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Matt Wieters Accepts Qualifying Offer: Now What?

Posted in Free Agency, Offense, Offseason, Pitching with tags , , , , , , , , on November 21, 2015 by oriolesprovingground

Last Friday Matt Wieters surprised many by accepting the qualifying offer the Orioles made him. As a result, he will now be a member of the 2016 Orioles on a one year, $15.8 million contract. That’s not a small amount of money, but it’s surprising he accepted the deal, considering there are no other catchers on the free agent market, leading one to believe that Wieters would have been in line for a large payday had he rejected the qualifying offer. Either he found that the offers he would’ve received were lower than expected, thought he could make even more money on the free agent market after the 2016 season, enjoyed playing in Baltimore (the only organization he’s ever known), or a combination of all three.

The situation of Wieters accepting the qualifying offer has already been covered in excellent fashion (as usual) over at Camden Depot. On Monday, Jon Shepherd provided a very thorough and realistic set of options as to where the Orioles offseason may go as a result of this, while Tuesday saw Matt Perez laid out some reasons (in much more depth than what I have above) as to why Wieters may have accepted the qualifying offer. Since the situation has already been covered so well, I won’t be going over any of that in this piece and I suggest that you head over to Camden Depot and read the articles in their entirety.

If you read Camden Depot on even a semi-regular basis, you already know that the writers recently participated in an exercise outlining their individual plans as to how they thought the Orioles should approach the offseason, with Jon picking what he ultimately thought would be the best course of action. An index of the entire series can be found HERE. What I would like to do is take another look at my personal blueprint for the Orioles 2016 season, and see how Matt Wieters accepting the qualifying offer (which I did offer him in my hypothetical offseason) changes my strategy going forward.

My blueprint can be found HERE (it focused on building major league depth and a minor league system), but below is a quick recap of the free agent signings I would have made.

  • LHP J.A. Happ – 3 years, $24 million ($8 million annually, 3rd year an option)
  • OF Denard Span – 4 years, $56 million ($14 million annually, 4th year an option)
  • OF Gerardo Parra – 3 years, $24 million ($8 million annually)
  • UTIL Steve Pearce – 2 years, $12 million ($6 million annually)
  • 1B/DH Mike Napoli – 1 year, $5.25 million
  • OF/DH Matt Joyce – 1 year, $2 million

The original assumption was that after paying players currently on the roster, providing raises in arbitration (using the numbers provided at MLB Trade Rumors), and paying league minimum to players who have not accrued enough service time, I would have approximately $44.7 million to spend on free agents. Now that Wieters has accepted the qualifying offer I extended him, that number has decreased to $28.9 million. Let’s see what adjustments can be made while following the same set of rules (which includes NO trades). Continue reading →

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Is a Reunion With Jim Johnson a Good Idea?

Posted in Free Agency, Pitching with tags , , , , , on November 18, 2015 by oriolesprovingground

Late last week, there was an interesting exchange between Baltimore Orioles manager Buck Showalter and the Orioles beat reporters involving former Orioles closer Jim Johnson. The discussion revolved around whether it was a good idea for the Orioles to bring him back as a free agent after being gone from the team for the past two years. Today over at ESPN Sweetspot Network Orioles blog Camden Depot, I explore whether that would be a good idea.

 

Direct Link to Article –> Is a Reunion With Jim Johnson a Good Idea?

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Blueprint for the 2016 Orioles (Option 3): Building Major League Depth and a Minor League System

Posted in Draft, Free Agency, Offense, Offseason, Pitching, Rule 4 with tags , , , , , , , on October 9, 2015 by oriolesprovingground

Over the course of this week and next, the writers of ESPN Sweetspot Network Orioles blog Camden Depot have been putting forth their plans on how they would construct the 2016 Orioles given a budget of $120 million. After everyone has given their thoughts, editor and founder Jon Shepherd will decide which direction to take (or which combination of directions to take). The first two options have been posted earlier this week and I’m up next. My strategy involves building depth at the major league level by adding free agents who aren’t tied to draft pick compensation. This allows the Orioles to keep their picks and add additional draft selections through the loss of their own free agents.

Direct Link to Article –> Building Major League Depth and a Minor League System

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Another Look at the 2016 Orioles

Posted in Free Agency, Offense, Pitching with tags , on March 13, 2015 by oriolesprovingground

The 2015 season hasn’t even started yet, but today at ESPN Sweetspot Network Orioles blog Camden Depot, I start to take a look at what the 2016 Baltimore roster could potentially look like.  It may sound too early to be talking about such things, but the Orioles find themselves in a somewhat unique situation, as 11 of their players are currently scheduled to hit free agency following the end of the 2015 season.  If all 11 leave, the resulting depth chart may not look so pretty…

Direct Link to Article –> Another Look at the 2016 Orioles

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Non-Tendered Players Who Could Help the Orioles in 2015 (and Beyond)

Posted in Free Agency, Offense, Offseason, Pitching, Prospects with tags , , , , , , , on December 5, 2014 by oriolesprovingground

The deadline to tender arbitration eligible players ended at midnight this past Wednesday morning.  While the Orioles tendered contracts to all of their (11!) arbitration eligible players, many other teams decided against it, giving the league 32 new free agents.  With the recent departures of Nelson Cruz and Nick Markakis, the Orioles will need to find some replacements.  While those replacements won’t be found in this group, there could be a few players who could help the team this year, and possibly next.  Today at ESPN Sweetspot Network Orioles blog Camden Depot, I look who those players could be.

Direct Link to Article –> Non-Tendered Players Who Could Help the Orioles in 2015 (and Beyond)

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Orioles Sign Oliver Drake to a Major League Contract

Posted in Free Agency, Offseason, Pitching with tags , on November 20, 2014 by oriolesprovingground

On Tuesday, the Orioles signed RHP Oliver Drake to a contract. Drake, who was drafted in the 43rd round of the 2008 draft by the Orioles out of the United States Naval Academy has spent his entire professional career in the Orioles minor league system and had become a minor league free agent following the 2014 season, which he spent entirely in Bowie (AA). In fact, Drake has only appeared in AAA once, throwing 2 innings for Norfolk in 2011. The fact that the Orioles signed Drake isn’t all that interesting (they signed a bunch of guys who aren’t expected to see much time in the major leagues yesterday). What’s interesting is that they signed him to a major league deal.

The fact that Drake gets a major league deal, doesn’t mean that he’ll be on the major league club, but it does mean that he’ll be occupying a spot on the 40-man roster (at least for the moment). Kiley McDaniel, the lead prospect analyst for Fangraphs gives the details of the deal.

Continue reading →

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Can Heath Bell Help the Orioles?

Posted in Free Agency, Playoffs with tags , , , , on May 23, 2014 by oriolesprovingground

About one week ago, the boys over at MLB Trade Rumors indicated that the Orioles were one of four teams that were interested in Heath Bell, which prompted the following reaction…

Turns out the Orioles weren’t joking, as they signed Bell to a minor league contract two days later. It’s not like the Baltimore bullpen doesn’t need help. They are currently have the 5th worst FIP in all of baseball (or 26th best if you’re an optimist), and have barely been better than replacement level as a group (0.3 fWAR). Additionally, the bullpen only strikes out 18.0% of batters faced, which places them 28th in baseball (not good). Ryan Webb, Darren O’Day, and Zach Britton are the only relievers who can be trusted at this point, so taking a flier on Bell isn’t the worst idea. Continue reading →

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Some Thoughts on Nelson Cruz

Posted in Free Agency, Offense, Offseason with tags , on February 25, 2014 by oriolesprovingground

The free agent signings just keep on coming for the Orioles, as yesterday they officially announced the signing of Nelson Cruz.  Cruz agreed to a 1 year, $8 million contract.  The deal has some easy incentives that, if reached, would bring the total to $8.75 million.  By signing Cruz, the Orioles give up their second round draft pick, #55 overall since Cruz rejected the qualifying offer from Texas earlier in the offseason (the Orioles first round draft pick was relinquished when they signed Ubaldo Jimenez).  Cruz is expected to mostly serve as the team’s designated hitter, while spending some occasional time in the outfield, most likely in left. Continue reading →

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Some Thoughts on Ubaldo Jimenez

Posted in Free Agency, Offseason, Pitching with tags , , , , , , , , , , on February 24, 2014 by oriolesprovingground

As of Wednesday February 19, Ubaldo Jimenez officially became a member of the Baltimore Orioles.  The Orioles signed him to a 4-year, $50 million contract.  While he’s expected to perform near the top of the rotation for the duration of the contract, he’s already completed his toughest task, which was passing Baltimore’s physical exam*.  The details of the contract aren’t that important (they can be found here), but at an average annual value of $12.5 million, at first glance this looks like a decent deal for the Orioles, especially if you’re last memory of Jimenez is the unhittable version of him from the 2013 All-Star break to the end of the season.

*I know the whole “passing a Baltimore Orioles physical” has been overdone this offseason, but I felt that it was my duty to make sure I had at least one joke in here about it.  Although any joke probably wouldn’t top this tweet from former Orioles’ pitcher Jeremy Guthrie.

If you’ve been reading the different opinions about the Jimenez signing, you see a lot of the emphasis on how the signing affects the team’s playoff chances in 2014.  This is important to talk about for a couple of reasons.  One is that since Jimenez will be 30 years old during the 2014 season, there is a decent chance that the first year of his contract will be his best. Second, with all the recent talk of Baltimore’s current window of contention potentially closing in the next year or two (Hardy and Markakis are free agents after 2014, while Wieters and Davis will be free agents after 2015), it appears that productive seasons from Jimenez will be more valuable to the team’s success in his first 2 years than his last 2 years.  There may be a bit of truth to both of these points, but I don’t necessarily want to focus only on 2014 in this post. Continue reading →

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Some Thoughts on Suk-min Yoon

Posted in Free Agency, Pitching with tags , on February 20, 2014 by oriolesprovingground

On Wednesday, I mentioned that at some point I would probably share my thoughts on Baltimore’s recent signings of Korean right-hander Suk-min Yoon and free agent starting pitcher Ubaldo Jimenez.  Well today is your lucky day as I’ve deemed myself ready to discuss Suk-min Yoon.  Hopefully soon, I’ll discuss the Ubaldo Jimenez signing as well.

I’m starting with Yoon for a couple of reasons.  First, he signed before Jimenez, and second I don’t really know much about him, so this shouldn’t take too long.  Other than checking out a couple of videos on YouTube, I’ve never seen him pitch and don’t have any additional thoughts or analysis from what is already readily available to you (the reader) if you had performed the Google search yourself.  Although according to the video I just linked to, Yoon seems to regularly throw well over 100 mph, which is amaz…wait, nope that’s in km/hr.

Anyway, the Orioles signed Yoon on Monday to a 3-year deal worth a total of $5.575 million.  The deal includes incentives based on games started that could net Yoon an extra $7.5 million or so.  Yoon is 27 years old and has 3.19 ERA over 9 seasons playing in the Korean Baseball Organization (the professional baseball league in Korea).   He’s pitched mostly as a starter in the KBO (earning league MVP honors in 2011), but has had some experience in the bullpen, including the 2013 season due to some shoulder tendonitis.

Based on what evaluators have been saying, the general consensus on Yoon is that he’s either a back-end #4 or #5 starter, or an effective reliever in the major leagues.  If that’s the case, it’s hard not to like this deal.  At best, the Orioles get a back end of the rotation starter and at worst an effective reliever for less than $2 million per year.  To help you get better acquainted with Yoon, I’ll dump a couple of links on you from people who know more about him than I do.  Highly suggest taking a minute to look at both.

Camden Depot’s Jon Shepherd talks with Korea’s Yonhap News’ Jee-ho Yoo about Suk-min Yoon

Suk-min Yoon Scouting Report by former Lotte Giant Ryan Sadowski

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