The Orioles at Camden Yards

This chart can be used to look at the progress of the O's through the years, as well as the changing roster. The player who played the most games as each position for the season is the one listed. The pitchers who made the most starts and the most relief appearances are listed, as well as the most "closing opportunities" for the closer position.

The "R" column is the player rating for that season, as established by Total Baseball. This is a league adjusted, year adjusted, and position adjusted rating that uses their offensive winning percentage as the most heavily weighted factor. A 0.0 rating falls exactly neutral...this player didn't help you win, but he didn't lose games for you, either. A young player or veteran role player in the -1.0 to 0.0 range is an acceptable rookie growing pain range or a contributing veteran. A 0.0 to 1.5 or so is a solid major leaguer...a 1.5 to 2.5 is a guy having a very good year. A 2.5 to 3.5 is having an excellent year. Over a 3.5 is an All-Star season, and over a 4.0 is a truly outstanding year.

The worst performances by a pitcher and batter for each season are highlighted in blue. Orange seasons are All-Star worthy performances among the best in the league at the position that season. Red numbers are negatives.

There are a lot of things one can get out of this chart. (I originally created it to check on the "rebuilding" issues Dennis brought up in a recent series of posts.) One interesting thing is to look at the weighted "values" of the offense and defense in each year as depicted along the bottom. I was surprised to see the 1994 pitching staff rate so highly, for example. If "El Fat" had performed halfway decently, that team may have been in first when the lights went out instead of second, and we'd be forever wondering "What If?" since the Series was not played. (As it was, with six weeks to play, this team had the fourth best record in the AL.)

One can see how lopsided the 1996-97 teams were, the former all offense, the latter mostly pitching. If the O's had waited one more year to bring in Bordick or another shortstop, still played Surhoff at third, and had signed an outfielder instead, or if Brady had come up with the monster year one year later, they might have been able to go over the top. It's also interesting that Palmeiro had his worst offensive season in the Orange and Black that season. You know, with players like Raffy, hardly anyone says "you know, if he had a good season at the right time, maybe he would have won a World Championship."

Another thing that sticks out is how awful Devo was most of the time (His 1994 and 1996 seasons were the only sub 2.0 seasons put up by any Birds, though Bordick came close with a 1.9 in his first year of 1997). As much as I liked the guy, in addition to his lousy baserunning, he really didn't produce most of the time, either. Another guy who coasted through on basically one good year, 1992.

Like him or hate him, Brady Anderson is the only Oriole to put together two post 3.5 seasons on offense. Also demonstrated is the value of all those walks. He had seven positive seasons out of the nine played at The Yard.

And, yes, Doug Jones is the worst closer ever to pitch at The Yard. Timlin was inconsistent, but he wasn't nearly as bad as Jones.

To virtually no one's surprise, Cal Ripken has been the worst offensive player on the club two of the last three seasons, and he's currently working on making it three out of four. Actually, Cal's been pretty mediocre the last nine years. But that's no real secret, either.

Also interesting is how much the 1999 club "rebounded" from 1998, only to not win any more. Actually, a club with an offensive/defensive total of over 15 usually sports a winning record. But the total collapse of 2000 is there in all its ugliness.

1992 is interesting to note in that Brady, Devo, and Chris Hoiles basically carried the whole team offensively.

The Orioles during this time period never got everything together. They had four solid offensive years, and four solid pitching years, two really good ones of each...not once did both pitching and offense's solid years occur in the same season.

Enjoy playing with this or referring to it, and thanks to Dennis (Miss Agnes) for piquing my curiosity enough to put it together.

bob