FanPost

theOrioleComplex's Offseason Plan: meh

Arbitration-eligible players - tender or non-tender

To tender:

Ryan Flaherty ($1.7 million)

Caleb Joseph ($700,000)

Flaherty's bat may not be great, but he is a super-utility player, and I can't imagine trying to get a super-utility player for a price like that in the free agent market. Don't start him often, but he's a great backup.

Same for Joseph. He had a terrible offensive season, but he still plays good defense and is familiar with the coaching staff. Again, I can't imagine getting a catcher for that price in the free agent market, so keep him.

To non-tender:

T.J. McFarland ($1 million)

Vance Worley ($3.3 million)

Both of these are long relievers that will probably be somewhat easily replaced with other relievers, which aren't great, but can't be that much worse than McFarland or Worley. For McFarland, it's more of freeing up roster space. For Worley, I feel like we can get the same production on a league-minimum salary by another reliever.

Money saved: $4.3 million. This means our payroll from here would be a projected $150.7 million. That's reasonable.

Pending free agents: To QO or not to QO

Mark Trumbo

I'd think this is a no-brainer. He can't play defense and will probably be limited to 1B and DH duties, but he still hit 47 home runs, and I'm sure a lot of teams will take a slugger like that. Offer the QO. If he accepts, at least we have DH covered for another year.

Matt Wieters

I can't really see a situation where I'd offer the QO. Yes, it's true that if he won't accept it, we'll get a free draft pick if he signs elsewhere. And yes, he is probably the best free agent catcher (if you think Wilson Ramos won't be available for the first 2 months of the season). But if you do offer the QO, and he accepts it, we'd already have a starting projected salary of about $170 million before we even explore the free agent market, and that would severely handcuff us from signing anyone else. I can't do it. Also, last year, he was probably one of the best free agent catchers on the market as well, but he still took the QO. What makes you think he'll do any different with a worse year? I can't see many teams who would want a catcher with a QO attached having a bad year like Wieters did (maybe except the Braves), so I don't see a reason why he would reject the QO. I'm sorry, but goodbye Wieters.

Other free agents

So after all of this, we have two holes we need to fill: Catcher and Right Fielder. Caleb Joseph would be the starting catcher if we do nothing, and with the bad offensive season he's had, I don't want to see that happen. Left field could also be an issue, but I'm just trusting on Hyun-Soo Kim to get regular playing time and hopefully play error-free, average defense. He can also platoon with Joey Rickard, and I don't think that would be too bad of an idea.

There are quite a few available right fielders in the free agent market. Unfortunately, most of them are not in the O's price range. I'm looking around $10-13 million AAV, with a max of $15 million. That would take out Ian Desmond, Yoenis Cespedes, and Dexter Fowler. That's okay. All three of these players have a QO attached, anyway. According to Spotrac, both Josh Reddick and Michael Saunders are also projected to have AAVs of over $16 million. If this is indeed the case, I can't imagine considering these players, either. So what does that leave us?

Well, there's aging free agents in Angel Pagan, Rajai Davis, and Coco Crisp. All three of these players are age 35 or older, so there would be significant risk in trying to sign one of these players, especially if they want multiple years. So let's move on.

Carlos Gomez might be an intriguing option, if he can keep up his slash line in Texas (.284/.362/.543) rather than Houston (.221/.277/.342). But he wants a long multiyear deal, possibly even up to 5 years, and he's in his age-31 season. Will someone give that to him? He's projected about 2 WAR for the 2017 season, and if we're going with paying $7-$8 million per WAR, 4 years and $60 million is a bit risky, but something I'd be willing to give him. He's not that far removed from his MVP-vote-getting 2013 season, so I have some reason to believe that he'll turn it around. But if he wants any more years or any more money, then good riddance, let's look for other players.

After Carlos Gomez, we're left with.... Jon Jay and Michael Bourn. Bourn was a great player when he was with the O's this season, but something about him being the starting right fielder for Opening Day of 2017 makes me feel uneasy. So I can't be okay with just signing Bourn.

So we're left with singles-hitting Jon Jay. As uneasy as that makes me feel, his slash line between lefties and righties are about even, and his .339 OBP is not that bad to have at the top of the lineup. Although his defense isn't rated that well, he's an improvement over the disaster outfield we've had this season. He's projected to have 0.7 WAR for 2017, so that's something at least. If we can sign him for 2 years and $15 million, I'd be more than happy with that.

Another two players I might even consider (but strictly only as backup outfielders) are Peter Bourjos and Gregor Blanco. Bourjo's OBP of .292 is not nice to look at, but at least he plays excellent defense, and would definitely be an improvement over anybody else. If we can get him for a year and $4 million, I'd be happy with that. Blanco had a down year with the Giants, but he is actually projected for a .255/.335/.359 slash line for 2017 as well as 0.5/0.6 WAR. I'd gladly give him a year and $6 million, but the other problem is that he is left-handed, and we would have 3 left-handed outfielders (if we signed Jon Jay) so probably not a good idea to sign him. But he's worth a look if we're out of other options.

Okay, that's enough for the outfielders. Now we need to fill in for a catcher.

Because Chance Sisco is ready probably sometime by next season, but almost definitely not for Opening Day, I just want a one-year stopgap. So what kind of catchers can we get for one-year deals?

Yeah, not much. Really. After Wieters and WIlson Ramos (which will certainly command a multiyear deal), our three available options are Jason Castro, Kurt Suzuki, and Nick Hundley.

Do you pick the guy with the nearly-non-existent offense, but good defense? Or do you pick a guy who's a little better on offense but comparatively worse on defense? Or do you pick a guy who's slightly better at offense, but even worse at defense? There are no good answers.

I'm going to assume that there are going to be suitors for Jason Castro, and there would be no way the Orioles would want to overpay for Castro. So he's out.

At this point, there are no good options here. And Suzuki and Hundley are roughly about even in terms of projected WAR (0.7) and WRC (80), so I can't even choose between two bad options. I'm just going to go with the slighly-better defense over the slightly-better offense (although that isn't saying much) and take Kurt Suzuki, and hope he takes a 1 year, $6 million deal. I'm not happy with this, but as long as he's just a stopgap and produces average or acceptable offensive numbers and not-too-terrible defensive numbers, I'll be okay with this for a year.

Trade candidates

We don't have anything that we can (or should) trade in our farm system, and I can't imagine us getting an acceptable return for any of our farm system pieces. So forget about it.

We could trade Zach Britton or Brad Brach, but just look at the reliever market this winter. It's stocked. I can't imagine why a team would give up 2-4 good prospects for Britton if they can get one of those relievers from the free agent market. I won't be offering to trade Britton or Brach this winter, but I'll listen in on any deals any other team offers (as would any General Manager). I'd only pull the trigger if we'd get a tremendous haul (a starting pitcher, and either 2 outfielders or 1 outfielder and 1 infielder, all of whom are either young and major-league ready or not too far from the Majors). Otherwise, it'd be wiser to keep what we have.

Summary

This isn't the prettiest offseason, but we have most of our holes filled with (hopefully) acceptable players. If, before the free agent signings and after the non-tenders, our projected salary would be $151 million, after signing Jon Jay (AAV $7.5 million) and Kurt Suzuki (AAV $6 million) and maybe even Peter Bourjos (AAV $4 million), we would have an Opening Day salary of about $168.5 million--reasonable, and if we feel like Bourjos isn't need, we can get an even more reasonable salary for $164.5 million.

The two positions I've never addressed are pitcher and DH. As for pitchers, I thought since we already had 6 qualified starting pitchers, it would make no sense to sign another one. And I don't think any of Jimenez, Miley, or Gallardo would bring back a good haul. So we're just going to have to roll with what we have and hopefully no one produces disastrous seasons. We can even start Dylan Bundy in the bullpen in the beginning of the season, and when one of Jimenez, Miley, or Gallardo flails, we can replace them with Bundy as the season goes. It's not pretty, but it's the best I can do.

As for DH, I'm really trusting that Trey Mancini can produce reasonable levels of production. That might be too much to ask for, but what else can I do? I can also put Hyun Soo Kim as DH whenever Joey Rickard takes the field, and that might work, too, as long as Kim has a decent season and Rickard isn't a pumpkin. This also isn't pretty, but I can't do much without spending more.

The bullpen, as always, will be our strength. Having Britton/Brach/Givens/Hart/O'Day is solid already, and I don't think we need to add another elite reliever (since they'll be so expensive this offseason).

The Opening Day lineup will look something like this:

Jay, RF

Kim, LF

Jones, CF

Machado, 3B

Davis, 1B

Schoop, 2B

Mancini, DH

Hardy, SS

Suzuki, C

Wow, that looks much worse than expected. We can also switch Jay and Kim if need be, and we can slide Jay all the way down to the 9-hole (if you're okay with Schoop being the #5 hitter). I'm also not sure where to put Jones. He can be as high as the 2-hole and as low as the 6-hole. As ugly as this lineup looks, at least the first 2 players have decent OBPs, and hopefully we'll hit more than just Solo Home Runs.

If you think we can sign Gomez for 4 years and $60 million, then we would have a Opening Day salary of about $172 million (still reasonable) and a lineup that may look something like this:

Gomez, RF

Kim, LF

Jones, CF

Machado, 3B

Davis, 1B

Schoop, 2B

Mancini, DH

Hardy, SS

Suzuki, C

That looks a lot better. You can shift Gomez and Kim if need be, and Jones can shift down if need be. Jones and Gomez can also switch positions, if the O's are willing to do that. Then we would have a nearly decent outfield.

Hopefully at least two of Miley, Gallardo, and Jimenez will have league-average seasons (wow, that is a lot to ask for), and Tillman, Bundy, and Gausman can be superstars.

This roster will leave a decent floor and a maybe-decently-high ceiling, so as meh as it is, I'm okay with it. Crazier things have happened.

EDIT: I just realized that I forgot to deduct $4.3 million from the starting salary after non-tendering. So I'll be starting with $150.7 million, and I could potentially spend up to $20 million on free agents. In this case, offering Josh Reddick 4 years, $72 million doesn't sound that bad, or maybe even 4 years, $64 million to Michael Saunders. Either would look pretty good in the 5-hole, at least better than what we have now.

So, to conclude, assuming that we sign a stopgap catcher like Kurt Suzuki to an AAV of around $6 million, my offseason options would be in this order:

1) Sign Josh Reddick to 4 years, $72 million: this gives us a $174.7 million Opening Day salary. Though that's a bit overboard, it's not too bad.

2) Sign Michael Saunders to 4 years, $64 million: this gives a $172.7 million Opening Day salary. This is a bit overboard too, but still reasonable.

3) Sign Carlos Gomez to 4 years, $60 million: this gives us a $171.7 million Opening Day salary. About the same as #2, still reasonable.

4) Sign Jon Jay to 2 years, $15 million and sign Peter Bourjos to 1 year, $4 million: this gives us a $162.2 million dollar Opening Day salary, which is the best-priced of them all (but also the worst option in terms of offense). Heck, with still (maybe) a bit of room to spare, I might as well just sign Pedro Alvarez to a reasonably priced deal, say 1 year, $8 million. That would still give us a $170.2 million Opening Day salary, which works. We also don't have to sign Bourjos, so if you subtract that, we would have a very reasonable $166.2 million Opening Day salary.

So if 1 doesn't work, try 2, try 3 if 2 doesn't work, and if all of the first 3 can't happen, then we are stuck with 4. I'm hoping we can get Josh Reddick, but for some reason I feel like the O's are going to end up with Jon Jay and Pedro Alvarez-- which I'm surprisingly okay with.

EDIT 2: I'm actually feeling more okay with Option 4 over Option 1. It'll take pressure off of Trey Mancini as they can just platoon at DH, and as long as Jon Jay is not that bad, we have a very balanced lineup here:

Jay, RF

Kim, LF

Jones, CF

Machado, 3B

Davis, 1B

Schoop, 2B

Alvarez, DH

Hardy, SS

Suzuki, C

If we sign Josh Reddick instead, then our lineup would look like this:

Kim, LF

Jones, CF

Machado, 3B

Davis, 1B

Reddick, RF

Schoop, 2B

Mancini, DH

Hardy, SS

Suzuki, C

I actually like how both lineups look. I can't decide which offseason plan to go for now. For now, I'd say forget about Michael Saunders and Carlos Gomez, go for Josh Reddick if we can (as long as the AAV is about $18 million or less), and if we can't get him, sign Jay, Alvarez, and maybe Bourjos.

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