Pirates Go ‘Opposite Day’ Of Orioles’ Model

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Have you ever watched the Seinfeld episode where George consciously thinks what he would normally do and then intentionally does the opposite. This leads him to be much more successful in his day and also makes for a very funny episode.

If you look at some of the decisions the Pirates have made in the last 10 years it ?s almost as if the Pirates asked ?What would the Orioles do and done the exact opposite.

Here are a few examples with some more pertinent now than others.

Pot to Pat to McCutchen Machado

A baseball team does not have star players, let alone homegrown stars, very often. Over the last 20 years the Pirates and Orioles have each had their one homegrown star. The Pirates had Andrew McCutchen and the Orioles had Manny Machado.

The Pirates whole tenure with McCutchen: grooming, playing and getting the most value out of him could be graded at a B+. The Orioles tenure with Machado would be given a D-. Let ?s initially a look at their numbers and timelines:

Manny Machado
Year	Age	Tm	Lg	G	PA	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	WAR
2010	17	BAL-min	A-,Rk	9	39	0.306	0.359	0.472	0.831
2011	18	BAL-min	A+,A	101	430	0.257	0.335	0.421	0.756
2012	19	BAL-min	AA	109	459	0.266	0.352	0.438	0.789
2012	19	BAL	AL	51	202	0.262	0.294	0.445	0.739	1.2
2013	20	BAL	AL	156	710	0.283	0.314	0.432	0.746	5.0
2014	21	BAL-min	A+	3	13	0.667	0.692	1.167	1.859
2014	21	BAL	AL	82	354	0.278	0.324	0.431	0.755	2.3
2015	22	BAL	AL	162	713	0.286	0.359	0.502	0.861	6.6
2016	23	BAL	AL	157	696	0.294	0.343	0.533	0.876	6.3
2017	24	BAL	AL	156	690	0.259	0.310	0.471	0.782	2.6
2018	25	TOT	MLB	162	709	0.297	0.367	0.538	0.905	6.2
Andrew McCutchen
2005	18	PIT-min	Rk,A-	58	254	0.310	0.419	0.433	0.852
2006	19	PIT-min	A,AA	134	590	0.294	0.359	0.450	0.809
2007	20	PIT-min	AA,AAA	135	570	0.265	0.329	0.388	0.717
2008	21	PIT-min	AAA	135	590	0.283	0.372	0.398	0.770
2009	22	PIT-min	AAA	49	219	0.303	0.361	0.493	0.853
2009	22	PIT	NL	108	493	0.286	0.365	0.471	0.836
2010	23	PIT	NL	154	653	0.286	0.365	0.449	0.814	3.4
2011	24	PIT	NL	158	678	0.259	0.364	0.456	0.820	3.5
2012	25	PIT	NL	157	673	0.327	0.400	0.553	0.953	5.5
2013	26	PIT	NL	157	674	0.317	0.404	0.508	0.911	7.4
2014	27	PIT	NL	146	648	0.314	0.410	0.542	0.952	8.1
2015	28	PIT	NL	157	685	0.292	0.401	0.488	0.889	7.4
2016	29	PIT	NL	153	675	0.256	0.336	0.430	0.766	6.0
2017	30	PIT	NL	156	650	0.279	0.363	0.486	0.849	1.1
2018	31	TOT	MLB	155	682	0.255	0.368	0.424	0.792	3.7
2018	31	SFG	NL	130	568	0.255	0.357	0.415	0.772	2.6
2018	31	NYY	AL	25	114	0.253	0.421	0.471	0.892

First let ?s look at promotion schedule. The Orioles did what many of us was called ?rushing ? the prospect. They were in a pennant race in 2012 and were not happy with their third baseman (Wilson Betemit). Instead of trading for another player they brought up their own superstar prospect.

The problem was that their superstar prospect was only at AA and had not even taken a single at bat in AAA. This also wasn ?t Vlad Jr. almost hitting .400 in AA who didn ?t need AAA — Machado was hitting .262 in the Eastern League against pitchers like Tim Alderson, Mike Crotta and Nate Baker. Worse yet, after the season he was not sent back to AAA and just remained on the Major League roster for the following season at the age of 20. If you look at his numbers it seems like he did well in that 20 year old season with 5.0 fWAR but ALL of that was defense and seemed to have been driven by the absurdly high 39 double plays he started. He regressed and was injured. It wasn ?t until 2015 when he was playing at a level commensurate with his pedigree and already he was on the cusp of arbitration. At worst the Orioles lost one season of quality Machado due to rushing him, but more realistically it was probably closer to two.

The casual fan would say this doesn ?t matter as you get 6.5 years of control regardless of when he is brought up. But if you contrast with McCutchen, you see that he was much better earlier. His greatness early in his career allowed the Pirates to offer him the extension and gain two more years of control.

Lastly, the Orioles missed their best chance to trade Machado. The Pirates try to trade players at peak value (Cole, McLouth, etc.) The Orioles traded Machado at the last possible minute to a team that didn ?t really need him in a buyer ?s market. If they trade him a year or two earlier, they could have easily gained a Bregman, Gleyber Torres or Victor Robles. While the McCutchen trade obviously brought less return, the scenario is different as McCutchen had an unprecedented fall from greatness in his prime.

Signing the nice guy to the lifetime contract

The Pirates have had their share of players who fans have really liked. They ?ve had the type of players that fans have professed their love for or named their dogs after. These players often seem like the type that deserve the 7 year extension that makes them ?a Pirate for life ?. The Orioles wish they would have resisted.

The most obvious extension candidate for the Pirates was definitely McCutchen. I know I advocated for controlling McCutchen through his early 30s. Neil Walker was one as well that people nominated. The Pirates did the team-friendly extension with McCutchen, but didn ?t follow-up with a mega, Ryan Braun-type deal.

The Orioles…true to this article, did in fact make their now legendary and infamous deal for crowd favorite Chris Davis and has it gone epically wrong.

Chris Davis broke into the majors with the Rangers and had two decent years before being traded to the Orioles due to the Rangers plethora of hitters and not enough pitching. This is where Davis really earned his nickname ?Crush ?. Davis embodied the slugger with crazy high strikeout numbers as well as absurd ISO ?s, with his .353 ISO in 2013 being the highest.

Davis reached free agency after the 2015 season and the likable Davis should have been offered a qualifying offer and given a token 4 year/68Mish offer and allowed to sign elsewhere. But that ?s not what the O ?s did. Seven years/$161M was their offer and Davis gladly accepted.

In 2018 Davis flirted with history (the bad kind) with a -3.1 fWAR. He ?s still owed $23M annually for the next four years. Management says they ?re committed to him but there ?s a chance he ?ll be the next Troy Tulowitski that is jettisoned from his team with hefty money remaining.

Signing Several Subpar Starters

In the past five years the Orioles have inked the following contracts:

Ubaldo Jimenez	4 yr/$50M (14-17)
Yovanni Gallardo	2 yr/$22M (16-17)+18 opt
Alex Cobb	4 yr/$57M (18-21)

While the Pirates haven’t been totally perfect with this, especially after the Liriano trade fiasco, they have a much better track record and have not offered a fourth year to any starter. Dallas Keuchel won’t be the first.

While it sounds good to sign these experienced starters, who would “solidify” the rotation, the odds of them being as good as the current starter is a toss up once you add in injury risk. Great pitching is hard to predict from year to year and the Orioles keep gambling with $12M+ contracts. The Pirates are avoiding 4 year contracts with free agents pitchers, so don’t hold your breath for Kimbrel in the bullpen or Kuechel.