Welcoming Back J.J. Hardy's Power

Last season, J.J. Hardy was not a very good offensive player. He batted .238/.282/.389 (.290 wOBA), and he hit eight fewer home runs (22) than in 2011 (30) despite playing in 29 more games and receiving 146 more plate appearances. This season, though, Hardy already has 14 homers, and his numbers are much closer to the ones he put up in 2011. Take a look:

Year	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA
2011	.269	.310	.491	.344
2013	.271	.312	.473	.338

Yes, Hardy still has more than half a season to go, but he's doing a pretty good job of getting close to those 2011 stats. And considering Hardy brings his solid defensive shortstop skills to the table, pretty good offensive numbers make him much more valuable.

So what's changed? Hardy's walk rate has been about the same in all three seasons (5.5%, 5.3%, and 5.7%), and until this season, his strikeout rate wasn't drastically different either (16.2%, 14.9%, and 11.5%). Striking out less is helpful, but the main difference simply seems to be the return of Hardy's power. Last year, his slugging percentage was just .389 -- a more than 100-point drop from 2011. Here are his isolated power numbers in his three seasons in Baltimore:

2011: .222

2012: .151

2013: .202

Let's also note his home run/fly ball numbers as well:

2011: 15.7%

2012: 10.0%

2013: 14.6%

Because his power numbers are up, obviously you'd expect more of his fly balls to leave the ballpark. And that's a good thing, especially since he hits fly balls about 40% of the time. That 15.7% HR/FB mark in 2011 was the highest of his career, but the Orioles do encourage Hardy to turn on pitches and drive them out of the ballpark, so it's reasonable to expect him to finish the season somewhere between 10% and 15%. Maybe he doesn't end up at 14.6%, but it might not be that far off.

A couple of other factors for Hardy are plate discipline and right-lefty splits. Hardy's currently posting the best plate discipline numbers of his three seasons in Baltimore. They're not significantly better, but he is swinging at fewer pitches outside the zone (27.5%) and posting a slightly better contact percentage on all pitches (87.9%). Then again, his plate discipline numbers were better in 2012 than 2011, so who knows how much that matters. But one important change seems to be Hardy's ability to hit right-handed pitching. Here are his splits against right-handers from 2011-2013: 

2011: .343 wOBA

2012: .278 wOBA

2013: .334 wOBA

And against lefties:

2011: .346 wOBA

2012: .326 wOBA

2013: .348 wOBA

Hardy has always been much better against left-handed pitching (career vs. RHP: .313 wOBA; vs. LHP: .351 wOBA), so it's a bit odd to see that in 2011 and 2013 he was successful despite his numbers not being that much different between the two. That .278 wOBA in 2012 against right-handers was abysmal, though, so it's a positive sign to see that he's righted the ship (pun intended).

As O's fans have realized by now, Hardy is not a high on-base guy, so the return of his power is what matters the most. And as long as he continues to hit plenty of fly balls -- and that HR/FB rate is anywhere close to 15% -- he'll keep depositing balls into the left field seats. That's just what he does (besides, you know, the reliable defense thing).

On Miguel Gonzalez, Baltimore's Best Healthy Starter

This post was written by Zach Mariner. Follow him on Twitter here.

Last Tuesday night against the Angels, Miguel Gonzalez looked like the ace that he was down the stretch in 2012, limiting Los Angeles to one run on four hits and one walk in eight innings, striking out five. He worked efficiently, throwing just 96 pitches and inducing 12 groundball outs. He only recorded three “three-up-three-down” innings, but utilized three double plays en route to his best outing of the season.

Gonzalez was able to keep the Halos off balance all night, mixing in a never-before-seen mid-80s changeup, which induced five groundball outs. However, it’s possible that the “changeup” identified by the folks at Brooksbaseball.net was actually a splitter, as the velocity and movement were similar. The “changeup” also helped to set up his fastball — which was his strikeout pitch on all five of his K’s — on two of his strikeouts. Despite the high groundball numbers, he actually used his sinker less than usual.

Gonzalez's pitch usage per start, going back to May 2012.

Despite inducing just 10 whiffs on the night, Gonzalez did show good control, throwing 68.75% of his pitches for strikes. He didn’t throw more than 15 pitches in any inning, which enabled him to go eight full innings for just the second time in his career.

Brooks Baseball did note once again during Sunday’s 6-3 win against Boston that the pitch Gonzalez was throwing was indeed a changeup, though two of the four groundballs he induced with the pitch went for base hits. He still picked up the W, going 6.1 scoreless innings before giving up a three-run homer to Will Middlebrooks, the last batter he faced on the day. He struck out two, walked two, and gave up five hits.

Gonzalez, who’s been solid in six starts since his return from the disabled list on May 21 (39 innings, 7.38 K/9, 2.3 BB/9, 3.00 ERA), came out of nowhere last season to help anchor the starting rotation.

In 27 career starts — all made in the past 12 months with the Orioles — Gonzalez is 14-6 with a 3.55 ERA. He hasn't been dominant by any means, with just a 6.90 career K/9. That number isn’t atrocious, but it is below average (the current MLB average K/9 is 7.57).

Not to take anything away from what Gonzalez has been able to do: He is seeing slightly better movement on some of his pitches in 2013, which no doubt has something to do with his continued success. However, his movement still isn’t anything special.

Looking at his body of work, Gonzalez comes across as one of those pitchers who doesn’t do any one thing tremendously, but is effective by doing a lot of little things well. Of 99 ERA title qualifiers in baseball right now, here’s where Gonzalez ranks in several key areas:

The numbers that jump out at you immediately are the high swing percentages and average contact rate, which have led to Gonzalez’s above-average whiff percentage. This could be a result of a number of things, though several of which we know not to be true: We know Gonzalez doesn’t have an overpowering fastball, and we know that his secondary pitches aren’t particularly devastating. What this may mean is that Gonzalez is oftentimes fooling hitters by mixing up his pitch usage and not giving his opponents any sort of pattern to follow.

In addition, one of the most important facets of Gonzalez’s game is the way he’s able to pound the outer third of the plate. As shown in the chart below, this season Gonzalez has thrown 35.47% of his pitches against right-handed batters either on the outer third of the zone, or just outside it.

His numbers against left-handers are similar, having thrown 37.44% of his pitches in that same location. Gonzalez has induced contact on 55 pitches in those spots (21 vs. righties, 34 vs. lefties). Of those 55 balls in play, 52.7% having been groundballs, and only 18.2% have been line drives. He’s has also been relying less on his four-seam fastball and more on his secondary pitches since his MLB debut last summer.

So even though Gonzalez only throws a low-90s fastball and doesn’t have tremendous movement on any of his pitches, he’s still able to put solid starts together by mixing in all of his pitches to prevent hitters from getting comfortable against him. That, along with his ability to locate the ball away from hitters, is helping to solidify him as Baltimore’s ace.

Gonzalez’s split stats also warrant a second look. This season, his wOBA against left-handed hitters is .237 — that number jumps to .373 against righties. All 10 home runs he’s given up have come from right-handed batters, and his ERA against righties (5.67) is also significantly higher than it is against lefties (1.84). He’s also run into a little bit of bad luck; a lot of the runs he’s given up against righties have come off of home runs, and those home runs have come off the bats of the some of the game’s best in Evan Longoria, Miguel Cabrera, Edwin Encarnacion, Mark Trumbo and Mike Trout, (twice). In 2012, Gonzalez’s splits were a lot more similar (L/R: .308/.299 wOBA, 3.02/3.48 ERA).

Another interesting tidbit regarding Gonzalez’s short career in the majors is the fact that Buck Showalter likes to occasionally give him an extra day’s rest — probably because Gonzalez has never thrown more than 130.2 total innings in a season and Showalter doesn’t want to wear him down. Of his 27 career starts, 10 have come on more than a starter’s regular, five-day rest (not including his first start of 2013). His numbers in those 10 games: 6.1 innings per start with a 2.28 ERA.

Gonzalez’s success rate when he gets an extra day or two off speaks for itself. I would imagine Showalter will continue to sit Gonzalez as much as he can afford to if it means the 29-year-old sophomore will be as sharp this fall as he was in 2012.

Strikezone Analysis for June 13 - 16: Red Sox at Orioles

Series Thoughts

Season Summary: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0An-w9dFaRvtmdERyaVpYYU1PNWNaWUpkc21yYXNDM2c#gid=0

I wasn't thrilled with the strikezones this weekend, although the most egregious umpiring mistakes were not involving called pitches. Not a single game broke a 90% correct call rate for the Rzone and that's the first series for which that can be said since the trip to Minnesota in a month ago. I didn't think they were horrendously favoring one team or the other, with the Orioles actually having a slight edge with 39 calls in their favor to Boston's 34 for the Rzone, but the inconsistency was frustrating. The Red Sox fared better with the Tzone with 55 calls in Boston's favor and 42 for Baltimore.

On another continuing topic, Taylor Teagarden caught Saturday's game. His ball-called-strike rate for the Rzone was 22.00%, well above the umpire's average for the game. For the other three games, Matt Wieters had rates of 7.81%, 10.71%, and 4.44%, all below the umpire's average for each respective game. Teagarden's borderline strike rate was 68.42% compared to 56.76% for the game. Wieters' borderline strike rates were 46.67%, 46.15%, and 34.78% with the umpire calling 41.94%, 55.56%, and 34.29%, respectively.

Game breakdowns are after the jump.

Delmarva's Josh Hader and Two Bowie Knuckleball Trainees

Sometimes, you get lucky; sometimes not. For example of not getting lucky, on my recent scouting trip I took in the June 5 Bowie at Harrisburg game, and the Bowie pitchers were veterans Eddie Gamboa and Zach Clark, who are trying to salvage their careers by developing a knuckleball. You probably already know that their careers are on life support, and if you didn't, you could guess. The only interesting thing about them I can report after my observation is that Gamboa's knuckleball is a flutterer, whereas Clark's is sharp-breaking.

In contrast, the last day of my trip was scheduled for Salisbury, MD, the home of the Delmarva Shorebirds. Tropical Storm Andrea wreaked havoc with the schedules of most Atlantic Coast teams, and what was originally scheduled to be a 2:05 single game ended up a 1:05 doubleheader. Facing a three-hour drive home and work the following day, I chose to stay only for the first game and was fortunate that the Shorebirds game 1 starter was Josh Hader. Hader was Baseball America's preseason #19 Orioles' prospect and he has also been named the Shorebirds' representative in the South Atlantic League All-Star game.

Hader pitched the first 6 2/3 innings of the Shorebirds' 8-0 win (in the minor leagues, doubleheader games are scheduled for seven innings.) I was surprised that Hader came out for the seventh inning, as he had thrown 86 pitches through six and he's still only 19 years old. In his 6 2/3 innings, Hader allowed four hits and two walks and a hit batsman; he struck out 6. He walked two of the first three batters he faced. and hit the last batter he faced. Of the four hits he allowed, one was a checked-swing soft liner served over the second baseman's head; another was a grounder to deep short that Roman Quinn simply outran; another was a slow-medium speed grounder that found the hole up the middle. Only one hit, a double off the left-field wall, was hard-hit. Three outs were recorded on hard-hit balls — a fly to deep right field, a one-hop grounder right at the first baseman, and a line drive to third.

Hader has a low-three-quarters delivery, which means that he's not a true sidearmer but that he's about one quarter of the way up from true sidearm to true overhand. Usually, the lower a left-handed pitcher drops, the harder he is on left-handed batters; left-handed batters went 0-for-8 with the hit batsman and three strikeouts against Hader. Hader seemed to be throwing mostly fastballs, and they ranged from 87-94 miles per hour on the stadium radar gun; most of them were in the 89-90 range.

It's interesting to look at how many pitches he threw with different counts:

0-0 26 25
1-0 11
0-1 14

The interesting thing here isn't that he got ahead of batters with his first pitch slightly more than he didn't, but that only one no Lakewood BlueClaw was dispensed with one pitch. In fact, that one batter was the last batter Hader faced, whom he hit with the pitch. I haven't looked to see if this is a Hader trend, a Lakewood trend, or a deliberate Lakewood approach to facing Hader.

2-0 5
1-1 10
0-2 8
3-0 2
2-1 3
1-2 15

Hader generally isn't falling behind hitters.

3-1 2
2-2 3
3-2 3

Hader is generally retiring batters efficiently. Because of two-strike foul balls, it's may not be directly shown in the count log, but he threw five or more pitches to only 8 of the 26 25 batters he faced. Again, I don't know what this means, but Lakewood did not have a single foul ball on a 3-ball count.

In my opinion, Josh Hader resembles Zach Britton. They're lefthanded starting pitchers with good but not great control and fairly good strikeout rates. When they're on, they keep the ball down and induce weak contact. Hader is a year ahead of Britton; when Britton was 19, he was pitching in short-season ball while Hader is already at low Class A, a level Britton reached the following season. It's tempting to conclude that Josh Hader is on the Zach Britton career path, but it's also important to remember that Zach Britton's present wasn't inevitable. The ceiling of Josh Hader isn't Zach Britton; it's what Zach Britton could have been three and four years ago. He's a real prospect, and is definitely someone to keep an eye on.

June 17 update: Sometimes I can't read my own scoresheet. Hader was relieved by Sander Beck after giving up a single to Carlos Tocci to put runners on first and second. It was Sander Beck who hit Brian Pointer with his first pitch, and I've corrected the details of the post accordingly. My conclusions are unchanged.

Manny Machado and Turning Present Doubles into Future Home Runs

by Nate Delong
Delong writes about the Orioles over at Orioles Proving Ground. He is part of 2013's Expanded Roster, a feature where we provide local writers opportunities to expand their reach.  Click here to find all of Camden Depot's Expanded Roster entries for 2012.  2011 Expanded Roster items can be found here.  As always, feel free to provide the Depot with suggestions for posts or with your own interest in writing an items or several to be posted here. 

It is no secret that Manny Machado is having a nice start to his season.  Coming into 2013, everyone knew that he would provide great defense at the hot corner, but the amount of production he would provide at the plate was not nearly as certain.  However, that doesn’t mean that people thought he would be a BAD at the plate in 2013.  Talent evaluators across the board agree that Machado has the chance to become a special hitter during his career, although some didn’t expect it to happen this quickly (and at the risk of calling myself a talent evaluator, I didn’t think it would happen this quickly either).  

While Machado may be the benefactor of some good luck (I promise I won’t talk about luck…much), the results don’t lie.  Through June 10, Machado has a triple slash line of .316/.352/.484 (AVG/OBP/SLG), and .361 wOBA.  Add that to his defensive contributions, and 'baby, you've got a stew going,' along with a 3.1 WAR (according to Fangraphs), good for 8^th best in baseball.  While he has hit only 5 home runs to date, he leads the league in doubles with 27, six more than Gerardo Parra, who is currently in second place.

And that brings us to the point.  Is there anything about Machado or his season that indicates some of those doubles may turn into home runs in the future?  It is generally believed that as a hitter matures and gets stronger, doubles will become home runs. The Orioles organization knows that this is not necessarily true.  Brian Roberts hit an average of just over 46 doubles per year from 2004 to 2009, but only hit an average of 11.5 home runs over the same time period.  While it may not be fair to compare Roberts and Machado (Roberts being much smaller), Nick Markakis (only an inch shorter than Machado) had the same experience, as his consistent doubles power never really transitioned to consistent home run power.  Excluding an injury shortened 2012, Markakis has averaged almost 40 doubles per season, but only about 17 home runs per season, topping out at 23 way back in 2007. 

Camden Depot covered his declining power numbers last month.  However, both of those players were not as young as Machado when they broke into the majors, so let’s see if we can find players who hit a lot of doubles at a very young age, and see how they turned out. 

According to Dave Szymborski’s ZIPS projection system at Fangraphs, Machado will finish the season with 49 doubles.  Based on that, let’s take a look at players who have hit at least 40 doubles through their age 22 season since 1961 (Machado is currently playing his age 20 season, but I added a couple years to increase the sample size).  Remember, these are raw statistics, so they are not adjusted for run environment or park factor.

A couple of notes on the table above:

• If Machado eventually hits at least 40 doubles this season, he’d join some pretty good company
• 2 of the 18 seasons listed above, only Alex Rodriguez, Johnny Bench, and Cesar Cedeno hit 40 more doubles in their age 20 season
•  ZIPS predicts that Machado will finish this season with 15 home runs.  While most player seasons above showed more present home run power than ZIPS expects from Machado this year, he is also one or two years younger, with only A-Rod’s 1996 home run total higher than ZIPS projection for Machado (for age 20 seasons)

With regards to career home runs, Gregg Jefferies, Cesar Cedeno, and Ben Grieve are the names that really stick out on this list (most of the active players have plenty of time to add to their career home run totals).  Jefferies played 14 years, and while he had some decent years, he never really hit for much power overall, and he finished his career with a .421 slugging percentage.  Grieve on the other hand had a great start to his career by hitting 55 of his career 118 home runs in his age 23 and 24 season, but he fell apart quickly afterwards and was out of baseball completely before the age of 30.  Finally, Cedeno hit over 20 home runs in each of his age 21-23 seasons, but could never reach that level again, finishing his 17-year career with 199.

That last paragraph is admittedly a little depressing, so let’s get back to Machado.  Here’s how his batted ball statistics compare to the MLB averages.

Machado is hitting more groundballs and less fly balls than you’d normally want from someone with so much power potential.  Fortunately, those groundballs seem to be finding holes (BABIP is well above league average).  Unfortunately, the fly balls he hits are not clearing the fences as much as the rest of the league (HR/FB ratio well below league average).  Both of these are likely a function of some luck, however, HR/FB ratio tends to stabilize somewhere around 300 PA’s, and Machado has walked to the plate 294 times this year (as of June 10).  The focus of this table though should be on Machado’s above average line drive rate.  This indicates that he has no trouble making quality contact against major league pitching, and squares up the ball better than the average hitter, which should correlate with a higher batting average and slugging percentage.  For a player that’s not even old enough to drink, that’s impressive.  And since LD% tends to stabilize around 150 PA’s, we can safely say that Machado’s LD% is likely not a function of luck.  To put this into perspective, the only other players in the major leagues age 21 or younger with at least 150 PA’s this season are Mike Trout and Bryce Harper, both of whom have LD% lower than Machado’s.  It’s true.  Look it up.

I recently went back and viewed all of Machado’s doubles using the magic of MLB TV, and there certainly doesn’t seem to be much luck involved, as all but 2 of them were hit hard.  Take a look at the figure below, which shows the hit location for each of Machado’s doubles, along with the batted ball classification.  

Three things stick out from this figure.  The first is that 21 of Machado’s 27 doubles have come from line drives or fly balls (78%), reinforcing the fact that he his making quality contact on his doubles.  Second, while all 5 of Machado’s home runs have been pulled into the left field seats, the figure shows his ability to drive a baseball to all fields, which not only suggests he can turn on an inside pitch, but also drive a pitch on the outside part of the plate to the opposite field.  As he gets stronger, some of those opposite field doubles (specifically in the gap) should carry into the stands.  Third, at least 4 of these doubles (on or past the “hypothetical” wall) could have just as easily been home runs in certain ballparks or weather conditions. 

So far in his young career, Manny Machado has exceeded just about everyone’s expectations with his bat, and the Orioles front office (as well as the fans) have to be thrilled to have such a gifted young player for years to come.  Based on what’s been discussed, along with the belief that Machado will only get stronger, it’s easy to dream of Machado matching (and/or exceeding) the career numbers of the more prominent names in the table above, and he definitely has the potential to do that.   However, it’s important to remember that Machado is still young, and his path to that potential is not guaranteed.  It will take continued hard work, and adjustment after adjustment.  I believe he has it in him to get there, but until he does, I will thoroughly enjoy watching him spray line drives all over the field, collecting as many doubles as possible.

Sunday, er, Monday Comics: Welcome, Hunter Harvey!

My main job at Aerys Sports is to cover the MLB Draft every year. Between the draft and my thyroid flaring up this weekend, I didn't get a chance to upload this little doodle of the Orioles' top draft pick this year, RHP Hunter Harvey.

I think the Orioles uniform suits him pretty well, actually.

You can follow Hunter on Twitter here!

A Closer Look at the Freddy Garcia Experiment

On May 30 against the Nationals in a 2-0 win, Freddy Garcia put up this surprising line: 8.0 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 6 K. In fact, he has only pitched two other such games (at least 8 innings, no runs, no walks, and at least six strikeouts) in his career, and you have to go back to 2002 for the last time he did so.

Rk	Date	Tm	Opp	Rslt	App,Dec	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	Pit
1	2001-09-10	SEA	ANA	W 5-1	GS-8 ,W	8.0	3	0	0	0	8	0	116
2	2002-06-19	SEA	CIN	W 2-0	GS-8 ,W	8.0	3	0	0	0	7	0	107
3	2013-05-30	BAL	WSN	W 2-0	GS-8 ,W	8.0	3	0	0	0	6	0	113

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 6/7/2013.

It was a dominant start from a pitcher who no longer has dominant stuff (we'll get to that). But that performance led to this comment from Jon Heyman of CBS Sports:

o's gm dan duquette hit homer with nate mclouth signing last year. will he repeat with freddy garcia (1.02 whip)?
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeymanCBS) May 31, 2013

Yes, it's Twitter, and sure, Heyman is probably making a brief comment to start a discussion, but that's both overly optimistic and simplistic. After hitting rock bottom with the Pirates in the first part of the season in 2012, McLouth reversed course to not only become a valuable contributor to the O's playoff run, but now he's hitting even better and is on pace to have one of his best major league seasons. Literally no one saw that coming or predicted that. Regardless, it's important to remember that McLouth's unexpected revival is an anomaly.

After that start against the Nationals, Garcia had a 3.57 ERA in 35.1 innings, which seems pretty good. But he had just 15 strikeouts in those innings, had already allowed seven home runs, and had a BABIP around .200 (suggesting some amount of luck, along with his still-high strand rate). One positive was the low walk rate, but Garcia just wasn't missing many bats, and a large percentage of fly balls against him were leaving the ballpark.

Garcia's next start came last Wednesday in Houston, and he did not fare well. He lasted just three innings, allowing seven hits (including four home runs) and six runs, while walking two and striking out two. Garcia's ERA jumped to 4.70, along with these unsightly numbers: 3.99 K/9, 25% HR/FB, 2.58 HR/9, 6.54 FIP. That's right, exactly a quarter of the total fly balls hit against Garcia have ended up as home runs. Things might be even worse if not for Garcia's low walk rate (1.88 BB/9).

So what are the problems? Like many 36-year-old pitchers, Garcia's dealing with the continued decline of his pitching arsenal. He currently throws six (possibly seven) pitches: a four-seam fastball, a sinker (two-seamer), a slider, a curveball, a splitter, and a changeup (and apparently an occasional cutter)). He's been mixing in all of those pitches, but he's been doing that for a while now.

As you can see above, Garcia has opted to throw his two fastballs the most (both over 20% of the time), with his splitter and curveball each sitting just above 15%. The biggest change for him, though, seems to be the decline in usage of his slider. From 2010-2012, the slider was the pitch Garcia used the most. Last season, he threw it over 40% of the time. This season, though, it's his fifth most used pitch, slightly above his changeup.

Now, let's focus on velocity and movement. Per Pitch F/X, Garcia's average fastball velocity (87.0 mph) is about the same as it was last year (86.8). Still, his velocity has dropped in every season since 2008 (89.6), so he's not going to find any extra miles per hour with his pitches.

Besides the slight decrease in splitter and slider velocity -- and the continued small increases in curveball velocity since 2010 -- there's not much there. On to horizontal movement:

Garcia's slider, oddly enough, is the one pitch that appears to be moving more. His curveball has also held steady. His fastballs and changeup are moving slightly less than 2012, but the biggest change seems to be in his splitter, which is not moving nearly as much as last season. In fact, the horizontal movement on his splitter has been decreasing since 2010 -- not a good sign for the pitch he relies on the third most (along with his curve).

Finally, we have vertical movement:

Here we see slight increases from 2012 in both of his fastballs, and his curveball is moving more as well. But his slider and splitter are both moving less. It's possible that Garcia is relying on his split fastball too much (and maybe not enough on his curveball). His splitter isn't moving as much both horizontally and vertically, yet he's still throwing it over 16% of the time.

As you'd expect with a pitcher with declining stuff, opposing batters are making more contact against Garcia. The contact percentage of 83.3 against him would be the highest since 2007 (86.1), and while batters aren't making quite as much contact inside the zone (from 89.9% in 2012 to 88.1%), they're making much more contact on pitches outside the strikezone (from 58.1% to 70.8%). Considering that they're also swinging less often on those same pitches (27.6% to 25.1%), that's a pretty significant jump.

Picking guys up off the scrap heap is fine. Because the Orioles don't have much organizational depth, there isn't a whole lot of risk involved when it comes to taking chances on players other teams don't want and stashing them at Triple-A for a rainy day. But a platoon-able corner outfielder like McLouth is one thing (McLouth is also 31; Garcia is 36). If Garcia only had to make a handful of starts, he could have been an acceptable fill-in. But he's already made seven starts and is demonstrating why other teams stayed away.

Could Zelous Wheeler Help the Orioles?

The parent Orioles are still struggling at second base; Ryan Flaherty and Alexi Casilla aren’t hitting and Yamaico Navarro wasn’t doing the job defensively. If the Orioles got desperate, would Zelous Wheeler be an option? Could he plug the second-base hole; either by playing second himself, or taking over at third, reassigning Manny Machado and/or J.J. Hardy? If he did somehow get a chance, what would we expect? Defensively, he could probably handle third base but I wouldn’t want to play him at second or short on more than an emergency basis. I will look in more detail at his offense.

First, some background. Wheeler, who turned 26 in January, was claimed on waivers from the Brewers at the end of the 2012 spring training. He spent most of 2012 at Bowie, with three short stints at Norfolk (the beginning of the year, a brief period in the middle, and the end of the year.) He’s been uncannily consistent throughout his minor league career, although he’s performing substantially better than his norms in 2013. Physically, he looks a lot like the end-of-career Bill Madlock, if you remember him.

I’ve seen 31 of Zelous Wheeler’s plate appearances. Here’s the pitch breakdown:

Called Balls: 48

Called Strikes: 35

Swinging Strikes: 4

Fouls: 10

Ball Put in Play: 25

Hit By Pitch: 1

At first glance, it looks as though Wheeler may be suffering from too little aggressiveness, because he’s taking 68% of the pitches he sees. On the positive side, when he does swing, he makes contact; of his swings, he’s only missed 10.3%.

For his entire season at Norfolk (through June 6), Wheeler has walked only six times and struck out only six times in 70 plate appearances. Players who take a lot of pitches generally have high walk and strikeout rates; Wheeler does not. Nor does Wheeler have a particularly high isolated power; his combined AA-and-AAA 2013 isolated power is .135. If the idea behind taking pitches is to wait for a pitch to drive, the success of that notion isn’t reflected in his power.

Zelous Wheeler would probably make a fine bench player for the Orioles. He can fill in at third, second, or short, and can serve as a DH against lefthanded pitchers, especially in an on-base offensive role. There’s no real reason to believe that Zelous Wheeler is a realistic option for second base. Nowadays, most teams don’t carry a bench player with Wheeler’s skills. He’s someone to be aware of, but not to get too excited about.

Quick View - Nicky Delmonico

Last season Camden Depot decided that my opinions on the Orioles' prospects were worth sharing. Because I see a lot of the AAA Norfolk Tides, my opinions of them are at least based on a lot of observations. But last season I didn't have any special insight on the players who didn't play at Norfolk, so this season I decided to take a tour of the Orioles' non-Norfolk full-season farm teams. My first game was June 4; Lynchburg at Frederick. Frederick's top prospect is left-handed-hitting first baseman-third baseman Nicky Delmonico.

It was only one game, but Delmonico impressed me with his ability to make consistent hard contact. In his first at-bat, he dropped a fly ball into left field against an extreme overshift for a double. After that, he twice hit hard ground balls through the shift for singles; hit a hard line drive caught by the Lynchburg center fielderm and started a game-winning, three-run, tenth-inning rally with a line-drive home run to right center field. There's no question that Delmonico has the potential to hit for average in the major leagues; he reminded me of 1970's Pirate Al Oliver.

On the other hand, I have three questions about him. First, as I alluded to earlier, Lynchburg generally played an extreme overshift against him. If he already has a reputation as an extreme pull hitter while he's still in Class A, I wonder if he'll learn to take pitches the opposite way and open up the field more. Second, and again it's only one game, I don't think he has enough lateral quickness to be more than a marginal third baseman. Twice, he was very good at charging bunts, but on the one play he had to move laterally he got his glove on the ball but merely deflected it; he was charged with an error. Third, Delmonico may be too good a hitter for his own good. He saw only eleven pitches in his five at-bats - no more than three in any one at-bat and it's possible that he'll make weak contact at pitches he should let go.

Overall, at this point, I'd give Delmonico a B- grade. He's got two strong positives -- he's a left-handed hitter and he's got the hit tool. He's got the chance to develop power, and he's got the tools to be a good defensive first basemen if that's where he ends up. If he could play third base well, that would be another positive. But I can't shake the nagging suspicion that he might end up being a left-handed Josh Vitters, a player whose hit tool is so good that he swings at pitches he shouldn't, and ends up being ineffective.

Waiting for the draft...

Here are some items for the draft regarding the Orioles.

Mocks!

Jim Callis: Chris Anderson, RHP
Patrick Ebert: Nick Ciuffo, C
Keith Law: Premium...just pay the man and find out.
Jonathan Mayo: Chris Anderson, RHP
Kiley McDaniel: Eric Jagielo, 3B

First off, the predominant projection is Chris Anderson.  In a nutshell, not a very inspired selection.  He does not have much projection, has shaky secondary options, and is often handed the ceiling of backend innings eater.

Nick Ciuffo is the Goldilocks catcher of the first round.  He profiles as average with the bat and average with the glove.

The Eric Jagielo pick is made by the guy who worked in the previous Orioles' front office.  Whether or not this selection was informed by his connections there...I don't know.  Jagielo is a college bat with power and a decent likelihood to remain at third.  I wrote about him here.

If you are following along tonight, feel free to pepper me with questions on this post.  Any major analysis of the Orioles will be handled over at Baltimore Sports and Life.  I will provide links if such things are written.

Update (Shadow Draft):
1 - Phillip Ervin, CF
1s - Bobby Wahl, RHP
2 - Jake Brentz, LHP

Update (Shadow Draft):
3 - Conrad Gregor, 1B
4 - Jared King, OF
5 - Brian Navaretto, C
6 - Brandon Bednar, SS
7 - Andrew Pierce, RHP
8 - Mitchel Garver, C
9 - Andy Hillis, RHP
10 - Phillip Walby, RHP