Orioles Magic, Manny Machado edition

Here's Manny Machado's go-ahead three-run bomb last night to complete the Orioles' ninth-inning comeback against the Red Sox. The Fenway Park faithful -- at least the ones still remaining -- were not happy:



Machado magic, indeed.

Orioles stun Rangers, face Yankees in the ALDS

For me, the biggest decision of this improbable, unexpected Orioles season happened when the O's promoted Manny Machado from Double-A Bowie. On that day, August 9, the O's were 60-52 and were on a five-game winning streak, so it's not like they were playing poorly by any means. But the surprising move put an end to the likes of Wilson Betemit and Robert Andino (or anyone else) playing third base, the position which Machado has played nearly every day since his call-up.

With Machado, the Orioles went 33-17 to close the season and finished with an insane 93-69 record, ending up two games behind the Yankees in the East but tied with the Rangers in the wild card standings. The 20-year-old Machado gave the O's exactly what they needed. He played a solid third base (which made him look like one of the best fielders of all time considering what fans had been watching at the position for years) and hit with enough power to make him a decent contributor in the lineup. His .262/.294/.445 slash line in 191 at-bats also doesn't look so bad when compared with J.J. Hardy's 2012 line: .238/.282/.389 (in 663 at-bats). That's not to diminish what Hardy has done defensively this season, but there's no question that he's had a disappointing offensive season.

So let's skip ahead to a crucial moment in last night's win over the Rangers. With the O's leading 3-1 in the top of the ninth, Machado stepped to the plate with runners on second and third and one out.

Then he did this:



Machado will swing for the fences until he gets two strikes (and sometimes after), but he also has a tendency to shorten his swing and protect the plate. He strikes out a pretty good amount (18.8%), but not nearly as much as Jim Thome (34.8%), Chris Davis (30.1%), Mark Reynolds (29.6%), Wilson Betemit (27.4%), and Ryan Flaherty (25.7%), just to name a few. So even though Joe Nathan made a pretty good pitch down in the zone, Machado was able to still get a decent swing on the ball on hit it past a diving Elvis Andrus at shortstop.

After Machado's single, Nate McLouth added a sacrifice fly, pushing the score to 5-1. As it turned out, the Rangers loaded the bases against Jim Johnson with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, though Johnson got David Murphy to fly out harmlessly to left field to end the game. He still may have saved the game even if the score had been 3-1, but those extra two runs were obviously helpful.

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I don't know what the future holds for the Orioles, both in the American League Division Series against the Yankees and beyond. And I've said this before: This season has provided the most sports enjoyment for me in a really long time. Regardless, this team and what they've accomplished up to this point has been nothing short of amazing, and I really hope it continues.

Whenever/however it does end, I'm going to look back on this season and wish I had written more at various points during the wild ride, but that hardly matters right now. The Orioles are about to begin a five-game playoff series against the Yankees, with the first two games at Camden Yards, a magnificent place that's going to be packed with excited and raucous fans believing that one playoff win was great, but that knocking out the Yankees and advancing to the ALCS would be that much sweeter. It really would. And I'm not going to be the one to tell them it won't happen.

O's keep cruising along, reach 81-win mark

I don't know exactly what to say about this awesome, improbable Orioles season, but man, is it a lot of fun. Yesterday, the O's won yet another one-run game, this time in 14 innings. And, oh by the way, they've also now won 13 consecutive extra-inning games, which is just ridiculous. To top it all off, Manny Machado's walk-off single gave the O's 81 wins, meaning that with 19 games left, they're going to finish above .500 for the first time since 1997.

This isn't supposed to be happening. Not only did the O's not look all that talented heading into this season, but they're far from fielding their best possible lineup. With Nick Markakis lost at least for the rest of the regular season, Nate McLouth is batting leadoff -- and getting the job done. But even before that, he was batting third, and he wasn't doing a terrible job. Lew Ford may be the team's best right-handed bat off the bench. Machado, only 20 years old, is playing a phenomenal third base after basically not playing the position in the minor leagues, and while not getting on base a ton, he's demonstrated some power and has come up with some timely hits. Pedro Strop and Darren O'Day have transformed into lethal late-game relievers. Brian Matusz seems more comfortable in the bullpen and is actually getting hitters out, routinely. And all Taylor Teagarden does is get hits in important situations. I could keep going, but all that matters is this: The O's are getting great performances at just the right time from so many different, random names, and they're doing this without a handful of their best players.

Against all odds, the wins keep coming. About a month ago, I looked at the O's remaining 44 games and how difficult it would be for them to stay in the playoff race. Here's what they've done since:

2-1 at Detroit
1-2 at Texas
2-0 vs. Toronto (one game rained out)
3-1 vs. White Sox
2-1 at New York
2-1 at Toronto
2-2 vs. New York
3-0 vs. Tampa Bay

That's a 17-8 record, which is absurd.

At 81-62, the O's are currently tied with the Yankees for first place in the AL East, one game behind the A's for the top wild card spot, and 3.5 games up on the Angels in the second wild card spot. After a playoff berth looked incredibly implausible a month ago, the O's now, according to ESPN's playoff odds (provided by coolstandings.com), have a 72 percent chance of making the postseason. The O's huge three-game sweep against the Rays reduced Tampa Bay's playoff chances to about 27 percent, but again, there's still about three weeks left to go, so anything is still possible. And it's not like the O's haven't been defying odds all season long, so it'd be foolish to close the book on other teams until they're officially eliminated.

After a nine-game road trip in Oakland, Seattle, and Boston, the O's have a seven-game homestand (four against the Blue Jays and three against the Red Sox) before three final games in Tampa Bay. Depending on how both teams fare between now and then, that could be an enormous series. But, for now, the O's still have a lot of work to do, and they're guaranteed of nothing. But, considering they were all but guaranteed to finish last in the AL East, finishing over .500 is fantastic.

But this is no time for settling for simply a winning record, as weird as that is to say. This is Birdland, where meaningful September games are played, apparently.

J.J. Hardy is not doing what the O's need him to

J.J. Hardy is a superb defensive shortstop, but he's consistently batted in the second spot the entire season despite putting up awful offensive numbers (.226/.273/.372). In his first season with the Orioles last year, Hardy batted .269/.310/.491, which isn't ideal for a No. 2 hitter because of the low on-base percentage, but it didn't hurt the O's much because he displayed a surprising amount of power. He posted a .222 ISO (isolated power, which measures a player's ability to hit for power/get extra-base hits) -- the best of his career -- yet only has a .146 ISO right now, which would be one of the lowest of his career.

So what's gone wrong? Let's explore.

Hardy's walk and strikeout numbers aren't much different. In fact, he's striking out less and walking slightly more.

2011: 5.5 BB%, 16.2 K%
2012: 5.7 BB%, 15.2 K%

His BABIP is low, though, which means he's been somewhat unlucky. He's only posted a BABIP above .300 once in his career, but this season's .240 mark is lower than his career BABIP of .274. So he's due for a few more hits to drop in, but that doesn't solely explain an OBP this low.

He's hitting more line drives this season than last (from 16.4% to 17.5%), and his ground ball/fly ball ratio is higher than last season (from 0.93 to 1.02). His home run/fly ball ratio (9.4%) is also nowhere near last seasons's (15.7%). So he's hitting the ball somewhat harder, but overall he's hitter fewer fly balls -- and even fewer of them are leaving the ballpark.

Hardy's plate discipline isn't the problem either. Not only is he swinging at fewer pitches outside the strike zone, but he's making more contact with those pitches as well. He's swinging at about as many pitches in the zone and overall is swinging the bat slightly less, but that doesn't explain the significant drop in his numbers either.

So what's been the problem? Fastballs and right-handed pitching. I think it was Jim Palmer who either last night or the night before discussed how Hardy seems to be having trouble with outside fastballs and ones tailing away. Hardy's a pull hitter who likes to turn on inside pitches. He doesn't hit the ball to the opposite field often, and when he's down in the count he'll try to foul off pitches he can't handle until he gets something that he can. After destroying fastballs last season (per Fangraphs PITCHf/x pitch value data), Hardy's not hitting them much this season and is actually hitting some offspeed pitches slightly better.

Also, here are Hardy's splits this season (and career splits in parentheses) vs. right-handed and left-handed pitching:

vs. RHP: .215/.255/.362 (.256/.303/.413)
vs. LHP: .261/.328/.403 (.266/.345/.466)

Again, Hardy's numbers are down across the board. But his numbers against lefties this season are at least serviceable for a strong defensive shortstop. Those numbers against righties, though, are truly ugly.

It's worth remembering that last July Hardy was given a three-year, $22.25 million extension. It's nice that the O's found their short-term option at shortstop and that Hardy is so good defensively at that position, but if he's not hitting he's not helping the club nearly as much as he did in 2011. Instead of trading Hardy at the trade deadline last season when he was arguably having the best season of his career, the O's are stuck with the possibility that Hardy peaked and may only be a shell of that previous offensive force. Also, if Manny Machado stays in the majors and is on the club after spring training next season, and there's really no reason to think that he won't, then Hardy is blocking Machado's true position, or at least the position he should be playing at the big league level until he proves that he can't.

I like Hardy and he's a steady, veteran presence who has helped the O's get where they are right now, but it's looking more and more like the O's and Andy MacPhail missed a big opportunity to sell high on Hardy a year ago and add a few pieces to fill other holes in the O's farm system.

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.