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Oriole Magic
O, The Power; Markakis
The Orioles with a little less than 13,000 of their closest friends in attendance defeated the Toronto Blue Jays, 8-3, on a sweltering summer night.
Despite the heat, they used the long ball — supplied by Adam Jones and Ramon Hernandez’s home runs — along with a timely Melvin Mora hit to come out victorious. Right now, we have to be really impressed with Jones as he’s developed as a hitter (based on where he started off in April versus now) and the ability to take his game to the next level.
After losing again on Sunday, the win last night was a welcome change. Our starting pitcher Radhames Liz was not great — in fact, he was quite mediocre — however, he got the win going a little more than five innings, but finding himself in trouble more often than not. Even with six walks, he only yielded three runs, but seemed to lack control and command.
It does not matter how hard he throws — if the ball cannot be spotted, he’ll be lucky to survive in the majors. The thing we are seeing with the young pitching is that the offense is basically saving them, because they are not looking that good. Right now, it looks like Olson and Liz are over matched, but the only way they can learn is to be thrown into the fire.
On a side note, the Orioles and Nick Markakis once again started contract talks around the All-Star break and then tabled it.
What does this mean? Right now, not much as they still have him for three years, but as the money keeps going up, a lot of teams are locking up their youngsters earlier. When you look at it, I figure Marakakis and his agents are going to be after what the market has offered his peers (Fielder, Tulowitzki, Braun) — however, the Orioles are not biting — at least for now.
Will this piss off Markakis? Maybe, but Baltimore is not doing anything unethical. Based on his numbers the past several years — Nick will get his money in arbitration (if the team and he choose to go that route in the offseason).
Alas, the fan base and I’m sure would be happy to get a deal that keeps him in a Baltimore uniform long term and obviously gives him the financial satisfaction he wants.
Either way, he’ll get paid. Obviously, the longer it takes the Orioles to sign him to a long term deal, harder it will get; however, we have a lot of time, and we should not be ready to jump off a cliff yet.
Finally, it looks like Jay Gibbons may be headed back to the majors if he can prove he’s still got it in the minors…
Anything you want to discuss, the floor is open…
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13 Responses to “O, The Power; Markakis”
July 22nd, 2008 at 11:12 am
I think we are seeing that the Orioles basically have little to no starting pitching outside of Guthrie. Cabrera is a decent #4 starter in my opinion. Way too many ups and downs to be any higher. The Orioles will need to find at least 3 starters next season. There are no answers in Triple A. Liz and Penn are #5 or #6 starters. I think we have exposed a serious problerm. The pitching depth are full of #5 or Triple A pitchers.
July 22nd, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Nothing exposed. No new revelations. Why do you think we picked up Tachsel in preseason? We knew all along that our pitching talent is in double A and is still a year or two away. Why do you think we keep hearing that this rebuilding is targetting 2010? That is when our pitching talent starts to hit the major league squad.
July 22nd, 2008 at 12:48 pm
My point is that it is not as deep even at the double a level either. Guys who they think are the future are not really much better than a #5 starter. We have a farm system of avg pitchers
July 22nd, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Chip I disagree with your assesment of our AA pitching, I want to throw a few stats out there and note that in recent years the trend is to use your AAA team as a holding pen for Back up’s back ups, and use AA to polish the pitchers. That said here are some AA pitchers
B Bergesen 11 3 3.05 .786 1.17
C Tillman 7 3 3.11 .700 1.38
D Hernandez 5 3 2.65 .625 1.24
J Berken 7 3 3.83 .700 1.29
All above average, not to mention Arrieta in A ball, and yet to be signed Matusz, who could possibly become an Ace.
All in all, we still, in my opinion, need to go out a grab a pitcher in the FA market after the 09 season, but we have 2 #2 pitchers and 2 # 3 pitchers in AA, that is DEEP and that is ABOVE avg.
July 23rd, 2008 at 8:37 am
Jim,
I definitely respect those pitchers you have mentioned and I am praying hard they pan out. I have a few issues with that. First for the Orioles to be competitive in 2010 they can not bring up 4/5 of these guys. I can’t imagine the Orioles expected to have very little going into 2009. We are behind. The Orioles had Penn,Liz,and Olson who they thought were the Orioles future and all three are proving to be #5 type starters. The Orioles ERA is worse than last season. The chances of more than one of those Double A being more than a #5 is slim. I have seen Tillman pitch and he has a ton of potential but it is Double A. The starting pitching is a HUGE problem.
July 23rd, 2008 at 1:58 pm
The following is my opinion. I have no inside source to confirm or shoot this down. The Orioles have planned their rebuiild around the year the young pitchers arrive in the major leagues. That is not the target year to win the Wolrld series. They project the young arms arrival in Camden Yards as 2010 and 2011. That being the case they need to turn over the major league roster to match that timetable. At the same time they have committed to rebuilding the scouting staff, draft procedures, international scouting and minor league systems so that no matter what happens with this generation of kids they can remain consistently competitive.
Just like we have no guarantee that any of the kids at double A will be aces, you have no proof they wont all turn out to be aces. No one coming into this year thought Olson or Penn was an ace, or at least no one should have. The team still hadnt decided whether Liz was a starter or a reliever. Several of the kids certainly have the stuff to be top of the rotation pitchers. Only time will tell but for now, there is no more basis for saying they wont than there is that they will. They have quality and quantity. SOme might fail to reach the potential of their stuff like Daniel Cabrera. SOme might go down to inury like Loewen. SOme might top out as 5th starters or swing men. But we have enough plus arms to expect a couple to be top of teh rotation guys and a couple others to fill in as long men in the pen or 4 and 5 starters. As you say we already have 2 of the 5 covered in Guthrie as a good number two starter and Daniel Cabrera as a 4 or 5. So if Tillman, Butler and Arietta for example are the only ones to step up, we are in good shape. I disagree with you and think that our pitching depth is by far our strength. What we are short on is fans with the patience to let the team build something.
July 23rd, 2008 at 8:49 pm
I totally agree with what you are saying with the exception that our future pitching is a strength. No question we have come a long way. We are far better than we have been. My point I guess is we are not as close as we think we are and I think our pitchers are being overhyped a little too much. Penn and Olson were hyped up some but only by the Orioles and not nationally. We tend like alot of teams think we are better than we are. Nationally they say we have gotten much better in the farm system but we are middle of the pack.
July 24th, 2008 at 12:22 am
There is no doubt that fans overrate the prospects of the home team. Just look at some of the trade proposals they make! But you have to explain to me why Baseball America, Buster Olney, Tim Kikjian, Ken Rosenthal, Peter Gammons etc would conspire to rate our farm system over optimistically? I am kind of weird in that I have refused to go to Camden Yards since the strike so I go to a lot of Bowie and Frederick games. In addition I lived in Scottsdale last summer so I saw Arieta in his relief appearances there. I dont share your opinion of the pitching depth in our organization. I am not sure what you expect to see from double A pitchers a couple years removed from the major leagues but I see huge talent, inconsistency, flashes of true brilliance and enough improvement over this season to warrant a move to the next level next year and hope that this progress will translate to an on time, as scheduled, successful arrival at Camden Yards. I dont expect them to look like polished finished products. They are kids and look like kids. Big, way tall kids with bazookas attached to their shoulders but still kids.These are not pitching equivalents of Wieters. There is a reason he is a top 3 prospect in the game. That said, Tillman is pretty darned impressive and I am not sure what more you want to see from him at his current level to determine he projects two years out as a top of rotation pitcher. We only need one ace to push Guthrie down to number two and a couple guys to fill in at 3 and 4 or 3 and 5. Then some bullpen arms and we are set. Out of ten projectables, you think that is asking too much? I just dont think it is too hard to think about a rotation of Tillman, Guthrie, Patton, Dcab and Butler or Olson or someone with a bullpen including Ray, Liz, Sarfate, Johnson etc. Only one of our kids needs to be an ace, not all of them.
I am not sure how close you think we think we are. I dont really care how close the typical fan thinks we are since the average fan has trouble delaying gratification long enough to use the microwave. I dont care about expectations. I dont care how long it takes. I think the building blocks are there. I still am not sure why you are so sure they arent that you are accusing the national media of a conspiracy to overrate our pitching prospects.
July 24th, 2008 at 9:04 am
Actually I was doing to opposite. I listen mor eto the national media on prospects then anything local. Local tends to hype there prospects. Again I am excited about the future I just think 2010 is too soon. Guys like Guthrie will not be around by then. These players you are talking about are all the same age and trying to come up the same time that is not good. For an organization to have true depth you need something everywhere. We both acknowledge it ain;t in Triple A. I fwe agree on Tillman and a couple others you can’t expect all of them to pan out. Therefore we would be lucky to have 2 of them become legit starts. The depth is not there to compete in the next 2 seasons.
July 24th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
I listed 5 examples of national media coverage who have all spoken glowingly about the progress and change in the Orioles farm system. So I dont understand your point at the beginning of your response. I believe we have at least ten plus arms at A and double A and that doesnt include Matusz who I have never seen pitch. Those include not only Tillman and Liz and Butler who I mentioned in the post above but also Spoone, Erbe, Hernanez, Arrieta, Britton, Bergeson, Sean Gleason and Jason Berken.
Rotoworld recently rated their top 150 prospects. The Orioles tied for 3rd with 8 on the list, all in the top 110. Of the eight, 5 were pitchers and that doesnt include Matusz. I suspect he would be in the top 110 as well and that would make 9 top prospects, of whom SIX are pitchers.
I think it is quite clear that we have plenty of depth AND quality. Obviously attrition will take its toll and in fact already has (Loewen) but I disagree with you that we dont have the quantity to expect to be able to fill in three starters spots including one ace. Some of the kids on my list will fail. Some not on my list will come through. But we do have numbers.
Guthrie is just 30 I think. Why do you think he wont pitch effectively until he is 35 or 36 considering how many years he didnt pitch at all in his twenties?
As I said before, I dismiss what fans say (that is not directed at you, just a generality). I believe the Orioles are targetting 2010 and 2011 as the seasons our kids come up and thus our heavy lifting on the roster will be done. If the fans read “World Series in 2011″ into that, so be it. I suggest you forget what fans say and just address the actual progress or lack thereof on its own merits, not whether it is happening on a schedule set by posters on a message board. We have sucked big time for ten years. We have had no plan, no consistency, no farm system, no talent and no hope. Now your biggest complaint is that all our best talent is on the same level? Maybe instead of seeing that as a negative you might consider that it is a sign that Joe Jordan who has been running the draft for . . . 3 years? 4 years? . . . is the real deal and is responsible for the players at the lower levels who are coming up. If that is the case why not assume the inflow of talent will continue and in another 3 or 4 years we will have the depth at every level that you want. Dont make the mistake of forgetting that the rebuild project STARTS with drafting, scouting, international scouting and minor league structure. Those jobs have just begun and they will pay off for several generations hopefully.
July 24th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Lucky,
I really do enjoy this discussion. I don’t think we disagree quite as much as you think. I NEVER listen to fans. I am glad that the Orioles have depth even though it is all at the same level. My point is that means it will take longer to rebuild. My orginal point was that the Orioles are not as close as people think. I believe 2010 is NOT realistic. To think all these guys will pan out at the same time we all know will not happen. I have seen two of the players you mention pitch several times. Both Erbe and Liz are not HIGH prospects.
I do not think Guthrie will be around in 2011.
I agree the Orioles are definitely headed in the right direction just don’t agree on how quickly. National media and locals talk about the Orioles getting Texiera as if we are getting close. I don’t see that we will have the pitching to support such a move for years. I think McPhail and Jordan are doing a great job. I wish this started 5 years ago. I am just not ready to drink the kool aid on these pitchers yet. Too many times we have heard great things about a pitcher and it does not happen. Penn,Cabrera,Olson,Liz,Loewen all basically not living up to hype. Pitching is so hard to predict. Where is that stud pitch in the group that people talk about. Where is our VOLQUEZ,CUETO,or Daivd PRICE. No one talks about any of our pitchers that way. We will not know what we have until they come up in my opinion. I am not being negative of the rebuilding. I give Andy huge marks so far and excited about the future. 2011 and beyond. Orioles need more Weiters types in the farm system at pitcher and other positions
July 25th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
two points. The easy one is that Tillman is spoken of as an elite prospect. Arieta is spoken of as potentially an elite prospect but he came out of nowhere so everyone is waiting for him to have a large enough sample to judge him on. Patton was thought of as a top of rotation prospect before surgery. We shall see.
My issue with listening to the fans is this. What exactly is it that you think 2010 is too soon for? I think 2010 and 2011 are our target seasons for the kid arms to arrive. Do you think that is overly optimistic? Only fans are talking about 2010 as the year we win or at least compete for the World Series. I dont think anyone in our front office has said “world series” yet. I think in 2010 we are competitive in the AL East. That is it. no more no less. If we dont force guys up too quickly and we can fill in the lineup around the arms, I think the kids can hit the ground running. If you rush a Liz up to fill in on an emergency basis on a bad team with bad D at the most important infield position, inconistent offense going nowhere and all he learns is how to press and lose. If you leave Wieters, Bergesen, Spoone and Tillman, etc in Bowie they learn to play together, win together, make the playoffs together. That way when they come up topgether to a team with a reasonable defense and offense, they have a shot at winning and succeeding. So to me when you say 2010 is too soon, I say it depends on whose expectations you are using. Too soon to win the World Series? No argument. Too soon to see the young arms come up and start another decade of Oriole pitching prowess? As always, no guarantees. But that is how I see the plan and I think the parts are there to execute that plan.
July 25th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
oops, forgot . . . Wieters is ranked the fourth best prospect in baseball behind only Kershaw, Price and Rasmus. Just how many top five prospects do you expect the Orioles to have? More guys of Wieters level? Are you trying to build the ‘27 Yankees? Wieters is a once in a generation prospect. It is not reasonable to say that without the Orioles having several top five prospects, they are disappointing IMO.
And we havent seen Matusz pitch yet.
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