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TIME FOR PIE (at a baseball game).

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This past January, as part of their seemingly perpetual plan to get better by getting older, the Cubs traded long-touted prospect Felix Pie to the Orioles for a quarter pound of raw beef Garrett Olson and A ball reliever Henry Williamson. Pie, 24 years old to start the 2009 season, had almost always hit well in the minors at levels in which he was among the younger performers. Bur after less than 300 disappointing MLB plate appearances spread over the 2007 and 2008 seasons, the Cubs were "done" with Pie. The Orioles, who have spent the last couple offseasons ripping off clubs with less-than-brilliant GMs, received a guy who had come to be seen as a tool-sy guy who had lost his luster. He was to serve as maybe a defensive LF (where he would be a defensive standout, given his good defensive in CF) or a fourth outfielder for the Orioles, already loaded with young talent with Adam Jones in CF and Nick Markakis in RF. Then the year began, and Pie wasn't hitting. At all. He had some injury problems. Luke Scott started killing the ball, then Nolan Remold came up and did the same.

The last few weeks, Pie has really been smoking the ball. Adam Jones' injury has given  him even more playing time. I'm not going to do one of my little "projections" here, but let's take a look at some of the positive factors about Pie this season that make him possibly more than just a high-end stopgap for the Orioles, a team that many (rightly) see as having a very bright near future.

The first thing to note, of course, is that Pie never really got a chance with the Cubs. 300 PAs is nothing, and Pie got less than that spread over two seasons.. Second, again, Pie was only 24 years old at the start of the season. There would seem to be plenty of development time left.

Despite his dreadful career MLB wOBA prior to joining the Cubs, the "big" projection systemss that also took into account his minor league performance all saw him as a .310-.320 wOBA hitter. That's about 5-10 runs below average over a full season. Not good, but when combined with good defense in CF, it leaves open the possibility for a league average player. Thus far this season (in only 230 PAs, to be sure), Pie has exceeded those expectations, with a .335 wOBA. Nut bad for a 25 year-old, really. While 230 PAs isn't much, let's look "behind the scenes" a bit to see if there's anything to the improvement.s

His peripheral hitting stats show some progress so far this season. With the Cubs, his walk rates were between 7% and 8%. This season he's up to 9.7%. He still strikes out a great deal, but his K rate is down to 22% after being over 25% in his time with the Cubs.  His BB/K ratio is also up to .49, up from the .33 and .24 he put up in 2007 and 2008 with the Cubs.

This does seem to be a reflection of a more refined approach to the strike zone, as his O-Swing (percentage of pitches swung at outside of the strike zone) is down below 28%, which is an improvement for him from this Chicago seasons. His contact rate is also back up.

Pie is also hitting more line drives and flyballs, and many of those are going out of the park. Although Pie's fast, getting the ball in the air is good. His 2009 BABIP a the time of this writing is .309, and The Hardball times xBABIP calculator returns a .316 for me. Not luck there. HIs HR/FB rate does seem a bit lucky. According to Hit Tracker Online, 3 of Pie's 8 home runs this season have been "just enough," and that's a bit of a lucky rate. Still, he's hitting a decent number of doubles, and power, like patience, is something that usually is still developing for players Pie's age.

As for fielding, Pie has a very limited sample in the OF this season, with less than 500 innings so far. But his UZR/50 is +7.9 so far, which is in line with prior performance. UZR doesn't like him so much in CF this season, but less than 220 innings of defense is like judging a players hitting by 50 PAs. For his career, Pie is +4 in CF, and scouting reports tend to agree that he's a good defender out there.

Again, there are no guarantees here, but looking at age, past performance, and peripherals for this season, Pie definitely looks like a guy who has a very good chance than just a a stopgap starter or 4th OF. Let's compare his with another center fielder, Player X.

Player X is only 6 months younger than Pie. The player is a better hitter than Pie prior to 2009, and this season is still better, but Player X's 2009 wOBA of .343 is only  a few runs better than Pie's .335 (and, again, one really should use a projection here -- I'm just looking at perception). Player X has a sterling defensive reputation, but this season has actually been -8.7 runs below average in CF this season. His career UZR/150 in CF is 1.0 as opposed to Pie's 4.3

While Pie's career walk rate, 8.5%, is about average, Player X isn't exactly Rickey Henderson at the plate, with a 5.6% walk rate. Player X's .39 BB/K ratio is also below average and worse than Pie's in 2009, although it is an improvement for Player X. Most shocking, perhaps, for those of us who don't follow the Orioles on a day-to-day basis, player X as a 35.3% O-Swing for his career, while having only about a 75% contract rate.

Who is Player X? Player X is the guy that Pie backs up: Adam Jones.

My point is not to put down Jones. Far from it. Despite some obvious flaws in his strike zone judgment and a down year defensively, Jones is still rightly regarded as a cornerstone  of a resurgent Baltimore franchise. My point is that when you look at Pie's numbers in comparison, and realize that despite Pie seemingly having been around forever, that they are about the same age. So  (sample size caveats granted), Pie needs to be in the mix for a starting spot next season.

Indeed, maybe Pie needs to be in CF with Jones in left, although either way would mean great OF defense. Reimold (who isn't making anyone forget the young Barry Bonds in left field) could move to DH or first, with Luke Scott taking the other spot (unless they trade him).

Or, hey, maybe the Orioles just want to give up on Pie like the Cubs did. That's fine by me. I know a team that could use a good outfielder or two... couldn't Baltimore use a shortstop who was once more valuable than Billy Butler?