Pedro Alvarez & The Orioles

In a move that yours truly has been predicting for some time, the Baltimore Orioles locked down masher Pedro Alvarez to a one-year deal worth $5.75 million with the potential to drive it to $7 million with playing-time bonuses. All things considered, Alvarez might not have been a perfect fit for the Orioles, but he’s intriguing nonetheless.

(You can discuss this on the BSL Board here.)

Alvarez made an identical sum of money last year playing first base for the Pirates, who non-tendered him following a season where he hit .243/.318/.469 with 27 home runs while playing less than adequate defense. But the Orioles have a luxury at their disposal that the Pirates didn’t, and we’re not just talking about extra cash lying around.

That’s right, the designated hitter spot.

That’s not to say the Orioles have a paucity of candidates to play DH. Jimmy Paredes is still around one year after making a team-high 79 starts at the position, though he hit just .275/.310/.416, and is reportedly dealing with what might be a stress fracture in his left wrist. There’s no timetable for his return, but that batting line is a veritable house of cards which Alvarez should be able to easily topple. Besides, Paredes might be best used as a super utility guy anyway, as he saw playing time at four positions in the field last year — though hardly much of a sampling at any.

Mark Trumbo, possibly pegged for starting right field duties, would also be an ideal candidate to DH. And of course, there’ll be days where Chris Davis gets his rips in isolation; Davis DH’d 22 times last year and started in right on 29 occasions.

Hold up with that last point.

Trumbo is widely regarded to be a very poor defensive outfielder. Alvarez graded out very poorly both statistically and with the eye test at first. Obviously both can’t DH on a given day, yet they both possess bats which would almost certainly mandate getting them into the lineup on a regular basis. Could the answer be putting Davis out in right field?

It seems pretty simple. Davis is clearly the most athletic of the trio. Various people I’ve asked say Davis doesn’t embarrass himself out there, which seems like is more than can be said for Trumbo, who has more career starts at first base (339) than any other position. Is this really overthinking it? Is it underthinking it? I’d love to hear your views in the comments.

An interesting question is how well does Alvarez project in Baltimore? He’s leaving PNC Park, which via StatCorner had a 99 home run park factor for left-handed hitters last season. The best way to explain park factors is 100 is average; anything under that favors pitchers, and so on. Alvarez is the epitome of an all-or-nothing slugger; he has 809 career strikeouts and just 259 walks. He has 131 career home runs, but just 108 doubles. In each of his four full big league seasons, Alvarez has hit more home runs than doubles. So in that sense, one would prefer to disregard the park factors for other extra-base hits.Beyond that, Camden Yards plays cozier than PNC anyway; a player with marginal foot speed like Alvarez would seem to be likely for fewer doubles or the rarely seen triple — he’s hit six — but rather even more home runs, if the numbers see fit.

And they do, for what it’s worth. The park factor for left-handed hitters and home runs was a staggering 127 last season at OPACY — a 28 percent increase. It’s not surprising that Alvarez has more career home runs on the road (69) than at home (62), but he would seem to have a lot to gain from playing half his games in Baltimore. Could his first 40-home run season be in the cards? It doesn’t seem impossible; the only time he’s ever played more than 150 games was in 2013 when he hit 36. With the DH in play, there’s really no reason to believe he can’t break that mark. 

Of course, part of that could be out of his control. Skipper Buck Showalter might — wisely, one might add — shield him from left handers. Alvarez has a career .794 OPS and 114 home runs against righties, and just a .601 mark with 17 long balls against lefties. So in that sense, maybe he produces more by playing less. If one chooses to fixate on production on a per-game basis rather than overall, there’s real potential for Alvarez to exceed expectations. Especially since he’s on a rather cheap one-year deal.

Just for fun, here’s what projections have for this three-headed trio between DH, first base and ostensibly right field:

Steamer
Davis – .245/.338/.503, 38 home runs, 194 K’s
Alvarez – .242/.321/.462, 15 home runs, 82 K’s*
Trumbo – .252/.307/.455, 26 home runs, 135 K’s

ZiPS
Davis – .265/.350/.556, 42 home runs, 181 K’s
Alvarez – .237/.312/.454, 25 home runs, 136 K’s
Trumbo – .258/.311/.485, 28 home runs, 126 K’s

* It’s important to note that Steamer only projects Alvarez to play about half the time. One could probably roughly double those numbers for an accurate picture, as it only projects 70 games and 256 PAs.

So that’s sort of amazing. Certainly there’s no guarantee they’ll hit back-to-back-to-back in the order — just a little home run humor there, sorry — but it’s a trio that could combine for 100 home runs and 500 strikeouts. How do you feel about that?

Speaking of strikeouts, FanGraphs’ Dave Cameron wondered if it’s possible to strike out too much as a team today. The common thinking lately has been that strikeouts don’t necessarily indicate an offense that isn’t good, but can be more indicative of approach. More specifically, that it could be an approach more tailored to power. It’s easy to see that in the smaller scale with Davis, Trumbo and Alvarez of course. He draws the conclusion that there might be a bit of correlation to teams that strike out a lot and under-performing their BaseRuns expectations. Give it a read, and let me know if you think it alters your perception about what you expect of the O’s this season.