2007 is not destined to be remembered as one of the great offensive seasons in Orioles history.  The club posted a collective Offensive Winning Percentage of .456 this past year, the eighth worst mark in the 54 seasons since the St. Louis Browns relocated to Baltimore.  That the club did even worse twice earlier this decade (2001 and 2002) is hardly cause for rejoicing.

2007 also marked just the second time since the inception of this version of the Baltimore Orioles in 1954 that the team failed to put forth a single player with at least 300 plate appearances who managed to reach the .600 OWP threshold.  (2002 was the other time.)

Let's take a look around Major League Baseball, position-by-position.  If you're familiar with the concept of Offensive Winning Percentage, feel free to skip the boilerplate explanation immediately below.

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In the final analysis, an offense is essentially the sum of its conjoined parts, and a glance at those parts--relative to the rest of Major League Baseball--provides a fairly intuitive recipe for diagnosing the problems and identifying possible solutions.

What follows is a position-by-position breakdown of players (minimum 300 plate appearances) from both leagues sorted by Offensive Winning Percentage.  OWP is a great stat to use when accompanied by a plate appearance (PA) minimum because it's park, league and era adjusted and because its definition is so forthcoming.  A .700 OWP means that a team with a full lineup of hypothetical Player Xs would win 70% of its games with an average pitching/defense in a neutral park.  In other words, Player X is a pretty valuable commodity.

The analysis is performed on a position-by-position basis because this all-encompassing measure of offensive production is most robust when a player can be compared with the immediately available alternatives.

(Note: AL and NL averages at each position are represented by an amalgam of all players who played at that position--not merely those displayed in the table of qualifiers.)

Orioles players are highlighted in orange. The AL average is shown in red. The NL average is displayed in green.

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Before proceeding with the positional breakdown, let's examine the overall team OWP numbers for 2007:

The Orioles ranked 26th in baseball and 12th in the 14-team American League in OWP in 2007--a significant decline from 2006 (.488, 19th overall, 10th AL).  Part of the explanation for the worse than run-scoring ranking (9th) was how hitter-friendly Camden Yards was in 2007 (Run Index:  111, tied for second highest in the league last year and the highest mark for the ballpark since 1994).  With an average pitching staff in an average ballpark, the Orioles could have reasonably expected a 74-88 record purely on the basis of their offensive performance.  That the team actually finished five games worse than this was largely a function of them having a considerably worse than average pitching performance in 2007.  The club's .456 OWP was, by far, the worst in the AL East.  In fact, three of their four divisional competitors--the Yankees, Rays and the Red Sox--finished in the top six among all major league teams in OWP.  (Yes, Tampa Bay finished slightly ahead of Boston in OWP last year, with the third best OWP in the AL in 2007.)

Let's examine the components.

CATCHER

As the numbers in the above table show, if you get any offense out of the catcher position, you're ahead of the curve.  That Ramon Hernandez could post a .400 OWP and be roughly major league average speaks volumes.  Still, it was a huge decline in performance for Hernandez, whose previous four seasons were all above .500.  Ramon appeared in only 106 games last year due to injury, so roughly 250 plate appearances were sucked up by other players.  In case you're wondering how they did:

A bounce back of some kind from Hernandez in 2008 is probably reasonable, assuming he stays healthy (and, of course, this is likely regardless of whether Ramon remains with the Orioles or not).  But as he'll turn 32 in May, Hernandez's days as an offensive threat are probably winding down.  As a group, catchers start to slide more quickly than other players as they reach their thirties and usually fall off the table completely by 34 or so.

Which brings us to Jason Varitek and Jorge Posada.  Last year, I wrote this about Varitek:

"Varitek's performance--his worst since 2000--has to have the Red Sox worried.  The veteran will turn 35 next season and there must be at least some concern that it represents the beginning of the end of a multi-year stretch of better than expected play by the switch hitter.  The age-34 season marked a substantial downturn for Johnny Bench a quarter of a century ago and Varitek--despite a fine three-year stretch (2003-05) is no Johnny Bench.  Here's one you can impress your friends with:  in the modern (i.e. post-1900) history of major league baseball, how many times has a catcher, age 35 or greater, posted a single season OWP above .500 and qualified for the batting title in the same year?  Answer:  four.  How many times has a catcher not named "Fisk" done it?  Once.  (Elston Howard in 1964.)  Fisk did it three times including an incredible .648 mark in 521 plate appearances at age 42 in 1990--surely one of the greatest accomplishments in baseball history.  Perhaps the PA requirement is too high.  After all, only 10 catchers qualified for the batting title in 2006 regardless of age.  Let's drop that PA criterion to 300.  In that case, the feat has been accomplished a grand total of 38 times in modern major league history.  Given the relative paucity of the criteria (.500 OWP, 300 PA), that's not a very comforting thought for anyone with a catcher 35 or older from whom they expect some offense.  Mike Piazza and Gregg Zaun both pulled it off last year (and Piazza also did it in 2005).  Piazza, Zaun and Greg Myers (2003) are the only three to have managed this accomplishment since 1990 and Piazza (both times) was the only one of the three to accumulate as many as 400 plate appearances.  Varitek is going to have to buck some serious historical trends to return to a role as a mere offensive contributor, to say nothing of the likelihood of him resuming his status as a major cog in Boston's offensive wheel."  

In 2007 Varitek became just the fifth catcher in major league history to qualify for the batting title and achieve an OWP above .500--though just barely on both criteria.  Varitek bounced back nicely from the .398 he managed in 2006, but his .502 OWP last year was his second worst mark since 2002.  From 2001 through 2005, Varitek reached the .570 mark four times and cleared .600 twice.  Those days are almost certainly over, and it's highly likely that Varitek will slide back in the direction of his 2006 season in '08.  The Red Sox have got to be planning for the day--sooner rather than later--when they need a new starting catcher.

The Posada saga is, if anything, even more interesting.  In terms of seasons by catchers with at least 300 plate appearances, Jorge's 2007 was the 29th best (in OWP terms) in modern big league history.  But Posada was 35--usually a death knell age for catchers.  For catchers at least 35 years of age with a minimum of 300 PAs, it ranks second all-time (to Gabby Hartnett's 1937 campaign).  For catchers at least 35 years of age who qualified for the batting title, it's the best ever--by a wide margin.  Carlton Fisk posted a .648 OWP in 521 PAs in 1990, when he was 42--a flabbergasting achievement.  (Number three, incidentally, was Fisk's 1985 season--.554 in 620 PAs at age 37.)  So Posada's in uncharted territory to start with.  But it goes beyond that.  The .723 OWP for Posada last year is a personal best.  If you parse the numbers, you'll see that, for the most part, Jorge was pretty much the same player offensively in 2007 that he's been his entire career, with one notable exception:  Posada hit .338 last season.  His previous  best was .287 and he entered '07 with a career BA of .270.  In retrospect, it's amazing how little attention Posada's amazing 2007 received.

Bottom line?  Posada's due for a big, big tumble next season.  Hey, he could slide 200 OWP points and, if he manages at least 500 plate apperaances, still have a season of historic proportions.  In fact, if he merely qualifies for the batting title at all, it'll be quite a feat.  In modern big league history, there have been only 18 times when a catcher at least 35 years of age has equaled or eclipsed the 502 PA threshold, including Posada, Varitek and Ivan Rodriguez last year.  All three were 35 last season.  Since Fisk accomplished the feat with that amazing 1990 season of his, only one catcher--Benito Santiago twice, at ages 35 and 36 in 2001 and 2002--has turned the trick until 2007.  

Speaking of Ivan Rodriguez, his OWP was his worst since 1992, his first year as a full-time starting catcher and more than 150 points below his career mark.  It would help if he learned to be more patient.  Of course, he's never walked much, but last year he drew eight unintentional walks in 515 plate appearances.

Russell Martin (Dodgers) and Josh Bard (Padres) were the only two catchers in the NL with at least 300 plate appearances to finish above .500 in OWP.  The top offensive catcher on the list from the NL Central was Pittsburgh's Ronny Paulino at .382.  Yes, the best.

FIRST BASE

It seems that I write this every year but, once again, the Orioles received subpar production from a key offensive position--and wait until you get a load of left field.  But I digress...

Kevin Millar finished with the 22nd best OWP from major league first basemen with at least 300 plate appearances.  Millar's OWP was a desultory .524, which ranked 12th among American Leaguers on this list.  The last time the Orioles had a first baseman qualify for the batting title and manage an OWP above .600 was Jeff Conine in 2001 (.624 in 601 PAs).    That year, Conine ranked 12th in OWP among big league first baseman with at least 300 plate appearances.

Millar's .524, by the way, was the second worst OWP of his career (.501 in 2005).

If you're searching for an explanation for the O's inability to produce upper tier offense in recent years, look no further than the team's consistent inability to generate well above league average offense from the "big offense" positions of first base, left field and designated hitter.  This was the sixth consecutive season that an Orioles first baseman failed to record an OWP of at least .570.  The average OWP for AL first basemen over that period of time is .573.

How about the season that Carlos Pena managed in 2007?  His .787 OWP was not only the highest among all major league first basemen last season, it was the highest among all players with at least 300 plate appearances.  Yes, that includes Alex Rodriguez.  Pena became the first player in the ten-year history of the Tampa Bay franchise to clear the .700 OWP threshold with at least 100 PA's.  (By comparison, only three times in the modern history of the Baltimore Orioles has a player finished with a higher OWP than Pena's .787 with at least 300 PAs:  Frank Robinson did it twice (.823 in 1967 and .809 in 1966) and Jim Gentile did it once (.804 in 1961).

Given the disastrous 2007 that Scot Thorman was having, it's pretty easy to see why Atlanta traded for Mark Teixeira.  Talk about night and day; Thorman's .289 was replaced by the .771 that Teixeira compiled in his 54 games with the Braves.

Albert Pujols' .709 OWP was the worst of his career.  In truth, it was almost identical to his first two years as a major leaguer (.717 and .714 in 2001 and 2002 respectively).  Pujols' career mark is .760 and he's been over .700 in all seven years in the big leagues.  Pujols ranks 10th all-time in OWP (min. 4000 plate appearances) and second among active players (min. 2500 PAs) to Barry Bonds.

The Mets have to be concerned.  Carlos Delgado's 2007 season was the worst of his career; Delgado turns 36 in June.

Dtitto the Dodgers and Nomar Garciaparra, who had his worst year ever at age 33.  Fortunately for Los Angeles, they have James Loney.

And teams that fancy themselves as contenders--including the Mariners and Blue Jays--can look at the 2007 seasons of Richie Sexson and Lyle Overbay respectively to identify clear offensive holes.  Both had their worst seasons as big leaguers, with production that would make them look at Kevin Millar with envy.

The Giants more or less split first base playing time between Ryan Klesko and Rich Aurilia and received the 27th and 32nd ranked players on the above list.

SECOND BASE

Production from the second base position ticked up in 2007 after many years in the toilet.  Just over half the players on the list reached the .500 OWP mark this season.

This was one of the very, very few--arguably only, depending on your evaluation--positions at which the Orioles exceeded the league average by an appreciable amount.  Brian Roberts posted, easily, the second best offensive season of his career in 2007.  This was only the second time that Roberts cleared the .500 mark and he did so by a significant margin, finishing fourth among ML second basemen and second among American Leaguers at his position.  He also led the club in OWP.  Only three qualifying Orioles cleared the .500 OWP mark in '07 and only one non-qualifier (Tike Redman, .553 in 139 PAs) did likewise.

Roberts really has become an elite second baseman.  Even last year, when he was recovering from injury and finished with a .496 OWP, he finished third among AL second baseman who qualified for the batting title.  The 2B position remains sufficiently shallow that when Roberts has a truly good offensive season, even in the context of all players (i.e. not just second basemen), he's nearly the best in the league and in the top five around baseball.  While it's questionable whether Roberts is really capable of putting up seasons like 2007 on an annual basis, his prowess--and the fact that he's not exactly long in the tooth yet--and the fact that he's one of the very few plus position players the Orioles have is the reason why they absolutely must receive major return on him if they deal him this off-season or prior to the '08 trade deadline.  Roberts is one of only three ML second baseman to reach the .450 OWP/300 PA thresholds in each of the last five seasons (Jeff Kent and Luis Castillo are the other two).

Chase Utley's .736 OWP was, by far, the best at his position in 2007...and that's coming after .646 and .650 seasons in '05 and '06 respectively.  (Only 16 second basemen in modern big league history have managed a minimum of three consecutive seasons with OWPs of at least .640.) At this point, Utley has firmly established himself as the best second baseman in all of baseball.  In the last 30 years, only two qualifying second baseman have had higher OWPs than Utley last season--Craig Biggio (.753) in 1997 and Jeff Kent (.745) in 2000.

The Braves have to be licking their chops at the thought of the infield production they're likely to get next season, with Mark Teixeira at first, exciting Yunel Escobar at short (see the SS section below), Chipper Jones at third and Kelly Johnson at second.  Only Utley finished ahead of Johnson among NL second basemen in OWP.

It's pretty hard to fathom how the Mariners ended up with a team OWP of .509 after the first three positional breakdowns.  Thus far, catcher Kenji Johjima's .437 OWP is the best mark, by a wide margin.  Richie Sexson just killed the club's offense, finishing 150 points below the AL first base average and Jose Lopez was roughly 175 points below the second base average.

Looking at the bottom segment of the above list, three formerly top flight 2Bs dominate the names.  Craig Biggio's career finally came to an end, with his two worst seasons, by far, as a major leaguer in '06 and '07.  Ray Durham is 36 now and coming of a gut-wrenchingly bad season after a solid big league career.  Durham's previous season low OWP was .448 (his '07 mark was .284), and this was only his fourth season below .500 in a 13-year career.  One has to wonder if he's done.  And Marcus Giles continues his death spiral downward after being one of the top second basemen in baseball from 2003 through 2005.

And then there's Jeff Kent.  The Dodgers second baseman will be 40 in 2008 and has remained remarkably productive.  Since becoming a regular in 1992, Kent has had only two seasons with an OWP below .500--and just barely both times (.491 in 1993 and .499 in 1997).  Kent's .606 career OWP as a second baseman (this eliminates his years as a third and first baseman--his overall career OWP is .601) ranks tenth all-time among major league second baseman with at least 3000 plate appearances in modern major league history.  Of the nine ahead of him, only Larry Doyle and Bobby Grich aren't in the Hall of Fame.  Kent, who holds the record for most home runs by a second baseman, is going to get serious consideration for enshrinement when the time comes 

SHORTSTOP

Miguel Tejada's .492 OWP was the lowest of his career since his first season as a full-time starter in 1999 (.445).  Tejada's next lowest mark was .535 in 2001.  Tejada's offensive decline, which corresponded with his first stint on the disabled list, essentially showed up in one area--a loss of power.  Tejada's HR% (HR/AB*100) of 3.5 was his lowest as a full-timer and represented the third consecutive drop, from a career high of 5.21% in 2004, his first year with the Orioles.  Every bit as worrisome was his doubles total of 19 in 514 ABs.  While the AB total was down roughly 25% from a typical full Tejada season (a function of the DL stint), the doubles total was only a bit more than half of what Miguel normally accumulates in a full season.  His Isolated Power mark in 2007 was .146, the worst of his career and far below his pre-2007 career mark of nearly .200.

All the numbers--plus a growing disregard for his range on defense--imply a player in decline, and that is almost certainly the long-range eventuality, but the question remains whether Tejada has something of a "last hurrah" in him.  I wouldn't be surprised to see Tejada, now with the Astros after the recent six-player trade, rebound significantly in the short-term.  The 2006 to 2007 decline was abrupt, and did coincide with the injury as well as Tejada's evident growing dissatisfaction with the directionless Orioles.  Moving to the National League, and a far more potent lineup (Lance Berkman, Carlos Lee and Hunter Pence) may well reinvigorate Tejada's bat.  Within a few years, however, 2007 may be no more than a fond memory as the signs of long-term decline are clear and real.

The Boston Red Sox have had plenty of success in recent years but this is in spite of some truly head-scratching performances by their shortstops.  The position has been something of a revolving door for Boston.  First Nomar Garciaparra became brittle and generally less effective and was packed off in 2004 and the team won the World Series despite a wretched offensive display from replacement Pokey Reese and a passable performance from Orlando Cabrera, who was acquired from Montreal at the trade deadline.  Cabrera was discharged following the season and the Red Sox filled the hole by signing Edgar Renteria, who had slipped a bit in 2004 after a couple of fine years with St. Louis.  Renteria had one disappointing year with Boston in 2005 and was shipped off to the Braves (where he recovered nicely) and replaced by Alex Gonzalez.  This was a bit of a curious move, since Gonzalez had never had as good a season with the bat as Renteria's "disappointing" 2005 with Boston.  Gonzalez was, predictably, a flop and he and fellow limp-noodled hitting shortstop Alex Cora played significant roles in Boston's playoff miss in 2006.  The team retooled again in 2007, acquiring Julio Lugo, who promptly went on to have the worst offensive season of his career (with further aid from Cora, who was no better).  What the Red Sox will do in 2008 remains to be seen.

The rock-and-roll nature of the shortstop position in major league baseball seems to have come to an end, with Alex Rodriguez now permanently moved to third base, Garciaparra moved, broken down (he hasn't reached 500 ABs in a season since 2003) and possibly all but done after a truly bad 2007 and Tejada in decline and facing a possible position switch.  That leaves only Derek Jeter from the quartet of the early 2000s and, at 33 years of age in '07, he's coming off his second worst season since 1997, OWP-wise.  Jeter's .586 mark in '07 wasn't bad--it led qualifying AL shortstops, in fact--but other than the .565 mark he posted in 2004, it's the only time he's been below .600 since 1997.  Superficially, the numbers for Jeter in '07 don't look all that much different than in '06 when he posted a .715 OWP, the second highest of his career, but poking around the edges, disparities do show up--a couple fewer home runs, 21 fewer BA points, eight more double play grounders and a huge drop in stolen bases, and rates of success.  Perhaps the biggest difference of all was the Yankee Stadium Run Index going from 90 to 107 in a single year.  Jeter's at the age where asking questions about decline are reasonable, but I wouldn't project him falling off the table any time very soon, assuming he's able to stay healthy and he's been very hearty over his career.

The best keystone combination in the NL is in Philadelphia--Chase Utley and Jimmy Rollins.  If Atlanta's faith in Yunel Escobar is well-placed, they'll be a close second (with Kelly Johnson).  Because of the hole the Phillies have at third, the Braves probably win the overall infield production contest in the NL.  

You have to wonder what the Cubs are thinking.  Ryan Theriot had a better year than anyone expected and his OWP was still only .361.  Given the level of expectations at Wrigley Field, they better have a backup plan in case Theriot crashes and burns completely (and Ronny Cedeno's .244 major league OWP isn't what I'm talking about).  It's probably worth noting that the Cubs ranked 25th in Major League OWP last year, so this was a palpably bad offensive team to begin with.  Any slippage in run scoring ability is going to make it very difficult for the Cubs to repeat their trip to the postseason, regardless of how well they pitch.

Omar Vizquel is looking done--as in done.  He'll be 41 in August, so there's nothing to be ashamed of.  In 2007, the Giants had 15 players accumulate at least 100 plate appearances and seven of them were at least 35 years of age.  They had nine players accumulate at least 300 plate appearances and every single one of them was at least 30 and seven were at least 35.

The Marlins keep selling off star caliber players, but they almost always get excellent talent in return.  Witness Hanley Ramirez, who led all ML shortstops in OWP last year.  It'll be interesting to see how the players acquired from Detroit in the Miguel Cabrera deal do.

Jhonny Peralta's 2005 season is looking like a major, major fluke.  He still looks like a legitimate starting big league player, but nothing like the superstar candidate he appeared to be when he posted a .666 OWP in 575 plate appearances in '05.  He hasn't cracked the .500 mark in two full seasons since.

After two straight stinker seasons, Pittsburgh's Jack Wilson essentially returned to the solid level of play he exhibited in 2004.

In the last two seasons combined, Juan Uribe has drawn a total of 39 unintentional walks in nearly 1000 at bats.  No wonder the White Sox dealt for Orlando Cabrera.

On the other hand, Seattle's Yuniesky Betancourt has drawn 29 unintentional walks in 1094 at bats over the past two seasons and the Mariners haven't traded for another shortstop.  Last season alone, Betancourt drew--steady--twelve unintentional walks in 538 at bats.  Uribe drew 12 UBBs in 463 ABs in 2006, so Betancourt wins...or something.  What's really impressive is that, among players with at least 502 plate appearances, Betancourt not only didn't have the fewest unintentional walks in 2007, he wasn't even second.  Ivan Rodriguez managed to walk unintentionally just eight times in 515 PAs (tied for seventh fewest in modern big league history among players with at least 502 PAs) and Tony Pena, Jr. drew only 10 UBBs in 536 PAs.  (The record, BTW, is six.)

THIRD BASE

Melvin Mora has sunk to the point where he's a far below average major league third baseman, at least offensively.  2007 marked Mora's fourth consecutive year of OWP decline, from a high in 2003, and the .422 he posted was the worst of his career, omitting the 39 PA 1999 season.  Mora turns 36 in early February and the signs of decline are rampant and unmistakable.  (One interesting anomaly--despite missing 36 games, Mora grounded into 22 double plays in 2007; his previous season high was 10.)  Mora is locked up for two more years at a relatively large salary with a full no-trade clause, so moving him will be difficult and, almost certainly, not lucrative if it happens.  The Orioles have signed several players to bad contracts in recent years; this is certainly one of them.

I noted last year, while Mora's decline was already in full, evident swing, that he had some company, most notably Eric Chavez and Troy Glaus.  Oakland's Chavez's OWP declined for the fourth consecutive season, and he's also been exceedingly brittle of late, missing nearly 100 games over the past two seasons.  Toronto's Glaus was a bit of a mixed bag.  His production returned, essentially, to 2004-05 levels, but after playing nearly full seasons in '05 and '06 following injury marred campaigns in 2002 and 2003, Glaus missed 37 games last year.

It's going to be interesting to see how the Mike Lowell three-year contract with Boston works out.  If I had to guess, I'd speculate that it doesn't go very well.  Lowell's .600 OWP in 2007, following decidedly subpar seasons in 2005 and 2006, returned him to a level very close to his career peaks with Florida in 2003 and 2004.  A close examination of the building blocks, however, show that virtually all of the difference between Lowell's .600 OWP in '07 and the .495 he posted in '06 was the 44 points of batting average he added.  His .324 stands in stark contrast with the rest of his career; his previous high was .293 and his career BA entering '07 was below .280.  It's fairly safe to assume that Lowell won't be hitting .324, or anything all that close to it, in the future.  His walk numbers were virtually unchanged from '06 to '07 and his power marks were actually a bit worse.

Chone Figgins of the Angels was the second highest qualifying third baseman in the AL last year, and he was 164 OWP points below the top guy, Alex Rodriguez.  Rodriguez's .780 OWP was the second best of his career, a hair below the .787 he posted in 2005 (when Yankee Stadium played as a less of a hitter's park).  The 10.21 raw runs created per game was the highest of his career.  I'll go out on a limb and predict that Alex Rodriguez doesn't duplicate his '07 performance in '08.  He turns 33 in late July and it's simply not reasonable to expect him to match last year's performance.  This isn't to say that he won't be plenty productive; his worst OWP since becoming a regular at age 20 was .580 in his sophomore season of 1997.  He hasn't been below .600 since and barring something catastrophic happening he won't be below .600 in 2008.

The depth at the third base position in 2007 was in the National League:  Chipper Jones (completing what was probably the league's best infield, from corner to corner, after the acquisition of Mark Teixeira), David Wright, Ryan Braun and Miguel Cabrera were the cream of the crop, and Aramis Ramirez was no slouch himself.  Cabrera, of course, is now in the American League with Detroit.

Braun was one of two Brewers in the top three in the National League (min. 300 PAs) in Isolated Power.  Prince Fielder of Milwaukee led the circuit; Ryan Howard (PHI) was second and Braun was third.  That Milwaukee infield wasn't too shabby in 2007 either; every member was above the league average in OWP, and three of them (Braun, 1B Fielder and second baseman Rickie Weeks) were well above average.  The closest thing to a weak link was shortstop J.J. Hardy.  None of these players will be older than 25 next year.  Even if the Brewers move Braun to left field and bring Bill Hall back to the infield at third, Hall will be the "old man" of the group at age 28.

I'm not sure what it says when a guy with a .102 ISO (Figgins) has the second best positional OWP in the AL.

Okay, so that 2004 season with the Dodgers is destined to stand out like a sore thumb in Adrian Beltre's career line.  They're never going to get their money's worth, but after a genuinely lousy first year with the Mariners in 2005, Beltre has ended up as a dependable major league starter with Seattle each of the past two years.  Of course the Mariners paid for a lot more than that.

If there were offensive holes for the Tigers in 2007--and since they finished second in the AL in club OWP, there weren't many--they were Ivan Rodriguez behind the plate, to some extent Sean Casey at first and Brandon Inge at third.  Rodriguez looks like he may have fallen off the cliff last year, but will be back in '08.  Detroit has addressed the other areas, however.  Casey's out--Carlos Guillen will move to first and should represent an offensive upgrade (what does it say if you move your shortstop to first and get better offensively?), with Edgar Renteria taking over at short.  Miguel Cabrera has been acquired to fill the third base hole, which boots Inge from a job.  Overall, Cabrera and Renteria should be an upgrade over the 2007 version of Casey-Inge.

The .271 OWP posted by starting 3B Nick Punto of the Twins was the worst for a ML batting title qualifying 3B since Vinny Castilla's .242 in 2002, the worst for an AL qualifier since Scott Brosius' .209 in 1997, the fifth worst for a ML qualifying third baseman since the start of divisional play in 1969 and the 16th worst among all ML qualifying third basemen in modern big league history.  In other words, he had a really bad year.

What to make of Scott Rolen?  He posted a sickly .421 OWP and missed 50 games to boot.  (Gawd, the food is awful...and such small portions!)  After eight consecutive strong seasons capped off by a truly outstanding year--MVP contending, Barry Bonds notwithstanding--in 2004, Rolen crashed and burned, literally and figuratively in 2005, missing 2/3 of the season with an assortment of injuries and posting a dreadful .403 OWP.  He bounced back to his solid roots with a full, productive season in 2006, and then suffered through last year's trouble.  Having missed roughly 150 games combined in '05 and '07 and entering his age 33 season, it's a fair question whether Rolen will be able to reprise his past level of play or not.  In fact, it's fair to ask whether he'll be able to remain on the field enough to qualify for the batting title.  The collapse of players like Rolen and Jim Edmonds is a large part of the reason for the slide of the St. Louis offense over the past few years, from a high of .555 in 2004 to .476 last year. 

LEFT FIELD

Here's what the Orioles got out of the left field position in 2006:

Incredibly, 2007 was even worse:

In addition to Jay Payton (more on him below) and his 123 games (100 starts), Jay Gibbons (43 G, 41 GS) held down most of the action in left field.  Gibbons compiled a .275 OWP.  Left field production for the Orioles in recent years has been absolutely atrocious.  In 2003 Melvin Mora had his first big season and, after Mora was hurt, Larry Bigbie stepped in and had a strong couple of months.  In 2004, Mora was moved to third base and Bigbie collapsed.  The Orioles haven't had a 300+ PA left fielder reach the .500 mark, let alone the positional average mark (which is almost always above .500--more on this below as well) since.  Prior to Mora/Bigbie, the last time the Orioles had a left fielder with a minimum of 300 plate appearances reach the .600 OWP mark was Brady Anderson in 1992.

As bad as things have been for Orioles left fielders historically, 2007 represented a new low.  As mentioned above, Jay Payton had the lion's share of the playing time in left field last year--roughly 2/3 of it--and Jay Gibbons had most of the rest.  Payton qualified for the major league left field grid with 470 plate appearances, far above the threshold of 300; Gibbons just barely missed (290 plate appearances).  Payton wasn't on the bottom of the list, but he had far more plate appearances than anyone around him.  The player on the list closest to Payton with a PA total anywhere near his (or higher) was Jason Bay, who finished 136 OWP points higher than Payton.  The only players on the list below him were Reed Johnson, who was a baby step away from Jay Gibbons in terms of qualifying (17 more plate appearances--big deal) and Craig Monroe and his train wreck of a season.

How bad a season did Payton have?  Only three times in O's history has a left fielder accumulated at least 300 plate appearances and finished the season with an OWP below .400.  B.J. Surhoff (.321 OWP in 324 PAs) did it in 2005 and Dick Williams (.261 OWP in 340 PAs) pulled it off in 1961.  So, Payton's mark is the second worst in the history of the Orioles among these qualifiers.  Note that Payton played far more than either Surhoff or Williams.  He's the only left fielder in club history to eclipse 350 plate appearances and finish with an OWP below .400.  In the history of the American League, among left fielders with at least 450 plate appearances, Payton's 2007 season was the seventh worst all-time.  (The worst ever, by a significant margin, is Brian L. Hunter's 1999 season, which he split between Detroit and Seattle--.256 OWP in 527 plate appearances.)

Speaking of American League history, I was struck by how low the 2007 LF AL OWP average was--.470.  I couldn't ever remember seeing a league average mark that low, so I spent some time compiling the positional average for the entire history of the league.  There was a good reason why I didn't recall seeing a mark as low as .470 before--there's never been one that low.  The 2007 AL LF OWP average was the lowest in history.  In the 107-season history of the American League, there have been only 10 occasions when the left field OWP average has been below .500.  Half of those occurrences have taken place since 1988; between 1939 and 1987, it only happened once (1961, when it was .496--hello Dick Williams).  Prior to 2007, the last time the mark dipped below .480 was in 1912 (.479).  Note that Carl Crawford tops the 2007 AL list above at .624.  The 107-year American League left field average is .551...but the last season where the average eclipsed .551 was 1980 (the 2003 average was exactly .551).

What can you say about Barry Bonds?  His .770 OWP was, by far, the highest of any player on the above list and the highest of any qualifying National League player period.  He finished only 17 OWP points below the qualifying major league leader (Carlos Pena).  The last time Bonds had a season with an OWP below .700 was 1989, when he posted a .635 mark.  The 18 consecutive seasons with an OWP of .700 or better (regardless of plate appearances) is a big league record, by a wide margin.  Second place--13 straight--is occupied by three players, including Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb, if you allow missed seasons to break the streak.  If you don't, Ted Williams is second with 17.

In the "it's all how you look at it" department, Hideki Matsui's .607 was the worst mark with the Yankees since his "adjustment" first season with the club in 2003, and yet, he was scarcely below his major league career average (.618) and ranked second in the AL among qualifying left fielders, just 17 points below Crawford.

Manny Ramirez, meanwhile, is coming off the worst season of his career since his 91-game rookie stint for Cleveland in the strike-shortened 1994 campaign.  His previous low OWP (after '94) was the .659 he posted for the Tribe in 1996.

The Cubs can't be entirely thrilled with the fact that there are 12 players on the above list ahead of their zillion-dollar man, Alfonso Soriano.

With Coors Field now playing like a regular "good" hitter's park instead of being off the charts as it was in the pre-humidor days, it's a lot easier to take Matt Holliday's raw numbers seriously.  He ended up leading qualifying National League left fielders in OWP last season.  Here's a Run Index chart for Coors since the park opened for business in 2005:

Experimentation with a humidor at Coors Field began, not surprisingly, in 2003.  The current three-year composite HR Index at Coors (2005-2007) is 112.

CENTER FIELD