Baltimore Orioles Season Preview - Part II

Another night of American Idol, another long post here at Stupid Angelos. Coincidence? Yes, damn man - stop asking already.

Anyway, tonight the crack staff here at Stupid Angelos looks at the bullpen of the Orioles. We reviewed the starting pitchers yesterday and discovered that the bullpen needs to be strong in order for this team to have any chance of success.

Last year, the O's bullpen was the joke of the league. Sam Perlozzo has told stories of pitchers having high pitch counts in the first inning causuing concern. You just can't win with a bullpen like that. So any improvement in the bullpen will have a big effect on the team's overall success.

How bad was last year's bullpen? Well lets see. Some of my favorite stats are: losing record, ERA over 5, tons of walks, more hits than innings pitched, and a low number of strikeouts. In other words, the exact opposite of what you need in a bullpen.

So your team has the worst bullpen in baseball? What do you do about this? If your the O's, you completely overhaul your bullpen. How about that? The O's made some good decisions. Not great ones, but good ones. I mean what is the point of having a stud young closer if you can't get to him.

Without further ado, lets get to the preview of the O's bullpen.

Scott Williamson

Ugh. Scott has had several good years in his career. Unfortunately the last good one was 2003. His ERA for the last two years has been over 5.5. Not good. He does strikeout a decent amount of batters (just over 1 per inning).

Chad Bradford

Okay, this actually makes me feel a bit better. A pretty good arm out of the 'pen who throws sidearm. This is the type of pitcher you need to have a successful bullpen. He can come in and get a couple tough outs in the 6 or 7th innings. He has a decent ERA and is tough to hit. I think he will end up being a very productive part of this bullpen.

Dany Baez

In order to help my sanity a bit, I am going to assume that his 2006 was a fluke. If you look at his stats from the previous few years, he actually looks like a decent pitcher. Of course, he played for the Devil Rays. By the time the Ray's bullpen came in, they were losing and the other team was starting to relax. Before last year, he had a high number of innings, a reasonable ERA, and a low hits/ip ration. If he regains that form, the O's will have another strong contributor.

Jim Hoey

Here, let me. Who??? Actually, Jimmy Hoey (say that 5 times fast) was a late season call up. He had a few good outings and a few bad outings. I would not expect to see him in any close game situations.

Hayden Penn

I expect Penn to be starting by the All-Star Break when he takes Trachsel's place in the rotation. Before that, expect to see him in some long relief efforts to get him a lot of innings. Obviously, his stats didn't look so good last year. But it was his first cup-o'-coffee in the bigs. I think his stats may not be so great this year but we'll find out if he is worth the effort.

Jamie Walker

Real good guy to have in your bullpen. He eats up a lot of innings in the 7th and 8th innings. His stats look good and he seems to be another one of those guys you need to have a good bullpen.

Remember, to have a successful bullpen you only need a couple things.

1. 2 strong setup men. (Walker and Baez)


2. A speciality guy (Bradford)


3. Guys who won't blow a 4 run lead (Williamson and Penn - maybe)


4. A stud closer

So that brings me too:

Chris Ray

So, where does that leave the O's. Well the bullpen still has some questions but they are clearly improved over last year's version. If last year's version only went 20-21, this year's should do much better. Lets say they gain 5 more wins because of this bullpen. That combined with my prediction yesterday of the 52 starting pitching wins puts them at 79 wins. Can the offense carry them that far? Will the defense hold? Find out with my next post....

Baltimore Orioles Season Preview - Part 1

Two reasons for this post:

1) It is a site named after the O's owner. It was probably time to do a post about the O's.
2) American Idol is on TV right now and Mrs. HoC is watching it. In other words, time for me to get away from the TV....

Because I don't feel like posting a 19,000 word article, I am going to break apart the O's season preview into a couple parts. This post is first in the series highlighted various sections of the team that will culminate into my final prediction for the season. Today we discuss the starting pitching.

Overall, the AL East has some of the best pitching in the league. Its not quite as strong as it was a couple years ago. Although the division still boasts names like Schilling, Mussina, and Halladay. So where does the O's starting rotation rank in the division. Not too shabby actually.

Lets look over the starting pitchers for the O's. Note: Kris Benson will be ignored for this since I am assuming that he is done for the year.

1. Erik Bedard
If you don't know this name, learn it. He's got the stuff of a #1 starter and can dominate. If he can be just a little more consistent than last year, he could make a run at 20 wins. He kept his ERA under 4 for the year and had a stretch of 8 games last year where he just owned. During this stretch, he went 7-0 with 60 Ks and an ERA of 1.45. He is young and good and getting better. Good thing to have at the top of the rotation.

Prediction: 16-8

2. Daniel Cabrera
Cabrera is....well frustrating. He has nasty stuff with a fastball that if it hit ya, would leave a two foot hole coming out. But he has no consistency. He had one outing against the Blue Jays where his line was: 9ip, 0er, 2bb, 10k. The previous outing? 4ip, 7er, 5bb, 3k. This happened all year. He was even sent down the minors for a short stint. A complete lack of consistency is not a good thing from a potential #2 starter. Note: I wanted this picture from Major League for him, so I went to Google Images and typed in: Vaughn Wild Thing....and Cabrera's picture came up. Not a good sign...

Prediction: 10-10

3. Jared Wright
The slope is becoming steeper. Jared is a sub-par starter who turned one really good year into a big contract with the Yankees who proceeded to give up after two years and now he's in Balmer. I think Jared is going to give me heartburn through the year. He only started some games last year (not all of them), gave up more hits than innings pitched, walked way too many batters, and had a high ERA. Not things you want to hear about one of your starting pitchers. The only redeming fact right now, the pitching coach from his one good year? Leo Mazzone. Lets hope that Leo can pull him back together this year.

Prediction: 14-9

4. Adam Loewen
No idea what to say here. Everyone O's fan has been hearing his name for a while now. He finally got a little playing time last year. It didn't go so well, but did it help him be ready for this year? That is the key question. If the time last year told him what he would need to make it, then maybe he'll be okay. I am not going to really break down his stats but there were some good signs: fewer hits than innings pitched and a high number of Ks.

Prediction: 8-15

5. Steve Trachsel
What is it with the O's and older Mets? When this move was first announced and I glanced at his stats, I actually thought this would work out well. But as I really looked into his stats a little deeper, I started to worry. The problems? Well there are more than a couple. He is getting up there in age (38 this year), his walks are up, his hits are up, he gives up too many HRs, and his ERA is way too high. Despite all this, he has had a good winning %. This is one of those cases where winning % is not giving you the whole story. I think Penn takes over for him right after the All-Star break.

Prediction: 4-9

Overall prediction: 52 - 51

This isn't so good. You need your starting pitching to do better than this. With starting pitching like this, the O's will need a steady bullpen, good fielding, and a powerful offense behind it. Will that happen? Stay tuned for the next section of the preview...