Blueprint For The 2017 Orioles (Option 2): Meet The New Boss...

Positional Needs & Wants

The following players are set to be free agents after spending 2016 with the club:

• C Matt Wieters
• 1B/RF/DH Mark Trumbo
• 1B/DH Pedro Alvarez
• LF Nolan Reimold

There aren't any literal holes in the rotation; the Orioles claim to have 5 starting pitchers. I don't agree with them, so I'd like to see the team make an effort to bring on another starting pitcher and relegate at least Jimenez to the bullpen. Still, the actual roster holes need to be filled before any new pitchers can be brought in.

Budget

Based on MLB Trade Rumors' arbitration estimates, the Orioles will be spending quite a bit next year already. With an available budget of $160 million, there's not much left over for filling the holes.

Plan

Here's the rub with the Orioles: they're good enough to feel like they're just a piece away when really, they're one or two really expensive pieces away. Staying within a tight budget given the team's current commitments means that the rotation can't be meaningfully upgraded while also filling the hole in right field. While I want to upgrade the rotation through free agency, I probably won't be able to. I'll have to count on Gausman and Bundy to continue to progress as professional starters.

 I'm also incredibly risk averse and projecting contracts is not my strong suit so other Depot writers and you, the reader, might think I'm foolishly giving up the chance to earn two draft picks here. That's fine:

Like last year, I'm against extending a qualifying offer to Matt Wieters. He's definitely not worth the $17M that would be associated with the QO, and unless he is really looking for a long-term deal, he'd take the QO and the Orioles would end up with an expensive catcher who is no better than the other free agent options.

I'm not going to offer a qualifying offer to Mark Trumbo either because he might actually take it. That ice was broken last year by Colby Rasmus and Matt Wieters and although Trumbo's season-long numbers look great, he was noticeably worse overall in the second half. Sure, his WRC+ was over 100 in every month of the year, but just barely in July and September. I'm not willing to bank on Trumbo to put another two-or-more win season together while being strictly a power hitter and a liability in the outfield, which means I'm not willing to risk paying him like a two-or-more win player.

I'll also get rid of TJ McFarland and Vance Worley. Their skills are easily replaced by other guys on the roster and frankly the Orioles already have too many 6th starter/LRP types anyway. I'd rather let Ubaldo and Miley fight for the last spot in the rotation. That also saves us about $4 million.

I'd like to see the Orioles acquire Jay Bruce to play right field. He's coming off of a year in which he played well enough to be seen as the Mets' missing piece before falling apart at the end of the season. He had two bad years prior to that, but his early- and mid-20s hinted at a lot of potential. Even if Bruce puts together a pretty average season worth 1 win, that makes him better than both Joey Rickard and empty space, and he's only going to cost the team $7.2M on a 1-year deal, per the BORAS model.

Catcher is a tough position to fill, because many of the impending free agents are older and haven;t caught a full season. The Orioles have Caleb Joseph, who I thought might be the man to fill Wieters' spot as recently as last year, but I think he's better off used as a backup. However, I'd prefer to go cheap here. I don't need a lot of power from this position. A healthy, reliable backstop is fine. With that in mind, I'm going to pass on the top free agents and go with the less expensive Hank Conger on a 1 year, $4 million deal. He's never played more than 100 games in a season (for performance reasons, not injury), but he's under 30 and has multiple season with an OPS over .700. If, like I did, you thought at one time that Caleb Joseph could be the organization's future simply because he was cheap and serviceable, then Hank Conger isn't a stretch. He's an upgrade from Joseph and the two can split time to keep them both healthy. But most important, Conger is a cheap warm body that can play behind the plate. The organization needs to go cheap somewhere if we're going to see meaningul improvement anywhere, so I'm punting on a position that most organizations punt on anyway.

Finally, we're looking for a DH, and preferably one that can play a little first base if necessary. The BORAS model used by Camden Depot suggested 3 years at an AAV of $13 million for Steve Pearce, which feels a expensive. Pearce hasn't made more than $5 million in any single season, so I'm going to use that as my high estimate for his AAV and offer him a 2 year, $10 million deal. Pearce also offers some flexibility in the outfield and can play left field whenever Buck feels like excluding Kim for no apparent reason.

Pearce hits lefties and righties pretty well, but is noticeably better against lefties than righties, which makes him ideal for a platoon with a left-handed masher. True to Orioles' fashion, I expect the team to go with a decent option that they've seen in the clubhouse before. With that in mind, I'll recommend bringing back Pedro Alvarez for about 1 year and $5 million. This is again below the BORAS projection of 1/$8M for Alvarez, but he signed for 1/$5.75 last year and didn't do anything to earn himself a major raise.

Major Moves

• Let Matt Wieters and Mark Trumbo walk
• Signed Jay Bruce, RF for 1/$7.2M
• Signed Steve Pearce, DH/UT for 1/$5M
• Signed Pedro Alvarez, DH/1B for 1/$5.75M
• Signed Hank Conger, C for 1/$4M

Conclusion

If you're keeping score or adding salaries at home, I went a little over the $160 million budget ($5 million to be exact, but in the spirit of being a fan: it's not my money, so spend away!). I'm sure a few of these contract projections are high; Pearce and Conger will probably cost less than $5M and $4M respectively, so there will be ways to get this roster to $160M.

Exciting, isn't it? This roster looks pretty much identical to the 2016 squad, except Jay Bruce is the new reclamation project in right field. The Orioles will always go as far as their stars take them, and they've got too much money committed to those stars to give them much help in the field or in the lineup. The only way this team competes for a memorable postseason experience is if Gausman and Bundy make major leaps forward.

Should the Orioles Trade for Jay Bruce?

With both Markakis and Cruz going elsewhere in free agency, it should come as no surprise that the Orioles have made outfield their top priority.  A month ago I recommended that the Orioles attempt to trade or non-tender De Aza and sign Aoki and that's still a possibility. But recently people have suggested that the Orioles try to trade for Jay Bruce. The Toronto Sun claims that the Reds would be willing to trade him for a few inexpensive major league players. Would Jay Bruce be a good option for this Orioles club?

At first glance, Jay Bruce looks like he could help our offense. He was solid offensively from 2010-2013 with a wRC+ in the 117 to 124 range or about 20% above average. But in 2014 he had a horrendous year offensively with only a wRC+ of 79. Defense metrics indicate that his defense is about average. His sum UZR over the past three years is -.6. He is probably slightly below average although he did have a strong defensive season in 2013 when he was the Reds’ winner of the Wilson Defensive Player of the Year Award. Jay Bruce will be 28 years old at the start of the 2015 season and becomes a free agent after the 2016 season. A team that trades for him will receive two years of his prime at a total cost of $25 million.

It makes sense to take a more in depth look. Let’s start with his walk rate and strikeout rate. In 2010 and 2011, Bruce had a 10% walk rate. In 2012 and 2013, he had a walk rate over 9%. In 2014, his walk rate dropped to 8%. This seems to indicate that his walk rate is regressing over time. His unintentional walk rate shows a similar trend. From 2010-2012 he had about an 8.5% unintentional walk rate. In 2013 and 2014 he had an unintentional walk rate of 7.1%. This seems to indicate that his walk rate has really started to regress over the past two years. The only reason why his 2013 and 2014 walk numbers are different is because pitchers didn’t intentionally walk him as often in 2014 as they did in 2013. This is probably because he had a poor year in 2014. His strikeout rate tells the same story. From 2010-2012 his average K% was 24%. In 2013 and 2014 his average K% was about 27%. It seems that he's walking less and striking out more.

His plate discipline stats explain this trend. From 2010-2012 his swinging strike rate was nearly 12% but in 2013 and 2014 his swinging strike rate was about 13.8%. It is also worrisome that from 2010-2013 his O-Swing% was roughly 29% but in 2014 it was 33% while his Z-Swing% was 74% from 2010-2013 but only 69% in 2014. These statistics indicate that he’s not making contact as often as he once did and as a result his walk rate is decreasing while his strikeout rate is increasing. It’s possible that this is simply a two year fluke but it is a red flag.

The next thing to look at is his power. From 2010-2012 his FB% was roughly 45%. He had a 39.4% FB% in 2013 and a 34% FB% in 2014 while his HR/FB rate has stayed consistent over the entire sample. He did hit 30 HRs in 2013 but he also had 697 PAs. If we normalize his PAs to 600 from 2010 to 2014 then he would have hit 26 HRs in 2010, 29 in 2011, 32 in 2012, 26 in 2013 and 20 in 2014. Going forward, I expect him to be a 20-25 HR hitter instead of a 30 HR hitter. This may seem like a small loss of power but is definitely another red flag.

He doesn’t do particularly well when he hits balls into play either. From 2011 to 2014 he had a BABIP of .297, .283, .322 and .269. His 2013 number is the clear outlier and suggests that he was simply lucky that year. It also suggests that his BABIP is regressing as he gets older but that it was never very good to begin with. I would expect him to have a BABIP that’s certainly below .300 in 2015 and probably in the .270-.280 range.

If Jay Bruce had a more reasonable BABIP of .288 in 2013 then he would likely have 14 fewer hits of which 9 would be singles and 5 would be doubles. If so, his offensive line would have been .240/.308/.447 instead of .262/.329/.478. Steamer predicts him to hit .239/.313/.441 with a wRC+ of 106 and a BABIP of .285 in 2015.

Jay Bruce had a terrible 2014 and I expect him to have a better 2015. But I also think that there’s some regression in his performance and there are certainly a number of red flags. It's worth noting that Fake Teams came to the same conclusion. I see him putting up a .230/.300/.410 line with slightly below average defense. With 2 years and $25M remaining and given that he's still in his prime, Bruce may be worth his contract but wouldn't be worth a few major league pieces.

The Orioles need to add someone to make up for the losses of their outfield. But Jay Bruce has a number of warning flags and likely won't be as effective as he was in the past. It would be a mistake to give up anything of value in return for Jay Bruce.