Archive for Orioles

Today, we have the first of several Killers two-fers, with a pair of lists covering the right side of the infield. While still focusing on teams that meet the loose definition of a contender (Playoff Odds of at least 10%, a criterion that 22 of the 30 teams meet) and that have gotten about 0.6 WAR or less out of a position thus far (which prorates to 1.0 WAR over a full season), I have also incorporated our Depth Charts’ rest-of-season WAR projections into the equation for an additional perspective. That may suggest that some of these teams will clear the bar by a significant margin, but even so, I’ve included them here because their performance at that spot is worth a look. All statistics are through July 12.

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It has not been a good season for Trea Turner. The two-time batting champion is in the midst of a career-worst season at the plate, hitting for a 79 wRC+ (.239/.287/.368) even after homering in three straight games, including a three-run shot off Pirates ace Paul Skenes on Wednesday night. What’s more, after breaking a streak of three straight below-average seasons at shortstop according to both Defensive Runs Saved and Fielding Run Value last year, he’s not only back in the red, but is tied for last at the position with -8 DRS, while being tied for fifth-worst with -5 FRV. All of which once again marks Turner as a fairly typical Phillies player.

Indeed, through ups and downs that have included four postseason appearances, one trip to the World Series, and two in-season managerial firings, one constant of the Dave Dombrowski era of Phillies baseball has been lousy defense. Since the start of the 2021 season, the team is 100 runs below average according to FRV (the majors’ seventh-lowest mark) and 127 below average according to DRS (fifth-lowest). It hasn’t stopped the Phillies from being competitive — or highly entertaining — though it may have cost them seeding here and there, to say nothing of the way last year’s Division Series against the Dodgers ended. But given the choice between good hitters with questionable gloves and slick fielders with subpar bats, the team has generally gone for the offensive boost and lived or died with the consequences.

Thus it was hardly a surprise that the Phillies ranked second-to-last in my recent aggregation of team defensive metrics, even with right fielder Nick Castellanos — who contributed -41 DRS and -45 FRV from 2022–25 before being released in February — no longer on the team, and Kyle Schwarber more or less a full-time designated hitter. The Phillies’ .672 Defensive Efficiency, the rate at which a team turns batted balls into outs, is lower than all but the Rockies (.669), while their -29 DRS is lower than all but the Twins’ -32. Read the rest of this entry »

Woo-Suk Go was one of Korea’s top closers from 2019-2023. Over that five-season span, the 27-year-old right-hander logged 137 saves and a 2.39 ERA across 275-and-a-third innings with the LG Twins. Moreover, his 29.3% strikeout rate was the highest among KBO hurlers who threw at least 200 frames.

He hasn’t had nearly as much success since coming stateside. Signed as an international free agent by the San Diego Padres in January 2024, Woo-Suk was subsequently swapped to the Miami Marlins four months later in the Luis Arraez deal, only to be released in June 2025 and picked up by the Detroit Tigers. His inability to gain a foothold is reflected in the numbers. He entered the current campaign having recorded just six saves and a 5.61 ERA over 75 appearances down on the farm.

This season has been an another story. Looking more like the pitcher who dominated KBO hitters, Woo-Suk boasts a 2.06 ERA, a 2.26 FIP, and a 35.1% strikeout rate over 39-and-a-third innings across 25 appearances, eight with Double-A Erie and 17 with Triple-A Toledo. Working most often in a setup role, he is 3-1 with three saves.

Results aside, how does he differ from the young pitcher who excelled in his homeland? Read the rest of this entry »

On April 15, Zach Neto was at the plate with one out and nobody on in the top of the fifth inning of the Angels’ game in the Bronx, where his team trailed the Yankees, 3-2. The first two pitches, a low changeup and a high slider, were nowhere near the zone, and Neto laid off easily. The 2-0 pitch from Luis Gil was another slider, this one about belt high and bending away from the right-handed Neto, who kept the bat on his shoulder and watched as the pitch appeared to clip the outside edge of the zone. Home plate umpire Lance Barksdale held up his hand. Strike one. Neto tapped his helmet immediately to challenge the call.

The graphic on the gigantic video board in center field showed that the pitch had missed by 0.4 inches. The call was overturned; the count was now 3-0. Neto walked on the next pitch. Mike Trout stepped in, took a fifth straight ball from Gil, then let a four-seam fastball over the heart of the plate get deep on him. He unloaded, clobbering the cookie 383 feet into the right field seats for a go-ahead two-run blast.

The no-doubt Trout clout would have been the decisive blow in an Angels win if not for a misplayed popup and a Jordan Romano meltdown. The Yankees walked it off on a José Caballero single, relegating Neto’s challenge to a footnote in that night’s game story, if it was mentioned at all. Even so, the gamble was an early example of how the new automated ball-strike challenge system can make the difference between winning and losing a game. Read the rest of this entry »

Like many of us, Jake Burger is tuning in to as many World Cup matches as his schedule allows. The Texas Rangers first baseman is a big fan of “the beautiful game,” and has been for well over a decade. Moreover, it isn’t just the US national team that captures his attention. Burger is an ardent supporter of Tottenham Hotspur, one of the more prominent sides in the English Premier League.

How and when did the 30-year-old St. Louis native come to embrace a team based in North London?

“I became a Spurs fan probably around 2011-2012,” Burger told me. “Gareth Bale and Luka Modrić were my two favorite players. It kind of started with me playing [the FIFA video game] and knowing a lot of those names. Modrić was a wizard out there. Bale, too. Then, obviously, Harry Kane came over to Spurs and I became a big fan of his. They kind of went on a run when Mauricio Pochettino came in [as manager], so following them just became more a part of my life.

“In 2019, I got to go over there to the new stadium and watch a game,” Burger added. “They played Bournemouth and won 3-2. I went over with Ryan Burr and Jimmy Lambert, who were in the White Sox organization with me, and we saw a few other matches, as well. Lambert is a Liverpool fan, and Burr a Man City fan, so along with the Tottenham game we went to a Manchester Derby and a Merseyside Derby; we saw Liverpool play Everton.”

Being a Tottenham fan this past season was anything but easy. Had they lost their final match, they would have been relegated from England’s top league for the first time in nearly 50 years. Much to the relief of Spurs supporters everywhere, they defeated Everton 1-0 to remain safe. Read the rest of this entry »

Taylor Ward has made a big league career out of lifting and pulling the ball. Drafted in the first round in 2015, he didn’t find a full-time role in the majors until 2022, but he ran with the job as soon as he got it. Despite unexciting bat speed, Ward consistently ambushed fastballs and tucked them over the left field fence. He clobbered 98 home runs from 2022-25 for the Angels, posted a 119 wRC+, and racked up 11 WAR over the span, one of the team’s best players. Then he got traded to the Orioles this winter with only one year left until free agency, and decided to completely remake his game.

I’m only partially kidding. See, Ward might have made his name as a 25-homer-a-year type, but he’s abandoned that style completely in Baltimore. He’s launched only three long balls this season, and his barrel rate, average exit velocity, and fly ball rate are all career lows. His average bat speed is down 1.5 miles an hour, now in the fifth percentile league-wide. Even when he does get the ball in the air, he’s pulling it at a career-low rate; only 19.4% of his elevated contact goes to left field. That’s why his isolated power has declined from .192 as an Angel to .103 as an Oriole. And oh yeah, he’s having one of the best seasons of his career.

That’s right – Ward might not be hitting for power, but he’s getting on base at a preposterous clip. His 18.8% walk rate is third in baseball. His .403 OBP is fifth. He’s not barely surviving on some weird BABIP spike or doing anything visibly unsustainable. He just started swinging slower and making more contact, more or less, and the results have been downright incredible; his 126 wRC+ would be the second-best mark of his career if he can sustain it the rest of the season. Read the rest of this entry »

You might not have noticed, but Rico Garcia has been one of the best relievers in baseball this season. Over 30 appearances, the 32-year-old Baltimore Orioles right-hander has a 1.29 ERA, a 3.25 FIP, and a 31% strikeout rate. Moreover, he has allowed just nine hits in 28 innings of work and boasts a record of 3-1 with four saves.

If you don’t follow the Orioles, you can be excused for not being familiar with Garcia. Claimed off waivers from the New York Mets last August, Garcia came into the current campaign having thrown just 70 big league innings since debuting in 2019, and he’d done so while pitching for seven different teams. Truly a journeyman, the 30th-round pick in the 2016 draft out of Hawaii Pacific University possessed a ledger that included one win, four losses, zero saves, and a 5.27 ERA.

What is behind his breakthrough? Based on conversations with both Garcia and Orioles pitching coach Drew French, that is a question without a simple answer. While the righty has never been better, it isn’t as though he has seen his velocity suddenly skyrocket, introduced a nasty new pitch, or discovered a secret formula. Read the rest of this entry »

Shane Baz features a five-pitch mix: a four-seam fastball and a knuckle curve being the most prominent in terms of usage. The Baltimore Orioles right-hander also throws a cutter, a curveball, and a changeup. And then there is the offering that reluctantly remains in his back pocket. Baz would love to one day unleash his knuckleball on major-league hitters.

“I threw one when I was a kid, up until I was probably 13 or 14,” explained Baz, who was a big Tim Wakefield fan while growing up in Tomball, Texas. “It was my only off-speed pitch up until then — I was just fastball/knuckleball — so I’ve got a lot of experience with it. I actually try to throw it in every bullpen [session]. I’ll definitely get it into a game, eventually. I just have to convince [pitching coach Drew] French to let me throw it. Maybe next spring training I’ll be able to mix some in and show him what it looks like in a game. I mean, it’s pretty good.”

Baz went on to say that that he threw his pet pitch with a three-finger grip — “fingers on the horseshoe, right by the label” — in his younger days, but once his hands got bigger he went to “the traditional two-finger knuckleball.” And while he basically stopped throwing it in games once he matured and developed more pitches, he’s never lost his affinity for baseball’s butterfly.

At 96.1 mph, Baz’s four-seamer is above average for velocity, but while extra oomph is advantageous for heaters, that isn’t the case for low-spin floaters.

“I can get it up to about 80, but those aren’t as good,” Baz said. “I think it’s best when it’s like 70 to 75. That’s when I have the best control of it and can keep the spin really low. When I’m trying to throw it hard, it starts spinning more and not having as much knuckle effect.”

His overall understanding of the pitch is impressive, and that includes spin properties. Read the rest of this entry »

Reasonable people can disagree on who the best draft prospect of the 21st century is. I think there’s a pretty good case for Adley Rutschman: A switch-hitter with patience and power, a plus defender at a premium position, a College World Series champion who’d been tested repeatedly against the toughest amateur competition in the world and come out on top routinely.

I get why you’d want the tantalizing upside of Bryce Harper, Stephen Strasburg, or Mark Prior, but to me no other prospect combined a big league starter-level floor with the ceiling of a superstar the way Rutschman did. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to another edition of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) This Week in Baseball. In keeping with the increasingly lenient definition of “this week” that I’ve been using of late, we’ve got stuff from all throughout May in this column. May is a great time to watch baseball. (It’s always a great time to watch baseball, but May is particularly good.) The weather is heating up. Ballparks are swelling with the start of summer crowds. Tarps are coming off. So please join me on a trip through the league, from fun teams to watch to nifty little plays. And as always, thanks to Zach Lowe of The Ringer for the inspiration.

1. The Go-Go Nats
Nationals fans have endured seven years in the wilderness since the team’s 2019 title. Washington’s season-high win total in that span was 71 (2023 and 2024). This year’s team is finally playing around .500 ball, though our projections think the Nats will end up right around that 71-win high-water mark again. (We have them down for 74 at the moment.) But while the winning hasn’t quite come back yet, the fun has.

This year, the Nationals are dominating on offense. They’re leading the majors in scoring by a mile, averaging an enormous 5.49 runs per game. They’ve hit the most doubles in baseball – in fact, they have the most extra-base hits in baseball. They’re top 10 in on-base percentage, top five in slugging, and top five in stolen bases. They’re first in overall baserunning value. They’re third in BaseRuns-projected scoring. This isn’t smoke and mirrors. Read the rest of this entry »