The Orioles Will Have Major Changes and Few Differences in Right Field, and That’s Okay

When the Orioles traded two minor league pitchers to the Chicago White Sox for outfielder Alejandro De Aza, it appeared a (possibly unnecessary) play for outfield depth. MLB Trade Rumors called De Aza a luxury for the playoff-bound Orioles, and he was viewed, at least by some, as a non-tender candidate following the 2014 season. That all went out the window in the fall of 2014, when lifetime Oriole Nick Markakis signed a four-year deal worth $44 million with his hometown Atlanta Braves and Baltimore appeared to have a hole to fill just below the scoreboard in right field.

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It appeared that way because many thought the Orioles would chase Matt Kemp, Justin Upton, or any of the other openly available free agents and trade candidates on the market this offseason. Dan Duquette and company reportedly made those calls, though his interest may have been nominal at best, and nothing came of them. Was the asking price for these outfield pieces, in trade, in salary, or both, too great for the Baltimore front office? Were those in charge concerned – rightfully, apparently -about the health of the potential additions? It doesn’t matter now: the market for outfielders has thinned, unless reports that Wil Meyers is on the table again following his move to San Diego, and the Orioles might not be or have ever been players in it anyway. For they have luxury depth player Alejandro De Aza, plucked from waivers, already on the roster, ready to fill the right fielder’s spot on the depth chart.

To some (many? most? all? probably all) Orioles fans, this sounded at first like a significant downgrade at a position that had been held so tightly by fan favorite two-time-Gold-Glove winner Nick Markakis. In reality, Markakis was probably a popular figure in Baltimore more for his longevity, health, and being a good guy more than his actual play.

I may be cynical, but I translate these common phrases – all of which were applied to Markakis in recent years – in the following ways:

• “true leadoff hitter” = “only hits singles”
• “veteran presence” = “been around a while; better at mentoring than playing”
• “sure-handed outfielder” = “outfielder, and one who doesn’t make uncommon plays”
• “terrific arm” = “yeah, Markakis had an absolute cannon”
• “could turn it around at hit home runs like he did in his rookie year” = “come on, dude, stop dreaming”
• “dependable” = “admittedly consistent, but the flip side is the lack of a great ceiling”

But this isn’t supposed to be a breakup song about Nick Markakis. It’s an affirmation of my belief in De Aza’s ability to match Markakis’ on-field product. I say these somewhat-harsh things about Markakis’ play because they cut through the mythology that surrounded the player and help us to more objectively evaluate De Aza’s ability to take the reigns of right field and give us everything we’ve counted on for years. It’s not that some of these things don’t apply to De Aza, they do: his power has dropped drastically, he’s on the wrong side of 30 for optimistic improvement, and he doesn’t exactly raise the roof with his potential. He’s just… going to give us the exact same thing that Markakis did.

To compare the Orioles’ longstanding right fielder with the player most likely to take his place in 2015, I used three-year averages of batting average, on-base percentage, and strikeout and walk rates. This isn’t the most scientific way to do things, and these aren’t even necessarily the best stats to use (batting average, most notably), but it’s a start. Lest you be concerned about sample sizes when comparing an everyday right fielder to a player that joined the Baltimore squad on the bench, De Aza has had 100 more PA against righties than Markakis since 2012, and 200 fewer PA versus lefties.

Markakis is unlike De Aza in that he tends to hit lefties about as well as he hits righties – for singles, at least. Over the last three years, Markakis has hit .285/.343 against lefties and .277/.350 against righties – not bad! De Aza has has .242/.357 against lefties and .272/.337 against righties. These are pretty similar base stats. While Markakis reaches base against lefties more often via the hit, De Aza has managed to top Markakis’ OBP on the strength of 6 more walks in 200 fewer plate attempts. Against righties, De Aza hits about as well as Markakis, but walks less often.

This is all fleshed out by their respective BB%. Against lefties, De Aza walks 12.2% of the time but has paired one terrific year (2012; 22.4% BB%) with two bad ones (2013-2014; 7.2% and 4.2%, respectively). Markakis has been more consistent, but still hovering at 7.1% and never deviating far from that. Against righties, De Aza has displayed a more consistent ability to walk (or, really, not walk), posting a 7.8% BB% without much derivation from that annually. Markakis’ BB% shoots all the way up to 9.1% with little movement around that figure.

Where they differ mightily, at least in these early glances, is in their K% from 2012-2014. Against lefties, Markakis has struck out in 14.9% of his plate attempts since 2012. De Aza has done so in 21% of his. Against righties, Markakis is slightly better, striking out just 9.8% of the time to De Aza’s 21%.

On the other hand, De Aza’s power numbers are more promising than Markakis’. While Markakis did holda .195 ISO against lefties in an injury-shortened 2012, his ISO against lefties since has been about 0.50. De Aza had a rough year for power against southpaws in 2014 with a .069 ISO – still better than Markakis’ new normal, I’ll point out – his ISO against lefties was .116 in 2012 and .158 in 2013. He could have been in a down year, or he could have seen his power against southpaws take a dive off of a cliff.

In addition to pairing strikeouts with power, De Aza’s ability (or inability) to put the bat on the ball also means that he grounds into double plays less often. Markakis has grounded into double plays in 3.3% of at bats over the last three seasons while De Aza has done so in just 1.3% of at bats over the same time frame. Of course, this isn’t controlled for opportunity or pitcher or batter tendencies, so it may not be worth much, but it stands to reason that if De Aza goes down swinging or looking, he’s not taking anyone else with him.

The reason I’m not concerned about De Aza’s power is what he showed against righties in the last few years. Hovering around a .140 ISO for the 2012-2014 period, De Aza crushed righties to a .149 ISO in 2014. Markakis has better power numbers against righties, bouncing between .100, .130, and .160 over the last three years. Frankly, neither is going to be likely to put up serious home runs, but De Aza is less of a lottery ticket against righties and has better potential versus lefties to do so. Over the next 4 years with regular playing time, De Aza would probably hit more home runs than Markakis.

Markakis is projected by Steamer to have a 101 wRC+ in 2015 while De Aza is projected to post a 104 wRC+. If they’re so similar at the plate, at least in outcomes, why is Steamer projecting De Aza to be worth 0.6 fWAR more than Markakis? Realistically, this isn’t much of a difference anyway, but it’s notable for two players who have such different perceptions to fans. One is a terrific defender and a terrible loss for the Orioles, and the other may have been a non-tender candidate! Unless, of course, the terrific defender isn’t as terrific as many people thought.

As always, the normal caveats for defensive metrics apply, so just keep in mind that they are imperfect and exist in a small sample, they are only really valuable in three year periods, and that they depend very much on luck and opportunity and things that aren’t measured, like positioning before the ball approaches. Nick Markakis was, according to FanGraphs, a below-average fielder not just in 2014, but in every year of his career except for his standout 2008 season. In fact, 2014 was his best year since 2007 by their Defensive Runs Above Average metric, worth just 2.5 runs less than average.

Before I go into why Markakis isn’t as good a defender as perhaps you thought, I’ll explain why I’m pointing out his shortcomings in the field rather than De Aza’s defensive strengths: it’s because De Aza isn’t an incredible defensive outfielder. Over the last three years, he’s posted a cumulative -0.6 Defensive Runs Above Average figure, with two years over 0 (one of which was 0.2) and one year below 0. He’s an average defensive outfielder, which is just fine for the Orioles’ needs of replacing Nick Markakis, because Markakis was, at best, also average.

So Markakis is, on the whole, a poor defensive outfielder. How does that come to be? The guy has two Gold Glove awards! He never makes any errors and has a 99.4% fielding percentage in right field! This is where the old Derek Jeter argument comes in: he never makes errors because he doesn’t have enough range to get to challenging balls in play, and therefore never gets a glove on a ball that could be really difficult to make an out on. Markakis’ Range Runs Above Average has been negative since 2009, typically around -9 to -11. His UZR was between -5.5 and -8.5 from 2009 to 2013, until he ended up with a 6.2 UZR in 2014. Is he getting faster and rangier? Probably not; it’s a one-year sample with a flawed metric. It doesn’t make sense anyway: why would Markakis be faster the older he gets?

Where Markakis makes his money in the field is with his arm. His throwing ability is often noted as a significant attribute, and the eye test in this case doesn’t lie. Markakis has always been average or above-average in throwing runners out from the outfield, saving the Orioles between 1 and 7 runs above average on his arm alone in all but two seasons. As long as he displays a cannon in right field, he’ll be an asset. Without knowing exactly how the ARM metric is calculated, I’d like to point out that an outfielder can prevent runs with his arm in two ways: throwing runners out and stopping runners from taking an extra base. One is very visible, while the other is not so much. It’s hard to tell if a player stays at first when he sees Markakis come up with the ball because he doesn’t want to test the throw to second, or for any number of other reasons. What concerned me about extending Markakis for four years is the longevity of his arm strength. 2014 was something of a renaissance for Markakis in many ways, including saving runs by being able to really toss the ball. I pointed out that Markakis’ run-saving ability has always been between 1 and 7 runs above average per season, but his seasons closer to 7 have been 2008 (6.7) and 2014 (5.5). Everything else has been between 1 and 2.5 runs saved above average. Whether 2014 is the start of a new trend thanks to overall health, a different training regimen, or whatever else remains to be seen, but 5 consecutive seasons of slightly-above-average run-saving ability from throwing is worrisome as Markakis enters his mid-30s.

De Aza, on the other hand, presents little threat to baserunners. His ARM is average at best, and tends to be more in the shallow sub-zero range. He’s not going to catch a guy at the plate the way Markakis might. What he will do is make it harder to get a ball to land in right field in the first place, as his range is significantly better than Markakis’. De Aza has never been below-average in terms of runs saved by range, and has paired slightly-above-average with very-much-above-average years. The two outfielders reach the same pedestrian finish in two very different ways, but the fact remains that, based on what we know of their defense, they’ll both provide average to slightly-above-average defense. It may not be an upgrade for the Orioles, but that’s clearly not what they’re going for. If the goal is to replace Markakis’ production, the Orioles are doing just that

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One thing I haven’t pointed out in this discussion, a celebration even, of De Aza’s dependable averageness, is the concept of opportunity cost. On the one hand, moving from Markakis’ large $17M contract figure (owed for 2015), $15M through a qualifying offer, or his potential 4/$40M that was offered by the team to De Aza’s friendlier projected $5.9M saves the organization $4M to $11M, depending on how the team could have retained Markakis. In the fans’ idealized world, this saved money would have been used to hire the outfield services of a well-known name. Instead, the Orioles are moving ahead with a decent right fielder rather than a potentially great (or at least potentially nationally recognized) one.

Going with De Aza instead of Markakis opened up the opportunity for upgrades in right field or elsewhere, but going with De Aza instead of anyone else was probably sacrificing an opportunity for great benefit from the addition of another right fielder. This is the reason, really, that Orioles fans are upset at this point in the offseason: a perceived lack of upgrading whenever and wherever possible. There are harsh realities that affect that too, including income, allocated payroll, internal trade candidates, and the needs of other teams with available trade candidates.

At the same time, going with De Aza instead of anyone else opens up the possibility for upgrading in right field heading into 2016. De Aza is a free agent following the 2015 season, and the Orioles have little committed money on the books for 2016 and beyond. If the Baltimore front office believes that the market for outfielders will be more favorable to their long-term aspirations, the opportunity cost of employing De Aza right now appears to be less. This argument may be chopped down at the knees with prolific outfielders like Justin Upton also entering free agency following the 2015 season, but it’s important to remember that 2015 is, itself, not the end line for the Orioles organization. If De Aza today gives them a better chance to compete tomorrow and the day after than a player like Matt Kemp would, it’s better for the team to sacrifice the chance to upgrade at one position for the short term.

While De Aza may not have been the best or most ideal right fielder for most Orioles fans’ visions of the 2015 season, he’ll probably be just fine for the Orioles’ needs from that position. At the very least, he’ll give us exactly what we came to expect after so many years with Nick Markakis: solid, if unremarkable, play.