Well spring is coming and that means baseball is a s well. For me it looks to be another year of wondering what our off season moves actually improved and hoping some young pitchers can figure the majors out. This off season was particularly perplexing as an Orioles fan, we brought in a ton of pitching that basically no one knows much about and did almost nothing to improve the line up. Arguments could be made that our lineup didn't need much improving but as a team with 69 wins last year improvement is always needed no matter where you look. I do think there are more pressing matters than our offense but with each day of Brian Robert's extended stay on the injured list it would have been nice to try to pick up a productive 2B.
Anyway the big question is about all the pitchers the O's brought in and how much they will be able to provide for the major league team. To me it is obvious that most of the young guns will not start out with the big club especially if they have an option left to go to the minors. I would guess that the only one who will crack the rotation at the start of the year might be Arrieta with Britton also being a possibility but like I said if they have an option they better tear it up in spring ball if they want to start out with the big boys. Dan Duquette has said publicly that the young guys were pushed to fast, as we all feared while it was happening, but he also acknowledges that it was done out of necessity. Now it looks like he is going to do what he can to try and help those young guys get back on track and hopefully push their own way up either late this year or next spring. Who knows how this situation will end up as most people would say the people he brought in to push those young players down aren't as good as those young players but this spring should tell us a lot.
They are some kind of exciting prospects brought in by Duquette. It will be interesting to see how Chen and Wada adapt to living in America and it will also be interesting to see how they fit in on this staff with the other pitchers. As we all know Koji ended up being a very good back of the bull pen pitcher but it took almost two years to figure that out. Hopefully this spring shows where these two guys should be quickly so that we can get the most out of them right away instead of waiting till the end of their time here to see what they could have done for us. Also I am excited to see the race for second base, it looks to be a two man race with Andino and Adams being the main players in my mind. Andino obviously has the edge after receiving the bulk of playing time there last year but it could be interesting with Buck wanting Andino to be his utility man off the bench and Adams having played 2B in the past. Left field could be interesting as well, but I think I feel like most fans of the team in that if Nolan Reimold doesn't get his chance there this year we probably should try to trade him. Not that I want that to happen, I think he would do just fine in left and hopefully he could find his stroke at the plate, but if we aren't going to use him I think we could receive at least one B maybe C prospect for him and with our minors as depleted as they are, we need all the help we can get.
The most important thing this year is just to improve in general, we need to do something better this year than we did last year and I don't care what it is (hopefully pitching) just improve somewhere. We have a horrible reputation right now and with each draft class it seems to get worse. I think it is obvious that we are miles away from contending but if we can improve in our minors and in the majors by doing small things right and letting that grow we could start this rebuild the right way. Sooner or later our guys have to learn what is like to win, I think it was Dave Johnson who said that if you come up through the minors and you are never on a wining club, why would you expect to win in the majors? Basically for the last 15 years our guys that we drafted have looked up at something that they don't aspire to be. I think every kid wants to be great at something, especially coming into a professional sports organization, but when that organization shows that they don't really know how to build a team that can win how excited are you to get to the highest level?
Hopefully all the new pitching will help to push the younger guys and help them win in the minors which you hope would help them win in the majors. Time will tell but starting with the group we have from last year, I am not sure how else to attack the problem of pitching. We are not going to go out and spend for the big guys so the only other route to go, it seems, is to create competition and hope it breeds production. Who know how this will work but it should be an interesting experiment.
If the offense can stay where it was I think that would be great. I think we scored enough runs last year to have a winning team, we just didn't have the pitching and defense to match that offensive production. I think they will stay about the same if not maybe slightly better. You probably won't see 30 homers from JJ again, but he still should get on base and be able to score runs in other ways. Also I think the bench is slightly improved with some guys that have put up better offensive numbers in the past. It will be a little strange to have a guy like Betemit at the DH but I think that shows a good trend of a new direction in looking for guys who know how to get on base, instead of looking for retreads and hoping they have a few drops of production to squeeze out before retiring.I think it is reasonable to expect a bit more from Markakis and Jones, Jones has improved almost every year in most categories, and Markakis's production was a bit off last year.
The defense needs a ton of work but unfortunately with Reynolds at third and Davis at first I am not sure how this will improve. Most think that Reynolds had an off year defensively at third and he reported to camp at 20 lbs under last years weight, but he has a lot of improvement to do to be a good defensive third baseman. I love his bat, but you just don't know what you are gonna get on the hot corner, it would be nice to see him at first as he played well there late in the year, but it seems as though Chris Davis will get another shot there. You hope Davis improves offensively as well because I am just not sure the defensive ability is there, I guess we will find out. The outfield is pretty solid with Reimold, Jones, and Markakis projected to start. You know what you will get from Jones and Markakis and I think if Reimold is given that left field spot he can get the confidence to play at a high level defensively. Other than that you know what you are getting at catcher with Weiters, he is a game changer for us behind the plate and I can't wait to see him improve this year. And JJ Hardy and Robert Andino should perform well up the middle, hopefully another year together will help each player improve.
My predictions for this year aren't great as there doesn't seem to be a whole lot added, but if the pitching and defense can just do their part to hang with the offensive production we could get close to .500. Which for the Orioles is no small task. Go O's!
No comments:
Post a Comment