Time seems to be catching up to the Baltimore Orioles.
The O’s have no doubt been successful since bursting onto the contending scene, as it were, in 2012 with a 93-win season.
That campaign, which included a Wild Card victory over Texas and a five-game defeat to the Yankees in the ALDS, was Baltimore’s first winning season since 1997.
Since then, the fighting Buck Showalters have been to the playoffs three times and won the American League East crown by 12 games in 2014.
While the first three years of the six-year run were extremely successful, with win totals of 93, 85 and 96, the last three years haven’t been as kind to the O’s.
Manny Machado and company won just 81 and 89 games in 2015 and 2016 before slumping to just 75 victories in 2017. They lost to Toronto in the 2016 Wild Card round.
Viewed as a whole, it’s been an excellent run built around an offense with a propensity to mash home runs and a strong bullpen.
However, it looks like it could be coming to an end.
End of an Era?
According to Spotrac, Machado, center fielder Adam Jones, closer Zach Britton and reliever Brad Brach will be free agents next winter.
Since 2012, Machado and Jones lead Baltimore Orioles position players in fWAR with respective metrics of 26.0 and 20.9. Meanwhile, Britton and Brach are first and third among Orioles relievers in fWAR during the same span.
While the O’s could conceivably stay somewhat relevant if the quartet depart, the franchise will still have to find suitable replacements.
Not only are the quartet extremely valuable to the O’s, Baltimore will still have to replace 7,321 plate appearances and 539.2 relief innings since 2012.
If the four depart, the rest of the roster isn’t exactly built to win.
Sure, a lineup featuring Jonathan Schoop, Trey Mancini, Mark Trumbo and Chris Davis will hit plenty of home runs, but Schoop and Trumbo (per Spotrac) is a free agent after 2019 while Davis is currently 31.
Aging sluggers aren’t exactly the best to build around, especially ones who whiff at a high rate.
Last season, Trumbo regressed significantly from his 2016 Silver Slugger-winning campaign.
A year after pacing the league in home runs, the former Angel posted an identical .278 BABIP to his 2016 number (for reference, Trumbo’s career BABIP is .286), but saw his offensive metrics plummet across the board.
Mark Trumbo in 2016: 667 PA, .278 BABIP, 125 wRC+, .358 wOBA, .277 ISO, .316 on-base percentage and an .850 OPS.
Mark Trumbo in 2017: 603 PA, .278 BABIP, 80 wRC+, .295 wOBA, .163 ISO, .289 on-base percentage and a .686 OPS.
Davis also struggled at the plate.
Yes, he blasted 26 home runs and turned in a .208 ISO, but he also struck out a league-worst 37.2% of the time.
That was also a career-worst for Davis, who has a lifetime 32% strikeout rate and has consistently sat in the 30% to 33% range since 2011.
Additionally, the first baseman’s 92 wRC+ in 2017 was his worst output in the category since splitting 2011 between Texas and Baltimore.
If he continues to get punched out at higher and higher rates, the O’s could be in trouble, especially considering they’re paying him $17 million per season through 2022 according to a tweet from ESPN’s Buster Olney. Also per Olney, the Orioles will reportedly be paying Davis plenty in deferrals.
Chris Davis contract structure: $17m annual salary 2016-2022. Annual payments $3.5m 2023-32, then $1.4m 2033-37. No interest on deferrals.
— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) January 16, 2016
With that contract and a high strikeout rate, Davis might just be the definition of unmovable.
That essentially leaves the O’s with Mancini, who could form a quality future core with Austin Hays and Chance Sisco, but the latter two have yet to establish themselves at the Major League level.
Elsewhere, Baltimore lacks overall prospect depth with a farm system that is decidedly top-heavy due to the presence of Hays, Sisco and Ryan Mountcastle.
As it stands, by 2020, the organization could be left with a core of Davis, Mancini, Sisco, Hays, Mychal Givens, Dylan Bundy, Keivn Guasman (who will be on an expiring contract) and little else.
That might not be enough in the American League East down the line, with little in the way of reinforcements coming from the minor leagues.
By that point, the Yankees will have integrated both Gleyber Torres and Miguel Andujar into the Major League team, while still relying on the likes of Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, Luis Severino, Aroldis Chapman and Gary Sanchez.
Meanwhile, the Blue Jays and Rays could be ushering in new, successful eras spearheaded by the respective likes of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette in Toronto and Brent Honeywell and Willy Adames in Tampa Bay.
The Baltimore Orioles in 2018
Baltimore’s current core—Machado, Jones, Britton and all— probably isn’t enough to contend right now either.
The division rival Yankees and Red Sox have added arguably the game’s two best pure power mashers in Stanton and J.D. Martinez to organizations that respectively finished 16 and 18 games ahead of the O’s last season.
Starting Rotation Issues
This is all without mentioning Baltimore’s starting rotation issues, which have plagued the team for years, and very well could continue to bother them in the future.
Despite their successful run since 2011, the O’s starting pitchers simply haven’t been up to snuff.
Since the start of the 2011 campaign, only Minnesota’ starters have a lower collective fWAR than Baltimore’s many attempted rotation solutions.
And yes, there were many of them.
From Freddy Garcia, Jeremy Hellickson and Yovani Gallardo to Wade Miley and Ubaldo Jimenez, the Orioles just haven’t been able to find the right mix.
That included last season, when Baltimore starters finished tied for 27th in the league in fWAR ahead of only the Marlins, Reds and White Sox.
The 2018 incarnation of the Orioles rotation will look significantly different then the 2017 version.
Hellickson, Jimenez and Miley are no longer with the team.
Of the past group, Gausman, Bundy and Chris Tillman remain as key pieces, while new signing Andrew Cashner is on hand to help soak up some innings behind the trio. The O’s will utilize some combination of Gabriel Ynoa, Miguel Castro, Michael Wright Jr. and Nestor Cortes Jr. to round out the rotation.
It’s hardly a group that inspires confidence.
Incumbent Starters
Both Bundy (169.2 IP, 2.7 fWAR, 4.38 FIP, 8.06 K/9) and Gausman (186.2 IP, 2.5 fWAR, 4.48 FIP, 8.06 K/9) were-good-but-not-great.
The duo was solid but hardly had the kind of production a contending team needs out of their ace and second-best pitcher.
Pitching between Bundy and Gausman and the host of largely unproven hurlers battling for the fifth spot will likely be Tillman and Cashner.
Tillman has turned in decent seasons in the past. From 2012 to 2016 he rattled off fWARs of 1.3, 1.9, 2.3, 1.8 and 2.4.
Still, during that span his 4.27 FIP painted a much different picture than his 3.81 ERA and 65 wins would suggest.
Then 2017 happened, and it didn’t exactly do Tillman any favors.
In 93 innings spread over 24 appearances (19 starts), the right-hander was worth a -1.0 fWAR and allowed 4.94 walks and 2.32 home runs per nine innings. He also registered a 7.84 ERA and a 6.94 FIP.
Andrew Cashner
On one hand, Cashner seems a perfect fit for the hitter-friendly atmosphere at Camden Yards. He had the lowest homerun/flyball rate in the league among all qualified starting pitchers last season.
On the other hand, he also struggled to miss bats.
The ex-Padre struck out a league-low 4.64 batters per nine innings while also registering the lowest swinging strike percentage (6.1%) in baseball among starters.
In front of a good fielding team, that wouldn’t be an issue. However, from a metrics standpoint, Baltimore wasn’t that great at fielding baseballs in 2017.
The O’s finished 25th in defensive runs above average and will head into 2018 without their top fielder from 2017 where defensive runs above average were concerned.
Wellington Castillo, who led the team with an 11.5 defensive runs above average metric, is now in Chicago.
He’ll be replaced by the offensive-minded Sisco and Caleb Joseph.
Joseph graded out positively in defensive runs saved compared to Castillo, but otherwise the current White Sox player was the superior option where metrics were concerned last season.
Wellington Castillo 2017 defensive metrics: 753.1 innings, 11.5 Def, -9 DRS and a +5 rSB
Caleb Joseph 2017 defensive metrics: 621.2 innings, 1.3 Def, +10 DRS and a -4 rSB
Baltimore will also be utilizing Tim Beckham heavily at third base, as Machado slides to shortstop. The former first-overall pick has just 52 innings of Major League experience at the hot corner.
The Rotation’s Future
Moving forward, the Baltimore Orioles aren’t exactly blessed with the starting pitching prospect depth that other organizations have.
The O’s don’t have nearly an entire rotation waiting at Triple-A like the Rays do with Honeywell, Ryan Yarbrough, Yonny Chirinos, and Jose De Leon.
Neither do they have the enviable future rotation options lower down in the minors that the Tigers have with Franklin Perez, Alex Faedo, Beau Burrows, Matt Manning, Kyle Funkhouser, Gregory Soto, Sandy Baez and Grayson Long.
Outside of Hunter Harvey, DL Hall and Tanner Scott, Baltimore’s farm system is—once again—thin.
(Sensing a theme?)
Signing a pitcher like Jake Arietta or Lance Lynn could help solve some of the rotation’s future problems, but they could just turn into temporary band aids for the solution in the same vein as Cashner and some past veterans like Hellickson, Gallardo and Miley—and those pitchers weren’t all that successful in Baltimore.
The Orioles may have been able to win in the past without a strong rotation, relying more on a potent offense and a solid bullpen.
But with key members of the offense and bullpen either approaching free agency or declining, that format may not help the O’s much longer.
The Upcoming Season
Baseball’s regular season offers plenty in terms of unpredictability, but Baltimore simply doesn’t have a roster capable of going toe-to-toe with either New York or Boston.
Toronto may be a closer match, but the O’s and Jays both seem to be buried in a crowded American League Wild Card picture that will likely feature superior teams in Minnesota, Anaheim, Seattle and possibly Texas.
As painful as it may be, if Baltimore can’t re-sign any of the team’s upcoming free agents, they should look to trade them for maximum value at the trade deadline.
That way, at least the organization will have a brighter future.
If the Orioles can get full value for Machado, Jones, Brach and—when healthy—Britton, the team should be able to add some significant prospect firepower to the minor league system to help Baltimore return to contention sooner rather than later.
Otherwise, the O’s could be stuck in the American League cellar for a considerable amount of time.
