The non-waiver trade deadline has come and gone. Some teams were winners and some were losers, but one team’s moves, in particular, caused me to say, out loud, “What were they thinking?”.
Sorry Orioles fans. Your team really screwed the pooch on this one.
Before I got started, I decided to ask resident Orioles expert, Daniel Moroz, author of Camden Crazies, for a brief quote on the deal that sent their best reliever to Texas for Chris “The Whiff” Davis and Tommy Hunter.
“In moving their best trade chip (Koji), the Orioles seemed to focus on making the team less bad in the short term instead of looking to add prospects that could one day help them win 90+ games (and hopefully make it to the playoffs) – and given how firmly entrenched the O’s are in 5th place in the AL East, I don’t think that was the correct strategy.”
This pretty much sums things up. As Moroz pointed out on his blog, there really wasn’t too much of a difference between Koji Uehara and Mike Adams, who the Padres received two very decent pitching prospects for. The O’s decided to add two players that are 25 years old and have major league experience. The problem being, neither are very good or projected to be very good down the line. Davis, while certainly having the upside to crush 30-plus bombs per season, lacks the plate discipline and contact ability to hit for any type of AVG/OBP as a big leaguer. His career whiff rate is about 33 percent, which is Mark Reynolds territory. The difference being, Reynolds knows how to take a walk and doesn’t chase pitches outside the strike-zone nearly as often as Davis — Davis has a career chase rate of about 35 percent, compared to about 25 percent for Reynolds. Perhaps in his best season, Davis is an updated version of Mike Jacobs, with even less plate discipline. Jacobs had one season in which he hit 32 home runs, but batted .247/.299/.514 and was worth less than one win above replacement according to both FanGraphs and Baseball Reference.
Tommy Hunter is really nothing more than a middle-inning reliever with very little strikeout ability. He did post a 3.73 ERA as a starter for Texas in 2010, but that was a result of a very low .255 BABIP. His xFIP was 4.51 and he allowed 21 home runs in only 128 innings.
The problem in acquiring these two players, and not the young projectable type players that the Padres received, is that they don’t do much to help the O’s win now or down the road.
This team was once seemingly headed in the right direction because of their farm system. However, their top pitching prospects, Chris Tillman, Jake Arrieta, Zach Britton and Brian Matusz, have come across mostly rough times in the major leagues. Other highly regarded pitching prospects like Matt Hobgood, Brandon Erbe have faded in the minors, partly due to injury issues. While there is still hope that the likes of Matusz and Britton can put it together and be at least good third starters (or better), it’s clear that this team needs to restock their system, not worry about adding maybe one more win to their current big league club.
The AL East is a tough division to crack. The Yankees and Red Sox will continue to do whatever they can to compete annually and the Rays continue to make all the right calls with regard to their young players. Even the Blue Jays, under GM Alex Anthopolous, are getting better by the year. The O’s seem to just be trying not to sink and another offseason of adding players like Vladimir Guerrero and Derek Lee won’t keep the ship afloat.
