Cooper: Tanking Didn’t Get Orioles To 101 Wins

It helped, but I would argue not in the way you may think. Baltimore worked the waiver wire better than almost anyone over their fallow years. They didn’t have much choice, because the 2019 Orioles’ roster was largely bereft of players with long-term potential. Of the 12 position players who had 150+ plate appearances for the 2019 Orioles, only one (Anthony Santander) was still an MLB regular in 2023 for any team. Of the 20 pitchers to throw 20 or more innings, roughly 25% of them were still in the majors in any sort of regular role in 2023.

It was bleak, but the Orioles tried to turn that into an opportunity. Baltimore had waiver claim priority. 

With a team where the 36th to 40th spots on the 40-man roster were likely to be no better (or worse) than the players being designated for assignment. Baltimore churned through waiver claim after waiver claim. 

Many of those players were only briefly Orioles, but Baltimore discovered who could implement suggested tweaks and turn into a hidden gem. Ramon Urias and Jorge Mateo went from being cast-offs to key members of the lineup. Ryan O’Hearn provided an additional boost in 2023, and Aaron Hicks was a valuable addition as a cast-off whose salary was largely paid by the Yankees. Jorge Lopez, Bryan Baker, Cionel Perez, Joey Krehbiel, Danny Coloumbe and Austin Voth all proved to be useful waiver claims or purchased contract pickups for the pitching staff.

They also astutely used the Rule 5 draft (Tyler Wells in addition to Santander).

The Orioles got 2,006 plate appearances (33% of the team’s plate appearances) and 403.2 innings (28% of the team’s innings) in 2023 from Rule 5 picks, waiver claims and players whose contracts they purchased from other teams.

That’s an absurdly large percentage for a 100-win team. Looking at the 21 100-win teams from 2014-2023, no other team came close to getting that many plate appearances from freely available talent. While the Orioles had 2,006 plate appearances from players in those categories, the other 20 teams combined to have 2,941 plate appearances. The Orioles got 7.8 bWAR from those players. The other 20 teams had 8.7 bWAR combined. Eight teams didn’t get a single plate appearance from a waiver claim, Rule 5 pick or contract purchase.

We’re focusing on hitters because it’s so rare to find productive position players on the waiver wire or through the Rule 5 draft (Santander was picked during Dan Duquette’s regime). But one could argue that the Orioles were even better at scouring the waiver wire for pitching, as notes above with Lopez and many others.

So, being a bad team that could sort through free talent did pay off for Baltimore, but that’s not really what critics are talking about when it comes to benefiting from tanking. Managing to help cast-off players succeed is a trait that every team in baseball tries to do, Baltimore just did it better than most anyone.

Thus, if we don’t ascribe that success to tanking, and instead go by the more traditional definition of tanking to land draft picks, then the Orioles actually didn’t get a whole lot of help from those categories to win 101 games. And even among those players, you have to decide which draftees qualify.

The Orioles picked No. 1 in 2019 and drafted Adley Rutschman with the first pick. Since Rutschman quickly became a star for the Orioles, and he was the first pick in the draft, he would seem to be the perfect example of a team profiting from tanking.

There’s one slight problem. The Orioles won 47 games in 2018, but Baltimore didn’t go into 2018 trying to fail. The team’s payroll to begin that year ranked 13th in baseball. The Orioles were trying to win. But they started out 8-27 and never got any better. At the end of July, they were 32-75, so they traded away the few remaining tradeable stars like Manny Machado.

So, Rutschman can only partly be described as a benefit of tanking, and it’s impossible to say he was part of the Orioles’ current front office’s master plan, as the pick was acquired for a season that happened before they were hired.

Baltimore also landed Gunnar Henderson in that same 2019 draft. So, again, he can somewhat be credited to the Orioles’ terrible record in 2018, with the same caveats that apply to Rutschman.

But in Henderson’s case, he was also the 42nd pick in the draft, meaning that almost every other team in baseball had a shot to pick him. His $2.3 million bonus was the largest in the second round, but not by much. It was the 32nd-largest bonus overall in the 2019 draft. Four other second-round picks landed bonuses of $2 million or more, and two third-round picks received larger bonuses. Getting to pick at the top of the draft helped, but Henderson looks to be better than the vast majority of players picked above him, so the Orioles’ ability to scout and develop Henderson seems more important than the Orioles’ having the top pick in each round.

The Orioles also added Joey Ortiz in the fourth round that year, but by that point, it’s hard to say that the 105th pick in the draft, who signed for one of the smaller signing bonuses in the fourth round, is anything other than just an astute pick.

Here’s a look at how the Orioles’ positions players for 2023 were acquired, with the assist from Baseball Reference.

Name	Age	PA	bWAR	How Acquired
Gunnar Henderson	22	622	6.2	2019 draftee
Adley Rutschman	25	687	4.3	2019 draftee
Anthony Santander	28	656	3	On team before 2019
Cedric Mullins	28	455	2.8	On team before 2019
Austin Hays	27	566	2.5	On team before 2019
Ryan Mountcastle	26	470	2.1	On team before 2019
Ramón Urías	29	396	1.8	Claimed on waivers
Adam Frazier	31	455	1.7	Free agent signing in 2023
Jordan Westburg	24	228	1.2	2021 draftee
Ryan O’Hearn	29	368	1.2	Contract purchased from Royals before 2023 season
Aaron Hicks	33	236	1	Signed in 2023 after Yankees waived him, Yankees paid most of salary
Jorge Mateo	28	350	0.8	Claimed on waivers
James McCann	33	226	0.5	Acquired in trade from Mets, Mets pay most of salary
Ryan McKenna	26	139	0.5	In organization before 2019
Anthony Bemboom	33	13	0	Signed as free agent in 2022
Heston Kjerstad	24	33	0	2020 draftee
Joey Ortiz	24	34	0	2019 draftee
Josh Lester	28	23	-0.2	Signed as MiLB free agent
Kyle Stowers	25	33	-0.3	In organization before 2019
Terrin Vavra	26	56	-0.5	Acquired in 2020 Mycal Givens trade
Colton Cowser	23	77	-0.8	2020 draftee

And here’s how the 2023 Orioles pitching staff was acquired.

Name	Age	IP	bWAR	How Acquired
Kyle Bradish	26	168.2	4.9	Acquired in 2020 Dylan Bundy trade
Félix Bautista	28	61	3	In organization before 2019
Yennier Cano	29	72.2	2.5	Acquired in 2022 Jorge Lopez trade
Tyler Wells	28	118.2	1.7	2020 Rule 5 pick
Dean Kremer	27	172.2	1.5	In organization before 2019
Danny Coulombe	33	51.1	1.2	Contract purchased when DFAd
Kyle Gibson	35	192	0.9	Signed as free agent in 2022
Grayson Rodriguez	23	122	0.9	In organization before 2019
John Means	30	23.2	0.7	In organization before 2019
Mike Baumann	27	64.2	0.6	In organization before 2019
Bryan Baker	28	45	0.5	Claimed on waivers
Jacob Webb	29	22	0.4	Claimed on waivers
DL Hall	24	19.1	0.2	In organization before 2019
Joey Krehbiel	30	5	0.2	Claimed on waivers
Cole Irvin	29	77.1	0.1	Acquired in 2023 Darel Hernaiz trade
Nick Vespi	27	14.2	0.1	In organization before 2019
Chris Vallimont	26	0.2	0	Claimed on waivers
Eduard Bazardo	27	2.1	-0.1	Signed as free agent, 2022
Shintaro Fujinami	29	29.2	-0.1	Acquired in 2023 trade with A’s
Reed Garrett	30	2.2	-0.1	Signed as free agent, 2023
Jorge López	30	12	-0.1	Claimed on waivers
Bruce Zimmermann	28	13.1	-0.1	In organization before 2019
Logan Gillaspie	26	9	-0.2	Signed as free agent, 2021
Cionel Pérez*	27	53.1	-0.3	Claimed on waivers
Mychal Givens	33	4	-0.4	Signed as free agent, 2022
Austin Voth	31	34.2	-0.4	Claimed on waivers
Jack Flaherty	27	34.2	-0.6	Acquired in 2023 trade with Cardinals
Keegan Akin	28	23.2	-0.8	In organization before 2019

The Orioles did get 2020 draftees Heston Kjerstad (the second pick overall) and Jordan Westburg (the 30th pick) to the majors, as well as 2021 draftee Colton Cowser (the fifth pick), but they combined for only 338 plate appearances, or 5.5% of the team’s total, and 0.4 bWAR.

It’s very possible that the Orioles will get massive benefits from their high draft picks over the next few years, with 2022 No. 1 pick Jackson Holliday expected to join the team, as well as bigger impacts from Kjerstad, Cowser and other recent draftees like Coby Mayo. It’s one of the big reasons why Baltimore is considered to be in an enviable situation when it comes to young talent.

But it’s just hard to say that tanking did a lot to build the 2023 Orioles’ very successful roster. Baltimore showed it could win 101 games before that wave of draft talent even arrived.