3 Things To Improve All 30 Teams — The Baltimore Orioles
We’ve gone from worst, to first, and now back to worst as today we will see if there is any way possible we could give the Baltimore Orioles a fighting chance at the playoffs this year in the powerhouse AL East. Finishing the 2021 season tied with the Arizona Diamondbacks for the worst record in baseball at 52–110, there’s a lot of work to be done. Having not made the playoffs since 2016, and not being past the Wild Card round since 2014, the Orioles are probably open to suggestions. Let’s take a deep dive today and see if we can pinpoint 3 things that can improve the Orioles chances at making the 2022 playoffs.
1. It’s Always Pitching
5.84. That’s the team ERA of the 2021 Baltimore Orioles. That also includes the ERA’s of starter John Means ( 3.62 over 146.2 innings) and reliever Cole Sulser (2.70 over 63.1 innings). None of the Orioles other main starting pitchers or main relievers had an ERA below 4. Needless to say, this needs to improve.
The good news for the Orioles: they have options in house to improve their rotation. With top right handed pitching prospect Grayson Rodriguez assumed to be ready for a call up this year, he is expected to be a huge boost to the strength of their rotation. Their third ranked prospect, D.L Hall, is also slated to be up this year, giving the Orioles 3/5 of a respectable rotation should Rodriguez and Hall pan out as expected. Signing a top tier starter isn’t really a viable option at this point in the Orioles rebuild, so keeping Keegan Akin and Bruce Zimmermann for the 4 and 5 holes would be their best bet.
That leaves the pen. With Sulser’s performance last season, he should be the closer coming into 2022. Dillon Tate and Tyler Wells should also have roles in their bullpen as each of them posted an ERA+ above 100 and Wells had a FIP (FIP = Fielding Independent Pitching. It’s an analytical ERA that only takes into account the things a pitcher can control. I.e HR’s, BB’s, HBP’s, and SO’s) lower than his ERA (3.63 FIP, 4.11 ERA) which indicates he ran into a little bad luck with his backing defense. After those 3, the Orioles should look to outside help to fill out the pen. Bringing in Brad Hand, Joe Kelly, Greg Holland, and Yusmeiro Petit should bridge the gap to relevancy and all be cheap options they could pick up for 1 or 2 year deals. Just improving their team ERA to 5 or slightly below should be enough to get them 5–10 more wins.
2. Don’t Rush Adley
Let’s be frank. The Orioles will not make the playoffs in 2022. The Orioles will not finish any higher than last in the AL East in 2022. There is absolutely no reason to rush Adley Rutschman to the Bigs any earlier than June.
Drafted 1st overall by the Orioles in 2019, Adley quickly made his way to A ball by year end. Then comes 2020. Adley was sent to the Orioles alternate site, and finished the year, unsurprisingly, as their top position prospect. He started 2022 in AA where he slashed .271/.392/.508 over 80 games before being called up to AAA where he performed even better with a slash of .312/.405/.490.
With numbers like those, many would say that he should start the season with the big squad. However, getting Adley another 200 plate appearances in AAA would be ideal. Letting him develop a little longer in the minors would be beneficial to the Orioles in the long run, and down the stretch he could bank them another 2–3 wins.
3. Figure Out Ways To Get On Base
The Orioles had 4 guys qualify for the batting title (In order to qualify for the batting title, you must have 3.1 plate appearances for every team game played. For 162 games, thats 502.2 plate appearances). Of those 4 guys, only one had an on base percentage above .350, Cedric Mullins (.360). As a team, the Orioles had a combined OBP of .304 which means that they reached base in 30.4% of their trips to the plate. This ranked 26th in all of baseball. They also scored a total of 659 runs compared to giving up a total of 956.
The Orioles clearly need to score more runs. In order to score runs, you have to get on base. Getting on base in less than a third of your team’s total plate appearances is not the formula to scoring runs and winning baseball games. Rutschman has walked 99 times in his minor league career which has spanned 160 games. Almost a full Big League regular season’s worth. So once he’s up, that should help. Having guys like Maikel Franco, Freddy Galvis, and Pat Valaika all with 20 or less walks isn’t going to cut it though. These guys need to step it up and be more patient at the plate. If they could get the team OBP even to just .310, they should score another 20–30 runs and get another win or two.
So there it is. They won’t make the playoffs in 2022, but if they can accomplish these 3 big feats, they can at least be a little more respectable. So far we have covered the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Atlanta Braves, and now the Baltimore Orioles. Next up, we’ll cover the Boston Red Sox!
