The Baltimore Orioles finished in fifth place in the AL East in 2011. The highlight of the season may have been the last game of the year. They came back to beat the Red Sox 4-3, ending Boston’s bid for a wild card. The Orioles only saw four outstanding seasons in 2011, Matt Wieters and J.J. Hardy posting bWARs around four wins, and reliever Jim Johnson and the departed Jeremy Guthrie coming in at about three wins above replacement. Neither the offense nor the pitching was all that great.

The Orioles acquired the following players during the off season:

These are not exactly star-studded acquisitions. If you look through the list of players, however, you start to notice that they do some things well.

Matt Antonelli gets on base.

Wilson Betemit can hit for power.

Endy Chavez is above average defensively.

Wei-Yin Chen owned a high K/BB in Japan.

Dana Eveland keeps he ball in the park.

Jason Hammel has good control.

Matt Lindstrom owns great walk and home run numbers.

Jai Miller showed some pop in his bat in the minors, although some of that came in the old PCL.

Darren O’Day has great control.

37 of Taylor Teagarden’s 77 hits have gone for extra bases.

Tsuyoshi Wada showed an excellent K/BB in Japan.

So what Dan Duquette did with his limited resources is bring in players who do something well. Buck Showalter‘s history shows that the manager is very good at putting players in situations where they can succeed. It’s much more work to manage a team like this, and I doubt it will be a great team. With enough players put in the right spots, however, the Orioles might turn in a .500 season. I like these moves.