Brian Matusz is supposed to be the ace of the future. The piece that Andy MacPhail and the rest of the Baltimore Orioles front office builds around to craft a contender meant to topple the rival Red Sox and Yankees. He’s supposed to be the stopper, the Game 1 starter, the mentor for guys like Zach Britton, Jake Arrieta, and Chris Tillman. Thing is, Brian’s not really cooperating. He’s made only 5 starts this season due to an oblique injury but he’s been wholly ineffective in those games. Matusz is 1-3 with a 6.85 ERA and a 1.84 WHIP this season. His WAR is -.3.
This is quite a turnaround from last season when Matusz finished 10-12 with an ERA of 4.30 and a WAR of 3.1. All told, his 2010 season was good for 5th in the Rookie of the Year voting. Despite his success, though, there was one distressing sign. In 2009, when Matusz made his major league debut, his average fastball velocity was 91.5 mph. Last year, it fell to around 89.9 mph and this season, it’s closer to 87. The question begs: Why is a 24 year old, highly touted pitching prospect losing velocity at more than a mile per hour a year?
I don’t know the answer and neither does Matusz. He insists that he feels fine physically and, this season, is harboring no ill effects from his side injury. Baltimore must figure this out, and fast. Matusz has shown flashes of brilliance. His minor league career was extremely brief, he played only parts of the 2009 season in the minors and never above AA, but very good. Combined, has was 11-2 with a 1.91 ERA. If he can regain even a semblance of that form, he can be the leader the O’s need him to be.
The window of opportunity for the Baltimore Orioles is not large. They can’t afford to keep reloading like Boston and New York. Like the Rays of 2008, Baltimore is counting on a confluence of events at the right time. For the Rays, it was the arrival of Evan Longoria and David Price coupled with the emergence of Dioner Navarro and Aki Iwamura and the leadership of Carlos Pena and Carl Crawford. Baltimore isn’t as restricted as Tampa in the sense that they have the ability to augment homegrown talent with free agent players such as Vladamir Guerrero and Derek Lee but certainly the core of any successful Baltimore team would have to be young guys from the farm system. The Orioles have got a few good ones such as Adam Jones ( not really “homegrown” but acquired from Seattle when he was young/cheap), Nick Markakis, Nolan Reimold, Matt Weiters, and Robert Andino. Also, Tillman, Arrieta, and Britton fit in that category but the main guy is Matusz. If they can’t get him right, the chances for actual success in the form of playoff appearances and possibly championships becomes even more of an uphill climb then they already are. Perhaps, even impossible.
-Max Frankel
