22 November 2017

Cup of jO's: Expecting a Sleepy Thanksgiving Weekend

Front offices never rest, but the gears of player acquisition certainly slow down during the holidays.  Clubs tend to be working with reduced staffs.  Players often do not want to deal with the intricacies of contract negotiations.  Agents have difficulty at times reaching either side at a level of interest to complete a move.  Transactions likely will occur, but probably nothing of note once this evening arrives.

This leaves us with a few rumors to gnaw on while we do anything to avoid discussing politics with our extended families this weekend.  The one of the forefront of media is the availability of free agent starting pitching.  The Orioles will need to acquire a couple arms and they appear to be kicking the tires on several second and third tier starters.  The focus appears to be settling on Jason Vargas, Tyler Chatwood, Alex Cobb, and Lance Lynn.

Vargas is your journeyman whose two attributes are that he uses his left arm to throw a ball and the first half of 2017 he was a bit dominant.  However, he will be 35 next year and has never been shown to be all that decent of a pitcher, including the second half of last season.

Chatwood is one of those pitchers to dream on.  He throws hard and was once touted as having an absolutely brilliant hammer curve.  He will be moving away from Coors where his pitches work better and are easier to sequence.  However, the only thing that has really made him see success is his uncanny knack to generate absolutely terrible contact.  One wonders if that is sustainable.  Also, he is not exactly a workhorse and has had two Tommy John operations in his career.

Cobb is everyone's second favorite pitcher.  At times, has been brilliant.  He has shown an ability to hang in the AL East.  However, he depends heavily on a two seamer, which MLB teams are beginning to adapt to.  Plus, he too has never been a picture of health.  Lynn is good when healthy, but he too has gone under the knife.  He also profiles as a likely candidate to suffer another injury because he relies so heavily on his fastball.

Another rumor percolating is a potential Zach Britton trade.  The idea behind that would be that the club could get a piece for the future while finding a less expensive reliever on the market.  The way this would work would be this: the Orioles would deal Britton for a potential future piece.  Let's say the piece would be someone like the Cubs' center fielder Albert Almora who is also Manny Machado's cousin.  In turn, the club takes off the 12 MM in Britton's expected contract and puts it into Mike Minor, another lefty, at 3/27.  The play would be that Minor provides the club an excellent left handed reliever to replace Britton while the Cubs would get someone with a much higher ceiling than Minor.  I am not saying that would work, but that would be the idea.  Not investing Britton's contract into another reliever would seem somewhat short-sighted as this club no longer employs an elite pen and needs every solid arm it can muster if it wishes to be competitive.

What should also be a rumor, but something I have heard nothing much about, is targeting a left handed starting outfielder. Yes, the club just acquired Jaycob Brugman for not much.  He is an adequate center fielder defensively who has some gap power. He is also an extreme platoon hitter who gets eaten up by left handed pitchers, so maybe he gets into a platoon with Rickard if an unfortunate solution to center field is required.  Regardless, you should expect Brugman in Norfolk to begin the year.

More fully fledged solutions would be someone like Jarrod Dyson, who was stunning in the outfield and against right handers.  Or maybe Curtis Granderson if you believe the cliff he fell off of last summer could be scaled again.  Regarding the previous rumor, Almora is a right handed bat, so that would not solve that particular expressed need.

So...here we are.  Waiting. Wondering. Do you all have any thoughts that I would find interesting?

17 comments:

Unknown said...

Seems that the Astros could be a team interested in trading for a closer and they certainly have the bullets left in their farm system to make a deal. I'm just not convinced that Britton has the trade value to bring back a package in which the fans, at least, would be interested. If they valued Britton highly enough they could include one of their high-end pitching prospects and somebody further off with upside, like a Corbin Martin or a Jorge Alcala. A year ago Britton might have fetched that plus a bat. But now.... Somebody like Almora with a capped upside is probably the best you could hope for. And I can't imagine Adam Jones would be happy to see him arrive.

Pip said...

Do the Rockies have a 1B?
No? How about eating enough contract to send them Trumbo?
Trumbo is a solid 1B(much better than Mark Reynolds)would hit a million home runs in Coors field(more than Mark Reynolds)and in the better working environment, would be more than worth his contract.
I realize he's been lousy with the Orioles but that's because he's not an outfielder and everyone except the decision makers knew it.
Putting him at 1B would solve a lot of problems, and giving him to the Rockies would solve a couple of their problems too.

Unknown said...

Lynn and Cobb have about a 1% chance of coming here. The Orioles will not pay what they are asking for.

Anonymous said...

Why haven't we heard any rumors on Jaime Garcia? O's should swoop in and scoop him up early.

Jon Shepherd said...

Every team in the market for pitching is looking at a few guys and trying to save some money. Every free agent pitcher has a few teams looking at him and is trying to extract the most money. When one team moves their price point up and the player moves his down to meet a deal happens.

So swooping in early usually means paying well over initial market price. Agents who think the market is too low tend to wait until the December meetings where market price tends to be quickly hashed out.

What you usually see is that mid tier free agents are overpaid before December compared to what they get after.

Jon Shepherd said...

At the moment, it appears no one is willing to pay what they are asking.

Jon Shepherd said...

I would also argue that a guy like Lynn is exactly who the Orioles wind up getting. A player who puts his asking price too high where other teams settle with other free agents, so that he comes back around to the Orioles' lower but persistent offer.

Jon Shepherd said...

Yeah, I have noted pretty regularly that Trumbo should be a priority for the Rockies.

Jon Shepherd said...

I think they are actually in on Minor. He is cheaper than Britton and the "need" for a high profile closer is not big on their priorities. They have some cost considerations coming forward and setting aside 12 MM for a position they did fine with on a cheaper line probably makes little sense to them. Based on what I know, they were very reluctant to even try to finish the Britton deal. The front office was pretty split on it. My guess is the ones who were against it feel vindicated a bit and their perspective probably carries more weight with the World Series win.

Anonymous said...

The O's need to target Travis Demeritte in the Rule 5. A RH Flaherty with much more upside (and a lot of risk). That would solve the UTIL IF position with a top flight defensive talent. If you recall, in my blueprint, I made space for Eduardo Nunez at $10M AAV. Getting Demeritte frees up that $10M to go after someone like Minor and make Britton trade-able which would free up another $12M if you could trade him for even one near MLB-ready SP prospect. You guys are gonna eventually warm up to a Braves trade - it's too obvious not to. If you really think Trumbo can't DH and has to play then taking a chance that Kemp can DH better than Trumbo is a great idea. The difference between the two is $6M per year for two years. The Braves can platoon Trumbo in LF with Markakis and start him if they want to leave Acuna in the minors another couple of months. Then what if the O's trade Britton to the Braves for Markakis and some AAAA SP (Sims/Barreda/Wisler/Blair). That way, the O's pay $6M per year over two years and get a DH, a LH OF who can get on base, and some young SP with potential. They'd still likely have enough left over to make a play for Minor (not to mention my original blueprint having Cobb and Garcia but I would be happy with Chatwood and Garcia). The Braves would love to have Britton for only a one year commitment to have a sure stopper while their younger relievers continue to develop.

Unknown said...

Don't want anyone with similarities to Flardoza.

Unknown said...

Gotta love that career .241 ave in the low minors for Demeritte, plus a ton of strikeouts, he's fit right in!

Anonymous said...

Elisabeth, you can't look at one statistic and judge value. He did have a down year, that's why he's available but he's also young and an elite defender. Just best hope he's still out there when the Rule 5 draft comes along. Braves could non-tender folks and add him back on the 40-man.

Unknown said...

Crickets!!! Nothing since 11-22!

Unknown said...

!75!!! SO 2 years ago, for a singles hitter.

Jon Shepherd said...

Thanksgiving weekend. We like our family more than we like posting content. You will likely see a similar lull around Christmas.

Happy Holidays!

Pip said...

Happy were the days when writers were chained in cells and thrown a morsel when they produced a page.
Who says totalitarianism is all bad??