The O’s picked up 3 pitchers of note at the trade deadline (or before) by acquiring Bud Norris, Scott Feldman, and Francisco Rodriguez for the stretch run of the season. The logic was flawless. The O’s pitchers as a whole rank 24th in Major League Baseball this season by WAR, by far the worst of any contending team. Broken into the respective groups the O’s rotation ranks 24th while the bullpen ranks 16th. The bullpen hasn’t been able to replicate its magical 2012 season, but has posted respectable numbers over the course of the year. The rotation on the other hand, has been below average pretty much all season.

Discuss the newest pitchers on the O’s here.

You can’t blame Dan Duquette for wanting to make a few moves and augment the ‘pen and rotation with some of the best options available on the trade market. Norris and Feldman, both scooped up to help the rotation have pitched admirably since being acquired. Rodriguez has proved to be a useful arm out of the bullpen, despite regressing from the 1.09 ERA he posted with the Brew Crew for much of the season. Let’s take a look at each and how they’ve performed since donning the orange and black.

On July 31st, the O’s traded OF L.J. Hoes, LHP Josh Hader, and a competitive balance pick to the Houston Astros for RHP Bud Norris. The focus of this post isn’t on the trade but the performance of the new guy so we’ll only take a look at what Norris has done since coming to Baltimore.

Bud Norris has been, and this will be a recurring theme, who we thought he was when the O’s acquired him. He’s thrown 44.1 innings in 8 starts (and 1 relief appearance) posting a 4.67 ERA and a 2.45 K/BB ratio. Norris has been a bit unlucky with home runs since coming to Baltimore which has had an adverse effect on his ERA. His FIP and xFIP however remain strong and eerily similar to what he posted in Houston. From a WAR standpoint he’s ever so slightly behind the pace he set in Houston (.09 WAR/Start in HOU versus .075 WAR/Start in BAL*).

*This is a stat I made up just for the purpose of this post and may or may not be statistically valid and/or useful.

On July 2nd, the Orioles moved RHP Pedro Strop and RHP Jake Arrieta for RHP Scott Feldman and C Steve Clevenger.

Feldman has posted, much like Norris, eerily similar numbers as an Oriole to those he put up in Chicago. Feldman’s 3.62 ERA is only .18 points higher than his corresponding figure as a Cub. Additionally, his walk and strikeout rates are both within 5% of the figures he posted in Chicago, though his K/BB ratio is slightly down from his time on the north side. On the plus side however, his HR rate is down and he’s been ever so slightly more lucky on balls in play. In total, Feldman has posted 1.3 WAR in 77 innings with Baltimore, compared to the 1 WAR in his 91 innings with the Cubs.

On July 23rd, the Orioles traded 1B/OF Nick Delmonico to the Milwaukee Brewers for RHP Francisco Rodriguez.

K-Rod was lights out for the Brewers, allowing just 3 earned runs over 24.1 innings pitched this season. K-Rod was lucky, no doubt, featuring below average BABIP, HR/FB, LOB%, etc. over the course of those innings. Since joining Baltimore though, Rodriguez has had a reversal of fortune posting 3.86 ERA buoyed by an unsustainable HR rate. That partially explains the massive discrepancy in his FIP and xFIP with the latter being a full 2.6 runs lower than the former. For a reliever, these type of swings in luck aren’t uncommon, and the result are stats being blown out of proportion due to small sample sizes (just 24.1 innings with MIL, and 18.2 in BAL).

 

So what does this all mean? Again, not getting into value here, but all 3 pitchers have been valuable to the club. Even Rodriguez who has been homer-prone has posted 12 outings without giving up a run. The O’s team ERA on the season is 4.25, with only Bud Norris posting an ERA above that. Taking luck out of the equation, you can see that all 3 of the new pitchers have posted FIPs and xFIPs below the O’s team average. All 3 were upgrades on what we had at the time and provided positive value to the club.

None of these deals was a game-changer, but you could argue that there were no game-changers on the market. Duquette knew that in order to improve the team for the stretch run he needed to bring in arms. He did a good job of doing that given what was available at the time.

I would argue that Feldman (1.3 WAR) has been the most valuable of the three by far, but Norris (0.6 WAR) and K-Rod (0.0 WAR) have been positive additions as well. In this case, the results have been positive, but that isn’t always the case. Fortunately, the process by which Duquette came to the decision to trade for these guys was good as well. The O’s identified areas that needed improvement and made moves that helped them improve those areas and make a run at the playoffs. Not only that, but Duquette made moves early when he thought the price was right in order to maximize the impact that trade would have, for better or worse. In this case the early acquisition of Feldman made the team better.

It would not hurt the O’s one bit if all 3 of these guys came back next season, especially if Duquette feels the money is right and there’s value to be had in doing so.

Jeff Long
Jeff Long

Jeff was the owner of the Orioles blog Warehouse Worthy, which focused on making advanced statistics a part of the conversation for the average fan. Outside of baseball, Jeff is a graduate of Loyola University where he received his Bachelor’s and Master’s in Business Administration. The Maryland native currently works for an Advertising Agency in downtown Baltimore. Previously a contributor to Beyond the Boxscore, he joined Baseball Prospectus in September 2014. You can reach him at [email protected].

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