A lot of Pie’s value last year came from his glove. It’s tricky to definitively say that either guy is better than the other, but what I do think we can agree on is that you wouldn’t play Reimold in center, but you would play Pie there. If center field is a harder position than left field, than how do you logically conclude that Pie is a worse outfielder? That’s a little simplistic, but there’s really little doubt in my mind as to who the better defender is .

But what I came here today to talk about isn’t defense, it’s offense. In 2009 Pie hit .266/.326/.437, which obviously isn’t very good for a former top prospect with a career minor league line of .299/.355/.470.  But there are some very concrete reasons to suspect that Felix Pie is going to bring it with the bat going forward.

Last year Pie was the designated left fielder out of Spring Training, but quickly lost his job to Lou Montanez. He kind of disappeared, but then from July 22nd onwards, Pie played in 70% of the Orioles games and started 54% of them in the outfield. And he was great, hitting .290/.346/.497 compared to .234/.299/.355 before July 22nd. But the real question is why was Pie so much better, and can he sustain that into 2010?

Let’s first examine some basic indicators from both halves of the year, and also from his minor league days:

Notice, first of all, that Pie hit a lot of line drives. If he can keep his strikeouts down where they had been in his seven years in the minors, then those line drives should translate into a high batting average. You’ll notice of course that in the second half of last year he did just that, and it did translate to a high batting average. If he could push his walk rate higher still (which is probably not particularly likely), he could maybe see an OBP in the .365 range.

But anyway, these contact rates don’t really tell us anything. He more or less put the ball in play in the same general way, or so it seems. If the folklore of Pie working with the Crow and bringing a better swing to the table is true, he must have made some sort of better contact, right? It isn’t as if his first half BABiP is the culprit here at .288 (which is low, but not enough to cover a 50 point rise in OBP).

The answer is in the quality of Pie’s fly balls. In the early part of the season, Pie hit 24.1% of his fly balls as pop-ups to an infielder. He wasn’t driving the ball at all. Look at this distribution of all of his balls in play:

Compare that to the second half of the year, when Pie was on fire, only hit 2.4% of his fly balls to the infield, and sprayed his hits like so:

Look at that opposite field power now! Notice, too, that the only times that Pie pulled the ball he hit it deep and successfully. All very good signs indeed. I don’t know what happened exactly to make Felix Pie become a really good hitter seemingly overnight. Maybe it was the Crow’s mentoring, maybe it was getting more comfortable in Baltimore, maybe Luke Scott transferred all of his powers over to Pie like in that one episode of Lois and Clark: the New Adventures of Superman. I guess it doesn’t matter how, just that we can clearly see that Pie is in fact a changed hitter for the better.

What does it all mean, in the end? Well, Pie may stand a very good chance at increasing his value as a left fielder much higher than Nolan Reimold, but don’t get me wrong: there is very much a place for both of them on the Orioles. I absolutely love Nolan’s bat (if not his glove) and could be a very happy camper with both of them getting as many plate appearances as possible. No, the point of all of this is just this: Felix Pie could be really, really good. He just needs to keep getting as many reps as possible out there – and he’s clearly earned them.

(Spray charts courtesy texasleaguers.com)

I abhor the contract, but that’s a sunk cost now and he has been an excellent relief pitcher in the NL, but he’s also an injury risk, is he injured now? There’s just this feeling of instant doom when I see him walking in, but three bad games is a drop in the bucket, and I’m sure he’s settle in soon enough, but then there’s that horrifying delivery…

Wedged in the door. It’s not that I don’t care, but…well, I don’t care. If 24 guys are doing enough to win 3 of 4 games and Mike Gonzalez is blowing it, in a rebuilding year*, then that might be enough to satisfy me. Maybe. Maybe not; I really don’t like watching 9th inning meltdowns.

Agh! Ennui! Someone wake me up!

Tonight the Orioles go back to work with David Hernandez on the hill trying to get his outstanding minor league and spring numbers to translate to the big leagues. It’s all about how many bats he can miss, and if he can keep the ball in the zone (which I guess is kind of an obvious thing to say).

On the other side, we’ll be seeing Dana Eveland make his Blue Jay debut. Eveland is kind of like what would happen if Brad Bergesen lost his control: a lot of walks, a lot of contact, a lot of ground balls. The Oriole offense has been a little underwhelming so far, particularly Adam Jones and Luke Scott, so perhaps they can upshift tonight.

*You can keep telling yourself “It’s Phase Two now! Wins matter!” all you want, but I’m not buying it. It’s not exactly a Lost Season, but it’s still rebuilding.

Brad Bergesen finally makes his return to the mound in Baltimore after initially being listed as “day-to-day” on July 30 of last year. Bergesen of course was beginning to look like a serious Rookie of the Year consideration with his 132 ERA+ in 19 starts, but it wasn’t to be. Can he repeat that success in Year Two? It all comes down to his control and his two-seamer, and to this point in his professional career he has always had both of those things working for him. I will say this though: it’s a fine line to walk, relying so heavily on your defense and pinpoint accuracy – and Bergesen’s Spring Training was less than encouraging in that regard. He walked a lot of batters and didn’t keep the ball on the ground. But as we all know, none of that matters now.

The Toronto Blue Jays picked up a couple of wins in Texas behind a couple of hot bats in Vernon Wells and Adam Lind. Wells has been written off by a huge majority of the baseball world, so it’ll be interesting to see if he’s on his way back or was simply enjoying the cozy Ballpark in Arlington. Lind is a beast of player, coming off a career year and trending upwards.

Pitching for the Fightin’ BJs is Brandon Morrow, acquired from Seattle over the winter, who hails from the AJ Burnett School of Power Pitching: lots of walks, lots of Ks. I’ll look to the more patient hitters like Roberts, Wieters, Scott, and Markakis to lead the offensive charge today.

I won’t be there, but if any of you are going know this: I’m insanely jealous. Happy Opening Day.

Well…let’s be serious for a second. Because Matusz is starting his rookie season, and there’s going to be turbulence. That’s just how it goes. But there’s no denying that his time has come, and that for better or for worse a lot of the Orioles’ rebuilding plan rests in his left arm, and that makes tonight special. A strong performance – and a win – would wash the sour taste of the last two infuriating nights away quickly in time for tomorrow’s home opener.

Thoughts:

Matusz saw the Rays once last year, walking none and striking out 7 in 5.1 innings at the Trop. Not surprisingly, the two batters that gave him fits were two of the biggest nemeses from our current series: Ben Zobrist and Evan Longoria. The Rays lineup is deep and powerful, but if any matchups could be considered “key”, it’d be those two guys sitting three-four.

The Oriole hitters were terribly unlucky on Tuesday, stranding all of their baserunners. Rays starter Jeff Niemann is a solid enough pitcher, but unlike Matt Garza he will give up baserunners, so the lineup has a shot at redemption.

Not much sample to go on, but Brian Roberts has had the most success against Niemann in 20 plate appearances (1.500 OPS), and he’s right back at the top of the lineup again, still looking for that first time on base. Getting Brian Bob going is probably your key matchup for the O’s at the dish.

Orioles. Rays. 7:10

(photo by the insurmountable Keith Allison)

Not Much (In Many Ways)

With a couple of (frustrating) games between us and the end of Spring Training, we can look back with a nostalgic eye for the days when we were gnawing our teeth about the  struggles of some key players like Matt Wieters, Kevin Millwood, Brad Bergesen, Nolan Reimold, Jeremy Guthrie, and Nick Markakis. Markakis in particular got some venom for his appalling zero walks…but then showed us how foolish we all were by taking three already in the first two games. And once again we learn the important chronic lesson that Spring Training obviously counts for nothing.

We Might Have a Roberts Problem

Players with Brian Roberts’ composition generally don’t age the way you wish they would, and with Brian starting a big contract at 32 I was moderately concerned. That was before Roberts was sidelined with a back injury which he reportedly still hasn’t completely healed from. There’s no way to know how it’s going to affect Roberts in the short or long term, but the risk in his big contract (not to mention the risk of losing his production) just crashed through the roof.

Felix Pie’s Growing Up

The position player who looked by far the best in Spring was none other than the same guy who once forgot to throw the ball back into the infield. Yes, no matter who you ask everyone seems to think that Pie just looks like a baseball player ready to start to meet some of his great potential this season. With Nolan Reimold gimpy and not playing the best left field at the moment, Pie has the opportunity to put a deathgrip on the everyday job. Now, if only he could stay healthy and start to hit left-handers…

Brian Matusz is the AL’s It Boy

He doesn’t quite have the hype of Jason Heyward or Matt Wieters, but the national story about the Orioles was Matusz’s absolutely sensational spring, putting him into the unlikely positional of AL East pitcher as Rookie of the Year favorite. He certainly has me eating crow about opposing his promotion last fall, and I’m more excited to see what he does tonight in the Trop than I was even for Opening Night.

Tejada’s Working Hard

Miguel Tejada’s first tour of duty in Baltimore was, as they say on the Facebook, complicated. There’s no reason to get into the past, but how refreshing has it been to hear about Tejada working his tail off at third base getting ready for his most challenging season yet? I’m not sure what his defensive year is going to look like when all is said and done, and I suspect that none of us are going to be willing to accept that it was less than outstanding after we’ve all seen the sweat poured into the job, but I am cautiously confident that Tejada can and will put up some solid objective numbers.

Beautiful Sarasota

Finally, even I – who was admittedly an icy curmudgeon all spring – can’t help but admit that the move to Sarasota has all the workings of a beautiful friendship. The staff, media, players, minor leaguers, and fans were all absolutely ecstatic and with good reason. And with the very talented Janet Marie Smith working to put up something truly beautiful, the Orioles are finally, truly trending upward in Florida. Will it help on the field in the regular season? Will it help bring in big time free agents? I can’t say, but I also cannot deny progress when I see progress, and I see progress.

(photo)