Outside of the Milwaukee Brewers improving their starting rotation, I don’t think there is a team in baseball that improved one aspect of their team more than the Baltimore Orioles improved their infield. They went from having one of the most mediocre infields in 2010 to potentially having one of the best in 2011.
The Orioles went from Miguel Tejada/Josh Bell at third, Cesar Izturis at short and an injured Brian Roberts at second to Mark Reynolds at third, J.J. Hardy at short and a healthy Roberts at second. The last piece of the infield puzzle was to find an improvement over Ty Wigginton at first.
On New Year’s Eve, the Orioles found their replacement for Wigginton.
The Orioles signed first baseman Derrek Lee to a one-year contract. Official terms of the deal haven’t been disclosed yet, but according to Tim Brown of Yahoo Sports, Lee’s deal with the Orioles includes incentives and could be worth as much as $10 million.
This signing is just another example of why the Orioles are on the right track and why their neighbors, the Washington Nationals, are a clown show. Instead of going out and signing veterans to albatross contracts like the Nationals are doing, the Orioles are bringing in veterans to short-term contracts, so just in case they don’t pan out, they are not saddled with a poor contract that will hinder their organization’s development.
Signing Lee is a solid move by the Orioles.
There is zero risk to this signing. If he doesn’t work out, then the one-year contract won’t kill the Orioles long-term. If Lee does work out, then they could potentially flip him at the trade deadline for some prospects or maybe even get a draft pick for him if they let him walk next offseason.
Lee hit .260/.347/.428 with 19 home runs in 148 total games with the Chicago Cubs and Atlanta Braves in 2010. At times, Lee’s bat looked slow and his strikeout percentage of 24.5 was his highest since his 2002 season (28.2 percent) with the Florida Marlins.
However, Lee was bothered by a bad thumb all year. He is fully healthy now, and if you couple that with a solid lineup around him and a hitter’s ballpark, then Lee could have a bounce-back season in 2011. Do I expect him to have a season like he did in 2009, when he hit .306/.393/.579 with 35 homers? No, I don’t. But a season in which he hits .280 with 25 bombs isn’t out of the question.
The Orioles have vastly improved their offense in 2011. Some people are even comparing them to the San Diego Padres of last season.
I don’t want to burst Oriole fans’ bubble here, but that is just not going to happen. And there is one simple reason why. The Orioles don’t play in the very average National League West. They play in the American League East, with the likes of the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays. Even the Toronto Blue Jays won 85 games last season and are expected to be just as good in 2011.
The Orioles will win more than the 66 games they won in 2010 and could even be a .500 team in 2011 if everything breaks right and guys like Brian Matusz and Chris Tillman continue to show improvement. However, just because the Orioles won’t compete for a playoff spot in 2011 doesn’t mean they aren’t moving in the right direction.
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