As an Orioles fan, BaseRuns is never far from my thoughts. Since 2010, the team has outperformed its BaseRuns record every year — most notably in 2012, on the way to its first playoff appearance in over a decade. This year’s Orioles are no different, sitting last week at +5 wins versus what BaseRuns models. Fans say it’s Orioles Magic. The algorithm says such performances are expected. Jeff Sullivan doesn’t know precisely what to say.

After the team signed Pedro Alvarez, I paid attention when Dave asked if they would strike out too much, where by “too much” he meant “to such an extent that they’d win fewer games than their BaseRuns record suggests.” With another season in the books, I’ve picked up here where Cameron left off, exploring the relationship between a team’s strikeout rate and its BaseRuns in a few more ways.

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There’s a certain urgency to a post like this. Yesterday, I talked about the Cubs, and I had little choice but to mention the Cubs probably won’t win the World Series. The Orioles, one has to figure, are worse than the Cubs, so the Orioles probably won’t win the World Series, either. The odds are strongly against every individual team, meaning fans of every individual team are likely looking ahead to crushing heartbreak. If and when that heartbreak occurs, it’ll be a little while before people want to reflect upon happy memories.

So instead of waiting, I want to slide this in today. For all I know, some hours from now, the Orioles’ 2016 season will come to an end. They have something like a 50/50 shot to move past the Blue Jays, and then they’d just be rewarded with another tough match-up against another tough roster. The playoffs are hard and the playoffs are draining. But no matter what happens soon, it was another strong season for Baltimore. And it was another strong season that the projections didn’t expect.

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Yesterday, we ran the American League edition of this post, where interested parties can locate the methodology used to inform all of what’s to follow. Let us now begin the National League edition of this annual exercise.

It actually happened. Back in July, I wrote a post on how Colon had been baseball’s best-fielding pitcher. Now we’re here in October, and the numbers have held up. While Colon used to fall off the mound in his power-pitching days, he now finishes his delivery in a perfect fielding position, square to home plate, and displayed a combination of incredible reaction time, soft hands, and instincts that allowed him to capitalize on so many balls in play hit right back at him this year. And, believe it or not, this isn’t just a fluke. Dating back to 2014, Colon ranks top-10 among all pitchers in Defensive Runs Saved. He fields his position well, he controls the run game, and this year, he leads all major league pitchers in both Defensive Runs Saved and Fielding Runs Above Average. Now let’s get the old man a Gold Glove for it.

Iron Gloves: Jorge de la Rosa (-4), Tom Koehler (-4), Jimmy Nelson (-3).
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While fans of 20 teams were coping with the end of the season over the weekend, Dennis Lin delivered some incredibly exciting news. Padres manager Andy Green and host of other Padres officials were in Peoria to watch Christian Bethancourt throw a bullpen session. An injured player throwing an October bullpen session wouldn’t normally draw the manager, pitching coach, bullpen coach, minor-league pitching coordinator, and player-development coordinator, but this was no ordinary rehab session.

“We’re flirting with the idea of this guy being a very intriguing ’25th man’ who can catch, can play the outfield and can pitch,” Green said. “I know no team has actually really tried to deploy a guy in that capacity — probably ever when you consider those three dynamics.

“We’ll run as far down that road as his arm allows us to. I don’t know that we’re firmly committed to that or married to that, but it’s worth exploring.”

That’s right: the Padres are exploring the idea of making Bethancourt a catcher, outfielder, and pitcher hybrid.

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Tonight’s AL Wild Card game is a pretty fascinating matchup. Both teams launch home runs at prodigious rates, as the Orioles led the majors in long balls, and the Blue Jays finished fourth overall, just four home runs back of a tie for second. Interestingly, however, neither team was as good offensively as those home run totals might make you think; Toronto ranked 11th in offensive runs above average while Baltimore came in 13th. If they’re not launching homers, they can be held in check, so tonight’s game might not be the slugfest that could otherwise be expected.

Especially because the rules of the Wild Card game incentivize frequent pitching changes, and both of these teams should be taking advantage of the flexibility. The Blue Jays are starting Marcus Stroman, but they also have starters Francisco Liriano and Marco Estrada on the roster, plus the normal compliment of seven relievers; the Jays could mix-and-match their pitchers from the first inning and still have enough arms to get through the game, even while holding one of the extra starters in reserve for a potential extra inning contest.

Likewise, the Orioles are also carrying 10 pitchers, with Ubaldo Jimenez and Dylan Bundy available in relief, along with seven traditional relievers. But if you’re Buck Showalter, you’re probably a lot less excited about the possibility of bringing in Jimenez (5.44 ERA/4.43 FIP/4.64 xFIP) or Bundy (4.02 ERA/4.70 FIP/4.61 xFIP) in an elimination game, and the plan is more likely going to be to ride Tillman as long as he’s effective, than to turn the ball over the team’s normal relief corps.

That relief corps, of course, is anchored by Zach Britton, the best pitcher the Orioles have. Britton’s dominance is almost hard to believe at this point; 202 of the 254 batters he faced this year (80%) either struck out or hit a groundball. He’s the most extreme groundball pitcher we’ve ever seen, only he also blows hitters away with a similar strikeout rate to what Noah Syndergaard posted this year. Opposing batters hit .161/.221/.191 against him this year. To put that in perspective, Mariano Rivera only held hitters to a lower OPS than Britton’s .430 mark once in his career; in 2008, when hitters put up a .423 OPS against him.

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It’s possible, if not probable, that the BBWAA will fail to elect Mike Trout next month as the American League’s Most Valuable Player for the fourth time in five years, a near half-decade-long stretch of what’s difficult to be viewed as anything other than illogical thinking or misguided debate mongering that, if continued, will likely be looked upon decades from now by the baseball community with a sense of regret and confusion.

This marks the third consecutive year (2014, 2015) in which I’ve updated the historical context of Trout’s current run, and each season, the already obvious becomes even more apparent: Mike Trout isn’t just the best player in baseball; he’s one of the greatest ever to walk the earth. He is Mickey Mantle. He is Willie Mays. He is Barry Bonds, before the steroids. Steroid-era Bonds aside, Trout’s probably the best baseball player most people reading this post have ever seen.

Every position player in MLB history with more bWAR than Mike Trout (47.7) over any 5-year stretch, ever:

 

— August Fagerstrom (@AugustFG_) October 4, 2016

The back and forth over the finer points of the subjectivity of the word “valuable” has grown tired, as has the common refrain of those who suggest “It isn’t the Most Outstanding Player Award.” And, it’s true — that’s not the name of the award. But, at a certain point, doesn’t “outstanding” win out? When the “outstanding” stands for “as or more outstanding than Stan Musial, Hank Aaron, Carl Yastrzemski and Joe DiMaggio ever were,” can’t that make up for whatever arbitrary standard one has set in order to create a universe in which all-time great season after all-time great season can be met with a second-place finish and a pat on the back at the end of the year?

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Following Torontos’ Wild Card-clinching win over the Red Sox at Fenway Park on Sunday, I asked Blue Jays reliever Joe Biagini if he’d just thrown the biggest inning of his life. Before answering, he paused to watch a champagne-soaked teammate traipse across the clubhouse, adorned in only a jockstrap, amid a cacophony of exultations.

“Probably,” mused Biagini. “Yesterday’s, today’s. They just kind of keep getting bigger.”

This one was huge. The 26-year-old rookie right-hander had entered in the eighth inning with the tying run on second base, and Dustin Pedroia — .318/.376/.449 on the season — due up. Two outs were needed to preserve a precious lead. That’s exactly what he got.

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