Maybe you are new to the Eutaw Street Report. Let me explain this article a bit. I remember growing up reading the sports pages of the Baltimore Sun newspaper every single day. I really looked forward to one specific article that happened every month or so that was a “Fact and Opinion” column. I believe it was John Eisenberg who wrote it. It must have been popular, because I remember the sports editor of The Aegis in Harford County, Randy McRoberts, copying the idea every now and then in his column.
It was a favorite of mine, and when I started writing for the Eutaw Street Report and the Russell Street Report two years ago, I wanted to do something similar. That’s when “Perception is Reality” was born. The “reality” is basically the fact, while the “perception” is my opinion on the topic of the fact.
For the first “Perception is Reality” of the new baseball season, we’ll start with a general state of the roster. There are a few spots that have a lot of competition and only Buck knows how it will end up in a month. But for now, we can go with educated guesses and strong thoughts.
REALITY: Baseball’s spring training starts in nine days.
PERCEPTION: Pitchers and catchers report for the Baltimore Orioles in just nine days…. Nine days! Less than a week and a half until we get the Boys of Summer back on the field. But the Orioles have a lot of things to work on if they want to improve from last year.
REALITY: The Orioles finished at .500 and in 3rd place in the American League East in 2015.
PERCEPTION: The Orioles won their last five games to finish even for the year. But finishing at .500 and 12 games out of first place will not be good enough for a team that is now paying the most money they ever have for a roster.
REALITY: The O’s signed DH Mark Trumbo, OF Hyun-soo Kim, C Matt Wieters, and 1B Chris Davis and now have a payroll of over $130 million…the most ever in Baltimore.
PERCEPTION: On paper those all look like great signings, but when you noticed that three of them are only re-signings, then you could say that the Orioles haven’t really improved upon last year’s roster. They picked up Trumbo and Kim, and lost Steve Pearce.
Kim has been penciled in as the Orioles starting left fielder based on his (lack of) arm strength. Outside of LF, every other defensive position is pretty much the same as last year. Instead of Jimmy Paredes at DH, fans will probably see Trumbo there.
My preference would still be to move Davis to RF, Trumbo and Wieters to 1B/DH, and Caleb Joseph behind the plate, but according to Buck Showalter, Crush will be playing 1B only.
Offensively, there really isn’t much of a difference. Kim should be able to produce what Oriole left fielders did last year. Trumbo should improve the O’s DH spot. But the Orioles didn’t struggle on offensive last year, so does it matter? The O’s finished 9th in baseball in runs scored in 2015. So that’s not where their problems are. The things that kept them from a winning record were consistent hitting (on-base percentage, which ranked them 24th out of 30 teams) and consistent quality pitching.
REALITY: The O’s signed RP Darren O’Day and SP Odrisamer Despaigne.
PERCEPTION: On paper, the Orioles look worse, currently, on the mound. They lost arguably their best starting pitcher in Wei-Yin Chen and have not replaced him with anyone.
When the Birds went into the offseason, everyone (including GM Dan Duquette) admitted that signing a quality starter for their rotation would be a top priority. But they Orioles didn’t go after David Price, Zack Greinke, Scott Kazmir, or Doug Fister. They have been rumored to be interested in Yovani Gallardo, but they continue to wait on him, since they do not want to give up their first round pick (14th overall) in the upcoming draft. But is Gallardo really an upgrade over Chen? I’m not so sure that he is.
Is Despaigne the answer? Hardly. Will Tyler Wilson, Mike Wright, or Vance Worley give the Orioles 200 innings and 12 wins? I don’t think so.
The Orioles have spent more money than they ever have, and I don’t believe they have anything really to show for it. Yes, without re-signing a number of those guys, they would be in for a last place finish for sure, but even with re-signing them, you are doing a lot of wishful thinking to hope that Chris Tillman, Ubaldo Jimenez, Miguel Gonzalez, and Kevin Gausman all turn it around at the same time and show that 2014 wasn’t a one-year wonder.
But… that is why they play the games! And I can’t wait for pitchers and catchers to report in nine days.
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