These two pitchers who have a wide range of possibilities are important pieces to do well
This time a month ago, as far as any Orioles fan knew, the Opening Day rotation wasn’t going to have any need of Tyler Wells. Dillon Tate was something of a bonus for the bullpen after missing last year, with not a lot of pressure on him to match his 2022 performance. As February draws to a close, the roster picture has changed and the success of Tate and Wells is much more important to the 2024 team.
The trade for Corbin Burnes seemed like it sealed Wells’s place in the bullpen rather than the rotation. It also subtracted DL Hall from the bullpen mix. Then, when spring training opened, Mike Elias informed everyone about Kyle Bradish’s offseason injury along with John Means being about a month behind. Wells is out of the bullpen and into the rotation, and now Tate is more likely to be needed to pitch late-inning high-leverage situations.
Tyler Wells
Wells quietly had one of the stranger seasons in MLB last year. For a big chunk of the first half, he was the leader among all starting pitchers in WHIP. At the end of June, batters were hitting just .185 against him and he was sporting a 3.21 ERA. This was a strong result, and also a surprising one, because Wells was finding such success despite poor peripheral numbers, particularly a 4.55 FIP.
Luck was strongly on Wells’s side in those first three months, as when batters put the ball in play against him, they hit just .193. That’s far below a typical starter BABIP and the answer probably isn’t “He was just pitching that amazingly.” All of this turned around after the All-Star Break and it took just a few bad starts before the O’s banished Wells to the minors. Coincidentally or not, Wells’s nose dive happened as he crossed past his career high for innings pitched in a season.
What are we to make of all of that in trying to figure out how he’ll do this year? This is what Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projects for Wells this season:
- 32 G, 20 GS, 113.2 IP, 4.20 ERA, 4.42 FIP, 1.17 WHIP
The case for the under
If everything goes for the 2024 Orioles as we are now imagining in our heads, Kyle Bradish will be back around mid-May, maybe late May, and will take Wells’s spot in the rotation, with Wells headed to the bullpen.
I think that if Wells has four months or more in the bullpen, he can go under that projection easily, even if it’s correct in assessing how he’ll perform when he has to make starts. We got a taste of Wells the reliever in September and October of last year. He did not allow any runs in his four regular season games of relief, nor in the ALDS even as he pitched every game of that series.
The case for the over
When the 2023 season came to an end, Wells had a 3.64 ERA and a 4.98 FIP. That’s pretty good actual performance but not at all good predictive performance. His Statcast page has a couple of seriously concerning dark blue (really bad) numbers, sitting in the 3rd percentile for barrel percentage and 8th percentile for ground ball percentage.
If anything, the ZiPS numbers might be under-selling how much Wells could be due for some wicked regression. Even with the current Camden Yards dimensions, a pitcher is going to have a hard time in the long run if batters are frequently squaring him up and not frequently putting the ball on the ground against him.
Dillon Tate
A year ago, it felt like a big loss to the Orioles bullpen that Tate was the spring training “Surprise! He’s been hurt all offseason” guy. Had you told me at this point that Tate would not pitch at all, I would not have been optimistic about the bullpen, because I didn’t expect Yennier Cano to turn into what he was, Félix Bautista to continue being what he had been in 2022, and Danny Coulombe to turn up out of nowhere to be a key part of the bullpen.
Even more than Wells, it’s hard to know what to make of Tate this season. Guys don’t usually just miss a whole season for arm-related injuries that are never linked to needing Tommy John surgery. It’s not like Tate was a year-in, year-out success before he missed last year. He was just another underwhelming guy in the 2021 bullpen. He’s got 2022 with a 3.05 ERA and sub-1 WHIP and that’s it.
Can he do anything close to that again? Here’s ZiPS on Tate for 2024:
- 45 G, 49.2 IP, 4.71 ERA, 4.60 FIP, 1.29 WHIP
The case for the under
This projection is really bad! Think about it like this: Mike Baumann wasn’t even enough in the good graces of the Orioles to be on the playoff roster last year. He had a 3.76 ERA. Bryan Baker, who I’m still kind of mad at for stinking in the ALDS, closed out the season with 3.60 ERA. Jacob Webb, who also stunk in the ALDS and was dumped by the Angels before coming here, had a 3.69 ERA for the season between both teams.
That’s three guys who weren’t very good and they kept it under 4 ERA. Not only is the Tate projection over 4, but it’s closer to 5 than it is to 4. Even in the 2021 season where Tate ran into some struggles, he had a 4.39 ERA over 62 games pitched. You can be a bad reliever and still not be 4.71 ERA bad.
The case for the over
The ERA ceiling for “reliever who really stinks” is actually a lot higher than 4.71. Last year, Austin Voth had a 5.19 ERA over 25 outings. Keegan Akin was substantially worse at a 6.85 ERA.
If Tate comes out with an ERA north of 5 through the first six weeks or so of the season, the Orioles may not be able to afford to wait around to see if he can improve and in that case he’d probably get designated for assignment and that 5+ ERA would just be stuck where it is, which would easily hit the over on the ZiPS ERA number.
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We can’t work two polls into the same article around here, so sorry to Tate, but it’s Wells who’s performance we’re going to try to predict this time around.