Here's the latest from Baltimore, less than 48 hours before the winter meetings begin…
- "I don't know that we have the kind of pitching depth that we need," said GM Dan Duquette to Roch Kubatko of MASNSports.com. "It would be hard for us to trade pitching unless we got some pitching in return or we had a viable alternative in place." Yesterday we heard that Jeremy Guthrie is being shopped.
- "I can't really tell you, I haven't looked at the numbers or the contract," said Duquette to Steve Melewski of MASNSports.com when asked about a potential contract extension for Adam Jones. "That is something that if we are going to take a look at, it would be after the first of the year."
- Duquette also told Melewski that his first order of business over the next few weeks is to put a productive player development system in place and expand the team's international efforts.
- Dan Connolly of The Baltimore Sun believes the Orioles will make more than one move during the winter meetings next week, including a trade. He expects the moves to be generally underwhelming, though.
- Kubatko tweets that the team is expected to announce two front office hires tomorrow. He's heard that Fred Ferreira will be brought in as international scouting director and Gordon Blakeley as a special assistant, though those moves are not confirmed yet.
I think Jones is looking at a 5 year/$50.5MM contract. Seems very fair.
5.75/7.25/10/12.5/15
Here is what REALLY gets me on this site…
Adam jones in almost every regard is at least as good/better than BJ Upton, yet people hardly mention him at all and that includes Oriole fans.
Jones even makes less.
Jones has an extra year of team control left and is a GG guy as well whose career (offensively) is not on a nosedive. I can see some teams out there interested, not unloading pockets for sure since he has little plate discipline, but for sure giving up a lot if The Duke finds out the 2 of them cannot come to an agreement on an extension.
jones is a poor defensive centerfielder and upton is at least an average one, if not better. it’s a defensive position
upton also has a better bat, mostly because he doesn’t swing at everything the way jones does. jones’ career OBP is .313
They both have similar obp and Jones has a slightly better slg %. Also, Upton k’s a lot more.
a 30 point difference is not similar, K’s matter very little when you walk at an 11% clip, and their ISO (better measure of power) figures are nearly identical. the difference is slugging % has to do with batting average, not power
Upton is a superior CF to Jones, and it’s not even close right now.
Jones won the gold glove last season.. Jones offensive numbers are constantly improving. He is streaky for sure but any team would love to have him in their outfield
Jones won in 2009, not 2011.
Markakis won for RF in 2011
He won a gold glove guys! He must be good! That means Jeter is, like, the best defensive shortstop to ever grace the game!!
It was his first award, not like they felt they owed it to him like they’ve done with Jeter year after year. If BJ Upton is a better defensive CF, then where is his GG?
I guess it’s that time of year where people who rely on gold gloves and fielding percentage come out of the woods..
I’m just saying, you said that hands down Upton is the better fielder…I don’t see what you’re basing that claim on
Upton: 9.5 UZR in his last 3 seasons (his defense saved 9.5 runs in those seasons)
Jones: -20.6 UZR in his last 3 seasons (his defense allowed 20.6 runs to score)
Like I said, it’s not even close.
20.6 more runs than the average centerfielder*
It must be those bubbles Jones blows with his gum getting in the way while he is making catches and running down balls getting in the way perhaps?
Upton not sure about with his defense problems at times. I have actually seen him jog after balls hit into the gaps.
UZR doesn’t take into account how some balls are hit are hit harder than others. Hence, UZR is indicative of a particular fielder’s ability to to make plays behind a particular pitching staff.
Ballparks also affect UZR, the classic example being Manny Ramirez’ higher UZR score in Los Angeles, compared to Boston.
Therefore, Jone’s negative UZR score is indicative of his ability to reach balls in play vs the pitcher’s ability to limit “hard contact” vs Camden Yards’ (and other AL East ballparks) limiting effects.
Moral of the story: Take UZR with a grain of salt.
UZR is perfectly fine if you use it for a 3 year period. Using it on a year-to-year basis is where you start getting the problems you mention.
I have to disagree. I feel that UZR will only be legitimate when it can be adjusted to compensate for both ballparks and pitchers- things which they cannot control.
Increasing sample size does increase internal validity, but doling out a UZR score when it can be different from ballpark to ballpark or pitching staff to pitching staff can still produce a gross misrepresentation. Please keep in mind that I am not saying Jones is better or worse than Upton, only that UZR is not the reliable metric which should be used in coming to this conclusion.
oh, a gold glove. well then
I don’t think Jones is a poor defensive Center Fielder and no I don’t want to know his UZR or WAR, it hurts my head just thinking about it. Seriously, though he depends too much on his God Given ability. He gets non chalant about lazy fly balls and he looks bad for it. Or he over throws everyone including the fans behind home plate. In my opinion he could be an elite center fielder if he got the right coaching. An example of this would be Davey Lopes and Matt Kemp. Till this day, I have no idea as to why no effort was made to get Lopes to be a coach again in Baltimore. Lastly, Adam Jones has no excuses as to why he is such a free swinger. Jim Presley is a very good if not excellent hitting coach. So he gets no sympathy about his hitting. You could also add he has never played in a game with playoff implication (Orioles). They are always playing to avoid losing 100 games.
there is no question about jones’ athletic ability (or upton’s). both have great tools and could be a lot better players than they are
Upton is a premier CF, when he remembers to throw to 2nd base instead of third.
Poor defensive center fielder? He won a gold glove two years ago.
derp? herp derp
I like Adam Jones, I do, but the defensive metrics says Jones is a below average center fielder. Whether or not you believe these numbers is a different story. I’m a bit of a skeptic myself.
For one, AJ has played behind some of the worst pitching staffs in baseball the last few years. I don’t think it’s a much of a stretch to say Jones fields a few more screaming liners while Upton’s pitching staff produces a few more soft liners and lazy fly balls. As far as I know, UZR does little to account for this difference.
If you look at their career splits, both AJ and Markakis are better defenders on the road than they are at home.
Jones
Home: -1.6 Away: +7.3
Markakis
Home: -15.1 Away: +26.9
You’d think most players would be better at home, the park they know, than they would be in a park they only play in a handful of times each year. Perhaps there is a Camden Yards affect that UZR is missing? RF scoreboard?
I’m not saying he’s better than Upton or anything of the sort — just that I don’t think he’s as bad as the numbers seem to imply.
Then again, I’m an O’s fan, so what the hell do I know?
Going to go out on a limb and say that Jeremy Guthrie won’t be a part of the Orioles’ next playoff team. May as well deal him.
Hate to see him go but I agree.
With the way this team operates, Adam Jones also won’t be a part of the Orioles next playoff team…even if they do extend his contract.
I just replied to Indestructible with a very similar point. UZR is a flawed statistic which far too many people look to when making decisions. The classic example is Manny Ramirez’ UZR increasing when he left Fenway Park.
I assume you were replying to me … but yeah, I agree. I recently read an article that discussed how a higher velocity of the ball coming off the bat correlates to a higher BABIP. The author went on to discuss how this inherently means that pitchers do have SOME control of their BABIP and it isn’t all luck/variance that will simply regress to the mean.
While UZR does a good job with zones, it really leaves something to be desired when categorizing batted balls. All batted balls are either bunts, ground balls, OF line drives and OF flys. The “velocities” of the batted ball are soft/slow, medium, hard/fast. Pretty generic, right?
A few MPH difference off the bat is the difference between catching a ball on the track for an out and it getting over your head for a double — and yet these batted balls are both likely to be classified as hard OF liners.
I’d love to see the day where UZR incorporates batted ball angle, velocity and perhaps hang time to account for variables once the ball is in the air as wind and ball spin can each greatly impact where a ball will land).