After internal consideration of the idea of trading slugger Chris Davis, the Orioles front office decided that it will not look to move the first baseman/right fielder, Dan Connolly of the Baltimore Sun reports. The club has said as much publicly, but it’s particularly interesting to note that the concept was at least explored.
That stance could change if the team takes a significant dive over the next few weeks, Connolly adds. But he stresses that Davis will likely remain in the fold unless the O’s truly feel they have slipped out of contention.
Of course, as Connolly rightly explains, the club’s math necessarily factors in the strong possibility that it will make Davis a qualifying offer after the season. Though he’s been something of an enigmatic hitter in recent campaigns, ranging from putting up the slash line of a mediocre power bat to that of a legitimate superstar, Davis is still just 29 and seems a good bet to decline the one-year offer if it is extended.
A declined qualifying offer would put Baltimore in line for a draft compensation, so the team already has a strong expectation of getting future value out of the pending free agent. The gap between what it can achieve for him at the trade deadline and the value of the compensatory pick is not, presumably, significant enough to warrant sacrificing the ability to field Davis in the lineup the rest of the way.
“The club has said as much publicly, but it’s particularly interesting to note that the concept was at least explored.”
Teams do that with at least 90% of their roster every year. Not reading anything at all into it.
The qualifying offer, if I’m not mistaken, may exceed 17 million next year. Davis may well accept it if its offered to try and build on his value since he’s having a down year.
Boras client. That makes it very, very doubtful
A guy like him with Boras as an agent is going to have a problem. Make no mistake, I like Scott a lot. But when his clients some off of so-so years, he still wants top dollar for them. There are too many Shin-Soo Choo’s and Michael Bourn’s out there – decent players being paid well above what they produce. Over the years, GM’s have become leery. Scott can do that with the stars like Schurzer – but while Davis is a decent player, not too many teams are going to line up for the $15-20M AAV Scott will ask for on a long-term contract. It only takes one of course, but as with Morales, at some point the market dries up.
People say similar things every year and STILL no one takes it. Players want the security of a multi-year deal and one year at 17 million isn’t enough to sway them. It’s a point of pride. No one wants to be the first player that says yes.
The players need a couple players to accept the QO. Teams are going to use it more and more often until a couple players show they are fine with accepting it. Michael Cuddyer was a sure thing to accept last year until the Mets inexplicably signed him to a multi-year deal.
The one person I thought would accept the QO was Cuddyer last year.. He turned down the 1 year $15m for a 2 year $21m contract. That one will always baffle me.. With Boras and only being 29 I doubt he would accept one.. But you never know.. Especially, if it will be $17 million.. Looking for a multi year deal at 30 won’t be much different than 29..
Well, he is playing Right Field now, I wonder if the Rockies would be interested?
Makes sense to trade him or keep him. Keep him, cash in on the comp pick while he still has perceived value. Trade him, get a prospect or two. It’s all up to the organization. Personally I think his career is going to take a Mark Reynolds kind of turn. Someone will likely overpay for his one big year, but in reality he will be a power bat off the bench within 3 years or so; just my thoughts.
At some point, a one-dimensional slugger is going to remember what happened with Nelson Cruz and Kendrys Morales when they rejected their QOs, and he’ll wind up accepting. I only see this happening with Davis if he tanks hard in the second half, though.
I think your comparison to Nelson Cruz is very shrewd. Davis is a very Cruz -like slugger, each with some different strengths and weaknesses but very similar. I think Davis is probably going to have a stronger 2016 season. He’s got everything up from his worst career season in 2014 and is graphing up (so far). Working with (hitting coach) Scott Coolbaugh is helping him. He might be well advised to do as Cruz did and take the (market value) QO to get the big 4 year contract going into 2017. It worked well for Cruz and Davis is 5 years younger. However …….Scott Boras.. Boras doesn’t really care what’s best for players he just wants them to sing the biggest contract he can get now. No mistake, sometimes that’s best, but not always, and I think, not with Davis. He has issues that will need to be seen to be worked out.
Cruz was coming of a PED suspension when he had trouble landing a deal and is a liability in the field on top of a huge injury history. Davis had a suspension for a drug he now has an exemption for and is an above average defender at 1B. Cruz has played 130 games or more exactly twice in his career. Someone will give Davis at least 4/60 which he’d likely take over a qualifying offer.
The next Boras client to not sign until after the draft!
Baltimore would be taking a real gamble if they extend Davis a QO. They obviously want the draft pick but if he accepts – 15-17M is a lot for his services on a tight budget.
Os budget isn’t that tight.
Yes, they’re not a huge market like NYC or Boston, but they’re not small either. The down years seems to have created the general impression that they’re a small market team. They’re really more on par with a St. Louis scale market. Their down years weren’t because of being small market. It was because they were just flat out bad. 😉
Realistically the O’s could extend Davis by a year, but is he worth the $17 million?
Especially if they want to take a stab at keeping some of the other FAs coming up (including Boras’ other clients: Wei Yen Chen and Matt Weiters.) I expect both Weiters and Davis to go personally. Chen would be nice to keep. With Caleb Joseph still doing okay, you’ve got to figure Weiters is a trade option if contract talks aren’t going well…or happening at all.
Getting the draft picks seems to be part of Duquette’s larger picture. I just wish Buck’s offense wasn’t so reliant on home runs and so low on manufacturing runs. If you want to do that, you’ve got to have big bats.
Given our history with one of the worst owners in sports, I don’t have a lot of faith in bringing in major players or keeping the ones we’ve brought up.
One thing is for sure, between November 2015 and March 2016 we will have a different looking team.