Wieters' arrival a date to mark on your calendar

We saw last season what an influx of young talent can do to a solid team. Evan Longoria's arrival in Tampa Bay turned a solid team into a great one. David Price didn't hurt either, en route to the American League pennant. While the expectations should be slightly lower for the Baltimore Orioles this year, Matt Wieters' debut tonight is no less important for the future of the AL East.

The Joe Mauer comparisons are inevitable. The kid is a four-tool player (minus speed) who plays one of the most critical (and talent weak) positions in the sport. Expect Wieters, Adam Jones, Nick Markakis and Brian Roberts to cause headaches as the pennant race heats up. The Orioles may not yet be in position to challenge for the title, but once the crop of young pitchers the O's are training in the minor leagues hit, the AL East will be completely up for grabs.

At no point in my baseball viewing career have I seen a division as stocked with talent as the East has the potential to be in two years. If the Rays can hold onto their players, and the Jays add a reliable power bat and an arm or two around Roy Halladay that they can truly rely on, the division could end up with any team that plays there for years. The competition promises tons of drama, and a lot of hurt feelings. Buckle your seatbelts. One Oriole jokingly called him the "switch-hitting Jesus."

But the first step towards this supreme East will occur tonight, when the 23-year-old switch-hitter steps in against Detroit for his first Major League at-bat. We'll all get to see what he can do over the next chunk of time. He hit .400 in spring training, but his competition is certainly going to raise a level here in the regular season.

O's Acquire Pie from Cubs

The Baltimore Orioles have acquired former top outfield prospect Felix Pie from the Chicago Cubs for left-handed starter Garrett Olson and minor league right-hander Henry Williamson.

Olson has looked pretty bad in his first 33 Major League starts. He has posted a 6.87 ERA, going 10-13 with 111 strikeouts in 165 innings and a 1.82 WHIP for his career. This season, he was a hair better, going 9-10 with a 6.65 ERA with 83 Ks in 132.2 IP and a 1.73 WHIP in 26 starts. But, I guess the Cubs are reasoning that 25-year-old lefties don't grow on trees.

Williamson is not one of the top-10 prospects in the Baltimore organization, and none of his tools merited mention as top level in the 2008 report by Baseball America. He's essentially an organizational depth-minded throw-in. Olson will compete with Sean Marshall for the fifth starter job in Chicago. Ouch. Not a lot there...I wonder if they would prefer to have Jake Peavy?

Pie, who turns 24 in February, is definitely the most interesting piece in this trade. He is extremely athletic, a true center fielder, and paired with Nick Markakis and Adam Jones, the Orioles look to be very good in outfield run prevention (unless all of the balls land in the stands.)

Although Baltimore seems to have not taken my advice and traded Brian Roberts for Gavin Floyd, this deal is a smart move for them. Their pitching is very weak, and losing Olson doesn't help. Mark Hendrickson and Koji Uehara don't strike fear in my heart, especially at Camden Yards. They are not constructed to contend this season, and won't be a threat until some of their minor league starters (read uber-prospect Brian Matusz) have found their footing at the big league level to support Jeremy Guthrie and give the team a chance to win. They hope that at least one out of the group of Chris Waters, Matt Albers and Radhames Liz will emerge as a solid starter this season. Albers had a good season as a reliever last year, and Liz has good stuff. Then again, so did Daniel Cabrera.

Pie still has a chance to emerge as a solid Major Leaguer. He desperately needed a change of scenery, and the O's seem like a good fit. It's a young, smaller market non-contender with much less pressure, the perfect place for a young stud to develop his game through logging significant playing time. He strikes out too much, and doesn't hit for a high enough average right now, but he has double-digit home run and stolen base potential, even this season. His numbers in the minors have been consistently good. 

Luke Scott will likely move to designated hitter and Aubrey Huff to first base if Pie gets the starting center field gig coming out of spring training, which is likely because he is out of options and clearly needs a crack at the majors if he is going to approach or reach his high ceiling.

I like any move that makes the Orioles younger and more talented. They were able to accomplish that in this trade because the Cubs weren't willing to commit to Pie spending this season in the majors. Good move for now and for the future. A Markakis/Jones/Pie outfield has an extraordinarily high ceiling for years to come. Now to get cracking on that starting rotation...

Floyd to the O's?

If I were Orioles GM Andy McPhail, my trigger finger would be awful itchy if the rumors are true.

Brian Roberts for Gavin Floyd? The Orioles need somebody to slot behind Jeremy Guthrie pretty badly.

Guthrie and Floyd are 29 and 25 respectively. Teamed up with young outfield studs Adam Jones, developing at 23, Nick Markakis, a veteran at 25, and wunderkind catcher Matt Wieters, the O's could have something really nice developing here. Luke Scott, Cesar Izturis and Ryan Freel are useful little pieces. Melvin Mora and Aubrey Huff may still have a few decent seasons left in their bats as well.

If someone can step up and help out Jim Johnson and George Sherill in the bullpen, and Mark Hendrickson and the rest of the scabs from the O's rotation can step it up next season, this team could be a problem for the rest of the division. They aren't going to finish first, second, or probably third, but they could depress wins throughout the division and move the Wild Card out of the East. They also could make it a very long summer for Toronto.

1/6/09 UPDATE: The Orioles, apparently were demanding Gavin Floyd and some change from the White Sox in exchange for Roberts. Not surprisingly, a story surfaced on ESPN.com's rumor mill that the Sox are not moving right now on Roberts and focusing on a youth movement instead. Though I have read some good points about the repeatability of Floyd's success based on his numbers, I still look first at the fact that Floyd is 25-years-old and just went 17-8 with a 3.84 ERA and a (just calculated) 127.10 ERA+. As I mentioned in a previous blog, the average ERA+ is 100. Now that Floyd's a pitcher and a quarter. I'll take three more just like him and fill out my five man rotation any day.

Am I the only one who thinks that Brian Roberts is overrated at this point in his career? He's 31, with just about 2-4 more peak seasons. He hit .296 this year with a .378 OBP, both of which are very solid numbers. But his homer total dipped to nine in comfy Camden Yards this year and he only knocked in 57 runs. Granted, he stole a ridiculous 40 out of 50 bases, but his speed should start to decrease any season now. Don't get me wrong, he is a top second baseman, but he seems to me to be the wrong kind of player to hold past his peak, as he relies so heavily on his speed. I think I should maybe tell that to Rickey Henderson. But Floyd is still three years from reaching his peak.

By the way, for all of you wanna be statisticians not reading this blog, you can calculate ERA+ by multiplying the league average ERA times the park factor times 100. You then divide that total by the pitchers ERA and you have your score.

This year's averages were 4.29 in the NL and 4.35 in the AL. The park factors can be found here. And Floyd's ERA for the year was, again, 3.84. Do the math yourself!