O's pitching philosophy is different, which may not be a bad thing

Last week, Dan Duquette, the Orioles executive vice president of baseball operations (or, you know, their general manager), was interviewed by MASN's Steve Melewski about the organization's pitching philosophy now that he and director of pitching development Rick Peterson have been around for nearly a full season. Much of the talk centered around top prospect Dylan Bundy and the fact that the O's won't let Bundy throw  his cut fastball, arguably the youngster's best pitch, this year (and possibly beyond).

You should read the entire interview, in which, oddly enough, Duquette seems defensive of the strategy and isn't really a fan of anyone questioning what he's doing. Here are some of his comments to Melewski:

"The philosophy of the organization is to encourage pitchers to develop a good delivery, command of their fastball, an off-speed pitch and a good breaking ball," Duquette said. "The first breaking ball that we work with our young pitchers on is a curveball. So that is basically the level of progression of our instruction and our organization philosophy.

"First of all, the cut fastball, we don't like it as a pitch, OK? And we don't like it for young pitchers because it takes away from the development of their curveball, which is a better pitch long-term and also, the velocity of their fastball. So we encourage development of an overhand breaking ball that has depth along with command of their fastball and, of course, velocity and movement will get the hitter out."

If Duquette had stopped right there, he may have been better off. It's at least somewhat defensible that a pitcher, especially at a young age, should be working on maintaining a strong delivery and developing fastball-changeup and curveball/slider command. But he kept going, questioning whether Mariano Rivera's cutter is actually a cutter or just "his fastball." Duquette also challenged whether the cutter was actually an efficient pitch, which seems peculiar considering several of the game's best pitchers throw cutters. Still, I was more surprised by Duquette's seemingly hostile tone, but he could be tired of people asking why Bundy hasn't been able to throw his cutter. Honestly, though, it's more than a fair question.

On Thursday, Melewski interviewed Peterson, who should probably do the talking about this subject for the O's from now on instead of the occasionally aloof Duquette. Again, read the entire interview. Here were, to me, the two most interesting responses from Peterson:

Why don't you like use of the cut fastball?
"What happens is you start to get off to the side of the baseball (with your grip) and then you're no longer consistently behind the baseball. Typically what we see is the more you throw that cutter, you can become dependent on it and you start to overuse it and typically what happens to guys that overuse the cutter is their fastball velocity drops. That has been consistent over the years."

So with younger pitchers, you discourage use of the cutter?
"Yeah, we'd like them to develop the curveball or the slider as the primary breaking ball, something that has depth to it, not something that is flat. And the cutter is a pitch that typically is thrown later on in your career, often after you've been in the big leagues several years. Be it Roy Halladay, be it Cliff Lee, those are pitches they developed later in their career, not when they were young starting pitchers coming through the minor leagues.

"I'm not saying the cutter is not a good pitch, don't misunderstand me. A cutter used effectively is a nice addition to your arsenal. But a cutter thrown 40 percent of the time for a young power pitcher can become a crutch, then your velocity drops and you fail to develop your changeup and a breaking ball that has depth to it. The cutter overused is normally not displacing changeups and curveballs, it's displacing fastballs."

So there's at least a lot of thought behind what the O's are doing. They don't want Bundy to simply get in a mode in the minors where he throws cutter after cutter to get batters out. They want him to develop his other pitches first, and then there's the possibility that they'll let him have the pitch back at some point in the majors. But by the time he's ready, Peterson doesn't seem to think he'll need the cutter anymore, or at least not until later in his career. They also don't want Bundy's fastball velocity to drop, which Peterson says is a possible result from constantly throwing cut fastballs.

ESPN's Keith Law has been one of the most outspoken critics of how the O's have been handling Bundy, and that was before this cutter discussion started. Law believes the O's started Bundy way too low -- he thinks Bundy should have started his minor league career at least at Single-A Frederick or Double-A Bowie -- and he was not a fan of limiting Bundy to three innings at a time when he first started pitching this season. Predictably, Law is not of fan of the O's cutter philosophy either. When asked in an ESPN chat last week on what he thought of it, Law said, "I think it's nonsense, and in Bundy's case, the worst possible outcome for the kid's future." He also added this on Twitter:

Wow. Insane. RT @andrewchelton: @keithlaw Duquette "doesn't like the cutter"....great philosophy, isn't it?! masnsports.com/steve_melewski…
— keithlaw (@keithlaw) August 16, 2012

So, yeah. It seems pretty bold (but harsh) for the O's to disallow Bundy from throwing the pitch entirely, but it'll be even more ridiculous if they never let him throw the pitch again (which almost seems unreasonable). I'm pretty sure Chris Tillman, who's 24, throws a cutter, and he's been more effective this season than in years past.

Here's one thing I do know: Over the past 10-15 years, the O's have done a horrible job of both drafting and developing organizational talent, and that includes starting pitching. Let's take a look at their draft picks (pitchers only) in the first five rounds of the last 10 MLB drafts (not including this year).

2002: Adam Loewen (1st round), Hayden Penn (5th)
2003: Brian Finch (2nd), Chris Ray (3rd), Bob McCrory (4th)
2004: Wade Townsend (1st, didn't sign), Brad Bergesen (4th)
2005: Garrett Olson (1st (supplemental)), Brandon Erbe (3rd), Reid Hamblet (5th)
2006: Pedro Beato (1st (supplemental)), Zach Britton (3rd)
2007: Timothy Bascom (4th), Jake Arrieta (5th)
2008: Brian Matusz (1st)
2009: Matt Hobgood (1st), Randy Henry (4th), Ashur Tolliver (5th)
2010: Daniel Klein (3rd)
2011: Dylan Bundy (1st), Mike Wright (3rd), Kyle Simon (4th), Matt Taylor (5th)

Again, that's a lot of bad draft picks. But whatever the O's were doing then to develop those pitchers' abilities wasn't working -- at all. Some of those draft picks were/are OK relievers -- Ray, Bergesen, Beato -- but none of them is still with the O's. Britton, Arrieta, and Matusz are all still starters and have at least a shot of being effective, but you can't say the same for anyone else on that list. And all three of those guys have struggled at the major league level and have been disappointing. Hobgood and Klein haven't been able to stay healthy and are long shots to ever make it to Baltimore. And Henry (to Texas for Taylor Teagarden) and Simon (to Philadelphia for Jim Thome) are no longer in the organization. Oh, and Wright is also a reliever.

I'm not sure if what the O's are doing will work. It seems a little radical and might be an overreaction to the results of one type of pitch. But I do know that it's refreshing to see that Duquette and particularly Peterson have some sort of well-thought-out plan, and I'm sure it's much more complex than simply not allowing their younger minor leaguers to throw cutters.

It would be nice if the organization was better at drafting talent, period, but when they actually have good players, it's important that they grow and are eventually useful to the major league club. That hasn't happened for a while, but maybe it will now.

O's surprisingly promote Manny Machado to Baltimore

After the Orioles completed their three-game sweep of the Seattle Mariners with a 9-2 win last night, I went to bed. So I missed the flood of stories around midnight saying the O's were calling up Manny Machado from Bowie to play third base for the major league club. Machado, 20, is considered the O's second-best prospect behind Dylan Bundy and is a top 10 prospect in all of baseball.

Instead of making a major trade at the deadline, promoting Machado is arguably the biggest move the O's could have made (outside of promoting Bundy straight to Baltimore instead of to Bowie), and it's probably something that Buck Showalter and Dan Duquette have discussed before. Machado, who's hitting .266/.350/.431 at Bowie (and was named Eastern League Player of the Week just a couple days ago), has almost exclusively played shortstop in his time in the minors, but it wouldn't make much sense to move J.J. Hardy from the position, because even though he's not hitting all that well, he's still playing outstanding defense at the position. There's no guarantee that Machado would do the same, and it's unknown how long he'll be with the team. Still, the O's are promoting Machado for a reason: They think he's good enough right now, and at 60-51, they want him to help them win more games.

Buck Showalter echoed that sentiment in his comments after the game:

"If we can do something that makes us 2 inches better to have a chance to win the last 49 games, we’re going to do it." -Showalter postgame
— Brittany Ghiroli (@Britt_Ghiroli) August 9, 2012

So, will Machado help the team? If he plays every day, which he should if he's on the big league club, he'll be replacing the third base platoon of Wilson Betemit and Robert Andino. Betemit will likely still DH some and get occasional starts in the field to keep his bat in the lineup against right-handed pitching, but Andino will probably be relegated to more of a utility role since Omar Quintanilla has taken over the regular second base duties. Overall, Andino is hitting .227/.292/.318 and Betemit is batting .263/.323/.427, so neither guy is really a superior option offensively. Machado probably won't be much better right away -- and it may be unfair to expect that he will be -- but he may be able to be decent defensively while hitting better than Andino -- sort of a combination of the two's skills. Still, Machado has never played much third base, and now he'll be doing so at the highest level. (Apparently Machado took "a lot of ground balls at third" during his time in Bowie, according to manager Gary Kendall. So that's good, I guess.)

I'm not sure if Machado is ready or that it's a smart move to bring him up right now. I guess we'll find out over the next few weeks and months. As with most player promotions, fan opinions are mixed. But there's one thing this move definitely is: bold. It's an extremely bold move. I'm sure the team's current record played a part in the decision, but then again, if the O's were 20 games out of first place, wouldn't it almost make just as much sense to play Machado every day in the majors if they thought he was ready? Possibly, I guess.

But here's the cool part of all of this: Now we get to watch Machado play on a team that's currently tied for the lead in the wild card standings. Regardless of how good this team actually is or if they can stick around through late August into September, that's pretty exciting.

Adam Jones has some value, but will the O's trade him?

Gio Gonzalez is a solid, young starting pitcher. At 26, he's put up back-to-back strong seasons pitching for the A's. Now, though, he's been traded to the Nationals in exchange for four well-thought-of prospects. This is not an analysis of that trade, though; the Nationals got what they wanted in a left-handed, middle of the rotation starter, and the A's got a boatload of prospects for a pretty good young player, which is something they routinely do. Still, assuming Stephen Strasburg, Jordan Zimmermann, and Gonzalez all stay healthy, that's a formidable troika of starters.

One big bonus for the Nationals is that Gonzalez has just over two years of major league service time, meaning he's still under team control for four more seasons. Unfortunately for the Orioles, who are at least mildly interested in shopping a younger player like Adam Jones, he only has two years of service time left. Also 26 years old, Jones isn't quite the haul that Gonzalez is, but depending on how properly his defensive abilities have been rated, he may be more valuable than some think. And even though there's no way the O's can get three (or four) top 10 prospects from some team for Jones, there's no reason why they can't at least get one or two (which is what the O's should really be targeting).

Jones is in no way a fantastic hitter. He hasn't posted an on-base percentage above .335 in any of his four seasons with the Orioles, and his OBP has actually dipped the last two seasons (from .335 in 2009 to .325 in 2010 and .319 in 2011). That's mostly because he doesn't walk very much -- his career walk percentage is only 4.8 percent. Jones's value comes from his power; last season he posted a .466 slugging percentage, the highest of his career. If his OBP ever jumped 30 or 40 points while he also continued to hit for that level of power, Jones would be viewed much differently. But he really hasn't shown the plate discipline for a jump like that to occur.

Back to his defense, briefly: Jones won a gold glove in 2009, which is a pretty great honor. But FanGraphs' defensive numbers and other advanced fielding metrics have never really rated his defense highly. He still has a tendency to play too shallow at times, and occasionally a ball will get over his head that would be caught by an outfielder who gets a better jump. He's also a lock to airmail a few throws every season. I don't know if Jones is quite as bad as his UZR numbers indicate, but I also don't think he's a gold glove-caliber defender either. He's probably more of a middle-of-the-pack center fielder who also happens to make plays like this every once in a while.

Anyway, here's the point: Jones is a pretty good player, but he's not a star. He's a nice piece for the O's to have, and it's fun to watch him play. But the O's as an organization are a mess right now. After Dylan Bundy and Manny Machado, the club's farm system is mostly a disaster. There isn't much depth at all there, and the O's should be exploring any and all possibilities to improve the current crop of young players in the system.

Would O's fans miss Jones? Of course. But they would all agree that they'd much rather eventually watch a winning team, and there's no guarantee that Jones would be part of that team. He could walk in a couple of seasons and command a multiyear contract as a free agent, which may leave the O's without much compensation at all considering the elimination of some free agent compensation in the MLB's new collective bargaining agreement. Regardless, the O's should never reach that point with Jones. He may not command a ton in a trade, but he may not be worth a lucrative contract that he'll mostly likely be seeking. But, considering that the O's usually aren't proactive and wait too long to deal many players when they have value, I don't expect Jones to get dealt now or anytime soon.

O's do something right, sign their top draft picks

The biggest question mark for the Orioles heading into last night was whether they were going to sign three of their top draft picks: Dylan Bundy (1st round), Jason Esposito (2nd), and Nick Delmonico (6th). Surprisingly, the O's got deals done with all three, which will add some badly needed talent to the organization's farm system.

Bundy, the fourth overall pick and the first high school pitcher selected, received the major league contract he had been seeking. (Click here for an explanation.) Bundy's deal is apparently worth a little more than $6 million, with a $4 million bonus. That bonus seems a little low, so it's possible that Bundy sacrificed some bonus money in exchange for the major league contract. For those wondering if it was a good idea to give Bundy that major league deal, here's Keith Law's take:

Yes. He is the exception. RT @MrFish0: @keithlaw Okay with Bundy getting a ML contract?Tue Aug 16 05:07:32 via Seesmickeithlaw
keithlaw

Law agreeing with an Orioles decision? That's good to hear.

The O's also reached agreements with Esposito ($600,000 bonus) and Delmonico ($1.525 bonus).

As expected, Orioles scouting director Joe Jordan is thrilled: "It's a great day, we got everything we wanted today. We had all the support like we always do from Andy (MacPhail) and Mr. Angelos. I don't know how the hell it could have been a better day."

That's a great way to sum things up, and the O's certainly did a great job of making sure deals with those three guys got done. But now comes the hard part for a struggling organization: actually developing these prospects and getting them to realize their potential. But there will be plenty of time to discuss that later. For one day at least, O's fans can be happy that the front office did something positive.

What to know about Dylan Bundy

Drafting fourth, the Orioles weren't supposed to have to choose between Dylan Bundy and Anthony Rendon, who dropped a few spots after the Mariners passed on him at No. 2. But those types of things happen, and the O's decided to stick to their guns -- they've apparently been high on Bundy all along -- and selected Bundy. Injuries seem to be the main reason for Rendon's drop. Regardless, the O's have to be pretty excited to get their guy in Bundy.

You may have heard by now -- several times, possibly -- that Bundy's brother, Bobby, was drafted by the O's in 2008 and is currently pitching at Single-A Frederick. Expect to keep hearing it. (I actually think it's pretty cool that they're both in the O's system, but it shouldn't be one of the chief motivations for drafting the guy. Not that it was.)

Here are some things to know about Bundy:

- "Bundy is an 18-year-old right-hander out of Owasso (Okla.) High near Tulsa. This year, he went 11-0 with an 0.20 ERA. In 71 innings, he walked just five and fanned 158. He pitched one no-hitter and six one-hitters." [Steve Melewski]

- "Baseball America's Jim Callis raved about Dylan Bundy. 'Some scouting directors think he's the best pitcher in the draft, even better than all these college guys - and it's an exceptionally deep college draft,' Callis said. 'We have him No. 2 on our prospect list, ahead of all the college pitchers and you could argue he's No. 1. If you are worried about a high school pitcher as a top pick, I would tell people this guy is so exceptional it's almost like he's a college pitcher. He's not just some guy that is raw and throws hard and you wonder about his other pitches. Dylan Bundy can do it all; his resume is ridiculous.'" [Steve Melewski]

- "[Orioles scouting director Joe] Jordan said Bundy had 'one of the best deliveries of any pitcher in the draft.

'It took a little while today to get information from other clubs. He was being talked about in two of the rooms in front of us. We just put him up there and he was the best guy on our board when it was our turn.'

Anthony Rendon of Rice was still available with the fourth pick and Jordan was asked if the O's thought about taking him.

'We spent a lot of time today trying to get through that situation. Really, we got where we wanted to be on it. We just went with the player that we wanted,' he said." [Steve Melewski]

- "[Bundy] On his draft slot: 'Really I just thought I was going 4 or 5, Orioles or Kansas City, but there were rumors that Baltimore wasn’t going to take me because of signability and all this stuff. I was just hoping that they might change their mind and let me play with my brother this year.'" [Dan Connolly]

- "Rated as the best available prep pitcher in the 2011 class, Bundy impresses with a 95-100 MPH fastball. He isn't just a thrower, showing outstanding command of a plus curveball, plus slider, and solid changeup. He is a complete package and won't need as much development time as most high-school arms, possibly reaching the majors within two years. Bundy has robust bonus demands, but his brother Bobby pitches in the Orioles' system and perhaps that will help with his signability.

Bundy is 6-1, 205 and doesn't have the classic projectability of a high-school arm, but already has outstanding stuff, is a good athlete and very polished for his age. His draft slot is appropriate, and while pitching always represents an injury risk, Bundy is about as safe as it comes for a high-school pick. It seems unlikely that he will make it to college." [John Sickels]

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In terms of Bundy vs. Rendon, I'm torn. Most draft boards rated Rendon (mainly at either No. 1 or No. 2) higher than Bundy, including Baseball America, which had Rendon at the top. Still, there's something to be said for the O's staying composed and going with their guy. Rendon would have been a great pick, and the O's certainly could use more young position player talent. Then again, they need more talent in general, and if Bundy impresses the way the O's scouts think he will, the O's will have another young arm to go with their improving pitching corps.