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Thursday Bird Droppings: The Orioles have their new pitching coach
The former Braves bullpen coach is joining the Orioles staff. Have I heard this one before?
There are now 119 days remaining until Orioles Opening Day 2024.
If you are one of the people who is on the “Orioles should trade for Dylan Cease” train – or even if you aren’t – you may be interested to know that the rumor mill suggests things could be coming to a head soon. MLB Network’s Jon Morosi reported yesterday that talks have “intensified” within the last few days and that there are people who believe that a deal could come together before next week’s winter meetings.
Cease has started 32 or 33 games in each of the past three seasons. In 2022, he was great, finishing with a 2.20 ERA that would have won him the Cy Young in any year where he didn’t have to compete against Justin Verlander’s 1.75 ERA. That ERA inflated a lot for 2023 as Cease finished with a 4.58, which when adjusted for park and league came out to a 97 ERA+ – a below league-average ERA.
Still, since Cease made all of his starts that was a 2.4 bWAR. As his FIP was even better than this at 3.72, Cease had a much better 3.7 fWAR. He had what appears to be some bad batted ball luck, coming in at a .330 BABIP allowed. The White Sox graded poorly in Statcast defense metrics, which may have been part of Cease’s problem. The Orioles defense was just as bad in Outs Above Average, but the bulk of the O’s problem was Adam Frazier grading out as one of the worst defenders in baseball. He’s gone.
As for Cease, he turns 28 next month and has two more years of salary arbitration before becoming a free agent. He walks a lot of guys and has too many wild pitches, but he gets enough strikeouts to make up for this and the righty has controlled the long ball in his career. He’s expected to make about $9 million next year, and a good 2024 could kick him up to $15 million or more for 2025. What would you trade to get him?
The Orioles took care of one of their non-player-related needs for the offseason yesterday as MASN’s Roch Kubatko reported that the team has hired its next pitching coach:
