Three Ways to Talk About Miguel Gonzalez

The other day, in a spring-training game against the Braves, Miguel Gonzalez was basically pitching for his rotation slot. That might’ve been surprising enough, given how much Gonzalez has meant to the Orioles in the past, but he did have a rough 2015 and a rougher month of March. Anyhow, Gonzalez went five innings, allowing a run with no walks and four strikeouts. The results were solid, even if they could’ve been worse. Yet Gonzalez still got released. Something just wasn’t good enough, and the Orioles decided to go with other options.

Maybe “stunning” would be too strong, but the reality of Gonzalez getting released is unexpected. The Orioles are anything but deep in the rotation, and apparently Gonzalez’s former teammates are less than ecstatic. It’s a hard thing to wrap your head around, given Gonzalez’s presence, but it seems to me there are three ways to think about this. One of them, I prefer over the others.

One approach: The Orioles are stupid. It makes things easy — Gonzalez got released because the Orioles are stupid, and they made a stupid decision. Look! Other teams are interested! And between 2012 – 2014, Gonzalez had a top-30 ERA-. I guess you can never completely rule this out, with any transaction, but I pretty much never buy “stupid,” not in this day and age. I’m sure the Orioles agonized over Gonzalez. They had him in the rotation for four years, and they know how much he’s been able to do. And it’s not like the Orioles don’t realize their rotation is thin. They decided, after thorough evaluation, that Gonzalez wasn’t likely to help moving forward. He could conceivably still be effective somewhere else, and he’ll get that chance, but the Orioles know the most about what’s going on. I assume they thought this through.

A second approach: Hello, regression to the mean! Gonzalez, for a few years, was one of those FIP-beaters. He was extreme in that regard, running low ERAs until last year came around, when the magic went away. Behold Gonzalez’s four years, with the plot showing his ERA- and his xFIP-:

For the first three years, Gonzalez ranked in the 81st percentile in ERA-, and the eighth percentile in xFIP-. Last year, he ranked in the 15th percentile in ERA-, and the 21st percentile in xFIP-. You could pose the argument that Gonzalez hasn’t really changed. The walks, the strikeouts, the repertoire, the hittability, it’s all been stable. So you could be one of those FIP-beater skeptics, saying that Gonzalez just never could’ve kept it up. To some extent I can buy into this, but that doesn’t mean it was all a mirage. It also doesn’t explain why the Orioles would release Gonzalez now. His peripherals mostly haven’t moved. If you give him a little credit — but not too much — for just knowing how to avoid runs, he’s, what, a No. 4? The Orioles could use a proven No. 4.

To me, this is about the third approach. For some quick background, Gonzalez has never been a power pitcher. In 2012, as a rookie, his fastball averaged 91. He stayed there, in 2013, in 2014, and in 2015. There wasn’t any sign of degradation, but: toward the end of last season, Gonzalez went on the DL with elbow and shoulder tendinitis. He returned to make one start on September 30, and the fastball averaged 89.

All right, one blip, post-DL. The Orioles still re-signed Gonzalez to avoid arbitration. But take all of this forward. Gonzalez showed up and had a lousy spring. There were reports that his stuff wasn’t quite present. Then came the start against the Braves. The pressure was on: Gonzalez needed to pitch for his job. Because the game took place in Florida, there’s no PITCHf/x information, but the TV broadcast did have a radar gun. According to the same radar gun, Zach Britton was throwing about normal. Darren O’Day was throwing about normal. Matt Wisler was throwing just short of normal.

I charted every Miguel Gonzalez fastball, over his five innings. There were 47 of them with radar-gun readings. In the plot below, you see each of Gonzalez’s fastballs, and you see his game average. And as a point of reference, I have also included a line showing Gonzalez’s average fastball from each of his last three season-opening starts (combined).

In his first starts of 2013, 2014, and 2015, Gonzalez’s fastball averaged about 90.7 miles per hour. That’s the gray line. Now look at the green. In maybe the most important spring-training appearance of his life, with his arm stretched out, Gonzalez threw his average fastball at 87.6. It mostly bounced around between 86 – 88, and there were precisely two readings of 90. So assuming the gun was correct, Gonzalez topped out below his previous average. Velocity declines — it’s a fact of life. Gonzalez still has most of his old power. But if you’re the Orioles, you wonder where those three miles went. At his best, Gonzalez had to be crafty. He never had that big of a margin of error. It’s smaller, now. It’s smaller for as long as this is Gonzalez’s heat.

This is my assumption: The Orioles don’t like Gonzalez when he’s throwing this stuff. And so by releasing him now, instead of in a few weeks, they can save the bulk of the money they had set aside. Instead of paying Gonzalez $5.1 million, the Orioles pay him just $1.25 million. And they give a shot to someone else. Of course, they’d prefer to have Gonzalez working, pitching like his old self, but his being released seems to reflect doubt that the old Gonzalez is in there. For whatever reason, he doesn’t look right, and it could be connected to last year’s discomfort.

I know nothing of Gonzalez’s medicals. The Orioles know everything there is to know, and they agreed to that $5.1-million figure a few months back. So, yeah. But the velocity drop is important. It sounds like Gonzalez is going to get another opportunity. He could flourish, especially if his arm just isn’t built up yet, or if this has to do with something mechanical. Let’s face it — the Orioles haven’t always made the best calls with pitchers in the system. I just get where they’re coming from. In Gonzalez’s last spring-training game, the Orioles weren’t looking for results. They were looking for Miguel Gonzalez. They didn’t see the guy they recognized.