My Best Analysis of 2015

Happy almost-New-Year! I’m going to send you off into 2016 with a recap of the best articles I wrote this year.

  • What does Adam Jones’ future look like? To find out, I gathered players comparable to Jones and examined how well they hit, relative to their peak offensive performance, through age 34.
  • Temper your expectations for Gerardo Parra’s second half. Here I showed how the Orioles’ trade deadline acquisition was unlikely to continue his hot offensive first half. Lo and behold, Parra actually hit much worse than I predicted.
  • What Happened to the 2014 Orioles? Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3. In this series I examined how the Orioles’ offense, defense, starting pitching, and bullpen all conspired to turn the 2014 division champs into a 2015 .500 team.
  • Miguel Gonzalez wasn’t a disappointment. I used xFIP to show that Gonzalez improved since 2014 and his season didn’t deserve the poor reputation his high ERA would indicate. I got a lot of heat from people on Twitter and elsewhere thinking that I was calling Miguel a bad pitcher, which is only funny because that is the exact opposite conclusion I came to.
  • Adam Jones’ contract is worth the big money. I delve into the specifics of Adam Jones’ $85.5 million extension, how he’s performed on it so far, and how much he’s been worth while comparing his extension with those given to other players in the same timeframe.