2003 Baltimore Orioles Baseball Graphs Review

Following are graphs and commentary regarding the 2003 season of the Baltimore Orioles. Questions or comments can be sent to me at dave@baseballgraphs.com.



AL East Standings The American League East Race

The Orioles were a deceptive team in 2003. They managed to imitate a .500 team until early August, when luck and their schedule caught up to them. To be fair, their best hitter was injured and their best pitcher was traded away at the time, but the Orioles were not as good as they appeared to be.

In the first third of the year, the Orioles had some middling success by playing a string of games against the Tigers and Devil Rays. In July, they had a nice streak against some good teams, including the Braves, Blue Jays, Phillies and Yankees. This was their best streak of the year. The bottom fell out in the second half of August and all of July, after the O's traded away Ponson and Conine, and played the top teams of the AL West and East.




Comments How to Read this Graph

The Orioles finished solidly between the .400 and .500 dotted lines. Their offense and defense (runs scored and allowed) were both slightly worse than average. If you roll your mouse over the chart, you'll see that the offense was much better in the first half of the year (the defense was about the same), as the Oriole hitters took advantage of some weak oppositional hitting, and Melvin Mora got off to that fantastic start.

On offense, the O's OBP was below average, but their slugging was far below average -- only Detroit had a lower SLG.

 Move your mouse over this graph to view the status of each team at the season's midpoint (July 1st).


Pitching and Fielding

Fielding Independent Pitching is based on the following formula: (13*HR+3*BB-2*K)/IP. Defense Efficiency Ratio is (Non-catcher putouts/Batted Balls in Play), adjusted for ballpark. Circle sizes in this graph are proportional to the percent of fieldable balls successfully converted into outs by the fielders. 		The Orioles' Pitching and Fielding
Overall, the Orioles' pitching (measured in FIP) was somewhat worse than average, and their team DER was pretty bad. That circle around the Baltimore data point basically indicates that their fielding was about average, so their low DER was primarily due to pitchers allowing batted balls into "unfieldable" areas. Some would say this is a function of luck, and they may be right.

How to Read this Graph


Baltimore Orioles Ten Game Averages
April May June July Aug Sept
OBP .332 .351 .323 .337 .298 .302
SLG .400 .457 .431 .436 .379 .352
FIP 0.74 1.40 1.78 0.66 2.27 2.01
DER .716 .708 681 .690 .740 .712
The DER stats in this table are based on limited data; the trend between months per team is more valid than the absolute number.
The Orioles Day-by-Day

Here you can see the incredible demise of the offense in August and September, as well as that outstanding pitching month of July. The July surge was led by Jason Johnson, Pat Hentgen and the since-departed Sidney Ponson. The healthy arm they obtained in return for Ponson, Damian Moss, had zero Win Shares for the team.


Baltimore Orioles' Win Shares 

Player          Team    Pos     Hit     Field   Pitch   Sum     WS 	
--------	-----	----	----	----	-----	-----	---	
J Gibbons       BAL     OF      16.30   1.92    0.00    18.21   18	
M Mora          BAL     OF      13.84   1.88    0.00    15.72   16	
J Conine        BAL     1B      12.49   1.66    0.00    14.15   14	
L Matos         BAL     OF      10.91   2.62    0.00    13.53   14	
B Roberts       BAL     2B      8.79    4.55    0.00    13.34   13	
S Ponson        BAL     P       0.00    0.00    11.55   11.55   12	
T Batista       BAL     3B      6.04    4.70    0.00    10.74   11	
J Johnson       BAL     P       0.00    0.00    10.42   10.42   10	
D Cruz          BAL     SS      4.81    5.42    0.00    10.23   10	
P Hentgen       BAL     P       0.00    0.00    9.84    9.84    10	
B Surhoff       BAL     DH      9.03    0.47    0.00    9.50    9	
L Bigbie        BAL     OF      8.33    1.11    0.00    9.44    9	
J Hairston      BAL     2B      4.69    1.97    0.00    6.65    7	
K Ligtenberg    BAL     P       0.00    0.00    5.96    5.96    6	
B Ryan          BAL     P       0.00    0.00    5.69    5.69    6	
J Julio         BAL     P       0.00    0.00    5.60    5.60    6	
B Fordyce       BAL     C       1.62    3.22    0.00    4.84    5	
E DuBose        BAL     P       0.00    0.00    4.79    4.79    5	
J Cust          BAL     DH      3.99    0.04    0.00    4.03    4	
D Segui         BAL     DH      3.74    0.08    0.00    3.83    4	
G Gil           BAL     C       1.83    1.59    0.00    3.42    3	
R Helling       BAL     P       0.00    0.00    3.05    3.05    3	
J Parrish       BAL     P       0.00    0.00    2.40    2.40    2	
R Bauer         BAL     P       0.00    0.00    2.38    2.38    2	
R Lopez         BAL     P       0.00    0.00    2.20    2.20    2	
G Matthews      BAL     OF      0.84    0.77    0.00    1.61    2	
M Cordova       BAL     DH      1.47    0.09    0.00    1.56    2	
H Carrasco      BAL     P       0.00    0.00    1.55    1.55    2	
M Riley         BAL     P       0.00    0.00    1.35    1.35    1	
B Groom         BAL     P       0.00    0.00    1.18    1.18    1	
R Machado       BAL     C       0.53    0.62    0.00    1.15    1	
W Roberts       BAL     P       0.00    0.00    1.13    1.13    1	
J Morban        BAL     SS      0.00    0.57    0.00    0.57    1	
T Driskill      BAL     P       0.00    0.00    0.52    0.52    1	
J Leon          BAL     3B      0.00    0.43    0.00    0.43    0	
T Raines        BAL     OF      0.00    0.36    0.00    0.36    0	
P Swann         BAL     OF      0.00    0.04    0.00    0.04    0	
C Mendez        BAL     1B      0.00    0.03    0.00    0.03    0	
K Ainsworth     BAL     P       0.00    0.00    0.00    0.00    0	
O Daal          BAL     P       0.00    0.00    0.00    0.00    0	
S Douglass      BAL     P       0.00    0.00    0.00    0.00    0	
D Moss          BAL     P       0.00    0.00    0.00    0.00    0
The Orioles' Individual Players

The Orioles' strength was in their outfield. Their three regular outfielders ranked in the top 27 of the league (Gibbons was 16th). Of course, Mora would have ranked higher if he hadn't lost significant time to the DL.

Oh, Conine did rank seventh among AL first basemen, but they traded him away. As well as Ponson.

You can view all American League Win Shares data via the following links:
All Players, Top to Bottom
Players Ranked by Position
Players Fielding WS by Position