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If Only The Orioles Signed Vlad... Did Baltimore ever really stand a chance? 01/12/04 Phil Orr I know it's not my day to write. But I've had something on my mind that I needed to get out and the regular writer couldn't write today, so I jumped at the opportunity to write. Well, maybe not "jumped" but tried to pawn off the date on every other writer until I finally gave in to write what I was going to write Friday. Anyway, over the past month or so people have been mentioning the Orioles as contenders. People seem to think that the Rangers path to victory is a sucessful one. The problem is, it's not just that the Orioles pitchers would have difficulty retiring a batter in Mudville, but this hitting we're hearing so much about... still isn't quite as good as anyone else in the AL East (For practical purposes, this discussion excludes the Devil Rays, as no one considers them contenders for anything other than loudest heckler.). Even if Baltimore had inked Vlad as expected, their offense would still only be similar if not worse than the Red Sox, Yankees, and Blue Jays. I'm aware most people who are sabermetrically oriented already realize this, and this article would primarily be more useful for them linking O's fans to saying "Look. The Orioles have about as much chance making the playoffs as Brady Anderson does of ever hitting 50 homers again." The problem is it might go right over their head. So let me explain how I'll be doing this right now. Comparisons between players will be done using the ZiPS system, coutresy of Baseball Primer. An explanation of the system can be found here. These projections are mainly useful for younger players. Veteran players will be projected similar to their standard accepted level of play. There are naturally flaws with this projection system, but it's more accurate than just randomly stabbing at numbers with no explanation. So, let us begin the comparison. You can find the chart I obtained these values from here.
I use Runs Created because it allows us to total up the lineup to see approximately how many runs will be produced by the offense, and compare it to R allowed by pitching/defense to arrive at a reasonable conclusion as to where the players would stand. I plan to compare player by player from best to worst. There's no point going by position as we want to look at overall contribution to the offense. As good as Vlad is, it appears as though he is not even better than any of the other four team's superstars. All these players are close in runs created, which is not unexpected. Most would expect fairly similar production from all four of them. In this regard, Baltimore is able to keep up with the division.
From the second table, we can see the following. For one, without Vlad, the Orioles "top player" doesn't even come close to the other three teams. And even with Vlad, Tejada comes up far short compared to the rest of the division again as far as their second best player goes.
A couple of things. First, if the Orioles had gotten Vlad, one wonders if they still would have signed Palmeiro. But let's give them the benefit of the doubt. The Orioles finish last again in this category, in which the Yankees again finish first, this time with a huge advantage.
Once again, the Orioles finish 4th in the division. It's something you'll see throughout this piece, and at the end of the season too. In all fairness, Lopez has so few RC due primarily to an expected lack of games played. However that should be made up in the bench comparison, so the overall team totals of runs scored should even out.
In all fairness, the last two comparisons have had the Orioles much lower due primarily to a lowered number of expected games played. However that should be made up in the bench comparison, so the overall team totals of runs scored should even out. From here on, most totals will be fairly meaningless as a comparison as games played becomes a huge factor. However I'll continue to do them out of continuity. It's once we get the final run totals that an important number will come up.
As you can see, Baltimore ends up on the bottom. It's a mere matter of runs and this isn't an exact science, so you never know how things would turn out, but consider that not signing Vlad leaves a replacement around 70-80 RC below him. That puts Baltimore nowhere near the other teams. Of course, we were trying to prove that Baltimore had no chance even with Vlad, so let's take a look at how many runs each team is projected to approximately allow. These numbers are all well above normal run totals created for a league, so while inexact, dividing by 1.15 to get a number that coincides reasonably with the number of runs a team will score. Even though it's just an arbitrary number, when applied to all teams evenly the overall comparison between the teams remains unchanged. Thus, here is that table.
Now, it's widely accepted that Baltimore's pitching is the worst of the lot, and their offense, even with Vlad who they did not sign, would still be likely the worst of the four. Without Vlad, Baltimore's chances seem to be very very slim, yet people still talk about them having a chance at the playoffs, them finishing above the Jays. I suppose all teams have their optimistic fans, but the Orioles fans seem to be coming out of the woodwork this offseason, so I had to write this. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this thrown together substitute article... look forward to my regular article on Friday when I can put some more thought into it's process. In the meantime, feel free to shop our webstore. Cause promoting the site is the cool thing to do. Because the shirts are funny. Especially if you go up to Jeter and ask for his autograph while wearing one. Hastily written to get something on the site, but still, if you'd like to comment on this, feel free. phil.orr@ballparkanalysis.com. If you want to send me pictures of sexy redheads I'd appreciate that too, but I'll settle for simply comments.
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©Copyright 2003
Phil Orr
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