Sunday Bird Droppings: Looking ahead to the Orioles non-tender decisions

Hello, friends.

There are now 130 days remaining until Orioles Opening Day 2021. Exactly three months today, the Orioles are scheduled to have their first full squad workout of spring training. We can all hope that both of these things occur as scheduled.

The next offseason day of real interest for O’s fans is going to be the December 2 deadline for teams to decide whether to tender contracts to their players for 2021. It is unusual for a player to be non-tendered, but it does happen, usually when a team deems that a player’s expected arbitration raise exceeds what the team is willing to pay for him.

There may be more non-tenders likely to happen across the league in this offseason that is taking place in the middle of an ongoing pandemic, following a shortened season that had revenues severely impacted by the same pandemic.

On Friday, the Orioles already dropped one of their players who was thought to be a non-tender candidate, as Renato Nunez was DFA’d in order to make room for the O’s to add all of the prospects they wanted to add to the 40-man roster. It seems like the non-tender deadline may hold more pruning of the roster, with Hanser Alberto possibly being a candidate to be squeezed out.

There are trade possibilities too. The days between the Rule 5 protection deadline and the Rule 5 draft last year saw the Orioles trade both Jonathan Villar and Dylan Bundy. The O’s are going to need to open up a 40-man roster spot if they want to take a player in that draft this year, so if they don’t do it with a non-tender, they could do it with a trade over the next couple of weeks.

Around the blogO’sphere

More thoughts on the Nunez DFA (School of Roch)
Roch notes that Nunez’s “projected arbitration salary of $2.1 million, limitations in the field and streakiness at the plate were a bad combination.” Though I think it’s more about other players on the roster pushing out Nunez.

O’s add five top 30 prospects to 40-man roster (Orioles.com)
Joe Trezza runs through the players the Orioles added on Friday night. If things go right for them and/or wrong for Orioles at their positions right now, they could each debut in 2021.

Chris Davis, wife Jill donate $1 million to “Fill the Stadium” effort to fight child hunger amid pandemic (Baltimore Sun)
That is a nice chunk of money to a good cause.

O’s farm has improved and six 40-man adds is the latest example (Steve Melewski)
Roch’s MASN colleague is feeling positive about the farm after putting six players onto the 40-man roster. I’ll note that Roch’s post also pointed out that the last time the O’s added six players was in 2009, when the six players were Josh Bell, Brandon Erbe, Pedro Florimon, Rhyne Hughes, Luis Lebron, and Brandon Snyder - not exactly a significant set of names.

Birthdays and Orioles anniversaries

Today in 1965, Orioles outfielder Curt Blefary won the American League Rookie of the Year award. Blefary was the second Oriole to win the award.

There are a few former Orioles who were born on this day. They are: 2016-17 reserve pitcher Jayson Aquino, 2007-08 outfielder Jay Payton, and 1963-64 reserve outfielder Joe Gaines. Today is Gaines’s 84th birthday, so an extra happy birthday to him.

Is today your birthday? Happy birthday to you! Your birthday buddies for today include: War of the Roses side-switcher Richard Neville (1428), the first Second Lady and second First Lady Abigail Adams (1744), novelist George Eliot (1819), French leader Charles de Gaulle (1890), comedian Rodney Dangerfield (1921), tennis star Billie Jean King (1943), E Street Band guitarist Steven Van Zandt (1950), actor Jamie Lee Curtis (1958), and actor Scarlett Johansson (1984).

On this day in history...

In 1718, the pirate Blackbeard (Edward Teach) was killed in a battle off the coast of North Carolina after being attacked and boarded by HMS Pearl.

In 1963, President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas.

In 1995, Pixar’s Toy Story was first released in theaters. The movie is noteworthy for being the first feature-length film to be made entirely with computer-generated images.

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And that’s the way it is in Birdland on November 22. Have a safe Sunday.