All right....time for another year of lamenting the fallen! For the second year in a row, I'm releasing an album right during the height of elimination season, so I make no promises as to the punctuality of these writeups, but nevertheless...here we go....
On August 9, the Orioles lost to the Astros by a score of 3-2 in a close and exciting game. After the game, manager Brandon Hyde was complimentary of his squad, noting that the O’s had “played a good baseball game [against a] tough team.” Indeed, Hyde's positivity was well-placed; there’s no shame in losing a squeaker to a juggernaut.
The next night, the Orioles lost to the Astros by a score of 23-2. Similar comments were not made by the manager after that game.
Such is life on a team deep in the throes of a rebuild. This season, the Orioles have flitted between looking sort of like a major league team and looking like an expansion team. Certainly, there have been rare bouts of competence, like their .500 July, or when the middle of the order (Mancini and Villar) is rolling, or any time John Means or pre-trade Andrew Cashner have taken the mound. Most of the rest of the year, though, has been a disaster; the Orioles have four months where they haven’t cracked ten wins, they’ve had three losing streaks of seven games or more (7, 8, and 10 games), and they’ve won one or fewer games against 10 of the 18 teams they’ve faced this year. They’ve lost by five or more runs 39 times, and they’re getting outscored by over two runs a game on average. The Orioles didn’t quite match the record that they set last year for earliest division elimination in history, but they’re only about a week behind that pace.
The biggest problem for the Orioles has undoubtedly been the pitching. The launch angle revolution has baseballs flying out of the park at unprecedented rates, and no team has borne the brunt of that change more than the O’s. So far, the Orioles have given up 261 home runs this season; in doing so, they’ve already set the record for most home runs in a season….and it’s only August. The O’s are currently on pace to give up almost 330 home runs, smashing the previous record by 70 home runs; their 61 home runs allowed to the Yankees also smashes the old “HR allowed to one team” record by 13, and also happens to be a big reason for the Yanks’ 16-game winning streak against the O’s. The Orioles’ current team ERA+ is 78, which is on par with some of the worst-pitching teams in history like the 1908 Highlanders, the 1962 Mets, and the 1939-40 St. Louis Browns; it’s no stretch to say that this year’s pitching staff is the worst in the history of the Baltimore Orioles.
And then, of course, there’s still the silly saga of Chris Davis. I suppose it doesn’t hurt a rebuilding team to pay a big salary for no production (it’s not like that salary is preventing them from signing someone, because no one will sign with them anyway), but….it’s still painful for O’s fans to watch the big first baseman who forgot how to hit. Last year, Davis cratered, hitting .168 with minimal power (28 extra-base hits) while cashing a check for $23 million from the Orioles. This year, he picked up where he left off….. literally; he began a hitless streak in September and continued it through the middle of April, eventually setting the record for longest hitless streak in MLB history. So far this year, Davis has “improved” to .177, although he’s down to 17 extra-base hits. For the first time, Davis even began to show some visible signs of frustration, leading to a verbal altercation in the dugout between Davis and the rookie manager in August. Not to worry, though – only three more years and $69 million left on that contract!
New GM Mike Elias has promised to bring in a new Orioles way with lots of statistics and video scouting, and after a gradual start, he’s ramped up the organizational turnover/purge as the season has gone on. VP of Baseball Operations Brady Anderson was slowly edged out over the course of the season, and in August, Elias fired a dozen top scouts (which has drawn a bit of concern as he hasn’t replaced them yet). He inherited a farm system that’s good but young; the top players are all at least three levels away from the bigs, and the top prospect of the system is recent-draftee and still-in-short-season-ball Adley Rutschman. There’s some reason for long-term optimism in Charm City, but between the eternal MASN fight with the Nationals, the fact that they’ve had four winning seasons out of the last 22, and a lingering city-wide pall from the whole Freddie Gray fiasco, Baltimoreans aren’t the most optimistic lot right now. For now, O’s fans may just have to amuse themselves with the barrage of souvenirs coming off of the bats of opposing hitters.
The O's last made the playoffs in 2016. Their last World Series was in 1983.
Unlike other sports, MLB rebuilds are usually an attempt to turn over the roster without tanking it. Sure, refusing to tank may lead to a worse draft pick, but one player doesn’t make a team, and there are real financial costs to completely bottoming out – not to mention that establishing a losing culture isn’t exactly how you want your young core to develop.
It goes without saying, then, that when a team is on pace to win fewer than fifty games, something has gone a little bit wrong with the rebuild.
Entering the second year of the rebuild, GM Alex Avila decided that it was time to bring in some veteran presence to help the youngsters and give the Tigers a bit of respectability (also, veterans can be traded at the deadline). He signed middle infielders Jordy Mercer and Josh Harrison from the Pirates to anchor the middle of the diamond, and starting pitchers Matt Moore and Tyson Ross were also added to bolster the otherwise young rotation. Certainly, these moves weren’t exactly a cue to start printing Tigers’ playoff tickets, but they would at least lend the Tigers some respectability as they spent the year trying to figure out which youngsters to keep and which to get rid of.
Unfortunately for the Tigers, all of those signings failed spectacularly, and all four have spent most of the season on the IL. Matt Moore looked dominant (posting a 0 ERA!) in his brief Tigers’ tenure; of course, that tenure lasted just ten innings before he was felled with a torn meniscus. The other three, however, have been both injured and bad, which is the worst of all worlds: Jordy Mercer has played 53 games and amassed a -0.1 WAR; Harrison posted a .176/.219/.265 line in 36 hapless games; and Ross went 1-5 with a 6.11 ERA before blowing out his right elbow.
Adding insult (and more injury) to literal injury, former Rookie of the Year Michael Fullmer was shut down in spring training to focus on his lower body mechanics, which apparently turned out to be a really odd euphemism for Tommy John surgery. Throw in Jordan Zimmerman’s complete collapse, and the Tigers were already down four starters by the end of April…which means that the Tigers have spent the season giving starts to pretty much anyone with a functioning arm, from overmatched AAA/AAAA players like Gregory Soto and Ryan Carpenter to over-the-hill castoffs like Edwin Jackson. As of now, Tigers starters have only won 19 games this year, which is just four more than ex-Tiger Justin Verlander has won all by himself for the Astros this season; in fact, from June 5 to July 3, Tigers' starters didn't win a single game. The surprise, then, isn’t that the Tigers’ pitching hasn’t been good – the surprise is that they haven’t been worse. Their surprisingly not-awful 94 ERA+ is a result of good seasons from the Matthew Boyd/Daniel Norris/Spencer Turnbull trio in the rotation, as well as (pre-trade) closer Shane Greene’s unwillingness to give up runs in the ninth inning.
The hitting, however, has had no such saving grace. The Tigers’ 77 OPS+ is 12 points clear of the next-worst AL team and is, in fact, much closer to awful historical comps like the 1955 Orioles and the 1979 A’s than any team playing in the American League today. This season, the Tigers’ lineup has featured exactly one player with a 100 OPS+ (Nicholas Castellanos)…and that player was sent to the Cubs at the deadline. Castellanos and Niko Goodrum are the only position players worth at least one win above replacement; in fact, Matt Moore, who pitched exactly ten innings this year, has a higher WAR than all but three of the 2019 Tigers’ position players. Tigers’ catchers have been particularly bad; they’ve actually been less valuable at the plate (.160/.216/.297) than Mets’ pitchers (.189/.224/.289) this season. There are any multitude of stats that one could use to explain just how bad the Tigers hitters are this year - they’re getting a .294 OPS from the leadoff spot and a .205 batting average from the #5 spot, they’ve scored more than four runs in just 28% of their games this year, they’re the only AL team to average less than one home run per game in the year of the juiced ball - but the bottom line is that the Tigers’ offense has been absolutely, unbelievably, historically bad.
And much like the Orioles, the Tigers also have an aging slugger who has turned into an albatross for the team. Miguel Cabrera, the greatest Tigers’ hitter in history, whom the Tigers acquired for Cameron Maybin/the terrible-starting-pitcher version of Andrew Miller/four guys you’ve never heard of, the guy who’s definitely going into the Hall of Fame with a Tigers’ hat on his plaque, the first triple crown winner in forty years….is currently a shell of his former self. He’s been battling leg issues all season that have sapped his power, which is a problem because he doesn’t exactly do anything else besides hit; a .280 batting average with nine home runs and 19 doubles isn’t going to provide a whole lot of value from a full-time DH. Five-and-a-half years ago, Cabrera was signed to an inexplicable $248 million contract extension through 2023 despite the fact that he still had two years left on his then-current deal; now, Cabrera has a persistent knee “soreness” that may never go away, which means that the Tigers are on the hook for $30+ million per year for a player who can’t hit for power or field any position. Cabrera had a nice dead-cat bounce last year, and he's beloved in Detroit, but now there’s not much he offers the Tigers except memories.
Detroit last won the World Series in 1984. They were last in the playoffs in 2014.
On August 9, the Orioles lost to the Astros by a score of 3-2 in a close and exciting game. After the game, manager Brandon Hyde was complimentary of his squad, noting that the O’s had “played a good baseball game [against a] tough team.” Indeed, Hyde's positivity was well-placed; there’s no shame in losing a squeaker to a juggernaut.
The next night, the Orioles lost to the Astros by a score of 23-2. Similar comments were not made by the manager after that game.
Such is life on a team deep in the throes of a rebuild. This season, the Orioles have flitted between looking sort of like a major league team and looking like an expansion team. Certainly, there have been rare bouts of competence, like their .500 July, or when the middle of the order (Mancini and Villar) is rolling, or any time John Means or pre-trade Andrew Cashner have taken the mound. Most of the rest of the year, though, has been a disaster; the Orioles have four months where they haven’t cracked ten wins, they’ve had three losing streaks of seven games or more (7, 8, and 10 games), and they’ve won one or fewer games against 10 of the 18 teams they’ve faced this year. They’ve lost by five or more runs 39 times, and they’re getting outscored by over two runs a game on average. The Orioles didn’t quite match the record that they set last year for earliest division elimination in history, but they’re only about a week behind that pace.
The biggest problem for the Orioles has undoubtedly been the pitching. The launch angle revolution has baseballs flying out of the park at unprecedented rates, and no team has borne the brunt of that change more than the O’s. So far, the Orioles have given up 261 home runs this season; in doing so, they’ve already set the record for most home runs in a season….and it’s only August. The O’s are currently on pace to give up almost 330 home runs, smashing the previous record by 70 home runs; their 61 home runs allowed to the Yankees also smashes the old “HR allowed to one team” record by 13, and also happens to be a big reason for the Yanks’ 16-game winning streak against the O’s. The Orioles’ current team ERA+ is 78, which is on par with some of the worst-pitching teams in history like the 1908 Highlanders, the 1962 Mets, and the 1939-40 St. Louis Browns; it’s no stretch to say that this year’s pitching staff is the worst in the history of the Baltimore Orioles.
And then, of course, there’s still the silly saga of Chris Davis. I suppose it doesn’t hurt a rebuilding team to pay a big salary for no production (it’s not like that salary is preventing them from signing someone, because no one will sign with them anyway), but….it’s still painful for O’s fans to watch the big first baseman who forgot how to hit. Last year, Davis cratered, hitting .168 with minimal power (28 extra-base hits) while cashing a check for $23 million from the Orioles. This year, he picked up where he left off….. literally; he began a hitless streak in September and continued it through the middle of April, eventually setting the record for longest hitless streak in MLB history. So far this year, Davis has “improved” to .177, although he’s down to 17 extra-base hits. For the first time, Davis even began to show some visible signs of frustration, leading to a verbal altercation in the dugout between Davis and the rookie manager in August. Not to worry, though – only three more years and $69 million left on that contract!
New GM Mike Elias has promised to bring in a new Orioles way with lots of statistics and video scouting, and after a gradual start, he’s ramped up the organizational turnover/purge as the season has gone on. VP of Baseball Operations Brady Anderson was slowly edged out over the course of the season, and in August, Elias fired a dozen top scouts (which has drawn a bit of concern as he hasn’t replaced them yet). He inherited a farm system that’s good but young; the top players are all at least three levels away from the bigs, and the top prospect of the system is recent-draftee and still-in-short-season-ball Adley Rutschman. There’s some reason for long-term optimism in Charm City, but between the eternal MASN fight with the Nationals, the fact that they’ve had four winning seasons out of the last 22, and a lingering city-wide pall from the whole Freddie Gray fiasco, Baltimoreans aren’t the most optimistic lot right now. For now, O’s fans may just have to amuse themselves with the barrage of souvenirs coming off of the bats of opposing hitters.
The O's last made the playoffs in 2016. Their last World Series was in 1983.
Unlike other sports, MLB rebuilds are usually an attempt to turn over the roster without tanking it. Sure, refusing to tank may lead to a worse draft pick, but one player doesn’t make a team, and there are real financial costs to completely bottoming out – not to mention that establishing a losing culture isn’t exactly how you want your young core to develop.
It goes without saying, then, that when a team is on pace to win fewer than fifty games, something has gone a little bit wrong with the rebuild.
Entering the second year of the rebuild, GM Alex Avila decided that it was time to bring in some veteran presence to help the youngsters and give the Tigers a bit of respectability (also, veterans can be traded at the deadline). He signed middle infielders Jordy Mercer and Josh Harrison from the Pirates to anchor the middle of the diamond, and starting pitchers Matt Moore and Tyson Ross were also added to bolster the otherwise young rotation. Certainly, these moves weren’t exactly a cue to start printing Tigers’ playoff tickets, but they would at least lend the Tigers some respectability as they spent the year trying to figure out which youngsters to keep and which to get rid of.
Unfortunately for the Tigers, all of those signings failed spectacularly, and all four have spent most of the season on the IL. Matt Moore looked dominant (posting a 0 ERA!) in his brief Tigers’ tenure; of course, that tenure lasted just ten innings before he was felled with a torn meniscus. The other three, however, have been both injured and bad, which is the worst of all worlds: Jordy Mercer has played 53 games and amassed a -0.1 WAR; Harrison posted a .176/.219/.265 line in 36 hapless games; and Ross went 1-5 with a 6.11 ERA before blowing out his right elbow.
Adding insult (and more injury) to literal injury, former Rookie of the Year Michael Fullmer was shut down in spring training to focus on his lower body mechanics, which apparently turned out to be a really odd euphemism for Tommy John surgery. Throw in Jordan Zimmerman’s complete collapse, and the Tigers were already down four starters by the end of April…which means that the Tigers have spent the season giving starts to pretty much anyone with a functioning arm, from overmatched AAA/AAAA players like Gregory Soto and Ryan Carpenter to over-the-hill castoffs like Edwin Jackson. As of now, Tigers starters have only won 19 games this year, which is just four more than ex-Tiger Justin Verlander has won all by himself for the Astros this season; in fact, from June 5 to July 3, Tigers' starters didn't win a single game. The surprise, then, isn’t that the Tigers’ pitching hasn’t been good – the surprise is that they haven’t been worse. Their surprisingly not-awful 94 ERA+ is a result of good seasons from the Matthew Boyd/Daniel Norris/Spencer Turnbull trio in the rotation, as well as (pre-trade) closer Shane Greene’s unwillingness to give up runs in the ninth inning.
The hitting, however, has had no such saving grace. The Tigers’ 77 OPS+ is 12 points clear of the next-worst AL team and is, in fact, much closer to awful historical comps like the 1955 Orioles and the 1979 A’s than any team playing in the American League today. This season, the Tigers’ lineup has featured exactly one player with a 100 OPS+ (Nicholas Castellanos)…and that player was sent to the Cubs at the deadline. Castellanos and Niko Goodrum are the only position players worth at least one win above replacement; in fact, Matt Moore, who pitched exactly ten innings this year, has a higher WAR than all but three of the 2019 Tigers’ position players. Tigers’ catchers have been particularly bad; they’ve actually been less valuable at the plate (.160/.216/.297) than Mets’ pitchers (.189/.224/.289) this season. There are any multitude of stats that one could use to explain just how bad the Tigers hitters are this year - they’re getting a .294 OPS from the leadoff spot and a .205 batting average from the #5 spot, they’ve scored more than four runs in just 28% of their games this year, they’re the only AL team to average less than one home run per game in the year of the juiced ball - but the bottom line is that the Tigers’ offense has been absolutely, unbelievably, historically bad.
And much like the Orioles, the Tigers also have an aging slugger who has turned into an albatross for the team. Miguel Cabrera, the greatest Tigers’ hitter in history, whom the Tigers acquired for Cameron Maybin/the terrible-starting-pitcher version of Andrew Miller/four guys you’ve never heard of, the guy who’s definitely going into the Hall of Fame with a Tigers’ hat on his plaque, the first triple crown winner in forty years….is currently a shell of his former self. He’s been battling leg issues all season that have sapped his power, which is a problem because he doesn’t exactly do anything else besides hit; a .280 batting average with nine home runs and 19 doubles isn’t going to provide a whole lot of value from a full-time DH. Five-and-a-half years ago, Cabrera was signed to an inexplicable $248 million contract extension through 2023 despite the fact that he still had two years left on his then-current deal; now, Cabrera has a persistent knee “soreness” that may never go away, which means that the Tigers are on the hook for $30+ million per year for a player who can’t hit for power or field any position. Cabrera had a nice dead-cat bounce last year, and he's beloved in Detroit, but now there’s not much he offers the Tigers except memories.
Detroit last won the World Series in 1984. They were last in the playoffs in 2014.
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