Orioles 2018 Blueprint Follow-Up: Why I Decided to Non-Tender Zach Britton

Zach Britton (photo via Keith Allison)

A couple of weeks ago, some of the writers here at Camden Depot went through our annual exercise of outlining our vision of how the Orioles should approach the offseason. My blueprint was the first to be published, and within it, I made the somewhat controversial decision to non-tender Baltimore closer Zach Britton. By doing so, the move saved me $12.2 million in payroll, but significantly weakened my proposed bullpen. For our fictional exercise, I thought the move was necessary to make the club as competitive as it could be for the 2018. And instead of getting into all of the reasons as to why I thought it was best to non-tender Britton within that piece (essentially inserting 1,000+ word tangent), I promised that I would post a follow up article detailing my reasons for doing so. Well, here it is.

With one more season of Manny Machado and Adam Jones, I wanted to put the best team possible on the field to compete in 2018, without much consideration as to what the team would look like in the following season. To do accomplish that, the two main things I was focused on in my blueprint was strengthening the bench with players who could play multiple positions and remaking the starting rotation. A more complete bench was the easy task, and in my view that goal was accomplished by signing Jon Jay, Howie Kendrick, and Cliff Pennington.

There is no getting around the fact that the 2017 Baltimore starting rotation was terrible. The only good thing about them was that the 3 worst performers were all going to be free agents.

2017 Baltimore Orioles SP Ranks

Like many of the other writers, I believed the lack of quality starting pitchers in the minor league system meant that it was essential to sign at least 3 starting pitchers. I believed that the only way to significantly improve the rotation was to get the best starting pitcher available, and in my mind that was Yu Darvish. With Darvish costing $17.3 million per year (and considering all the other areas this team needed to improve as well as a limited budget), my decision essentially boiled down to whether I would want Britton or Darvish. I chose Darvish.

The main reason I felt why I ad to go with Darvish was due to just how BAD the Orioles starting rotation was in 2017/could be in 2018. The Orioles have proven that they don’t need a great rotation to be successful and make the playoffs. However, the 2017 rotation was so bad (combined with the lack of internal options), I believed that anything less than Darvish would be applying a band-aid to a wound that required 40 stitches. And while he’s looked at as an injury risk, he’s coming off a sub-par season, where he was still worth 3.5 fWAR (3.9 bWAR). He’s averaged 4.1 fWAR (4.2 bWAR) per 180 IP over the course of his career. To put that into perspective, the Orioles haven’t had a starting pitcher eclipse the 3.0 fWAR mark since Erik Bedard did it in 2006 (4.6) and 2007 (5.0).

Comparing average Yu Darvish against Zach Britton at his absolute best (2.5 fWAR during the 2016 season), the Orioles get an additional 1.6 wins for the added cost of $5 million. I realize that Darvish would come with an additional 3 years of commitment according to our BORAS projection system, but as I mentioned, I was only concerned with 2018. Granted that average Darvish versus the best Britton argument doesn’t work when using bWAR bWAR (which based on run prevention instead of FIP), but what is the likelihood we see 2016 Britton again in 2018? It’s not impossible, but coming off an injury-plagued season with good (but not great) numbers, I think it’s highly unlikely.

Britton missed most of May, all of June, and the beginning of July due to a strained left forearm. He was then shut down for the rest of the season after his September 18th appearance due to an MCL sprain in his left knee, an injury that was serious enough for him to receive a stem cell injection. When he did pitch, he was effective, but certainly not his usual self, finishing with career worst strikeout and walk rates (since being transitioned to the bullpen full time).

Obviously I don’t know exactly how bad either of those injuries are, but that forearm injury (combined with his performance) was a big reason why teams weren’t offering a trade package the Orioles liked at the deadline. Along with the knee injury, he didn’t do anything the last two months of the season to bring his trade value back up. When you combine the injuries, the performance, and the assumption that he’ll make $12.2 million in his 4th and final year of arbitration, I don’t believe that he has much trade value. This kind of torpedoes the idea of tendering him a contract and trading him later in the offseason. If the Orioles couldn’t find an attractive offer at the 2017 trade deadline, they’re certainly not going to find a better one this offseason. Furthermore, I don’t think his value will be that high at the 2018 trade deadline if the Orioles are out of it. The only way the Orioles get a good package for him is if he pitches like he did in 2016 again and there’s a desperate contender who needs a closer. Again, that scenario is possible, just not probable.

The need to greatly improve the starting rotation, combined with the injury questions and decreased trade value of Zach Britton, led to my decision to non-tender him. I ultimately thought the $12.2 million saved could be better spent to make the team better in 2018. So if I were actually sitting in the GM chair in real life, would I still take the same course of action? Probably not (actually, almost definitely not).

For the purposes of our blueprint exercise, I stand by my decision. But I don’t think it’s a smart one to make in real life. And that’s not because the fans would probably be pissed about non-tendering a favorite (although that should be given consideration as well). The real reason you don’t non-tender Zach Britton is because it’s not guaranteed that you’ll be able to reinvest those savings into players that will improve the team. The readers who commented on my blueprint started to hit on this topic a bit. Yu Darvish, Alex Cobb, and all of the other players we proposed to sign are human beings. They have a choice of where they want to play. If they don’t want to play in Baltimore, they’re not going to sign with Baltimore. The blueprint exercise takes that choice away from them. Non-tendering Britton in real life could very possibly yield a team without Zach Britton and an extra $12.2 million. That may be ok for the owners of the team, but from the perspective of being competitive, the Orioles would be decidedly worse off.