Our annual position-by-position look at the Orioles--and the rest of baseball--reflects some well-worn concepts:  the Orioles are doing just fine offensively (better than fine, actually) at most of the traditionally difficult to fill positions on the field.  It's the lion's share of spots that are ordinarily the easiest to populate that the club continues to have problems plugging.  But there are a few other points, perhaps less obvious, that are worth exploring as well.

So, without further adieu, let's get on with it.

In the final analysis, an offense is essentially the sum of its conjoined parts, and a glance at those parts--relative to the rest of Major League Baseball--provides a fairly intuitive recipe for diagnosing the problems and identifying possible solutions.

What follows is a position-by-position breakdown of players (minimum 300 plate appearances) from both leagues sorted by Offensive Winning Percentage.  OWP is a great stat to use when accompanied by a PA minimum because it's park, league and era adjusted and because its definition is so forthcoming.  A .700 OWP means that a team with a full lineup of hypothetical Player Xs would win 70% of its games with an average pitching/defense in a neutral park.  In other words, Player X is a pretty valuable commodity.

The analysis is performed on a position-by-position basis because this all-encompassing measure of offensive production is most robust when a player can be compared with the immediately available alternatives.

(Note: AL and NL averages at each position are represented by an amalgam of all players who played at that position--not merely those displayed in the table of qualifiers.)

Orioles players are highlighted in orange. The AL average is shown in red. The NL average is displayed in green.  The MLB average is displayed in black.

CATCHERS

The biggest problem with Javy Lopez last year was that he missed a lot of action.  Yes, his production slipped markedly from 2004 to 2005, but he still ranked fifth in the AL in OWP among qualifying catchers, well above the league average mark, and his .538 OWP in 2005 almost precisely matches his career level (.542).  The league average marks demonstrate just how poor the offensive value of the catching position is throughout baseball (the numbers have actually declined since last year).  But while Lopez finished fifth in the AL (and sixth overall) among qualifying catchers, his 423 plate appearances were far less than all five of the backstops who finished ahead of him in 2005 OWP.  Ordinarily this would be a huge disadvantage because of the number of plate appearances going to Lopez's backup (since backup catchers are ordinarily notoriously poor hitters), but in 2005, the primary Baltimore backup catcher was Sal Fasano, who posted a more than respectable .516 OWP in 176 plate appearances.  It would be nice if the story ended there, but unfortunately third catcher Geronimo Gil also accrued 134 plate appearances in 2005 and posted an almost impossibly bad .103 OWP in so doing.

The difficulty of finding young, productive catchers who can remain relatively healthy demonstrates why players such as Victor Martinez and Joe Mauer are among the most valuable commodities in baseball.  

Six of the top seven qualifiers at catcher are American Leaguers.

FIRST BASEMEN

First base was an even stronger position offensively than was the case in 2004 and Orioles starter Rafael Palmeiro did in fact raise his production accordingly, to the point where he was slightly above the AL average.  But, again, Palmeiro missed more than 1/3 of the season after his suspension and the subsequent fallout following his positive steroid test.  A host of other players filled in at first in Palmeiro's absence, including Walter Young, Chris Gomez and B.J. Surhoff, but none were as productive as Palmeiro.  As a result, the overall level of offensive production for the Orioles from the first base position was below the league (and MLB) average.  With Palmeiro all but officially out of the team's plans for 2005, first base remains wide open for the Orioles in 2006.  

With few exceptions, none of the players available around baseball finished above the major league average at the position.  Paul Konerko is the most productive available free agent on the market and boy is he ever going to be overpaid, just as Richie Sexson was last year.  It's not that players like Konerko and Sexson aren't valuable--they are.  But they are not in the upper tier of players at their position.  Konerko ranked ninth among qualifiers with Sexson right behind him at 10th.  (Remember, OWP is park-adjusted.)  The numbers also make clear just how valuable a player Carlos Delgado remains.  Dolphins Stadium is a poor hitter's park, particularly for left-handed power hitters; after adjusting for this fact, Delgado continues to take his place among the elite offensive first basemen in all of baseball.  2005 represents Delgado's third super-.700 OWP season in the last four years, the only exception being an injury-plagued 2004 campaign (.605).  It's also impressive to note the magnitude of Jason Giambi's comeback.  2005 was his sixth .700-plus OWP season in the last seven, following last year's crash and burn (.451) performance.  Steroid controversy aside, Giambi has reclaimed his spot as one of the most dangerous hitters in the American League.

The National League is drowning in top-flight first base play these days.  If Giambi, who appeared in only 78 games at first base, spending nearly as much time at DH, is removed from the list, the top four players--and six of the top seven--toiled in the NL in 2005.  

Three of the top six qualifying players in OWP regardless of position are on the 1B list--Derrek Lee, Albert Pujols and Giambi, and two of the remaining three are 1B/DH types (Travis Hafner and David Ortiz) who appear on the designated hitter list below.

SECOND BASEMEN

Obviously second base wasn't an offensive problem for the Orioles in 2005.  Brian Roberts was easily the most productive offensive second baseman in the majors last year; it wasn't even particularly close.  In fact, the OWP discrepancy at second base was larger than that of any other position in 2005 except third base, which had a gap just .002 higher.  The problem, such as it is, is that Roberts has never had another season on the same continent as last year's campaign.  His next best OWP mark was the .472 he posted in 2003.  It's certainly fair to ask whether he's capable of doing anything even remotely like this again.  Roberts had previously demonstrated that he was more or less a league-average performer at second base.  While .718 is probably out of the question (Roberts was the sole middle infielders among the top 20 in OWP in the majors in 2005), it will be very interesting to see if he's able to move consistently into the upper 1/3 or so of major league second basemen in terms of production.

Among AL East clubs, only Tampa Bay's Jorge Cantu finished in the upper half of the second base rankings.  Second base was not a strength for New York, Boston or Toronto.

After several down years, the level of play at the second base position has improved.  Just a couple of years ago, the ML average for OWP at second base was hovering below .450.

SHORTSTOP

2005 was the highest single-season OWP mark in Miguel Tejada's career.  Yes, Tejada, whose raw numbers in 2005 were certainly worse across the board than in 2004, posted his best Offensive Winning Percentage ever.  What happened?  Two things, primarily.  First, offense in the American League in 2005 was down significantly from 2004.  The average AL team scored just under five runs per game--4.99 to be specific--in 2004.  In 2005, that mark fell to 4.68 per game, a decline of 6.2%.  (Remember, OWP is era-adjusted, so in years where runs are "cheaper," the OWP mark will be comparatively lower than in years where runs are more "costly," with the same set of otherwise unadjusted statistics.)  Second, there's the matter of the ballpark.  This will be laid out in greater detail in a future Calculus, because I don't yet have all of the nuanced ballpark splits yet, but I do have a tentative run index number compiled.  In 2004, OPCY played out as a decent hitter's park with a run index of 109.  That number was a big surprise, because it was the first time since 1995 that the ballpark had registered a run index above the neutral mark of 100.  2005 appears to be a return to form; OPCY's preliminary run index for 2005 is 88, the second lowest mark in the American League this past season and tied for the lowest in the ballpark's history.  Going from 109 to 88 is a tremendous adjustment, and coupled with the real league-wide drop in offense, explains the boost in Tejada's OWP despite a drop in his raw stats.  Of course, it's worth noting that every other hitter on the Orioles enjoys the OWP bounce as well.

If you said before the season started that Jhonny Peralta would rank first on this chart, raise your hand.

If you think that Jhonny Peralta's first name looks like a typographical error, raise your hand.

This position is a lot deeper in the American League right now than the National, but that's been true for years.  Even though some traditional AL shortstop boosters, like Alex Rodriguez (now playing third base) and Nomar Garciaparra (now playing in the National League, when he's playing at all, and frequently not playing shortstop; it's noteworthy that Garciaparra didn't even qualify for the list) are no longer present to raise the AL bar, the league still dominates the ranks of offensively capable shortstops.  The top NL player on the above list is the Brewers' Bill Hall, who ranks seventh overall.

THIRD BASEMEN

Melvin Mora's OWP fell dramatically from 2004 to 2005, from .725 to .612, and in light of the aforementioned league and ballpark adjustments involved, it's not surprising that his raw statistics really slipped:  his batting average dropped 57 points, his slugging percentage dove 88 points and his on-base percentage skidded 71 points.  And yet, Mora still ranked second among American League third basemen in OWP.  (Perhaps the backwards nature of the Orioles' offense is becoming clear; it will be addressed directly at the conclusion of this piece.)

Alex Rodriguez had the top OWP mark in the American League and the second highest in all of baseball (Derrek Lee topped all players).  David Bell's .296 OWP was the worst mark among all 2005 major leaguers with at least 500 plate appearances and by far the worst among qualifying third basemen.

On average there's not much to choose from between the leagues at third base but, A-Rod aside, the NL dominates the top of this list.  Five of the top six qualifiers are National Leaguers and the drop off after #7 (Mora) is significant.

LEFT FIELDER

We begin to see the source of the Orioles' less than average offense; the club's production from the left field position was extremely poor.  Eric Byrnes' overall OWP was massively increased by his solid performance in 215 plate appearances with Oakland (.558).  With Colorado, he managed a dreadful .171 in 60 PAs, but he wasn't much better with Baltimore.  As an Oriole, Byrnes put up an OWP of .218 in 181 plate appearances, which is awful.  B.J. Surhoff, as the table shows, ranked 33rd among 35 qualifying big league left fielders at .354 (though of course only a plurality of his 321 plate appearances came as a left fielder).  Most of the rest of the club's left field plate appearances were turned in by Larry Bigbie, who was a desultory .442 in 234 PAs with the Orioles (.377 overall including a horrid stretch with Colorado).  The club's composite LF OWP was roughly .350 for the season, the worst such composite mark for the position in all of baseball.  Left field was a big, fat hole for the Orioles in 2005.

Tony Womack's .246 OWP was the worst mark among all qualifying (300 PA) big leaguers, regardless of position.

Again, the National League was a clear cut above the American League in terms of production at this position.  Six of the top seven qualifying players were NLers.

CENTER FIELDER

This just in--Luis Matos was an above-average offensive performer at center field in 2005.  I must concede that I was very surprised at this result, but I think we're largely seeing the impact of the ballpark and the league at work...and the relative lack of top-level performers at center field (only catcher had a lower top OWP performer).  But still, 500 isn't bad.  Given the status of the Orioles as a franchise at this point, this overall performance by Matos raises the question of whether replacing him should be a priority.  Given all the other potential holes on the team, one would think not.  But it's worth remembering that, in addition to some less than spectacular defense on his part, Matos compiled only 433 plate appearances in 2005, as he spent another significant amount of time on the disabled list.  Still, given his adequate, if obviously unremarkable offensive performance last year and the team's other more pressing needs, perhaps the best course of action is to split the difference; enter the season with Matos as the acknowledged starter, but sign a legitimate replacement who can handle center field when Matos, inevitably, goes down at some point in 2006.

There were some awful offensive performance by center fielders in 2005.  Steve Finley was abysmal, despite playing for a division champion.  Corey Patterson had the worst OWP of any major league player with at least 400 plate appearances (only Cristian Guzman was worse).  Eight qualifying players, nearly 1/4 of the list, finished with OWPs below .400; only the catching position had more.  Bernie Williamas saw his OWP decline for the third straight year and appears to be through; this was by far his worst mark as a big leaguer.

Again, we see dominance by the NL at the top of the chart; eight of the top 11 players are National Leaguers.

RIGHT FIELDERS

Let's get one thing out of the way immediately--Sammy Sosa was awful.  He ranked 34th out of 34 qualifying right fielders, which is as bad as it gets.  On the other hand, Jay Gibbons wasn't bad at all, ranking an above average 13th.  (I will concede that before seeing the final numbers I would have guessed that Gibbons would be right around the big league average at his position, but I underestimated the Camden Yards ballpark effect.)  Gibbons, of course, compiled a significant number of his plate appearances at DH and first base, and Sosa was the designated hitter a fair amount in 2005.  If Jay had drawn even an average number of walks last year he would have ranked third in the AL at his position in OWP.  Barring a trade or a move to another spot (1B or DH), Gibbons will almost assuredly have right field to himself in 2006. 

Right field was as hitterish a position as left field in 2005.

Sample size warning:  four of the top 10 players on this list compiled fewer than 375 plate appearances last year.

Once again we see National League dominance at the top of the list; five of the seven top performers were NLers.

There's not much to say here.  The Orioles didn't have a qualifier at the position and there are only 10 players who did make it.  Fortunately, most of these guys can hit.  In the AL, no position had a higher OWP than DH (including all of the plate appearances by non-qaulifiers).  Travis Hafner and David Ortiz were legitimately among the top offensive players in baseball in 2005.

Note on the Orioles--most of their DH plate appearances came at the hands of Jay Gibbons, Rafael Palmeiro, Sammy Sosa and B.J. Surhoff--a decidedly mixed lot in terms of production.

THE BACKWARDS OFFENSE

The Orioles' offense was backwards in 2005 in the sense that it largely depended on positions not traditionally associated with strong hitting for the bulk of its production:  second base, shortstop, third base, catcher.  And, the club received significantly better than average production from the primary slot holders at all of those positions.  In fact, the club superficially appeared to receive average or above production from seven of the eight spots for which they had at least one list qualifier--everywhere but left field, which was a legitimate hole.  They had no qualifier for designated hitter, but certainly received below average production at that spot when all of the relevant plate appearances were tallied given that the average for the position around the American League was .560 and their top performing DH managed a .575 mark...their worst was well below .400.  Still, seven out of nine ain't bad, and hardly equates to a below average offensive team, which the Orioles certainly were last year in terms of runs scored.

What gives?

There are a couple of things worth noting.  The following chart shows the major league ranking for 2005 clubs by OWP:

The Orioles finished ninth in all of baseball and fifth in the AL in OWP.  All that seems more than a bit incongruous when considering the following:

The Birds finished 15th in all of baseball in runs, and 10th in the AL, despite a much higher OWP.  (One would expect some significant MLB disparities for National League clubs, who gain the benefit of having the pitcher hit when adjusting the OWP numbers, but not in a strict tally of runs when grouped with American League clubs, who benefit in this category from the designated hitter.)

Now take a look at the final runs created rankings:

The Orioles finished 13th overall--still better than their runs ranking by two slots, but finished fifth in the American League in RC compared with 10th in the league in runs.

As I noted earlier this year, the Orioles' bases empty/runners on base performance disparity was huge.  This would not be reflected in overall OWP or runs created numbers, which don't depend on baserunner splits for their calculations.  The Orioles finished with the second largest negative runs/runs created disparity (-44) in the American League (only Cleveland was larger).  (Oddly, there were a host of National League teams with huge disparities last year--led by Arizona, which created a staggering 99 more runs than it scored.)  That certainly was a factor.

But there's something else.  A number of the Orioles starters who were "average or better" performers at their positions missed significant chunks of the season--Palmeiro, Matos and Lopez fell far short of full seasons and, for the most part, their replacements weren't of the caliber of the men they suceeded.  That even included sub par positions, like left field, where Larry Bigbie (first hurt, then traded) was the most productive player the Orioles had at the spot all year.  While Sal Fasano was, surprisingly, almost as productive as Javy Lopez behind the plate, the third string catcher, Geronimo Gil, was an unmitigated disaster.  Everyone the Orioles tried in center field--mostly a wildly unproductive David Newhan--was less effective, and significantly so, than Matos.  First base fill-ins included B.J. Surhoff and Chris Gomez (the two appeared in a combined total of 60 games at first) whose production would have been poor for middle infielders.  Gomez also filled in for Melvin Mora at third and Brian Roberts at second and was far less productive then either of them.  Surhoff spent time making outs while playing right field, left field and DH in addition to first.  The point is, the Orioles' lack of depth took the team down several pegs offensively in a season where the bench was ultimately asked to play a significant role.  The fact that Surhoff accumulated more than 300 plate appearances last year speaks volumes.

It's fine that the Orioles get so much production, relatively speaking, out of positions that are not typically offensive strengths.  In fact, it's better than fine--it should be a clear positive.  But the comparative lack of production at traditionally strong offensive slots--left field and DH in particular, coupled with an overall lack of depth all the way around--more than compensates, negatively speaking, for that would-be strength.

It's one thing to get better than average production out of the positions on the left side of the defensive spectrum; in fact, as stated above, it should be a major advantage.  But it's another thing for your two best offensive players to be your middle infielders and your two worst offensive spots to be left field and designated hitter--not in relative terms, but in an absolute sense.  That is truly backwards and it is something the Orioles must address if they're to take the next step offensively and in the bottom line--wins--because it demonstrates an unacceptable inefficiency.  Rather than having this greater-than-expected strength complementing the offense, it's instead compensating for it and that's a losing equation. 

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