Orioles General Manager Andy MacPhail will, barring any last minute insanity, be leaving the MLB Winter Meetings in Indianapolis having completed only one transaction, that being RHP Chris Ray and LHP Benjamin Snyder (formerly of the San Francisco Giants; see Rule V notes below) for RHP Kevin Millwood of the Texas Rangers and $3 million cash. This is important, because none of the names in the previous sentence are "Pedro Feliz." Astros GM and noted rabies victim Ed Wade took care of that by signing the former Philadelphia third baseman to a 1 year, $4 million contract, which in the context of his earlier signing of RHP Brandon Lyon is actually reasonable, all things concerned. Pedro Feliz is notable for being 2009 Melvin Mora, except three years younger, and without the eight cute kids.
Now that Feliz is off the table, there's really one other big ("big") name the Orioles have been linked to at third, and that's Kevin Kouzmanoff of the San Diego Padres.
Here's a breakdown of Kouzmanoff's notables:
2007 (Age 25): 145 G, .275/.329/.457 (.786) for 110 OPS+ in 534 PA, .309 BAbip, 18.2 LD%, 11.3 HR/FB%, -2.3 UZR/150, 2.6 WAR
2008 (Age 26): 154 G, .260/.299/.433 (.732) for 100 OPS+ in 668 PA, .301 BAbip, 21.6 LD%, 12.1 HR/FB%, 3.1 UZR/150, 2.7 WAR
2009 (Age 27): 141 G, .255/.302/.420 (.722) for 100 OPS+ in 573 PA, .289 BAbip, 19.6 LD%, 11.6 HR/FB%, 10.7 UZR/150, 2.7 WAR
There's some advanced stat stuff in there, but nothing too bad -- UZR/150 is a defensive measurement measuring how many more or fewer runs a given fielder allows than the average fielder at his position, normalized for 150 games at that position; it factors in both a player's errors and the range he has in the field. BAbip and LD% I discussed in detail in the Kevin Millwood breakdown, but they measure a hitter's luck on balls they put into play and how often they make good contact, respectively. HR/FB% is the percentage of fly balls a batter hits that turn into home runs -- just over one of every eight of Kouzmanoff's fly balls in 2008 turned into a home run, for instance. That 12% is about the league average. WAR stands for Wins Above Replacement, and is a catch-all "value" stat that describes how many wins a player adds to your team in a given season when you play him over a replacement-level player. A "replacement-level" player is someone who is producing far below the league average at a position; you can either mentally slot in Neifi Perez whenever the term comes up, or click here for a more in-depth explanation.
There's really two things that stand out about Kouzmanoff: the first is that he's very consistent at the plate. Consistently average, mind you, but consistent, and not just in the normal average/slugging/on-base percentage categories; there's not a lot of variance in LD% or HR/FB%, nor his BAbip. If I had to guess, and I do, I'd say his 2010 is going to look a lot like his last two seasons, with an OPS+ around 100 and a .260/.300/.420 line. Some of those, especially the slugging, might track upwards once he gets out of PetCo Park, but I'm leery about taking park factors too heavily into account; even away from that hitter's tomb he was only a .778 OPS player in 2009, and the pitching in the AL East is pretty nasty right now. He's 28 years old, so he's still in his prime and could theoretically improve there, but I think Bill James's prediction of a .327 OBP, .463 SLG, and .790 OPS season is over-optimistic, as his projections have a tendency to be.
The other thing that stands out is that Kouzmanoff has improved his defense noticeably. The weakest thing about UZR as a stat is that it really doesn't give good predictive value until you have three seasons of it compiled for a player, but progressing from -2.3 to 10.7 UZR/150 in three years is a good sign. Cumulatively, he's got a 2.8 UZR/150 for his career, which could be better but could also be much, much worse. He's played out his 2009 contract, is eligible for arbitration and would be getting a significant raise through that process, though San Diego media sources think it'd only be to around $4 to 5 million. The general thinking, however, is that he'll be traded; his stock was high after prominent consideration for the NL Gold Glove for third basemen, which ended up going to Ryan Zimmerman of the Washington Nationals (and rightly so; Zimmerman's UZR/150 last year was 20.1).
Other than that, though, Kouzmanoff is a decidedly league-average third baseman both offensively and defensively, and will probably be slightly overpaid when he signs his next contract, no matter who it's with (though that hardly makes him unique).
There are really one of two routes to go with the hole the Orioles have to fill at third base. The first route is obtaining a low-cost, short-term stop gap for this year while prospect Josh Bell races through the farm system. The guy you want is probably a defensive specialist who is fine with taking a one or two year deal either to build his value for another, bigger FA contract, or because he's at the point where he's not going to get much else. Pedro Feliz was basically this guy. He's got a 15.5 UZR/150 at third for his career (5.0 UZR/150 there last year for Philadelphia), no real bat of which to speak, and is in his mid-thirties. In another year or two he'll be a Chris Gomez utility type, though there's every indication that he could be that guy right now. Most farm systems would have had a guy to plug in at third that would give more value going forward, but Ed Wade and owner Drayton McLane have salted that particular patch of earth pretty well. 1 year/$4 million for Feliz isn't bad for a team that's shedding contracts, but it's mostly treading water, and gives you none of the offense you want out of that corner position. Now that Feliz is off the market, Kouzmanoff is the next "best" thing, and if the Orioles can avoid giving him more than two years -- or have no problem paying their utility infielder five or six million per annum -- then more power to them. Hopefully they can flip him for something useful down the road.
The other route is to put someone there that you intend to move across the diamond once Josh Bell comes up, and who you expect to contribute to the team as a first baseman or a designated hitter. This person you give a long(er) term deal than the guy from the first route, and he's a guy you try to acquire through trade. The Orioles farm system is stocked with arms, and while Matusz, Tillman, and Arrieta are more or less untouchable unless someone wants to part with an Adrian Gonzalez or a Miguel Cabrera, guys like David Hernandez, Jason Berken, Brandon Erbe, and Troy Patton are all decent trading chips of variable value. Also available to trade is CF Felix Pie, who is blocked in the outfield and young with major league experience. This mystery player is also a guy who you value more for offense than defense, because if things go as planned, he's either moving to the easiest infield position defensively at first, or he's your DH and his defensive value becomes pretty much irrelevant.
My example pick for the guy you try to acquire is someone I mentioned in the news post earlier today: Kansas City prospect Kila Ka'aihue. Now, you could go out and try to get Billy Butler from the Royals, but he's already starting for the major league squad, is a marketable fan favorite, and he's never played third before in his life. Acquiring him as your 1B/DH of the future would be fine (if you could get him without massively overpaying, which you probably can't), but that's the subject of a whole other article. Ka'aihue, on the other hand, plays third in the minors, is 25 years old, and has put up these lines the last two years in AAA Omaha:
2008: .314/.458/.629 (1.087)
2009: .252/.392/.433 (.825)
Now, at first glance, he regressed a lot in the past year. His BAbip did dip by around thirty points, sure, and his LD% and peripheral hitting stats improved, but anyway you slice it, that's a power outage. But look at the difference between his batting average and on-base percentage -- a .140 IsoD. He has an amazing eye, and the power drop is an outlier over his minor league career, not a trend. Combine that with the Royals keeping him in the minors over a year past when he should have been called up, and he seems like a guy they'd sell low on -- and even if the worst case scenario occurs and for some reason the power doesn't come back, he's still a better offensive presence than Kouzmanoff or Feliz.
There's another version of this story that works with Brandon Woods out of the LAA Angels farm system -- he's another guy who hasn't really gotten a fair shake at the major league level, and could be given a shot at shortstop when Josh Bell comes up. His current UZR for shortstop wouldn't recommend that, but that's based on all of 36 games at the major league level, and really doesn't mean much of anything. The big problem with Woods is that the Angels overvalue their prospects even more than the Yankees and Red Sox do, and to acquire him, the Orioles would have to overpay, which would miss the entire point of trying to get him in the first place.
Obviously, I fall into the "trade for Kila" camp, but with Mike Jacobs exiting Kansas City for parts unknown, Ka'aihue may have finally gotten his shot to make the majors. The O's and Royals have been in talks, and Kansas City is under the impression they need a centerfielder (which begs the question of why they didn't just re-sign Coco Crisp on the cheap, but hey, Royals), but those discussions mostly centered around Alex Gordon and a cursory inquiry into Butler's availability. The Kansas City second baseman Alberto Callaspo merits a look, if only because he somehow managed to lose his job to Chris Getz and is said to be on the trading block, but he's not entirely convincing as a solution at third, hasn't played much short (though his UZR is good for the time spent there), and is blocked by Brian Roberts at second. If they can be had for fair value or less, then the O's should try to get them; any respectable organization would be treating them like the Orioles currently treat a guy like Nolan Reimold, but Dayton Moore is not very good at this whole baseball thing.
Wrapping up a couple loose ends: a guy like Adrian Beltre would be nice to have, but he's going to find a better fit on a club like the Red Sox or maybe even back with the Mariners, since he's going to want to be a starter at third for another couple years. If the Orioles sign him, they could conceivably slide Bell over to first or DH, but that would sap a cost-controlled younger player of a lot of his value in favor of an aging veteran, and usually that's something to avoid. The one thing the Orioles absolutely cannot do next year is plug Ty Wigginton in at third as the starter. Wigginton fell off a cliff at the plate last year (his HR/FB% went from 18.7 to 7.9 in a hitter's park, among other things) and he was a disaster in the field, with a -30.2 UZR/150 at third -- taking him to -16.4 at the position for his career. Somehow I doubt he's going to rebound.
And if all else fails, I bet B.J. Surhoff isn't doing anything. Sure, he never played third base in the majors after the age of 23, but he's versatile. He's Baseball Jesus, after all; he has to be. Who else would ever forgive a team for cutting him in favor of Delino DeShields?
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