Better, a little bit better.

Another year, another tilt at getting back to .500. Last years effort didn’t go so well as awful pitching led the O's to concede 899 runs and they finished 70-92. This year’s effort should be better than that. The O's offence is strange, they're pretty strong up the middle, but they continue to accumulate corner players who are past their prime and who clog up important power positions. The idea that its easier to stock the corner positions doesn’t hold true in Baltimore. The pitching features an expensive new bullpen and a rotation with an ace, an enigma a couple of promising youngsters and two grizzled veterans.

Up the middle
Really pretty good.

Ramon Hernandez
The Orioles front office get it right every once in a while and signing Hernandez was a very nice days work. The skills that took him to the All Star game in 2003 are still very much in evidence, he put a commendable .275/.343/.479 season together last year, despite struggling a little down the stretch. Couple the offence with some stellar glove work and you have one of the league's better catchers. The only worry here is that Perlozzo might over-work him as Paul Bako, his backup, is not somebody who encourages a manger to play him often. Hernandez has had his share of injury troubles before last year and there is always the risk of further injury of he isn't rested at a sensible rate.

Brian Roberts
There are two ways of looking at Brian Roberts. The first says this is a terrific second basemen who had a true breakout year in 2005, and then lost his power stroke in 2006 because the terrible elbow injury he suffered at the end of 2005 wasn't properly recovered. Now he is all better and has had a winter to get in some time in the gym he'll be back banging out 15+ homers and putting up a .900 OPS again. View two says this is a guy who had three very good months at the start of 2005, when he mysteriously became Barry Bonds, and apart from that hasn't shown he can persistently perform above the level of an average second basemen. I used to be firmly in camp one, but the second view point is kinds growing on me.

Miguel Tejada
31 this year, but he can still rake. His power dropped off a little last year, but raising his batting average to .330 let him put a career best equalling 126 OPS+. His defence leaves something to be desired, Chris Dial has him in the bottom half of shortstops in the AL with the glove. When you can hit like he does though a little shoddy defence can easily be overlooked. Looks likely for another year of 600+ at-bats and an .850+ OPS.

Corey Patterson
Managed properly Corey Patterson could be an extremely effective player. He is a quite brilliant defensive centerfielder, easily the best in the AL by all accounts. With the bat he can hit very respectably against righties (.826 OPS last year), but should never be allowed to see a southpaw (.560 OPS). The signing of Jay Payton seemed to show that the Orioles knew this, here was a guy who can play an acceptable center and hits well against lefties. Perlozzo, for reasons known only to himself, seems to want to play Payton everyday in left. 

At the corners
Really pretty poor.

Aubrey Huff
Aubrey is quite a way away from his days as a great hitter and valuable trade chip fro the Devil Rays. He hasn't had a really good year with the bat since 2004, but he's still just 30 so there is some chance of a return to former glories. An .850 OPS/100 rbi type of year wouldn't surprise me. Huff's positional flexibility would make him an asset for a team with a manager who wasn't so set on playing everyone at the same position every day, as it is Huff seems set to be the everyday first basemen.

Melvin Mora
Continued a precipitous slide from his glory days of 2003-4. His OPS+ dropped to just 91 last year. Couple that with the fact that he's not great with the leather at the hot corner and the big contract is starting to look like an albatross. The most that can be hoped for is that he doesn't get any worse, at 35 there's no reason to think he's going to get much better. Although David Gassko at the THT thinks he might rebound.

Nick Markakis
A bright spot, a veritable bright spot! For a team that’s been rebuilding for most of my recent memory the O's have done an awful job of developing positional prospects, this is the exception that proves the rule. His .291/.351/.448 doesn't look too impressive at first glance, but factor in a couple of things and it starts to look a lot more shiny. He struggled in the early going, having never hit above AA before last year, and he hit the wall badly in September. He started getting going in June with an .803 OPS and then hit at an all-star level in July and August. A .310/.375/.500 season is well within the bounds of possibility. One of the best young players around.

Jay Payton
A terrific fourth outfielder, but the O's look set to play him every day and he's just not good enough to contribute in that role. I'd expect another year like last year, a .750 or so OPS and some nice work with the glove. That would actually be an improvement on what the O's got in left last year from Fahey and Conine, but is still a long way short of what any team should find acceptable from a power position.

Jay Gibbons/Kevin Millar
These two seem destined to form an odd-fellow pairing at DH. Odd because they both give you the same thing, a good bat against righties and a lot of outs against lefties. Having both these guys on the roster just seems dis-organised.

The best alignment of these talents would seem to be Millar at first, Markakis in right and Gibbons at DH everyday. Payton platooning with Patterson in center and then do a bit of mix and matching with the rest, making use of Huff's ability to play all over the place. Give him some time at third to let Mora rest, most of his time in left and a day a week or so at first. Keep the best bats in the lineup as much as possible and keep the old guys fresh. Perlozzo apparently begs to differ, all indications are he'll be going with a set lineup day in/day out with Markakis/Patterson/Payton across the outfield, Gibbons at DH, Huff at first and Mora at third, keeping Kevin Millar - likely their best OBP man - on the bench dreaming up T-shirt designs. The only exception seems to be Payton may start some games at center against tough lefties. It's a shame that Earl Weaver's old team can’t see the value of a platoon.

The Bench
Paul Bako, old friend Chris Gomez, erm the DH who isn't DH'ing and that might be it. As sad and stupefied as I am to report it, the O's are apparently considering going with a 13 man bullpen and a three man bench. It really boggles the mind doesn't it? still a Chris Gomez sighting is always nice.

The Rotation
Erik Bedard
Had a terrific season last year, and in his age 28 year should be just as good this year. 196.1 IP, 171 K, 69 BB and a 3.76 ERA. There's some reason for optimism that he could be even better this year, his second half numbers were superb, 87IP with a 3.10 ERA and a 83/30 K/BB. The big difference from his first half was that he simply stopped giving up homers, just 4 coming in the second half. That just doesn't seem sustainable, even Mr Wang - the king of keeping it in the park - can't match those numbers. So, I'm expecting another year like last year for Bedard, and that should do the O's very nicely indeed. Before last year Bedard had a marked habit to slow down and start to nibble at the corners whenever anyone got on base, he was much faster about his work and more aggressive in his pitch selection with runners on last year, at least when I watched him. Thank the combined effect of Mazzone and Ramon Hernandez, the catcher was constantly on Bedard's case last year, hurrying him along and keeping him from slipping into bad habits.

Daniel Cabrera
The million dollar arm and the ten cent head, the personification of the adage that pitching prospects will break your heart. Cabrera has more stuff than he knows what to do with. The problem of course is he walks hitters, lots of them, and as his career as progressed his walk totals have failed to improve, rising to a whopping 6.1 per 9IP last year. Cabrera always gives you a reason for hope, that little glimpse that he might make the leap, this year that can be pinned on his strong showing in August and September last year, when he held opponents to an OPS of .663 in August and .630 in September, and reduced his walk rate to 4.2 per 9IP. Added to that is the corrective vision surgery he had after the end of last season. He was advised last spring to wear glasses, but resisted all season because the frames were, apparently, uncomfortable. Finally in September he gave in to pestering from Mazzone and wore goggles for his last few starts, the fact that one of these was a one-hit epic against the Yankees in new York has fuelled hope amongst some Oriole's fans that it was the vision thing that was holding him back.
Cabrera is 26 this year, he's pitched 457 Innings in the bigs, if he doesn't improve this year he's going to be making the transition from prospect to bust. If the walk rate doesn't come around this year the conclusion is going to be that this is what he is. He obviously has the talent, but as for whether he'll become a front-line guy I'm now in the 'I'll believe it when I see it' camp.

Adam Loewen
I think this is the critical player for the O's this year. On the surface Loewen's numbers last year were underwhelming; a 5.37 ERA in 112IP. Look a little deeper and the skills are obvious, he gives up very few home-runs, gets a lot of strikeouts (98) and gets a more than decent amount of groundballs. He's just 23 so growing pains should be expected, but there were a lot of good signs last year to build on. There seems every likelihood this guy will be an elite pitcher somewhere down the road, whilst it's too early to expect him to arrive there this year, how far he progresses along that journey will have a big effect on the O's fortunes this season.

Jaret Wright
Was decidedly average for the Yankees in New York last year (140 IP, 98 ERA+), which surprised me as I seem to remember him being absolutely awful. The Orioles traded a useful reliever for him, and are presumably hoping that being reunited with Mazzone can help him reproduce his stellar 2004 season with Atlanta. I'm not exactly holding my breathe.

Steve Trachsel
Had a very poor season in 2006, all his numbers fell away badly, and he ended up with an ERA+ of 87. Now probably isn't the best time for him to be moving to a tougher league and a tougher ballpark. He gave up 23 dingers in 164 Innings in Shea last year, which does not bode well for him this year in OPACY. It looks likely to be a long, and very very slow, summer for Trachsel.

Hayden Penn
The young prodigy looks certain to start the year in AAA, he really has nothing left to prove there so he'll probably rack up some good numbers and wait for Wright or Trachsel to pitch themselves out of the rotation. He's had a couple of chances in the bigs and has yet to prove he can get it done, at age 22 the O's will be looking for signs of improvement when he does make the team, and they should get them. He'll probably make the rotation at some point this summer, when though is anyone's guess.

The Bullpen
The front office set out to rebuild then 'pen last winter. Whilst it might be argued that trading a couple of veteran hitters for some youth and doing this rebuilding thing properly would have been a better use of their time, they did at least rebuild the bullpen. A very expensive rebuild it was too, big money multi-year contracts were given to 'proven veterans' Chad Bradford, Jamie Walker and Danys Baez. This group together with young phenom closer Chris Ray and young arms Sendy Rleal and Kurt Birkins should be able to comfortably out-perform last years 5.72 bullpen ERA. Ray kind of worries me a bit, he stopped striking people out in the second half last year and he gives up flyballs in spades.

Prediction
This team is actually improved quite a bit from last year. The bullpen should be considerably more solid, the starters will be better than a group that featured lots of Bruce Chen and Rodrigo Lopez, the offence should be improved with Huff in there every day. maybe this will be the year the O's finally make it back to .500, but then I think I said that last year, and the year before...

Oh, what the heck, 81-81 - fourth place.