where did the O's come from?

[flash143817]

I look at Cleveland's offense and wonder how they're winning...

Tons of walks. They lead the majors in walk rate and have the second lowest K rate for batters. Basically they just annoy the pitchers and wear them out with great at-bats. Just keep stringing together enough baserunners and eventually they have to score some runs.

Good thing too, because they are well below average in defense, baserunning, and starting pitching.

According to Fangraphs, they rank dead last in baserunning runs, and 3rd to last in fielding runs.

So they are kinda like the early 2000's A's, except without Giambi and the big 3 pitchers.

[Zito75]

Tons of walks. They lead the majors in walk rate and have the second lowest K rate for batters. Basically they just annoy the pitchers and wear them out with great at-bats. Just keep stringing together enough baserunners and eventually they have to score some runs.

Good thing too, because they are well below average in defense, baserunning, and starting pitching.

According to Fangraphs, they rank dead last in baserunning runs, and 3rd to last in fielding runs.

So they are kinda like the early 2000's A's, except without Giambi and the big 3 pitchers.

Interesting... I haven't really taken a dive into their stats but see where you're coming from...

[Santoball]

Wait till Dylan Bundy gets there, I say Sept if they are still in it.

[DiggerODell]

. . . literally, St. Louis ;-)

[Erik Bedard]

Wait till Dylan Bundy gets there, I say Sept if they are still in it.

That won't happen. He should be up sometime next year, hopefully for good, but he's on a strict IP limit this year and there's no way he gets to the majors.

[hwmongoose]

The screen name of the last poster is a big part of the answer to the question of this thread. GM Andy Macphail trading away his best pitcher (Erik Bedard) and his best hitter (Miguel Tejada) for 5 players each in 2 seperate trades in his first offseason as GM of the O's yielded Adam Jones among others and started the ball rolling towards this 2012 season.