The Orioles face their share of questions as they get ready to play ball in 2017. Anybody can give you the questions; I’m picking five important answers the “Home Town 9” will have to answer to be real contenders:
1 Kevin Gausman takes a huge step forward and stamps himself as a legitimate No. 1 starter. The number one pick from 2012 out of LSU was a bit of a slow learner who wasn’t helped by the O’s desire to push him past his learning curve. Going into the 2016 season, Gausman had pitched in 65 big league games, 42 as a starter. Due to injury, he was sent back to the minors, Gausman’s 14-19 W-L record with a 4.21 ERA wasn’t the problem; it was his 4-12 W-L record and 3.33 ERA that spoke to the fact he just wasn’t making strides to reach his maximum potential. When his record fell to 1-7 in 2016, the date was July 18th. From that point on, Gausman would win eight and lose five to end the season at 9-12. But what he did with his ERA in those last 86.1 IP was staggering; he lowered his ERA from 4.05 to 3.61 by pitching to a 3.12 ERA during that span. What’s more, in five of his last 14 starts, he held the opposition scoreless.
2 Chris Davis can come back to resemble the man Peter Angelos turned into the highest paid player in team history when signing him to that seven-year, $161 million contract. That was based on Davis’ epic production in two seasons: 2013 when he batted .286 and had an OBP of .370 while swatting 53 HRs and 42 doubles and drove in 138 RBIs, and 2015 when Davis batted .262, had an OBP of .361 and belted 47 HRs and 31 doubles while knocking in 117 RBIs. Davis is not making the big bucks to be the player he was in 2014 or 2016. For different reasons, in ‘14 it was that he had not been granted permission to take a prescription for adult attention deficit disorder, in ’16, it was the injury to one of his palms that robbed him of the ability make full use of his enormous strength.
3 Despite a bit of a scare surrounding his right shoulder in December, January and February, it still seems like Chris Tillman can remain the consistent bellwether of a dysfunctional starting rotation. It’s that dysfunction – not knowing exactly what you can expect from Dylan Bundy and Kevin Gausman, and knowing what you can expect from the two inconsistent rotation members, Wade Miley and Ubaldo Jimenez – that makes Tillman’s ability to start 30 games so imperative.
4 The all-important job of #1 catcher is being handed to Welington Castillo. Castillo can hit, and if he catches 130 games, I think we can safely plug in the numbers 16, 65 and .255 into his HR, RBI and batting average. Where Matt Wieters seemed to be at his best was defensively, where he was thought to be a solid game-caller, an on-the-field leader who could throw with the best of them and someone who was astute at blocking pitches in the dirt. Castillo throws almost as well as Wieters at his best. His pitch-framing numbers (the new in vogue catching stat that speaks to how well a catcher is at showing his pitchers pitches in an umpire-friendly way that gets more strikes called) are solid, but how he handles a staff and how well he can block pitches remain to be seen. What you have to like about Castillo is that even before he signed with the Orioles, he had already booked time in Puerto Rico to work with Jose and Benji Molina, the two brothers who combined to catch 2,309 major league games to work on his footwork in blocking pitches.
5 Earl Weaver has a famous quote: “Winning baseball games is pitching, fundamentals and three-run home runs.” Well, the only way to hit a three-run HR is to have two other guys on base. Simple baseball math teaches us that Weaver’s three World Series teams averaging .344 in OBP had a hell of a lot more chances to hit those three-run HRs than the the last five Orioles teams averaging .312 OBP. I’m betting with Hyun-Soo Kim, .382 OBP in his first season leading off against righties, and new RF Seth Smith chipping in his career mid .340’s OBP that the Orioles might be able to get into the .325-.330 range. That’s a huge difference in close ballgames.
Stan Charles is founder and publisher of PressBox.
The BCO, founded in 1984, will perform the works of Frank Zappa, Beethoven, Mason Bates and Karena Ingram.
For more than 130 years, Sol Levinson & Bros. has been woven into the fabric of Baltimore’s Jewish community.
A former college campus activist, Veksler will speak at Chizuk Amuno on June 8 at the Ruth and Jay Lenrow Visiting Scholar-in-Residence for Combating Antisemitism.