Buck Logic Failure #1: Veterans over Prospects

So I was all set up to write the concluding piece on my concerns for the Orioles future, but then I realized that reasons 3 and 4 were overkill.  Reason 3 being the Orioles young pitching regression, not progression.  I think it may be a little early to proclaim the "pitching cavalry" as a failure.  I'm going to hold off my judgment of the Orioles pitching prospects for at least another year.  My 4th reason for concern was the lack of quality minor league depth in the Oriole system - this is a major concern, but I don't have the resources to fully analyze this issue.  I suggest you visit Camden Depot and Orioles-Nation for a complete and accurate breakdown of the Orioles failing farm system.

Lately, I've developed a habitat of placing a #bucklogic hash tag on my tweets whenever I am disappointed with Buck Showalter's managerial decisions.  I believe the majority of his actions are devoid of the new-age baseball logic being used by the best baseball managers in MLB.  In my opinion, the baseball logic that accompanies winning involves the use of advanced statistics, substance over style, and production over experience.  I see a lot of managers making game decisions based on their 80's inspired instincts instead of the new sabermetric statistics developed by Bill James and others.  Because of this, I see numerous Old School managers giving too much playing time to older, "veteran" players that contribute the same, if not less than young, developing prospects.

Now granted, Old School managing can be very useful for teams like the Yankees and Red Soxs.  Those teams are not as concerned with young player development since they can continually sign high-priced, productive free agents each off-season.  Their end goal is to win now, and 99% of the time, they are competing for divisions titles and league championships because of their 1st-Tier free agent acquisitions.  The Orioles, on the other hand, cannot lure the best players to Camden Yards, so they sign 3rd-Tier free agents to fill lineup holes.  Buck Logic #1 is the result...

Buck Logic #1:  Veterans (3rd-Tier Free Agents) put in lineup over Talented Prospects (Possible Future Winners)

Playing an aging, overpaid veteran during a losing season over a young prospect is counter-productive to the future success of the Orioles.  Okay, yes, the veteran MAY (not this year though) help the Orioles win an additional two or three games, but is 66 wins all that different from 70, or even 75 for that matter?  In my opinion, no, placating the fan base will the idea of 81 wins and .500 record is insulting.  I want to see the Orioles strive for the playoffs and division titles, not "let's get 81 wins and try again the next year" (2011 unofficial Orioles slogan).  Losers talk about achieving a .500 record whereas Winners never accept defeat.  I don't believe Buck is a loser, but as you will see below, his decision to constantly play veterans over young players this season is costing the Orioles wins and precious development time.

2011 Season Advanced Stats
Annoying Veterans	Position	GP	OPS	wOBA	wRC+	fWAR
Vladimir Guerrero	DH	84	0.695	0.307	89	-0.1
Derrek Lee	1B	81	0.698	0.306	89	0.4
Luke Scott*	LF/DH	64	0.703	0.309	90	0.0
Cesar Izturis	IF	16	0.442	0.209	22	0.1
Talented Prospects
Nolan Reimold	LF/DH	35	0.813	0.350	119	0.5
Brandon Synder	1B	6	0.720	0.345	115	0.0
Blake Davis	IF	16	0.641	0.290	78	0.2
Ryan Adams	IF	9	0.497	0.235	40	-0.3
Felix Pie (just kidding)**	LF/DH	72	0.523	0.231	37	-1.8

*Should injury impact should be noted.  Finally DL'ed for rest of season last week.
**Former Talented Prospect that is terrible at baseball.  Orioles still think he has potential despite every statistical measure stating the opposite.

Conclusions:

1. Nolan Reimold should start every game at DH or LF.  His overall production (fWAR) is 0.5 in 35 games, which is 0.6 better than Vlad's in 84 games and 0.5 better than Scott in 64 games.  Reimold's salary for 2011 is ~500k, Vlad's is ~8 million.  Orioles could have saved around $7 million and gotten more production by not signing Vlad.
2. Brandon Synder should have been given a chance to play 1B more, but signing Lee kept him in AAA.  It's a small sample for 2011, but he doesn't seem lost at the plate and is making less than $1 million.  Lee's contract is $7.25, so I would take the player for $6 million less and sacrifice a win or two in a "quest for .500" season in order to put more money into international signings and domestic draft prospects.
3. According to most news sources, the Orioles will activate Izturis (0.1 fWAR in 16 games) from the DL soon.  Izturis is a one year stopgap that adds no value to the team.  Cut him and keep playing Blake Davis (0.2 in 16 games).  Davis is young, cheap, and has a little upside whereas Izturis is what he is - an average and versatile fielder that bring nothing to plate.  
4. Most importantly, Felix Pie needs to be cut immediately.  I didn't list Matt Angle in the chart, but I don't think his bat and fielding can be worse than Pie's.  Every time Pie plays, he is hurting the Orioles more than he is helping.  Pie's fWAR of -1.8 is the worse amongst all MLB outfielders.

Concern for the O's Future: Reasons 1 & 2

Based on their recent play, I would expect the Orioles to continue being bad at baseball for at least the next three years.  The five year outlook doesn't look any better in my opinion, but I want to focus on three year future for the purposes of this discussion.  The pathetic baseball that has been played by the Baltimore Orioles the past 14 days has disheartened my fan loyalty and driven me to rant/gripe/cry/yell about their future via blog posts.

For the past the few years, the fans have been told by Andy MacPhail to be patience and wait for "the plan" to be carried out to fruition.  I don't want to detail out "the plan", but its basic foundation is to "grow the arms, buy the bats, and be patience until 2011" (that was my understanding of it).  Well guess what, it's 2011, we're at the end of "the plan's" life-cycle and I'm having trouble finding reasons to be positive about the future.

As one would expect, I did not have any trouble finding reasons to doubt there would be success for the Orioles in the future.  I have identified four reasons why I think the Orioles will not be competitive in the next three years.  Reasons 1 & 2 (see below) explain how Andy MacPhail's "Plan" failed to understand that a team will not be competitive in the AL East if it doesn't at least attempt to draft a multitude of high school/college players with premium talent and purchase/sign multiple high-end major league players.

1.  No Playoff Hopes:  Orioles are still no closer to the playoffs then when MacPhail took over as General Manager.  The 2011 Orioles are likely to win somewhere between 70 and 75 games this year, a slight increase from 2010's 64 win campaign.  From my perspective, the difference between 64 wins and 75 wins in the American League is nothing since both of those teams would be at least 20 games out of the playoffs. 

Current Realization: Orioles are still a 20 game Overall win improvement away from a chance at the playoffs.
Future Realization:  No one player (P. Fielder for instance) is going to improve this team by 20 wins.

2.  Getting Owned by the AL East Teams:  Orioles have to beat the teams in their own division to reach the playoffs.  The unbalanced schedule means the Orioles have to play the Yankees, Red Sox, Blue Jays, and Rays a total of 72 times each season (18 per team), which means 44% of the Orioles' games come against the AL East.  I don't need a statistic to tell me a team better win at least 50% of the games against your division if you want to make the playoffs.  Average Win Percentage for the AL East Champion since 2006:  .602

To put that number in perspective, the Orioles were 135-208 (.385) against the AL East during that same time period.  On average, the Orioles were about 15 games under .500 each year against the AL East.  Currently, the Orioles are 10-18 (.360) against the AL East.  If they lose all four games against the Red Sox this weekend like I expect them to, they will be 10-22 (.312) against the AL East. 

Current Realization: Orioles are at least a 20 game versus AL East win improvement away from being competitive in the AL East.
Future Realization:  The Orioles are likely to lose their best player, J.J. Hardy, to a trade by July 31st or during free agency after the season.  There is no viable player in the farm system to replace him for at least 2 more years.  A playoff berth is not a realistic goal for 2012 if you cannot retain your highest performing players. 

Conclusion: The Orioles are bad at baseball and need to improve their win total by at least 20 games if they want to be part of the AL playoff race. Please Orioles, prove me wrong!!

In my next post (Reasons 3 & 4), I will explain how #McFail's "plan" was strategically and fundamentally misguided from the very beginning...