy we thought he might be given his Minor League numbers (and that's unlikely to happen). But judging him just based on what he's doing as a player, I don't think it's reasonable to call him a "bad" hitter; he's solid - average-ish to a bit above. And he's just turning 27 this season, which in no way precludes him from getting better. Not that he'd need to to make signing him for $10 M a year a very easy decision for the Orioles.

I did a Q&A with Matt Vensel at the Baltimore Sun for his Blogger on Blogger feature; mostly on Jake Arrieta and Chris Davis, with some DH struggles and defense sprinkled in. Check it out here.

Opening Day for the Orioles was certainly fun. A win against a division rival. Adam Jones hitting rockets all over the park (he could have easily gone 4-5 or even 5-5 on the day). Chris Davis not only hitting a home run, but working back from an 0-2 count against a lefty (David Price, who's an OK pitcher I guess) to draw a walk. Matt Wieters homering (and doubling), while also giving Price fits in a 13 pitch plate appearances that resulted in another walk. Just seeing Nolan Reimold and Brian Roberts healthy and on the field (both had a pair of hits).

Earl Weaver-ball beating small ball was pretty sweet too, as the Rays played for the go-ahead run in the bottom of the 6th with the sac bunt (they went up 3-2) before the O's put a five-spot on the board in the next frame, punctuated by Davis' three-run bomb (after an intentional walk to Wieters, no less).

All of that stuff was covered elsewhere - I was really curious* about what was going on with Jason Hammel (6 IP, 3 H (1 HR), 3 R, 1 BB, 3 K) instead. A lot of people are expecting some regression from Hammel this year after his surprisingly good 2012 season, so his first start of 2013 was something to keep an eye on. Part of his success was due to some increased velocity and use of a two-seamer fastball, which helped up his groundball rates.

* Curious enough to start investigating. At that point I figured I might as well post it.

Velocity: Hammel averaged 93-94 mph with his fastballs (both the two-seamer and the four-seamer) last year, touching 96 on occasion. On Opening day he sat a tick lower (~93 on average) and didn't reach that high end (topped out at 95). That's not slower enough to be worried, I think. And it's much closer to where he was at the start of last season than where he was at the end of it. Assuming healthy and normal progression during the season, he should be back to his "new" level.

Fastball: In 2012, Hammel threw more two-seamers than four-seamers (around 30% more). In his first 2013 start, it appears he stuck mostly with the latter; the PitchFx classification has it at 36 fastballs and 11 sinkers, and that seems pretty accurate judging by the movement charts (not too many pitches with more tailing and sinking action). It also wasn't surprising to see that break-down after watching the game, as Hammel repeatedly missed up in the strike-zone (or out of it) and gave up a lot more flyballs (11, versus only 5 groundballs) than you'd expect from him. On the bright side, Hammel was able to throw his slider for a strike pretty well, even if the poor counts he was in kept him from being able to get any swings and misses on the pitch.

After the game Hammel said he was having trouble with his fastball command, which makes the pitch selection seem a little curious to me. Is the classification off, such that he threw more two-seamers but didn't get his usual movement on them? Or did he think he could get better command of the four-seamer, despite a fastball with extra sink potentially falling into the zone more?

During the game I thought that maybe Hammel was dropping his arm more than usual, but his release point seems to have been consistent with last year. This is one of those situations were actually having access to ask a player directly might be helpful, but if I find something out I'll post an update.

I haven't posted much in a while. I'm not sure when I'll post again; maybe in a month, or maybe never*. The curiosity and interest that drove me to write has sadly been dissipating over the past couple years, and I don't know if/when it'll come back (hopefully Spring and the start of a new season will have a positive influence). I tried to mostly write for myself (occasionally turning down conflicting positions elsewhere) and never really looked to be "famous" or get hired by a Major League team or anything like that**, so if there's not something I personally want to look into anymore, I'm probably not going to be writing anything. The burning desire to know whether or not Jeremy Guthrie's low BABIPs were sustainable*** isn't there - if the hits fall in, they fall in; if they don't, they don't.

* I remember years ago, Heath (from Dempsey's Army) and I discussing how long we might keep blogging. We said we hoped we would last through the bad times well enough to actually see a winning season. I'm not sure if it's a coincidence that both he and I are hanging them up after the O's won 93 games or not.

** Mission accomplished.

*** More accurately; to what degree they were sustainable.

Writing had begun to feel a bit like a job - which is not what I wanted - and not a particularly gratifying one. I think part of it is that, while not fully mainstream, sabermetrics has expanded enough that not only are there a number of great writers online, but a fan can go to FanGraphs or Baseball-Reference and look things up for themselves relatively easily. I don't see a lot of value added from my contributing, though I hope that there were at least a few rare instances over the years where someone somewhere got a little bit out of something I wrote. I did say a lot of wrong things, but that probably (hopefully?) comes with the territory, and I did try to learn from some of those mistakes.

The experience overall has been rewarding. I never expected to be invited to Orioles FanFest or games by the team, or meet so many good people (having a relative stranger recognize me from the blog was always very weird, but neat). It's been fun. And I'll continue to be on Twitter at the very least, especially during games (Opening Day is still the best day of the year).

Thanks for reading and commenting, and for all the help along the way from more people than I can name.

Unlikely to do team/player projections this year, but my intuition is that the O's are around a .500 team heading into the 2013 season and that they'll be fighting it out with the Red Sox for 4th place in the AL East. Maybe they get insanely lucky with one-run games again, but it's pretty improbable. The had a chance to build on last season, but once they missed a few moves it didn't make sense to make others and end up in between. Extending Buck and Dan Duquette through 2018 seems a little crazy, but I'm not worrying about it since the team can use the money they "saved" this off-season to buy out their contracts before then.

In part eleven of my (hopefully) 52 part series, Better Know a 2012 Oriole, I take a look at Adam Jones... the fightin' break-out star (sorta)!

"'Adam Jones. Above average hitter despite plate discipline issues. Gold Glove center-fielder, even though the defensive stats don't like him. Team leader, who entered the season only 26 years old and approaching free agency. Jones may not have quite lived up to the expectation some had of him when he was acquired from the Mariners for Erik Bedard* in previous seasons, but he sure made up for some of that with how he started the 2012 season.."

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It was pretty widely acknowledged by the team that they wanted to bring Nate McLouth back for the 2013 season, and today they've accomplished that goal; McLouth will get $2 M, with the potential for another $500 K in incentives.

We've discussed the Orioles signing McLouth quite a bit since the season ended; my opinion was that a $2-3 M contract could be an OK value (apparently the O's agreed), but that it wouldn't do much to actually improve the team for next year. And so it is.  

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