Matt Kremnitzer: What's gone wrong for Travis Snider?

When the Orioles traded for Travis Snider before the season, I was optimistic about the move. Some options on the free agent market, like Nori Aoki and Colby Rasmus, made sense. The O's showed more interest in Rasmus than Aoki for some reason, but they opted to go in a different direction altogether. In Snider, the O's thought they were picking up a corner outfield bat with decent power, who was also under team control through 2016. Unfortunately, things have not worked out as planned this season for essentially every one of the team's corner outfielders. Snider has not been an exception.

As a former first-round draft pick, Snider had shown promise early in his career but overall had been underwhelming. In 359 plate appearances for the Pirates last year, Snider posted a career-high 121 wRC+. And he did so while increasing his walk rate, decreasing his strikeout rate and without the benefit of a boost in his batting average on balls in play (.298).

In 2015, Snider's walk rate has stayed the same, but he's reversed course in the strikeouts department. The real problem, though, is that any semblance of power has disappeared. His .105 isolated power (slugging percentage minus batting average) would be the worst he's posted in any season. His .318 on-base percentage is in line with his career average (.311), but the lack of power is the main factor in his awful 84 wRC+.

There are several things to point to for Snider's disappointing numbers. He is still hitting fly balls at the same rate as in 2014, but his home run to fly ball ratio is 6.3 percent, which is about half of his career average of 12.5%. He's also pulling the ball less. Since posting a career-high pull percentage in limited duty between two teams in 2012, his pull percentages have dropped every season. And considering that the majority of Snider's home runs have been hit to right and right-center, that's not a great thing. On top of everything, Snider is actually hitting the ball a bit harder than last season, but that hasn't translated into more extra-base hits.

Snider has also not been as disciplined at the plate. Last year, he swung at a career low 44% of pitches overall and 27% of pitches outside the strike zone. He also recorded his highest contact rates for pitches in the strike zone and all pitches overall. Opposing pitchers responded by avoiding the zone against him a bit more and throwing fewer first-pitch strikes. However, he's gone back to chasing more pitches outside the strike zone and overall. His current contact rate of 76 percent would be his worst since 2010. Pitchers are less afraid to throw the ball in the zone against him and on first pitches.

Annother reason for Snider's struggles is that pitchers are throwing him more off-speed pitches than ever. They are also throwing him fewer fastballs. Sniders consistently swings and misses more on off-speed pitches than fastballs and breaking pitches.

Because of Snider's lack of production, it's not surprising at all that the Orioles felt they needed to upgrade their corner outfield options by dealing for Gerardo Parra. But in order to get Snider in the first place, the Orioles traded Stephen Tarpley and Steven Brault, two left-handed pitching prospects who are slowly working their way through the Pirates' minor league system. And to get Parra, the Orioles also parted with Zach Davies, who may have limited upside, but at least seems to be on the verge of pitching in the majors. Overall, none of these three may be great, but considering the poor state of the Orioles' farm system, they are still arms the organization could use. Really, it could use any help at all - including not selling draft picks and refusing to spend more internationally.

The Orioles didn't count on all of their corner outfielders performing this poorly, and they've been somewhat unlucky that it's happened that way. Still, Snider has been one of the biggest disappointments. It wasn't out of the question that he would have replaced some or maybe most of Nick Markakis's value if he hit for a similar amount of power as last season. But that hasn't happened, and the O's have now traded three prospects to basically fill one hole. Dan Duquette has made some strong moves in his tenure with the Orioles, but the Snider acquisition doesn't look like it's going to pan out.

Matt Kremnitzer blogs about the Orioles at Camden Depot. Follow him on Twitter: @mattkremnitzer. His thoughts on the O's appear here as part of MASNsports.com's continuing commitment to welcome guest bloggers to our little corner of cyberspace. All opinions expressed are those of the guest bloggers, who are not employed by MASNsports.com but are just as passionate about their baseball as our roster of writers.