HOW ARE THE ORIOLES DOING IT?

Visits: 6

When Cleon Jones caught Davey Johnson’s flyball in left field to end Game 5 of the 1969 World Series, a permanent connection was created between the Baltimore Orioles and New York Mets. Ever since then, every Oriole fan immediately thinks of the disappointment of losing that World Series whenever the Mets are mentioned and every Mets fan immediately thinks of the miracle of winning that World Series whenever the Orioles are mentioned. But that’s not the only connection between the two teams. There have been a number of prominent players to play for both teams, including Matt Harvey, Bobby Bonilla, Jesse Orosco, Armando Benitez and Ken Singleton. Indeed, the man who made that final out of the 1969 World Series for the Orioles went on to manage the Mets for seven seasons and lead them to their only other World Series championship in 1986. The most recent connection between the two teams, however, was created when the Orioles almost successfully equaled the historic ineptitude of the first three seasons in the history of the Mets. In the three full seasons between 2018 and 2021, the Orioles lost 333 games, the second most losses in any three-season span in major league history, only surpassed by the 340 losses by the expansion Mets from 1962 to 1964.

So exactly how are the Orioles doing what they’re doing this season? The year after the Mets lost 340 games in three seasons, they went 50-112 in 1965. But the Orioles, seemingly overnight, are contending for a wild card spot. It can’t be their hitting, can it? They’re ranked 22^nd in the majors in OPS, 21^st in batting average, 25^th in on-base percentage and 15^th in home runs. Those are almost identical to their rankings last season (23^rd in OPS, 19^th in batting average, 26^th in on-base percentage and 17^th in home runs). It can’t be their starting rotation, can it? If you had looked at their starting pitchers coming into this year, you would not have been impressed. Jordan Lyles led the league last year in home runs allowed (38) and earned runs allowed (103). Dean Kremer had a 7.55 ERA last year in 13 games started. Austin Voth was claimed off waivers from the Washington Nationals this season when he had a 10.13 ERA through 19 games. Last season he had a 5.34 ERA which was a significant improvement over his 6.34 ERA of 2020. Kyle Bradish was a rookie with no previous major league experience and finally Tyler Wells was a converted reliever. If you didn’t pay any attention to the baseball season until the trade deadline this year, you would’ve assumed the Orioles were bottom-dwelling sellers as they traded away one of their leaders and most productive hitters in Trey Mancini as well as their closer Jorge Lopez who was among the league leaders in saves.

Let’s examine, then, exactly why the Orioles have turned an historic period of losing into wild card contenders in just one season and are ahead of schedule in their rebuilding process.

1.)  BULLPEN

The Orioles bullpen was officially proclaimed a disaster area last season. They had the worst bullpen ERA in major league baseball at 5.84 and compiled the third least amount of saves with 26 (although that was exactly half of their wins). This season they have the 6^th best bullpen ERA in the majors at 3.26 with 41 saves already. The total change in the performance of the bullpen coincides with the total change in personnel. Except for Dillon Tate, the only holdover from last year’s bullpen, every member of the back end of the bullpen this season was either brought up from the minors or acquired via waivers since the end of last season. Cionel Perez was claimed off waivers from the Reds last November. Joey Krehbiel was claimed off waivers from the Rays last September. Bryan Baker was claimed off waivers from the Blue Jays last November. Felix Bautista was called up from the minors. Keegan Akin was converted from a starter. Tyler Wells was converted to a starter. A total makeover. The best indication, however, of the strength of their bullpen is that at the trade deadline they traded away Lopez, who had 19 saves at the time, replaced him as their closer in-house with Bautista and didn’t miss a beat. In fact, Bautista has turned out to be an even more effective closer than Lopez. Bautista has only blown one save in 14 opportunities, while Lopez blew four while he was with the Orioles. Although they both have swing and miss stuff, Bautista’s 50.1% swing percentage is better than the 46.5% for Lopez. Bautista has 11.9 strikeouts per 9 innings with a FIP of 2.86 compared to 9.34 strikeouts per 9 innings with a FIP of 3.20 for Lopez. The Orioles bullpen has fortified this season’s success. Nothing can be more discouraging to a young rebuilding team than a bullpen constantly squandering leads.

2.)  ADLEY RUTSCHMAN

In the NFL and NBA, one player can make all the difference and change the fortunes of a team overnight. The Rams traded for Matthew Stafford and won the Super Bowl. The year before, the Buccaneers acquired Tom Brady and won the Super Bowl. The Milwaukee Bucks drafted Kareem Abdul Jabbar (Lew Alcindor) and won the NBA championship in his 2^nd year. LeBron James went to Miami and won the NBA championship in his 2^nd year then went back to Cleveland and won the NBA championship in his 2^nd year there also. In major league baseball, however, the addition of one player rarely turns a team around on a dime. But consider that on May 21 the Orioles were 16-24 when they called up their 2019 number one overall draft pick. Adley Rutschman started at catcher and hit a triple in three at bats. Since then, the Orioles are 59-43 and still in the wild card race. His call-up alone created a rejuvenating excitement at Camden Yards. Even though he’s a rookie, he has shown a strong instinct for leadership well beyond his years. His personality exudes confidence and has worn off on his teammates. He has been totally invested in the success of whoever happens to be on the mound. After a slow start at the plate, hitting only .179 in May, he has posted OPS figures of .859 in July, .842 in August and .873 in September. He’s been a doubles machine, hitting 30 in 94 games, more than Luis Arraez, Adolis Garcia, Tommy Edman and Bobby Witt Jr. have hit in a full season. He has been installed as the number two hitter in the lineup, the spot reserved in today’s game for a team’s best hitter. Defensively, in addition to handling the pitching staff, he ranks in the top 90^th percentile in framing and has 16 defensive runs saved above average. By comparison, J.T. Realmuto has 8. After barely 100 games with the team, it could be said Adley Rutschman is the face of the franchise.

3.)  EMERGENCE OF AUSTIN VOTH AND DEAN KREMER

The outlook for the Orioles starting pitching staff seemed awfully bleak entering this season. Jim Palmer, Dave McNally, Mike Cuellar and Pat Dobson were not going to walk through that door any time soon. While the Orioles rotation is still quite unheralded and lacks the true ace that the other teams in the division have like Cole, Manoah, McClanahan and Wacha, a closer look will reveal that the Orioles starters are better than you think. In particular, two of their starters who had horrible seasons last year have completely turned their fortunes around and reinvented themselves this year, just like the Orioles have done as a team.

Austin Voth had a 6.34 ERA as a starter for the Washington Nationals in 2020 and a 5.34 ERA for them in 2021 predominantly as a reliever. In 19 relief appearances this season, he pitched to a 10.13 ERA and 2.14 WHIP in 19 games in relief, giving up 34 hits in 18.2 innings pitched. That’s when the Orioles decided to claim him off waivers on June 7. What exactly did the Orioles know about this guy that no one else did? Perhaps it was the change he made in his pitch repertoire. He has reduced the usage of his slider from 13.5% last year to an almost nonexistent 2.7% this year while adding a cutter that he did not use at all last year. The Orioles stretched him back out to a starter after acquiring him and the results have been dramatic. In 14 starts, he’s allowed only 60 hits in 68 innings pitched and has a 2.78 ERA, which would rank 12^th in the majors if he had enough innings pitched to qualify.

Dean Kremer has also seen a dramatic improvement this year. After going 0-7 with a 7.55 ERA in 13 starts last year for the Orioles, he currently is 7-5 with a 3.34 ERA in 17 starts this year. While Voth’s turnaround might be shrouded in mystery, Kremer’s is not. This season he figured out how to throw more strikes while still not allowing hitters to barrel up the baseball. Kremer had 4.19 walks per 9 innings last season and only 1.99 this season. But at the same time, hitters have only barreled up the baseball 7.4% of the time this year as compared to 14% of the time last season. Another indication of inducing weaker contact is that his fly ball percentage has dropped from 50.9% last year to 38.8% this year. A change in pitch repertoire might also be a contributing factor for Kremer. He has increased his cutter and changeup usage this year while decreasing his 2-seam and 4-seam fastball usage.

Voth, Kremer, Tyler Wells, consistent but unspectacular starts from Jordan Lyles, inconsistent but occasionally spectacular starts from Spenser Watkins and Kyle Bradish and the aforementioned bullpen have all contributed to a drastic improvement in the Orioles team pitching statistics this year. They are 14^th in ERA, 17^th in WHIP, 12^th in earned runs allowed and 14^th in home runs allowed. They were dead last in all those categories last year. 

4.)  CHANGE IN ORGANIZATIONAL PHILOSOPHY

Once one of major league baseball’s model franchises, the way the Orioles do business has recently come into question in light of their consistent losing, bad contracts, anemic farm system and dwindling attendance. After the 2018 season when Mike Elias was hired to engineer a similar rebuild of the Orioles that he accomplished with the Astros, he was presented with the 23^rd ranked farm system in baseball, a 34% drop in average per game attendance since 2014 and the albatross of four more years of Chris Davis’ seven-year, $161 million contract. In addition, they had no analytics department at a time when most teams were already fully engaged and their international signings cupboard was bare.

Elias and the front office have systematically addressed each of these shortcomings during their tenure and their plan quite clearly has finally delivered dividends this season. The Orioles farm system is now the number one ranked system in major league baseball and has already graduated Rutschman, Bradish, Gunnar Henderson, Kyle Stowers and DL Hall to the majors. The 21-year-old Henderson has made a significant impact with the team after only two weeks in the majors, hitting over .300 and displaying such a smooth, game-impact demeanor at second base that belies his age. He and Jorge Mateo, yet another waiver pickup by Elias, have formed an airtight middle of the infield defense. Had it not been for the season-ruining right lat strain he suffered on June 1, Grayson Rodriguez would already be in the starting rotation. Jordan Westburg, Coby Mayo, Colton Cowser, Heston Kjerstad, Hudson Haskin and this year’s number one overall draft pick Jackson Holliday are only a few of the top tier prospects still in the minors who will shortly reside at Camden Yards. Elias drafted all those players except for Rodriguez, Hall and Bradish (whom he acquired from the Angels in 2019 in the Dylan Bundy trade).

Last year, Elias eased the burden of the Chris Davis contract by deferring $42 million in payments through 2037. When Elias was hired, he brought former NASA engineer Sig Migdal with him from the Astros to build the analytics department from scratch. In 2019, he hired Koby Perez as Director of International Scouting. The Orioles made 27 international signings in 2019, a far cry from the days of former general manager Dan Duquette, who, when asked why the Orioles didn’t pursue international free agent Shohei Ohtani in 2017, told MLB Network Radio that the Orioles did not “philosophically participate” in the posting of international free agents. This year, the Orioles spent a franchise-record $1.7 million on 16-year-old Braylin Tavera from the Dominican Republic, the number 22 ranked international signing.

5.)  CAMDEN YARDS

Yes John Denver, Camden Yards is Camden Yards once again. After years of hosting fans cheering for the opponents who did not know the words to “Thank God I’m a Country Boy,” fans clad in orange and black have returned to Camden Yards. While you can still hear cheering for the Red Sox and Yankees when they come to Baltimore, it’s not as predominant as it was in years past. Now that they finally have something to cheer about, Oriole fans are once again making Camden Yards a loud place to inhabit when the Orioles are rallying or have two strikes on the batter, harkening back to the early days of Camden Yards in the early 90s and to the halcyon days of their playoff runs in the late 90s. The excitement has been fueled by the influx of top young prospects, the gaudy golden chain that adorns the neck of every home run hitter returning to the dugout, the helmet of Cedric Mullins flying off his head en route to another stolen base, the fist pump of Rutschman when his pitcher gets the final out of an inning, the bazooka peg to first base from Mateo deep in the shortstop hole and the nine–count ‘em–nine walk-off wins so far this season. The image of Cleon Jones catching that flyball by Davey Johnson in 1969 is starting to fade.