The Orioles heading into Sunday ranked dead last in the American League with a team on base percentage of .275. They are also 14th in slugging percentage (.323) and last in OPS (.599).
Their offense, to put it kindly, has been pathetic.
So what can they do? Well fortunately there are options for them, some bolder and more controversial than others, but they clearly need to do something different. Here are a few ideas:
Trade Brian Matusz for Ike Davis
This should be a no-brainer. The Mets need pitching help and the Orioles need another bat. Davis has also been benched and is wasting his talents. I know the Mets are holding out for more, but nobody is beating down the door for Davis who is terrible against LHP and is basically a platoon DH candidate. The Orioles offered Zach Britton for Davis over the winter. That deal is now off the table of course, but Matusz still should be very much expendable.
Matusz wants to start and he’s going to only be used as a LOOGY in Baltimore and he’s far too expensive to justify keeping him in that role. The Mets might be able to salvage him, but he needs that change of scenery at this point if he is to become an effective starting pitcher.
Davis may be terrible against LHP, but as I’ve pointed out before, against RHP he gets on base, works the count and takes walks, something that is pretty foreign to the rest of the players on the Orioles roster. He’s also got pretty good power against RHP as well, something we saw yesterday as he hit a pinch-hit-walkoff grand slam against the Reds.
With Davis, your lineup against RHP becomes this:
RF Markakis
3B Schoop
CF Jones
1B C. Davis
LF Cruz
DH I. Davis
SS Hardy
C Clevenger (more on that in a bit)
2B Flaherty/Lombardozzi
The other aspect about acquiring Ike Davis is that he is an option to play first base vs. RHP if and likely when Chris Davis does leave. Right now there is no Plan B for the Orioles and the free agent market looks pretty bleak after 2015 as well.
DFA Delmon Young
Young has been poor throughout his career at getting on base as I’ve also shown before, and he’s continuing this trend in an Orioles uniform with a .286 OBP. Right now Steve Pearce should be the DH against LHP because he’ll work the count and get on base, but he’s not getting the chance because Buck Showalter won’t play him. This is where Dan Duquette needs to pull a Billy Beane move and jettison Young so Buck has to play Pearce. I know Young’s track record in the playoffs, but his track record for the previous 162 games before getting there isn’t good, and isn’t worth a roster spot.
Rearrange the lineup
Markakis will be fine in the leadoff spot. That’s really the best place for him because of his lack of power and on-base ability. Jonathan Schoop should be batting #2. I want to see what he gets for pitches before the big guns of Jones, Davis and Cruz. The #2 spot helped Machado, and I think it could do the same to jump start Schoop’s bat.
Ike Davis, if acquired, would move into the 6th spot currently occupied by Matt Wieters and on that note, I’d make Clevenger the primary catcher vs RHP minus some matchups that favor Wieters. Clevenger has the best bat of the two vs. RHP right now and Wieters isn’t exactly giving any advantage behind the plate. Clevenger would either bat 6th if they don’t trade for Davis or move to 8th with Davis in the lineup.
Also the Ike Davis acquisition would remove David Lough from the starting lineup vs. RHP. As I’ve said Lough is great when he hits and gets on base, but that isn’t often enough to help the Orioles in a full-time role. I see him being a weapon offensively as a pinch runner or pinch hitter in the later innings, and a defensive replacement for Cruz. Without Davis, I’d bat Lough 8th.
Against LHP, the changes would be that Cruz, Jones and Chris Davis swap places with Davis batting third, Cruz at cleanup and Jones fifth. Jones typically struggles vs. LHP with Davis and Cruz being much better. Steve Pearce would take the DH spot, and Matt Wieters would be the catcher.
Fire hitting coach Jim Presley
This would be a last resort of course, but as I’ve stated numerous times, Presley is not the right coach for the direction this team supposedly wants to go in. He does not care about OBP as much as he does seeing hitters hit the ball over the fence and rack up RBIs. This team needs a hitting coach to stress working the counts and waiting to see a pitch that they can do damage with, but to be okay with taking a walk if they don’t get that pitch. You also don’t need to swing for the fences when a single or a walk will do.
Case in point: this is what he had to say about Flaherty in a piece from The Sun’s Dan Connolly:
“’When you start thinking about base hits, you kind of get yourself in trouble,’ Presley said. ‘If you go up there and just try to barrel up every at-bat and every swing that you take, it puts you in a better frame of mind…’”
Flaherty needs to be worried about getting on base, not about hits, but about getting on base as should every Orioles hitter. In fact, Flaherty does much better when he sees more pitches and takes walks as he did in the second half of 2013 when he had 4.16 P/PA and a 9.3% BB rate in the second half along with a .833 OPS. For Presley, it’s only about going up there and swinging away because that’s what he did as a hitter. Although some of the Orioles’ hitters are aggressive by nature, advice like that from the hitting coach isn’t helping the team one bit, especially for a player like Flaherty.
It’s also worth pointing out that in the Franchise Mode for the Sony PlayStation 3 game MLB 14 The Show, Presley is rated at -3 for teaching OBP as a hitting coach. So even game developers know how poor he is at helping a team increase their OBP potential. Obviously, I plan on firing him when I start my Franchise.
Presley had a year left on his contract during the 2013 season, so even though he should have been fired during that season, the Orioles would have had to pick up the entire deal for 2014. That’s not the case this season as he’s only under contract for 2014. By firing him, they’d only be on the hook for the rest of the season, something that should be easier to swallow.
As for a replacement, there are plenty of candidates to take the job. The Orioles could promote Jeff Manto to the majors as he’s currently the minor league hitting coordinator. B.J. Surhoff could be another potential replacement as well, as he’s a current special assignment coach in the Orioles’ minors. Outside the organization, the Orioles could seek out Rick Down, who was Showalter’s hitting coach with the Yankees, and Davey Johnson’s hitting coach with the Orioles in 1996 and 1997.
I know I’m going to see comments about the pitching also being a problem, but the Orioles did something about the pitching this offseason, and it’s only been one turn through the rotation. Regarding the offense on the other hand, the Orioles did very little to improve their team OBP and it is showing up in every game they play.
If the Orioles are truly serious about being a World Series contender this season, they’ve got to do at least one of those four things, if not all four, before it’s too late to try to improve the offense. It may be early but this team doesn’t have the luxury of waiting much longer to act. Another week of this type of play, and there will be no coming back as they will be buried in the bottom of the AL East.
It’s pretty simple for the Orioles: if they don’t get on base, they won’t win the race.
photo: Craig Landefeld
