Earlier today, we collected a series of reactions to the Orioles’ big re-signing of Chris Davis to a franchise record seven-year, $161MM contract. Here are a few more takes that have piled up throughout the day.
- The re-signing of Davis is a huge boost to the O’s lineup, writes Richard Justice of MLB.com. It’s about more than his ability to bash 40 to 50 home runs. Davis is among the leaders in hard hit rate as measured by FanGraphs. That was also true in his highly effective 2013 campaign. Hard hit rate not only improves a hitter’s chance to hit a home run, it also help other balls in play to fall. Justice would like the club to find another bat – perhaps Yoenis Cespedes – to support the middle of the lineup. The Orioles were also tied to the Rockies glut of left-handed outfielders. Either Charlie Blackmon or Corey Dickerson would represent a monetarily affordable alternative to add lineup depth.
- Re-signing Davis was about continuity too, writes Eduardo A Encina of the Baltimore Sun. The O’s have built a good clubhouse culture under manager Buck Showalter. He said, “I think the other thing that [this signing] represents is the continuity we’ve established with our coaching staff and players.” The front office did grow frustrated in their negotiations and nearly walked away as recently as last Thursday. Angelos made one final offer on Friday night, and talks quickly gained momentum. Encina goes on to say Baltimore’s pursuit of Cespedes is over now unless he’s willing to take a two-year deal.
- Give owner Peter Angelos credit, writes Peter Schmuck of the Baltimore Sun. As has long been reported, he was the driving force in keeping negotiations with Davis alive. While the lineup looks better with Davis, the club still has work to do before finalizing the roster. In particular, Dan Duquette may need to chase pitching on the trade market. Few teams are marketing starters at the moment, with the Rays as the most vocal sellers.
- Jeff Sullivan of FanGraphs wonders if Angelos was willing to accept a higher team budget if Davis re-signed. We often assume teams have relatively fixed budgets, but the reality of the matter is that they can be player dependent. In Angelos’ mind, a team with Davis on the roster might be worth a larger investment than a team with another slugger. It’s tempting to say that the Orioles could have signed X, Y, and Z with that $161MM, but maybe the alternative only involved $90MM to spend.
It’s not even they could sign X, Y, and Z for $161MM, but in 2016 they are only spending $17MM. So in that regard the Orioles got the best they could while spending something in the $20MM when accounting for the differals and discount rate.
Orioles still need some pitching IMO. Maybe Gallardo if they still have a budget. Heck, Angelos might as well go for broke and sign Upton or Cespedes too and then he can let Adam Jones fly as a FA after 2018
They can trade Wieters after June 15 and drop as much as 10 million if he has a good start. Joseph is good enough. Trumbo’s 9 million comes off the books after this year too and that was paid with money Norris made last year, and Davis is really only costing 17 million which is just 5 million more than last year and he is saving that on Chen moving on
Jones is a career oriole. Why would they want him to leave? He is the face of the franchise ahead of machado because he is a leader. And if the orioles are in contention as they hope to be why would they trade wieters?
If Joseph has a good start and they feel they have a good backup/platoon to him, it would make some sense to trade Wieters. Unless Wieters absolutely crushes it and carries the team throughout to the deadline (and the team is in contention) trading Wieters almost makes too much sense. They theoretically could use the money they save from trading Wieters to address an area of need.
Sign a pitcher, trade for one of the Rockies outfielders, voila. Pretty solid team.
Easier said than done when their finances (cap space) is still an unknown and they have little interest in trading their only valuable prospects. On top of that, trading with the Rockies is tough because its not as easy as throwing any pitching prospect at them, a groundball pitcher is almost a necessity for Coors Field.
Haha to bad the Orioles wouldn’t be stupid enough to trade for Crawford or Ether and Wood. If only we all could live in fantasy land.
Signing Davis is not exactly a huge boost to the Orioles lineup. It’s avoiding a loss.
Greatly said!
I agree that they avoid a loss, but if he can mash 40 HRs that’s a pretty big boost that few other players can put up, while also putting up respectable defense at 1B and the ability to play RF/3B in a pinch. A guy like Alvarez could probably mash 30 HRs atleast in Camden but his defense would be a huge negative.
But my point is resigning Davis doesn’t improve the Orioles, it keeps their offense at the point it was last year. Sure, resigning him is good for the Orioles, but it’s not like they signed Jason Heyward while keeping their previous year’s offense.
Their previous year’s offense was not the problem!
Heyward hasn’t been an offensive threat for the most part his entire career. Just a lot of promise/potential. For some, it comes later….Nelson Cruz was one of those. He didn’t do squat until he was 28 years old since that time, only three hitters in baseball have hit more HR’s than Cruz.
Still don’t understand how David was able to up the offer from us when there was literally NO other interest (as far as he public knew). Classic case of bidding against ourselves, which we did such a good job of avoiding for over a month.
If you look at the way it is structured they probably saved themselves some money. The yearly commitment is much less, and with inflation and the time the money is deferred for it may turn out to be a lesser expenditure.
The narrative is pretty bad for Davis on this one because he made the Orioles wait for so long. If he turns out to be a dud the Oriole fans will be extra hard on him. He should have taken the initial offer and made peace with the front office if there was mutual love there from the first place.
That is why players get agents someone who has no “mutual” friendships that are mostly one sided with the team in control.. Don’t hook up with Boras clients if you dislike it.
You do have a point there but can’t stop feeling that I would have taken their offer earlier and made a better narrative in case of myself failing. But then again I’m not a millionaire so my small world problems might not pertain to them lol.
Angelos made a bad mistake. Owners need to leave things up to their FO guys and not get personally involved.
We’re talking one heck of a lot of money here! Of course the owner needs to get involved. It’s HIS money. HE’S the one who has to live with that contract. Maybe Angelos did make a mistake. Same can be said for the other teams in MLB with huge contracts.
I’m glad I’m not an Orioles fan, this move has train wreck written all over it. A year after hitting just .196 you pony up 161 million for 7 years? This contract will cripple the O’s for years.
The only bright side? Maybe Showalter will finally give up his speech about being unable to compete with the clubs that put their money where their mouth is. The poor us act is tired Buck, no one feels bad for a group of millionaires playing a sport.
While we may never know the strucutre of the initial 7 yr/$154m offer it certainly appears that the O’s might have actually saved money with the reported deferrals that pushed millions of dollars over a decade down the road. It’s one thing to defer a million or two to a couple of years after the seven years have passed. It’s quite another thing to defer $42m of $161m over 20 years from now.
This is the price of doing business in MLB today. Mid to small market franchises don’t have the money to compete $$ to $$$ with the Yanks, Dodgers etc. But teams like Detroit, Baltimore, St. Louis, KC have to pony up to keep key people around. The potential for disaster with this Davis contract is there but the same can be said for dozens of other players in MLB with similar deals. Ya just never know. Davis has hit more HR the last four years than any player and ranks 4th in RBI’s as he enters his 30’s. Extremely doubtful Crush will be hittting 40HR’s and the end of this contract. Prince Fielder’s HR production has had a drop off the last few years and he’s two years older.
Keeping Davis is a good move. Trading for an OF or signing one would make a very good lineup to get though but we will be saying they need pitching all year round. We need pitching help if not a #1 at lease two # 2 type pitchers well I guess we wait to see if someone can take those role with the O’s maybe Tillman or bundy or Kevin