Reports yesterday once again connected the Orioles to right-hander Bronson Arroyo, reviving some early offseason linking between the two sides. In his latest piece, Dan Connolly of the Baltimore Sun runs down the list of potential targets for Orioles executive vice president Dan Duquette, including Arroyo.
Connolly offers a familiar refrain regarding Arroyo, writing that the right-hander seeks a three-year guarantee. Arroyo has been linked to many clubs to this point, but none has been willing to offer a third guaranteed season to the longtime Reds hurler to this point. Though Arroyo is as durable as any starter in the game, having authored nine consecutive seasons of 199 or more innings, he also turns 37 in February, making such a commitment a risk. Connolly writes that there is a sense that Arroyo would go to Baltimore if guaranteed a third season, and the club is "definitely interested." Duquette and the Orioles have maintained an ongoing dialogue with Arroyo's agent, Terry Bross, Connolly adds.
The Orioles have also had internal discussions about bringing back a familiar face in the form of left-hander Bruce Chen, Connolly reports. Chen's name has scarcely been mentioned to this point in the offseason, but the soft-tossing southpaw is coming off a season in which he posted a 3.27 ERA with 5.8 K/9 and 2.7 BB/9 in 121 innings for the Royals. Of course, Chen also posted an astoundingly low 27.7 percent ground-ball rate in 2013, and his 51.9 percent fly-ball rate was the highest in the Majors for pitchers with at least 100 innings. Clearly, such trends would not bode well for a transition to the hitter-friendly parks of the AL East. LIke Arroyo, Chen will turn 37 this year.
Jason Hammel still doesn't figure to be an option for the O's, though Connolly seems to think the idea is becoming more plausible than it was earlier in the offseason. Both sides enjoyed their time together, he writes.
Names like Masahiro Tanaka, Ervin Santana, Ubaldo Jimenez and Matt Garza can all be effectively ruled out, writes Connolly. That's not surprising to hear, given Duquette's earlier statement that the club wouldn't be in the mix for Tanaka and the team's budgetary constraints. Santana, Jimenez and Garza are all likely to sign at least four-year deals, pricing them out of Baltimore's range.
Bruce Chen!!! Yikes. So I guess the O’s will sit around 500 for the next 2 or 3 seasons then fall off the map back to obscurity for the next 14 then…. awesome.
Bruce Chen? Seriously? This is what us O’s fans should be getting excited about? Well, I truly hope this is a flag DD is raising just to fool other GM’s. If not, this is really sad.
Thanks for not trying, Baltimore!
Sincerely, the rest of the AL East
Who did the Blue Jays add? Who did the Rays add? Who did the Red Sox add that was an upgrade? This years free agent class isn’t very good which is why mediocre players were getting huge contracts. The Yankess added players but also lost their best player.
The O’s have one the best cores in baseball.
If they supplemented that core with actual talent instead of a bunch of minor league contracts, the rest of the division would be in trouble.
The Red Sox are fresh off a World Series title and the only real player loss was Ellsbury. Pitching is fine, offense was one of the best, so even a downgrade from Ellsbury is not catastrophic.
Yankees added Ellsbury, Beltran, and McCann. Their pitching and defense are suspect, but I never count them out of anything anyway.
Rays are fine for the same reason they have been for the last six seasons.
I also would like to thank the Blue Jays for not trying.
Alex Alphabet tried last offseason, got taken for a ride (Wells Karma), lost all of his MLBTR adulation and adoration, now is hiding in a hole waiting to get fired.
Alex Alphabet FTW. Its funny the difference a year makes, he was a deity last season.
Just standing pat like that (even after a championship) is never a good idea. It’s never going to work out exactly the same, some players will have a drop off, others will get hurt, and the league will adjust. I think the 2003 Angels going with almost the exact same team they had in 2002 should be a lesson in that.
What holes did Boston need to fill? How should they have filled them differently? In what way could significant upgrades could have come without handcuffing themselves for the future?
Even more in your defense, the Red Sox were incredibly active last offseason. The O’s have literally stood pat for 2 straight off-seasons now. To make my point even stronger I want to make clear that I am an Orioles fan defending the Red Sox.
Regardless of the strength of the market (or lack-there-of), teams looking to contend should at least be filling any holes they can with some depth/platoon pieces, or whatever, from the list of FA’s.
What is going on in Baltimore? They had a fine season a couple years back, granted they overachieved, but clearly there’s some sort of core. Why won’t they put money in to the team?
Why? Let me introduce you to our owner: P. Angelos.
Streak of missing the postseason snapped… Angelos and Duquette will hang their hat on that peg for the next decade until talk of missing the postseason for another ten years starts picking up again. Keep pocketing that MASN money, Angelos!!!
Meanwhile, Hardy, Crush, and Wieters will all walk, and the O’s will keep spinning in mediocrity while wasting the prime years of Jones, Manny, Bundy, and Gausman.
If only the O’s owner loved the O’s and wanted to win as much as the fans do…
They’re just being smart with the budget they have, and you must respect the process. Wow I managed to finish that sentence without laughing.
Hey guess what- Tanaka would be a “good fit”, and would “help the rotation”.
Just trying to fulfill the mandate to mention him everyday.
Why not target someone like Johan Santana if they are going to go dumpster diving, at least there is a glimmer of hope that he could be a 2 or 3 in the MLB level. Players like Arroyo and Chen are stop gaps that are just screaming to be released when their ERA reaches 5.0+ by the allstar break.
Didn’t we try that last year with jurrgens?
If our big offseason move is Bruce Chen I’m becoming a Nationals fan.
Beyond the joke factor about having “double Chens,” there is no reason to bring Bruce Chen back to Baltimore. That’s like going to the fridge, taking out a jug of milk, going “Gee, this milk is sour. Maybe tomorrow it will be fresh.” No, it won’t. Right now we’re playing the “waiting to see how the market pans out” scenario, i.e. the Arroyos of the world have to get off the “I want a 3 year contract” jag if we want to see a signing. Tanaka? We’ve got a MUCH better chance of seeing Eddie Gamboa make our rotation, and if you’re looking for a dark horse, he’d be it. This guy has reinvented himself with the knuckleball and every time I read about him, he’s throwing more no-hit innings. Every year there’s somebody who comes out of the woodwork and surprises everyone. I’m hoping this year it’s Eddie, cuz one surprise we won’t be seeing is Tanaka or Garza or any of those other multi-year-contract hungry free agents. I do wish that someday we could have an O’s owner who actually WANTS to spend money. And so it goes…
The O’s should trade for Cliff Lee.
DD – “Ruban, I’d like to trade for Lee. Can’t give you Bundy, Gaussman, Rodriguez, or Harvey and I need you guys to pick up about 90% of the remaining money on the contract.”
– Click-
DD – “Hello, hello? Ruban?” Sets phone down. “It worked for Brad Pitt in ‘Moneyball’ how come it never works for me?”
They’ll consider Chen, but not Hammel? Really?
The Orioles are still counting on their 2012 core to win it all in 2014. What the O’s don’t seem to understand is that 2012 was a fluke. Last year their core fell apart in the second half and barely played .500. So far this off season they’ve tended to believe that by revamping their bullpen and hoping for 2012 results will once again do the trick. It won’t, and it’s too big of an iffy gamble. The problem lies in getting men on base, having base runners be more aggressive once they’re on base and biggest of all, getting the runs home once the base runners are there. Look at Davis’ and Machado’s numbers the second half compared to the first. There in lies the problem.