The 2019 Baltimore Orioles season promises to be one of transition. The team hired a new General Manager, a new Manager and a new coaching staff. Many of the players remain the same from last year’s team but we should be seeing more and more new, young talent as the season goes on. One thing to watch for this season will be what the Orioles are able to do at the trade deadline. Will vets like Alex Cobb, Mark Trumbo, Richard Bleier, Andrew Cashner and Johnathon Villar have strong enough first halves so that the O’s can trade them, save some money and add some more young pieces for the future. If that happens, I don’t expect to get much in the way of impact players for those guys however, they could get us some solid pieces that will provide us with some good long-term role players. Those players may not represent the core of the next really good O’s teams, but they could be needed pieces that allow you to save money and concentrate your budget on the elite guys you need to win.
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That being said, there are two players on the Orioles team that could bring back legit game changing talent. Those two players are Givens and Bundy. Before we look forward with those guys, let’s look back to 2018 and see what they did.
2018 was a rough year for each. Had they put up the numbers they are capable of putting up, they likely would have been dealt this off-season or even last trade deadline. However, since they didn’t, it did not make sense to sell low on them especially since they don’t cost you much money. Last year was very up and down for Bundy. He started the year pitching great. In his first 5 starts, he threw 31.1 innings, racked up 40 Ks, walked 9, gave up 1 homer and allowed 5 runs. In his next 3 starts, he gave up 19 runs (including 9 homers) in 9 innings, including the outing where he gave up 7 runs and didn’t record an out. After that terrible outing, his next 8 outings were again very good. He pitched 55.1 innings, struck out 60, walked 16 and gave up 16 runs (although he did give up 8 homers. Up until his last June start, despite that terrible 3 game stretch, he had a 3.75 ERA, a K rate over 10 and a walk rate of 2.7. His biggest issue were the homers allowed, which at that point was up to 18. After his final start in late June, Bundy went on the DL with an ankle injury and when he got back, the wheels to his season totally fell off. In July, he pitched to an 8.38 ERA, August went up to 9.24 and September was 5.81. He gave up 23 homers in roughly 75 IP. He did have 6 starts where he gave up 3 ER or less, but he had 7 starts where he gave up 5 or runs, including a stretch of 3 straight starts where he gave up 7 runs in each start. He finished the year with a 5.45 ERA and an FIP of 5.17. His SIERA was just under 4 and his xFIP was 4.28, so they were a little more respectable. He put up an excellent K rate of 9.65, a solid BB rate of 2.83 and a K/BB ratio of 3.41. His swinging str% was 20.3%, which is way above average and he threw strikes at a rate just under 67%. Those are all excellent numbers and very encouraging going forward. What is killing him is his HR rate. He gave up 41 homers last year and while I don’t think giving up homers is the worst thing in the world, 41 is just too many. The BABIP against him was 316, which is on the unlucky side but when you factor in that he is a FB pitcher, it’s even worse. With a poorish defense behind him, more guys will get on base than they probably should, so giving up a boatload of homers is going to be a huge problem. Still, the talent is there, he just turned 26 in November and he has 2 years left of service time after 2019. He is also only making 2.8M this year, so he represents a great trade target for literally every ML team, even if they aren’t in the playoff race. I will be interested to hear what Elias shows Bundy, stat analysis wise, that could change his approach on the mound.
Mychal Givens is basically in the same boat. He is older than Bundy (Givens turns 29 in May) but his salary for 2019 is only 2.1M and he also has 2 years left of service time. So, much like Bundy, he is a trade target for everyone. Unlike Bundy, Givens has put together full seasons of elite level pitching. Givens wasn’t awful in 2018 but his numbers were down. His ERA was 3.99, which was ¾ run higher than any other season and was over a run higher than 2017. His K rate dropped from over 10 to 9.27 and he saw his BB rate jump up about .7 from 2017. He did see his HR rate drop from 2017 but 2017 was a real outlier in his career thus far in terms of a high HR rate. His FIP was 3.07 but his xFIP was 4.11. His swinging strike % was 19% and he threw a lot do strikes this year (66%). Basically, his peripheral stats were pretty good and deserved better than a 3.99 ERA. His BABIP jumped up to 284 (a 33-point increase from 2017). It really just came down to him giving up more runs. The last 3 years, he has thrown around 75 innings, give or take. He had never allowed more than 26 runs in his previous seasons but that number went up to 34 this past year. So, what happened? With men on base this year, he allowed an OPS of 709 and a BA of 224. Those numbers don’t sound so terrible but the OBP was 340. The highest OBP he had allowed in those situations was 301 and the highest OPS was 644. He walked 20 guys in 37.1 IP with runners on base. He faced 157 batters in those situations. He also gave up 11 extra base hits and hit 3 batters. So, 22% of the players he faced got on via a BB, HBP or XBH. That number was around 17% each of the first few years of his career. End of the day, last year he just gave away too many outs and allowed guys to get on for free and it hurt him. Of course, there are some flukish things in his stats that occur in SSS (like he gave up a 961 OPS to lefties on the road last year) but he gave up 10 runs in 3 outings that last 2.2 innings and that type of poor production can really skew your numbers when you are a reliever. Still, much like Bundy, there were a lot of encouraging signs and things to “hang your hat on” for this upcoming season.
Since these two players have high upsides, low salaries and a lot of service time left, they are the two players on this team that could really bring back some potential game changing talent. It’s because of this that I feel they are the two most important players in the organization right now. Big first halves from these guys could mean huge returns for each of them. We don’t normally see a lot of guys this cheap and with this much service time available. These are the types of players teams are extending during their arbitration years, not trading them. And who knows, maybe the Orioles will feel the same way and sign them to extensions, but I think Elias knows that these two aren’t going to win you anything on their own and what they could bring us back in trade is more valuable to the team long term than the production they could provide on the field.
As Orioles fans, these are the two guys you root for the hardest this year. It’s quite possible that 3 very good months from them could re-shape the future of this organization. That may sound over the top, but we saw what a few trades (Bedard and Koji) did for us and there is no reason that can’t happen again with these 2.
Rob has interviewed guests from outlets such as ESPN, Sports Illustrated, NBC Sports, CBS Sports, FOX Sports, Baseball Prospectus, Athlon, Sporting News, MLB Network, Brooks Baseball, Baseball Info Solutions, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, Sports on Earth, Grantland, NFL Network, FanGraphs, Football Outsiders, ProFootballFocus, etc. etc. The Baltimore native lives in Perry Hall with his Wife Lindsay, and two young sons. He has appeared as a guest on 105.7 The Fan, Q1370, and WNST 1570. Co-Host of The Warehouse: https://anchor.fm/the-warehouse Co-Host of Sports Tonight: https://anchor.fm/sports-tonight