According to this insightful article on MLB.com, the Baltimore Orioles, despite last month’s signing of  anti-nerd Ty Wiggington, have  opted for nerdiness after all.  In the article, O’s GM Andy MacPhail admits using statistical methods to evaluate the potential of second basemen Brian Roberts, whom the O’s recently blessed with a 4-year $40 million contract extension, by comparing his career trajectory with the careers of similar players throughout baseball history, following in the sabermetric footsteps of Bill James, Baseball Prospectus, and others.

“In Roberts’ case, that meant measuring how fast players with plate discipline and doubles power have tended to mature as they push into their mid-30’s… Nobody knows whether Roberts will follow those trends, but looking at similar players helps eliminate guesswork.”

MacPhail and Matt Klentak,  director of baseball operations for the O’s, suggest that they now routinely evaluate their players and free agents in this fashion, especially when big money is at stake, as it was with Roberts and Nick Markakis, whom the O’s recently signed to a 6 year, $66 million extension.

“Intuitively, we felt pretty good about walk and doubles rates aging fairly well for a player like Brian,” said Klentak.”I think the conclusion that we reached about his instincts and how that may offset what history might suggest would be a significant regression in stolen bases was something we learned in the study. “

Interestingly,  Brian Roberts expressed some skepticism that the careers of other players could predict how he might perform over the coming years, suggesting:

‘”Comparisons are good for some things and inaccurate on others. Honestly, I can’t tell you what I’ll be like at 34, but neither can they,” Roberts said. “There are plenty of good players that didn’t end up playing much past 29, and there are others where you say, ‘Holy cow, he’s 39? I never would’ve guessed.’ And the game is totally different, even from the 1980s and early ’90s. You can’t sit there and say, ‘Well, this guy was your size, played the same position and just fell off the map at age 32.’ OK, great. He was also probably pretty good at age 24, while I wasn’t.”‘

In any respect, it’s heartening to see the O’s raise their game to try to keep up with the Yankees, Red Sox, and Rays in the AL East, and this type of player evaluation stands in stark contrast to the reckless actions of MacPhail’s predecessors.  While I don’t see the O’s as contenders this year, they do seem capable of making smarter decisions that will benefit them in the long run.