Another shortstop comes off the board. The Baltimore Orioles have signed shortstop Freddy Galvis to a one-year contract, the team announced. The Rep 1 Baseball client will receive $1.5MM with a $250K bonus if he is traded, per Jon Meoli of the Baltimore Sun (via Twitter). There is not an option for a second year. First baseman/outfielder Chris Shaw was designated for assignment in order to open a roster spot for Shaw, per the club.
Galvis takes over at short for the recently-traded Jose Iglesias, another veteran whom the Orioles signed in free agency. Galvis has long been a starting shortstop in MLB, from his early days with the Phillies to last season with the Cincinnati Reds. He also played for the Blue Jays and Padres in his nine-year career. Durability has been a strength for Galvis. He achieved the rare-for-this-era achievement of appearing in all 162 games in back-to-back seasons with the Phillies in 2017 and Padres in 2018.
Last season with the Reds, Galvis slashed .220/.308/.404 with seven home runs, 8.2 percent walk rate, 18.9 percent strikeout rate and 90 wRC+. The switch-hitting Galvis is largely considered a solid defensive option up the middle. By measure of Statcast’s outs above average, however, Galvis may wield an elite glove. Though he registered -3 OAA in the shortened 2020 season, he finished 8th among shortstops in 2019 with 11 OAA and tied for third with Andrelton Simmons and Francisco Lindor in 2018 with 12 OAA.
Galvis won’t help the Orioles a ton with his bat. He routinely logs below-average hard hit rates, barrel rates, and walk rates. He does a pretty good job of putting the ball in play, however, and his power has jumped a notch with .178 ISO and .184 ISO the past two seasons. He’s also not a burner, finishing in the 28th percentile by sprint speed in 2020. For the Orioles, however, they’ll hope Galvis provides defensive support to their young pitching staff and leadership in the clubhouse. Should he prove productive, he could also serve as a trade chip at the deadline, a possibility for which both player and team are clearly aware, given the trade clause in his contract.
Shaw’s time with the O’s, meanwhile, will apparently prove quite brief. Baltimore claimed him off waivers from the Giants back in late November, and he’ll now very possibly be exposed to waivers a second time. The 27-year-old was once the 31st overall draft pick by the prior San Francisco front-office regime, and he has a solid-looking .280/.328/.538 slash line in about 1000 plate appearances of Triple-A ball. Shaw, though, also has a 30 percent strikeout rate in Triple-A and hasn’t hit well at all in 82 big league plate appearances. The O’s have a week to trade him, release him or attempt to pass him through waivers themselves.
AL EAST OFFICIALLY UP FOR GRABS
a steal at that pricw
*price
Why bother correcting one of your posts? It’s barely english anyway!
Clearly English isn’t your first language
Hey, clown shoe (lolmets)! This is America, not whatever soviet union hellhole you are from. Be civil.
Is there still a “soviet union” cowboy? “Be civil”? Are you a woman?
Don’t feed the troll.
Thank God!!! Now Philly can just get it outta their heads and focus on Simmons or Gregorious. Galvis to PHI would have been downright depressing.
I think Salisbury said that their main focus is Simba
And he signed with the Twins, so now they’re down to Gregorius and Story. DiDi only costs money, Story would be great, but they’ll have to give up a lot
I wasn’t thrilled at the idea of Galvis returning to the Phillies, but at 1.5?? I would have taken that in a heartbeat. That’s a steal. Good move for Baltimore.
yeah I’d take him over Holder to be honest.
I was thinking the same thing. At 1.5 he would have been a great defensive move for the team.
Solid Pick up for the price.
This guy made about $5m last year. Huge bargain.
Orioles are going to be the best team the most pinched money can buy this year. Nevermind, that’s probably the Rays. The team most proud of its value choices? The team with the most players just happy to be in the bigs? They have to be first at something.
I would say “first to get a draft pick” but I think that honor might go to the Pirates again
The Pirates at least seem to be heading in the correct direction, implementing a plan to build up their minor league system, which should lead to improvement on the MLB level.
The Orioles? I don’t know what they’re doing.
i have way more faith in the Orioles system than the Pirates. We would probably even have at least double-digit wins over the Bucs next season. Do you mean the Pirates are better at their level of ineptitude?
You obviously don’t know what the Orioles are doing since Baseball America had their farm system rated #23 a little over 2 years ago, and most recently at the the conclusion of the 2020 season had them ranked #8.
Yeah I think it is safe to say you don’t know what the Orioles are doing if you are more impressed with the Pirates. The Orioles are on their way and will be contenders in the big boy AL East long before the Pirates will be in the laughingstock NL Central.
The O’s are a victim of one of the toughest divisions in baseball. Bet their record against the Central and West won’t be that bad in 2021.
Pirates have the luxury of playing in the weakest division in baseball.
I know what you are doing: you are not paying attention.
For what it’s worth, Bmore now has a rep among players as a great place to play.
Really nice value there. Good shot Baltimore pays about half of that and turns him into a lottery ticket at the deadline.
Orioles will not be out done.
I like it , so if I like it??
They aren’t going to be spending a lot of money anytime soon, and this is the perfect budget pickup for them.
There’s our catfish! Tell Nev and Max about your dream to play high school baseball!
Can’t beat that. Great pickup for a rebuilding team
I’m guessing Jonathan Villar is scratching his head right now.
Better signing than what the Blue Jays made.
Sign. Flip. Repeat.
O’s quietly putting together one of the better defensive teams with Yolmer, Ruiz, Hays, Martin, Mullins, Santander and now Galvis. Pitchers gotta appreciate that
You may be jumping the gun with Santander.
he was a Gold glove finalist last season, for what its worth.
Yes he was and had an excellent year. So why the rumors he’s on the trading block? If this really is Elias please convince me that there is really a rebuild going on because I’m starting to wonder if ownership has given orders to dump salary with a rebuild cover story.
Being on the trading block doesn’t mean you’re a bad defender. They’d only deal him if someone significantly overpaid or they’d be able to attach Cobb with him. He won’t be getting moved tho
Nobody suggested he’s a bad defender, in fact he’s very good. But prior posts suggest he’ll be an Oriole. I am simply pointing out this may not be the case given the salary dumping/“rebuild” currently going on.
They’re going to suck but yes they’ll have outstanding gloves
I doubt we see Mullins, Hays, and Santander playing the OF together very often. More likely that they’ll be dealing w Mountcastle and 2/3. But hey—the defense shouldn’t be the reason we only win 60 games!
Mountcastle will likely be at 1B and Mancini at DH (or vice versa).
LF – Hays
CF – Mullins
RF – Santander
3B – Ruiz (ugh)
SS – Galvis
2B – Sanchez
1B/DH – Mountcastle
1B/DH – Mancini
C – Sisco
Backup C – Severino
Backup IF – Martin/Valaika
Backup 1B/DH – Davis
Backup OF – Stewart/Diaz
I think the desire is to still have Mountcastle play the OF— for now at least. I think it’s more likely that Mullins is the 4th OF’er w/ DJ also in the mix for some abs at the DH or corner OF slot.
Davis as a $23MM backup. Great! And a .150 hitter at that! Who knows if Santander will be around?!?!
O’s quietly putting together one of the better defensive groups in baseball with Yolmer, Ruiz, Martin, Hays, Santander, Mullins and now Galvis. Pitchers gotta appreciate that
Wasn’t sure if he was in their price range
Not exactly the SS I was hoping for. Decent pickup though.
At that price, the Yankees should have grabbed him. Unless he just wanted to be able to start everyday.
Yes, he’s a fantastic defender. An area where they could use substantial improvement for replacement late in games. Also, he’s a switch hitter too, correct? That’s a perfect fit for the Yankees – with injuries, I’m fairly certain he’d be starting everyday at some point during the upcoming season.
It’s a nice pickup by the O’s.
I like Galvis for 1.5M a lot more than Semien for 18M. He’s not a needle mover, but he’ll capably man SS and give the Orioles a cheap asset to flip in a few months to a MIF needy team. Good pickup.
This has got to be the last year or two of the rebuild right?We should be seeing some turn around and pitchers come up soon followed by some free agents spending maybe next offseason if not the following.Please please please.I got a short taste of winning with bucks and I’m hungry for more
I think as soon as Davis is done they plan to start going for it again. Prospects will be ready and payroll will be super low
Davis is irrelevant to their future plans.
This will be year 4 of a 5-year rebuild plan. Ready to start spending at the conclusion of the 2022 season.
*2023 World Series Champions!* :-)
Have the Padres extended him yet?
Still crying about Enyel?
I don’t care about him. What I do care about is making smart baseball moves. Trading a prospect with any upside at all for a pending FA when you are rebuilding does not qualify. It’d be like if the Pirates traded for JT Realmuto last August.
On the topic of this article, he’s a perfectly fine player and if a contender’s shortstop gets injured you can probably flip him for something young and with upside at the deadline.
So who does Cincinnati get: Simmons or Gregorius?
Gregarious if the Phillies don’t.
1.5?? Wow. Now I wish the Phils signed him.
Nice player … he has made a habit of following Iglesias. He replaced Iglesias in Cincinnati too. I guess he will be a Angel next year ..,
The price is right (better than right, actually) and Galvis’ glove and in-game skills are under-appreciated. Nice pickup.
Great move by Baltimore. This will net them a 2nd round pick equivalent prospect come Trade deadline. Brilliant.
Hey Pirate fans……this is how you rebuild, by spending money on moves like this.
Not a Baltimore fan but great move.
I’m not sure what a second round pick equivalent prospect is, but I doubt Galvis gets a return worth much. Even a team needing a shortstop at midseason will probably give one 25-30 org prospect from a bottom half farm plus one filler, a top half farm probably gives 2 outside the top 30.
That’s if he produces similar career numbers, if not then he’s worth barely anything but salary relief and a low level lottery ticket at best. This moves looks more like a “we need an actual professional baseball player to man shortstop, but we don’t want to pay a lot of money” move.
Thanks for that brilliant take!
You are very welcome. Thank you for taking the time to read and respond.
Have a good one!
At least he cost less than Iglesias
Does Galvis actually play baseball or is he on a career tour of the US with his one year contracts?
Al is awful.
It oughta be unlawful.
Makers me want to write limericks.
Orioles signed someone! Amazing, who could have predicted?
He was in reds price range yet never linked to them one time. Reds aren’t going to sign anyone and Garcia is their ss next season
So they dump a guy with decent bad and very good D at $3million and sign a guy with no bat and very good D for $1.5? I hope those mid level prospects they got for Iglesias pan out
Bat*
Solid pick up at rock bottom price.
I really don’t like this signing by the Orioles. Yes Martin needs a full year at AAA to see if he is a full time position player and can man the SS position. Velazquez can play D just as well as Galvis can. Neither offer much of any with the bat. But Velazquez is younger and has more upside. They could have used the money to sign a veteran starter or reliever.