3:04pm: Baltimore has also avoided arbitration with righty Brad Brach, Connolly tweets. He’ll earn $5.165MM, just shy of his $5.2MM projection.
Infielder Tim Beckham ($3.35MM) and catcher Caleb Joseph ($1.25MM) also have deals in place, per Connolly (Twitter links). The former lands just over his projected $3.1MM, while the latter falls a bit shy of the $1.4MM that the MLBTR algorithm foresaw.
1:56pm: The Orioles have agreed to a one-year deal with injured closer Zach Britton, thus avoiding arbitration, Dan Connolly of BaltimoreBaseball.com reports (Twitter links). Britton will get a raise from $11.4MM to $12MM under the new contract. Britton caeme with a projected arbitration salary of $12.2MM, via MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz.
It remains to be seen precisely when Britton will be able to take the field for the Orioles in 2018. After a 2o17 season that was truncated by a pair of forearm injuries, Britton saw his run of bad luck continued when he suffered a torn Achilles tendon during his offseason workouts last month. The injury required surgical repair and came with a reported recovery time of four to six months, though certainly the Orioles will hope that the rehab comes in on the short end of that fairly broad range.
Britton, who recently turned 30, was among baseball’s elite relievers from 2014-16, pairing strong stirkeout and walk rates with historically brilliant ground-ball rates. Britton’s mid-90s sinker was so devastating that he set a single-season Major League record for pitchers (min. 60 innings pitched, dating back to 2002 when batted-ball data began being tracked) with a 79.1 percent ground-ball rate in 2015, only to promptly break his own record with an unthinkable 80 percent mark in 2016.
This past season, though, Britton was limited to 37 1/3 frames by injury and didn’t look like himself when healthy. While his 2.89 ERA was better than the league average, he averaged just 7.0 K/9 against 4.3 BB/9 with a still-ridiculous 72.6 percent ground-ball rate. Those strikeout and walk rates were far and away the worst that Britton has posted since converting to a full-time reliever in 2014.
The O’s will be left hoping that Britton can rebound not only from the Achilles injury but also from the forearm woes that hampered him in 2017. If he’s able to return sometime in the first half of the season, he could build himself up to either be a trade candidate or an important piece of the bullpen should the Orioles defy current expectations and find themselves in contention next summer.
Even if he doesn’t emerge as a trade option, a healthy Britton would be a no-brainer to receive a qualifying offer, so the Orioles could still recoup draft compensation in the event that he returns to form, plays out the season in Baltimore, and then hits free agency. And, of course, the possibility remains that the two sides could talk this spring about a potential agreement that would extend his tenure with the club beyond its current end point.
O course, it’s important to recall that arbitration salaries are not fully guaranteed (unless that’s specifically agreed upon). We at MLBTR have been among those to express the view that the Orioles might be best served simply cutting Britton loose and pay him only thirty days of salary for the coming season. But as Connolly points out (Twitter links), such a decision would likely invite a grievance action since Britton injured himself while working out for the coming season after already being tendered a contract.
Theft
Orioles are such a mess
That’s putting it mildly. Blowing $12M on a closer who may not even pitch this year, and they’ll keep him all year. Most likely they’ll balk on extending him the QO and end up with nothing more than a wallet that is $12M lighter. They won’t trade Machado and be content with the draft pick they get when he turns down the QO. They’ll fill their rotation holes with bottom of the barrel SPs nobody else would even look at. Yep, 2018 is looking pretty damn good for the O’s.
I think what needs to be factored in is that they tendered him a contract before the injury, thus they were on the hook for the raise on his 11.4M base. At this point the only thing that changed was an injury that occurred while he was preparing for “work”. This has grievance case written all over it, and the union would have got ZB his $. Although I don’t like the move, they had no choice. They can at least save face by not dragging this into a debacle they would not win.
He got hurt doing his job; if the O’s had cut him he would very rightfully been able to file a grievance.
That’s going to be a wasted 12 million in my opinion. It’s going to be hard to recover and perform this season with such an injury.
Its a solid bet. If healthy by the TD he will yield the Orioles far more in future value than 8 million it cost in salary. If not the value of the picks could equal that or come close. Not a huge loss even then.
Your comment makes ZERO sense
Wtfreak are u saying
Is Zach Britton a no-brainer to receive a QO? Pre-2016, sure, but he is coming off two pretty major injuries and in half a season last year was not lights out like he had been. $18+mil for a no longer elite, injury riddled reliever seems steep….
Current Zach Britton is not, nor was 2017 Zach Britton. That’s why I was sure to qualify that a “healthy Zach Britton” is a no-brainer for the QO.
If he struggles with injuries when he returns this year, or simply doesn’t perform well, then they’re probably punting on the majority of this $12MM, yeah.
It’s a rather expensive lottery ticket and an interesting variation on when teams offer one year with a team option for the second to players who will miss a substantial portion or all of a season.
They didn’t trade him and got burned for not doing so. Now they have to pay millions to a pitcher who might not even pitch this season before he hits the market
I feel bad for their fan base for real
I’m a lifelong O’sfan and doing quite fine, but thank you Yankeepatriot 😉
On one hand I’m not complaining that the front office of a divisional rival is ran by a bunch of sloths but as a fellow fan of this game that we all Love I truly feel bad for you. You could probably run the team better. If they focused on their pitching more over the last few years they could have had a longer window and trading guys like Britton at the right time could have helped speed up that process
The O’s bigger problem is that they refuse to spend on the international market, at all. And therefore they have ended up with an aging roster and a barren farm system. This isn’t going to end well.
Not a good idea to non tender him as he will be back by end of May. 12 million is a lot but a return to health could still net some good baseball from him and/or a really good prospect come deadline time. Or they can offer him a qualifying offer next year.
There was never a reason to non tender Britton. Not even a thought