Orioles Give Hope

The Fan has watched several games this year between the Yankees and the Orioles. Monday's Labor Day matinee was just the latest this year. It was like watching a completely different team than earlier contests between these two teams. The Orioles are no longer an easy roll over for good teams. They have beat the Yankees, the Red Sox, the Bay Rays among others since Buck Showalter took over the team. It's been an amazing turnaround.

Earlier in the year, if the Orioles jumped out to a quick lead and the Yankees came back late in the game to tie things up, the game was over. The Orioles simply folded like kids who know they can't climb the rope in gym class. (Do they still do that?) On Monday, the same thing happened except the Orioles didn't quit. They came right back and scored a go ahead run and then held the Yankees from scoring further. This isn't the same Orioles team of April through July.

The easy thing is to give Buck Showalter credit and he deserves a lot of it. But credit also goes to Brian Roberts, who finally has a reason to play each day. Monday was a perfect example. The Orioles were terrible in driving in runs with runners in scoring position except for the two times Roberts delivered two singles with two outs to get runs home. To say that Roberts increased his leverage score would be an understatement. But credit also has to go to the entire team that is playing hard and is starting to believe they have every chance to win each day.

The Fan has been studying body language for a lifetime and a perfect example of the difference in the Orioles is Matt Wieters. Every time the Fan saw Wieters, he seemed like he was playing small. That's pretty difficult to do when you are six foot, five. Now he looks like a ballplayer. He stands more erect. He doesn't have a deer-in-the-headlights look to him. Michael Kay, the Yankees' excellent play-by-play guy talked about how Showalter saw that Wieters was still getting hazed like a rookie. Showalter made it stop and told the team that Wieters was the leader of the pitching staff and should be treated like one. How cool is that? All that is great, but the team has to allow itself to respond and they are.

Remember that the Orioles were 32-73 before Showalter and the fighting Showalters are now 20-13. Matusz is better. Wieters is better. Bergesen is better. Guthrie is better. All of these guys obviously have talent or they wouldn't have been prized prospects to begin with. Showalter has found a way to tap into the talent and make it believe that, on any given day, it can shine.

What is going on in Baltimore and really, in Houston too, is that it shows that a team can be turned around. No situation is so bad that any team that takes it a day at a time and works together toward the goal of winning each day can be successful. Obviously, the Orioles have lost 13 games since Showalter too over. But the difference is that they are competitive. That's all a team's fans can ask for. All a fan needs is to know that on this given day, my team can win the game. They may not, but at least the odds are 50/50 and not much lower than that.

Teams like the Pirates and the Brewers and the Royals should take note that only top notch leadership is acceptable. Any of those teams could have had Showalter, right? The Orioles are still a few players short of being successful long term, but any team that finds them on their schedule better take those games seriously now because they won't be easy wins. And if they aren't careful, they may be losses.

AL East - The Best Division for Second Base Men

The American League East is already considered to have three of the best teams in baseball with the Yankees, the Red Sox and the Bay Rays. And each team has talent all over the field. Each team has at least one or two advantages at a position over the other. But one position seems to be a draw: Second base. In fact, the AL East probably has the best division in baseball for guys who play second: Cano, Pedroia, Hill, Zobrist, Roberts. Wow. That's a lot of talent this side of Chase Utley. Let's take a look at each of them.

Robinson Cano:
Age - 28
Lifetime Batting Average - .306
Lifetime OPS+ - 113
RF/9 - 5.04
Lifetime Fielding Perc. - .982
2009 RTOT - 9.5
2009 OPS+ - 129

Comments: Cano really improved last year in his concentration and fielding. He's quick on the double play and he hasn't yet put it all together at the plate. He hit .322 last year and many feel he should win a batting title. This could be the year. He needs to walk more. But won't.

Dustin Pedroia:
Age - 27
Lifetime Batting Average - .307
Lifetime OPS+ - 111
RF/9 - 4.73
Lifetime Fielding Perc. - .990
2009 RTOT - 9.8
2009 OPS+ - 111

Comments: Plays all out all the time. Hardly ever makes an error. One of the hardest swingers per pound in the game.

Aaron Hill:
Age - 28
Lifetime Batting Average - .285
Lifetime OPS+ - 102
RF/9 - 5.09
Lifetime Fielding Perc. - .988
2009 RTOT - 9.6
2009 OPS+ - 117

Comments: A bit of a late bloomer, but boy did he bloom. With 72 extra base hits, Hill came out of nowhere to ring up 36 homers. And the way he is hitting this spring, it wasn't a fluke.

Brian Roberts:
Age - 33
Lifetime Batting Average - .284
Lifetime OPS+ - 105
RF/9 - 4.77
Lifetime Fielding Perc. - .987
2009 RTOT - -14.2
2009 OPS+ - 111

Comments: On the downward slope of his career, or at least he should be. Lifetime OPS+ suffers in comparison due to late blooming. But he has averaged an OPS+ of 115 over the last five years. Range has dwindled. Good fielding percentage but rated far behind the others in the fielding category.

Ben Zobrist:
Age - 28
Lifetime Batting Average - .260
Lifetime OPS - 109
RF/9 - 4.64 (at second) He's played a lot of positions.
Lifetime Fielding Perc. - .990
2009 RTOT - 5.8
2009 OPS+ - 146

Comments: Easily had the best year at the plate of the group. Was in the top ten in OPS/SLG/OBP. More versatile than the others in that he can play other positions but second seems to be where he fields the best. The Fan was surprised at his age. He will be 29 in May.

Here are their projected WARP (wins over replacement player) for 2010 according to PECOTA from Baseball Prospectus:

Cano - 4.8
Pedroia - 5.9
Hill - 4.0
Roberts - 3.3
Zobrist - 4.0

So, according to Baseball Prospectus, the value goes by rank: Pedroia, Cano, Hill/Zobrist, Roberts. Sounds about right. Though Hill and Zobrist certainly can finish higher than their projections.

Roberts has had a great five year run and has been a perennial All Star. Due to his fielding, he might be a tad overrated. But he's a solid player and if he is the poorest of the AL East at his position, that's a pretty strong division. Zobrist faded a bit in the second half last year but he had never played in so many games. But it's hard to argue with his final results. Pedroia was the AL MVP and followed it up with a good season. He will be good for quite some time yet. Cano is getting better and better and we haven't seen the best of him. And Aaron Hill has become the star of his team and is no slouch compared to the other four.

The AL East has a lot of riches in talent, but no more so than at second base.

Brian Roberts: The Quiet Oriole

Year in and year out, Brian Roberts plays the game to little fanfare. Granted, he's been stuck on a terrible Orioles team for his whole career, but still. Every once in a while, his name will come up on trade talks and rumors, but he's still an Oriole and he just goes about his business of putting productive numbers on the board.

Part of his problem is that his numbers never really pop out at you. As a lead off hitter, his lifetime OBP is .354. Good, but not elite. He has stolen 255 bases in his career with a very impressive 80% success rate. But he's only led the league in that category once. He has only batted over .300 once in his career. He's never had more than 200 hits. FanGraphs only rates him as the 15th best fielding second baseman in baseball.

Despite all that, for a second baseman, the guy quietly goes out every year and puts up above league average offensive seasons on the board. Brian Roberts also does one thing really, really well besides stealing bases: He hits a huge amount of doubles. Roberts has been a full-time starter for six seasons (it seems longer). This year will be the third time in those six seasons where he has hit more than 50 doubles. This year, he has 55 and has a long-shot chance to reach 60. If he gets there, it will be the first time a MLB player has hit 60 doubles since 1936. That would be a pretty cool feat.

Roberts has scored over a hundred runs once again this year (the third year in a row) and is having a good power year with fifteen homers. He's also knocked in 74 runs, excellent for a lead off guy.

Brian Roberts isn't a guy who will wow you. But his consistent and relentless production stand up for what has been a pretty darn good career.