Many Orioles fans, myself included, believe the Orioles should enter the season with one more starter. I have talked a lot about adding Alex Wood and if I were the Orioles, I would be doing everything I reasonably could to bring him to Baltimore. Another name that has been talked about a lot is Yovani Gallardo. He has been a durable pitcher for his career but recent drops in K rate are part of the reason that we should be concerned about Gallardo long term – and that’s before you consider his expected contract and the loss of pick.
(You can discuss this on the BSL Board here.)
A question not asked by most fans is this…are the Orioles actually okay with their 5th starter right now? As it stands, the clubhouse leader to be the 5th starter is probably Vance Worley. Worley, who just turned 28 in September, will be pitching for his 4th ML club this coming season. He emerged onto the scene in 2011, finishing 3rd in the ROY voting, while compiling an 11-3 record with an ERA just over 3 and a very solid K rate of 8. His W/L record and ERA took a step back in 2012 but his peripherals were still solid and his BABIP was 340, so he had some bad luck there. The Phillies traded Worley to Minnesota after that season. The Twins traded him to the Pirates, after a bad 2013 season.
At his age, for him to have jumped around as much as he has, especially while making so little money, its fair to ask is he really any good? The answer to that is, he actually isn’t as bad as many of us have made him out to be. First of all, look at his peripheral stats. His career K rate is just under 7. His walk rate is 2.74 and his HR rate is .83. His career FIP is 3.76 and his career xFIP is 3.92. His career ERA is 3.79. That stat line, across the board, is better than Gonzalez and Tillman. Worley has pitched some out of the pen, 23 games, in his career, so there is some help with those numbers there but still, he hasn’t shown to be any worse than 2 guys we feel are shoo-ins for the rotation. Worley doesn’t do a good of missing bats but he gets a lot of called strikes. The two FanGraphs articles linked there are well done and show some of his strengths, so I will let those articles speak for themselves. As a starter, he is usually good for 16-18 outs. He also gets a fair amount of ground balls as well, with a ground ball rate right around 1.5:1 in the last 4 years.
He has always had an ERA that is just below the average to above average with the exception of 2013. He pitched for the Twins that year. He had 10 starts and pitched only 48 2/3 innings with an ERA over 7. He saw a big drop in his K rate. He had a HR/FB ratio that was about double what it usually is and he had a 401 BABIP. In other words, he was pretty unlucky that year although I am sure some of that had to do with him consistently throwing awful pitches. That being said, it’s also a small sample size and completely out of the norm to what he has usually done in his career. My fellow BSL colleague Brandon Warne, talked about his struggles that year.
Worley has never shown he can take the ball every 5th day for a full season. He has never thrown more than 133 big league innings in any season. He has never started more than 23 games. But he has shown himself to be a solid, albeit unspectacular, pitcher in the majors for most of his career. For 2 million dollars, he might prove to be a steal. His floor is low and his ceiling isn’t tremendously high but he is likely to be a contributing player and the reality is, he really isn’t much of a worse option than some of what we have and a lot of what was available this off-season. There are bigger names and perhaps guys that are more likely to be better and, at the very least, throw more innings but still, Worley has usually been pretty reliable and at his salary, he has good upside for this team.
We all talk about Dumpster Dan but Duquette has done a good job of finding guys like this and Worley is another example of a guy who may not have a big name or a big contract but that doesn’t mean he can’t give you those results. We will see if his inability to miss bats is an issue for him as he gets a second go around in the AL and if he is DFA’d by June, it won’t be surprising. But it also won’t be surprising if we look at the end of the year and say that Worley was one of the 2 or 3 most effective starters we have. While I still want them to acquire Alex Wood, I think it would be fair to say that Worley should have the same shot to make the rotation as Gonzalez. That’s not to say I dislike Gonzalez. Quite the opposite actually but I also think Gonzalez, who can miss bats, is perhaps a better option in the pen and since he is coming off such a poor second half and he doesn’t pitch a lot of innings either, a competition between the two wouldn’t be unfair. Of course, they would need to acquire Wood first for that to be needed.
I will say this though. While Gallardo is more likely to pitch the amount of innings you would like to have, I don’t feel any better with him than I would with Worley, when talking strictly about performance. Also, even though Gallardo is more likely to throw way more innings, you have to question if those additional innings would be of a significantly higher quality? Of course, the other-side to that argument would be the additional rest the bullpen would figure to get with Gallardo over Worley.
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