The Orioles have had a wildly successful 2023 campaign, with an 84-51 record that places them 2.5 games ahead of the Rays in a highly competitive AL East division. Despite that success, the club’s clear Achilles heel throughout the season has been the starting rotation, which has produced just 8.3 fWAR this year, 19th in the majors and only better than San Francisco among clubs currently in playoff position. While the club added right-hander Jack Flaherty at the trade deadline to bolster their staff, he’s struggled to a 6.41 ERA in 19 2/3 innings of work with Baltimore.
Given this, it should be a major relief to Orioles fans that left-hander John Means may be nearing a return to the big league club. MLB.com’s Jake Rill relays that manager Brandon Hyde indicated to reporters that Means will make another rehab start with Triple-A Norfolk but could be available to join the club’s big league rotation following that. Means, of course, hasn’t pitched since April 2022 after undergoing Tommy John surgery but sports a 3.72 ERA and 4.59 FIP in 353 1/3 innings of work since the start of his rookie campaign back in 2019. If the 30-year-old lefty can recapture his steady, mid-rotation performance from prior to his surgery in time for the postseason, he’ll surely be an asset to a rotation that figures to include right-handers Kyle Bradish, Grayson Rodriguez, and Kyle Gibson.
More from around the AL East…
- Sticking with the Orioles, closer Felix Bautista hit the injured list with “some degree of injury” to his UCL last week, though since then specifics regarding his situation have been sparse. Hyde provided an update regarding Bautista to reporters this afternoon, with Rill relaying that the club is waiting for inflammation in Bautista’s elbow to go down before deciding on next steps. While Bautista already underwent an MRI, Rill notes that more tests could be in the 28-year-old’s future as the club tries to determine the best course of action for their breakout relief ace.
- Red Sox outfielder Alex Verdugo exited today’s game against the Royals due to what the club termed as hamstring tightness. Pete Abraham of The Boston Globe caught up with Verdugo following the game and the 27-year-old downplayed the severity of the issue, suggesting that he “felt a little something” in his hamstring during the sixth inning and that it should be taken care of with a day or two of rest. Should Verdugo miss more time than that, the club has Wilyer Abreu, Cedanne Rafaela, and Rob Refsnyder as options to fill out the outfield alongside Adam Duvall and Masataka Yoshida.
- The Rays recalled rookie starter Taj Bradley today, with the 22-year-old hurler taking the place of the recently-injured Jason Adam on the active roster. Bradley’s first sixteen starts with Tampa were something of a mixed bag; while the youngster dazzled with a 30% strikeout rate against a 7.9% walk rate, his 5.67 ERA in 74 2/3 innings left a great deal to be desired in terms of both results and volume. Of course, it’s worth pointing out that Bradley’s BABIP allowed was the sixth-highest figure in the majors among pitchers with at least 70 innings of work this year, while his strand rate was tenth lowest. That combination indicates some degree of bad luck in Bradley’s results, though a whopping 17.3% of his fly balls leaving the yard for home runs serves as an indicator that not all of his struggles have been pure misfortune. Bradley will look to end his rookie campaign on a high note as a member of the rotation alongside Tyler Glasnow, Aaron Civale, Zach Eflin, and Zack Littell.
I can always tell when the calendar turns to September because certain Red Sox “fans” suddenly disappear.
Let’s hope Dugie comes back soon and has a strong finish to his Red Sox career.
Yeah, so we can get more shortstop prospects……
I do believe you are correct about Verdugo being traded. Ian Brown, the supposed MLB beat reporter for the Sox floated a piece this week about Duvall loving Boston and his interest in staying.
You can always tell what the FO is thinking when Brown tosses that type of articles out. They are feelers for the Sox FO. Regardless of his official title, Brown is really just a press secretary for Henry and company.
DBH – I would like to see what Duvall could do with a full year playing at Fenway.
I don’t know about keeping him, same with Turner. I say let ‘em all walk because we can’t count on the same level, or any level remotely close to performance.
That said they’ll do something so the fans don’t want to see them in body bags, so sure resign him.
“correct about Verdugo being traded.”
Verdugo is gone.
1) Too many outfielders for only 3 positions coming up from minors.
2) Verdugo has some good trade value.
3) Verdugo and Management are butting heads.
I’ll miss him. I like his attitude, but thats life.
I like him too. He isn’t fake and has passion for the game. He’s a bit immature, but I haven’t heard teammates complain. I love JT, but he may opt out, although I think he likes Boston as well. This season was far more enjoyable, and frustrating than I thought it would be.
Fever I think we’re all here, but there’s not much to say about verdugo’s Hammy. I said A week and a half ago the Sox needed to go 7-3 on that road trip but they went 6-4 so they are done. Still a fan though and watch and pay attention to the roster and who’s playing etc. That’ll never go away.
It will be interesting to see if the Sox play spoiler to the Rays or roll over.
Verdugo been tracking similarly to Trot Nixon so far, that’s certainly decent enough to win.
Hayzee – Earlier this year I compared Dugie to Trot several times, now I feel validated. Lol
Fever – I was a Trot fan but I’m not a Verdugo fan.
Trot spent 10 years in BOS with 116 OPS+ during his time in BOS.
Verdugo in 4 years in BOS has a 109 OPS+ slightly up from his LAD OPS+ in 3 years of 106. Verdugo’s highest OPS+ for a full season was 113 in 2019 before Friedman convinced Bloom how great his potential was. Boy is Bloom gullible!!
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Trot in 2003 put up a 149 OPS+ and I don’t believe Verdugo has that in him.
He also put up a 129 and 123 OPS+ so he was better and more consistently better.
Fond memories of Nixon prevent me from putting Verdugo in a category with him. I think Verdugo is step or two down from Nixon.
Think about how many players have a 100 to 110 OPS+ annually and then tell me why ANYONE would trade for Verdugo who will become a free agent in 2025 with higher salary expectations than actual talent. Who would want that type of future headache?
At $6.3MM as an ARB-2 he is over paid. As an ARB-3 he will expect more but he won’t be worth it so trading him or non-tendering him in DEC makes sense. Guys like him are plentiful and many can be had for less money.
Seeing a name like Trot Nixon will forever remind me of possibly the most incredible 7 games of baseball I’ve ever seen. 2004 ALCS was a once in a lifetime experience.
@Troll. Trot Nixon was one of my favorite players. A true dirt dog. Not great, but really really good. The dude kinda played the OF like Yaz. Both would dive head first into an oncoming bus if they thought there was a chance to make a catch. And Trot had the dirtiest helmet even! There was so much pine tar on the bill of his helmet. It must have added 30 pounds to the weight of the helmet hah.
Spot on with TRUE dirt dog!!! Also love the fact that he took Clemens deep a couple times of times in big games… once you leave… your become fair game!!! Once you leave and go to Yankees.. I love when they get raked over coals!!!( Brasier the exception)
I believe I have never seen Nixon smile.
No that was JD Drew lol.
Drew only smiled when he was running to the bank hah
If I remember correctly talk radio didnt like him.
Lets take a look at his career in Boston:
Drew helped win WS in 2007, and put up these WARs:
2007 2.1
2008 2.7
2009 4.4
2010 3.1
2011 -0.7
This is why I dont like Talk Radio. They preach players are lousy long before they’re given a chance.
DBH – Can’t say that anymore. LOL
https://gray-wect-prod.cdn.arcpublishing.com/resizer/E08ONnXdiMopC0SH–DScvtZZts=/1200×675/smart/filters:quality(85)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/gray/IYHZZU3QJVE6TF3A3OJX45GRCY.jpg
@FPG… Thanks! He is what, 50 there?
Trollfree
At $6.3MM as an ARB-2 he is over paid. As an ARB-3 he will expect more but he won’t be worth it so trading him or non-tendering him in DEC makes sense. Guys like him are plentiful and many can be had for less money.
__________________________________________________________________
A player who submits 110 Wrc+, +12 Rdrs and is a Golden Glove candidate this season isn’t costs 6.3 million.
It begs the question…
Player who puts up 60 Wrc+…
How much is such a player costs?
Player who puts 94 Wrc+, -1.0dWAR, -6Rdrs, -11OAA, -10 RAA…
How much is such a player costs?
Bogie – I have no idea what you wrote. It’s not in acceptable baseball English.
Ask the direct question and I will answer it.
$6.3MM for what Verdugo is doing this year is an over pay. It’s not a huge over pay but you have to consider how many others can put up similar numbers for far less money. His wRC is 74 and he replaced Mookie and his wRC is 124. Does that put things in perspective? Or how about the fact that Casas who completely sucked to start the year has the same wRC? And Devers who is having an off year has a wRC of 88.
So is Verdugo as huge an over pay as Devers? No. Could he be replaced by someone who could put up comparable numbers for less money? Obviously yes since Casas makes less than $1MM a year.
Why do I struggle with the modern metric estimates? Because they don’t make much sense.
Aaron Judge has an OPS of 1.017 which should mean he is having a very good year but his wRC is 79 barely above Verdugo’s 74 and below Devers’ 88. Yet Devers OPS is only .846 and Verdugo’s is .785. To me these numbers don’t tell me the story of the type of year each person is having.
If I see the following, then I know what type of year the players are having:
Judge – 313 at bats, a .268 average, a .404 OBP, a .613 SLG, 32 HRs and 3 sB
Devers – 523 at bats, a .272 average, a .344 OBP, a 503 SLG, 29 HRs and 3 sB
Verdugo – 498 at bats, a .277 average, a .338 OBP, a 448 SLG, 13 HRs /4 SB
These numbers a very clear.
1 – Judge is an elite player who was hurt and deserves over $30MM a year.
2 – Devers is an above average offensive player who is surrounded by less talent than years past so his numbers have fallen off but he’s worth roughly $20MM to $25MM if he gets better players around him and becomes a DH so no value needs to be subtracted for his bad fielding.
3 – Verdugo is a league average player who doesn’t have much power or speed and his defense has been shaky despite several errors being considered misplays thanks to the score keepers. His .batting average is his strongest skill but it’s not much above league average. His walk rate and isolated power are very average. Thus, he’s barely above a league average player so his OPS+ should be between 105 and 115. That commands a salary of $5MM to $8MM.
One other comparison technique is to add BA, ISO, Walk Rate (OBP-BA).
Judge = 1.017-.268 = .749
Devers = ,846 – .272 = .574
Verdugo = .785 – .277 = .508
These are the relative values of the three players without adding in SBs and their defense.
In a normal year, I would expect the spread to be more even. I consider Judge an Elite player, Devers a Tier 2 player and Verdugo a slightly above league average player or Tier 4 player. They should be paid by their tier not these silly concocted estimates created by Fangraphs or Statcast.
Note that Runs Produced is part of the concept of Runs Created and is not included in the ranking I did because it’s team dependent not player dependent. Thus, wRC has a bias just like OPS. Real stats don’t have a bias, they are 20/20 data not estimates. They may not be perfect because score keepers influence the numbers but they are recorded facts without normalization that skews the information based on assumptions.
Trollfree –
Player who puts up 60 Wrc+…
How much is such a player costs?
C.Vazquez 2023 $10m AAV
Player who puts 94 Wrc+, -1.0dWAR, -6Rdrs, -11OAA, -10 RAA…
How much is such a player costs?
A.Benintendi 2023 $15m AAV
Gary – I’m the same way. I may occasionally voice some mild displeasure with the team’s decisionmaking, but I still follow the team and watch the games to the very end of the season. The start of football season doesn’t matter to me because I’m not much of a football fan.
Fever, ditto on football. Baseball and Hoops covers it for me. Well, a little hockey too.
@Fever, we all come here to vent about our beloved Sox from time to time, bro.
FPG… hello.. still here but just released from hospital with multiple concussions.. told Dr it was from head butting a wall the past two and half months…If WE ALL would have given him 10 more chances he would still be in a Redsox uniform (70) … I’m better now and is it to late to get Ort backing for next year?? Those two together would be the next Whetland/ Rivera combo… next year of course…
Fever Pitch Guy
I didn’t disappear.
Bogie – How do you know you didn’t disappear? Did you look in the mirror?
Foolish. Anyone who has watched the O’s or knows anything about bullpen stats would know the O’s weakness all year has been the pen, not the rotation. Look at the inherited runners statistics for the pen. Aside from Coulombe, Cano, and Bautista, they are not good. And the starting rotation of Wells, Bradish, Gibson, & Kremer was QUITE good – won a lot of games. Wells’ depreciation post ASB hurt, no doubt. G-Rod shored that up extremely well. Flaherty has been a disappointment, but Irvin has been good aside from yesterday. But the pen has been the weak spot continuously. Ill-informed writers who superficially glance at stats seem to continually miss that the bullpen’s perceived dominance is skewed by the ridiculous success of Bautista and Cano, plus Coulombe being an efficient lefty. Perez has struggled at times, Baumann has struggled at times and is in AAA, Baker earned himself a demotion by allowing basically every inherited runner on earth to score, Akin has been a disaster, Voth a failure, Gillaspie a punching bag, Fujimami is unpredictable, and Vespi has had mixed results. Reed Garrett was a one-n-done failure, as was Bazardo. DL Hall and Krehbiel have been good so far but in limited appearances.
The bullpen is the O’s weakness. Not the rotation. People need to get this through their heads and quit repeating this BS starting rotation trope.
Gibson and Rodriguez both have ERAs over 5.00.
Grayson pitched well in August.
Grayson’s been pretty damn excellent since his recall. I would be 100% comfortable with him starting a playoff game at this juncture. Bradish and Kremer too.
Look at G-Rod’s stats in his second call up only. His ERA is not indicative of how he has pitched.
This is 100% correct. Another writer using only stats rather than their eyes. After rough Aprils few duos have been better than Bradish and Kremer. Gibson and Wells had solid first halves but Wells hit the wall on innings and Gibson has been less effective lately.
Citing Rodriquez’s ERA just shows someone that hasn’t been paying attention. That’s down from 8 and he’s been outstanding since returning from AAA.
You are right that a good bit of starter ERA issues come from inherited runners. Media created a myth of a great bullpen because the backend is elite. But almost everyone else has struggled at some point.
It does seem some like Perez are getting it together and Fuji has been ok save two really bad outings.
Having Means back will surely help with the loss of Wells but we need to remember he’s just returning from TJ so there will e ups and downs. Basically they each have about 4 starts left and they can hold on to their lead maybe some guys skip one of those.
Give Wells the rest of the year off.
Means, of course, hasn’t pitched since April 2022 after undergoing Tommy John surgery
16+ months is a long recovery time for TJS, which is because he had a setback.
“The bad news is that the 30-year-old starting pitcher suffered a back muscle strain, delaying his comeback”
Definitely looking forward to seeing Means back on a big league mound that isn’t made of pixels and polygons produced by my Xbox.
He could be a pretty nice little boost for the rotation as we quickly approach the end of the regular season and start of the playoffs.
Instead of being lazy and looking at overall stats, it would be wise to look at what is going on with the people in question.
Like Dave Dombrowski with the Phillies, the O’s FO is aiming for the playoffs. They have their coaches work on making their players better throughout the year in hopes that the team peaks in September and October. This is not rotisserie league where we play stats against stats. It’s a game played on a field. All successful teams work to peak in crunchtime, so that the lost / uninitiated can cry out “It’s just a crapshoot” and “They just got hot”.
1. The job of a starting pitcher is to keep his team in the game. As noted above, the Orioles record is 84-51. Some starting pitchers must be doing something right.
2. Kyle Bradish has been getting better though the season. Recently I saw some stats that show he’s been one of the best starters in MLB over the past 3 months or so. The 26 year-old is becoming a true Ace.
3. Left out Dean Kramer, 27 years-old sitting on a 12-5 W-L record. Discount that if your will, but he’s the winner and you’re the loser. League average ERA is 4.33; Kramer is at 4.20. He’s keeping his team in the game.
4. Grayson was sent down to the minors for quite some time and has been a much better pitcher since he returned. Don’t tell me about his overall ERA. In his last 5 starts he’s pitched 31 innings and allowed 9 runs. He’s been keeping his team in the game.
4. Ahhh, Kyle Gibson. The pitch-to-contact guy has has 34-36 pitches. When he gets shelled, he gets shelled! But they have to keep him in because while he may give up 4-5 runs the first 2 innings, in the next 4-6 he may give up 0-2. On the days he doesn’t have it after the first few innings he’ll give up 7-9 runs and inflate his overall ERA. On the other hand, on days he does have it he’ll give up 1-3 runs in 7-8 innings and save the bullpen.
Gibson’s overall W-L record is 13-8. That means something in relation to the team winning whereas it means nothing in rotisserie league. Also has the most starts and innings pitched on the team – again, saving the bullpen. A veteran that’s valued by the FO and manager – and the Orioles have one of the best FO’s and managers in MLB….even though they probably couldn’t cut the mustard writing for a fantasy league newsletter.
5. Yes, Flaherty can’t seem to throw the ball over the plate. Irvin is inconsistent. Either might be lucky to get one start in the post-season where they’ll be pulled as soon as Hyde sees he doesn’t have it that day.
6. The fact is that a team only needs 4 starters in the post-season, so there’s a very good chance that Means and possibly Wells shows up on the post-season roster as relief pitchers. But it’s only September 3 and far too soon to speculate on anything. Injury’s can still happen, and the coaches are working with all the O’s pitchers on the 40 man literally daily. Someone might get straightened out.
Samuel – OUTSTANDING!! People keep talking up TB but I don’t see them passing BAL. The team needs to have an upbeat SEP run so they can prove in the post season that heir talent is legit. Their talent stacks up well versus everyone except maybe HOU, TEX, ATL and LAD. If they play those teams they will need some luck and well timed actions to beat them. I believe they have more talent than BOS, NYY and TB and they have better leadership than TOR.
Great commentary. You had many, many excellent points.
In the Rays defense, they did lose a couple of aces. Don’t get me wrong, I’m pulling for the O’s all the way and huge props for what they’ve built and how quickly they turned it around without shelling out half a billion dollars like a few other teams have. One thing I would be dying for them to have would be a legit #1 guy at the top. Yet baseball will be baseball and sometimes all it takes is a Jeff Suppan to pitch his rocks off just once. God, what a wonderful sport!
sfes – You are so right. Rasmussen and Springs are a massive loss to the Rays. Next year will be interesting when they are back and Texas has deGrom, Scherzer, Eovaldi, Dunning and Montgomery. Houston won’t be too shabby either when it comes to their starting rotation.
It is an awesome sport when teams have great rosters and go head to head. I loved the ATL vs LAD series and the upcoming HOU vs TEX series should be excellent too. TB vs BAL is another to look forward to. The Yankees, Blue Jays and Red Sox are all second tier attractions compared to the elite teams in both leagues. September should be a lot of fun!!!
Bradish is tied for the AL ERA lead with G. Cole. If that’s not the sign of a legit # 1 guy… what is? Again, stop with the media tropes.
@sfes. Baltimore has a much easier September schedule. They should take the division by a comfortable margin
Texas will have to compete with 15 other clubs to resign Monty; I expect Boston & Cubs to be frontrunners
If Monty costs more than 8 bucks, Sox are out of it unless he ends up in a dumpster somehow
Just pointing out that the O’s won the season series against Houston last year, only lost to the Braves by a hair this year (and beat Max Fried), smashed Texas last year and split the six game set with them this year, and… well, lost two of three to LAD.
Frankly, the team I’m most concerned about is the Mariners. The O’s and the M’s basically cancel each other out on the field. That would be a very tense postseason matchup. LAD and ATL will both be challenges, but if the O’s have to go through the M’s to get there, I’ll be worried.
KingOmar – Take a look at the schedule SEA played in AUG. An incredibly weak schedule has accounted for their hot streak. The last several weeks are filled with good teams and I believe you will see SEA drop to the last playoff spot or the first runner up spot for the WC with TOR moving up. Even the Red Sox can look good if they play bad enough teams.
SEA played the following teams in August
BOS 2 games went 1-1
LAA 4 game sweep
SD 2 game sweep
BAL 1-2
KC 3-1
HOU 3-0 (This was a huge series!)
CWS 2-1
KC 3-0
OAK 2-1
Wouldn’t every team want to have their AUG schedule?.
They didn’t beat BAL but they did beat HOU. The rest were bad teams.
There first 6 in SEP will keep them in first for a week and then reality will hit them.
4 vs TB, 3 vs LAA, 3 vs LAD, 3 vs OAK, 3 vs TEX, 3 vs HOU and 4 vs TEX
17 tough games and 6 easy games after their easy start to SEP vs 2 easy teams.
Two weeks from now I predict HOU in first, TEX in 2nd and SEA in 3rd in the West. SEA doesn’t have the talent that HOU and TEX have. They are more comparable to TOR, a step down from TB and a step up from BOS and NYY.
Quick question- is Means eligible for post season? He wasn’t in the active 25 prior to 9/1.
He’s in the organization, that’s all he needed to be. They will ask for a waiver and MLB will grant it, very common.
I think the Orioles really should have focused a little more on their rotation this past offseason. I’m sure even their front office didn’t expect them to be at this point already as far as on field success, but if they hadn’t settled for mediocre guys like Gibson and Irvin, they’d be a real threat in the postseason. They could get hot but I just can’t see them getting through three good offenses in October.