Orioles Rumors

Orioles Tried To Extend Manny Machado

By Kyle Downing | September 16, 2018 at 6:50pm CDT

In this past Thursday’s column, Jon Heyman of Fancred Sports details the attempts of the Orioles to extend star infielder Manny Machado “several years ago”. Machado, as MLBTR readers may remember, was traded to the Dodgers prior to July’s non-waiver trade deadline for a package of five prospects, including outfielder Yusniel Diaz.

Turning back the clock, though, there were myriad possibilities for Machado’s fate under former owner Peter Angelos’ tenure. At an undisclosed time in the club’s history, ownership was apparently prepared to pay Machado $64MM to remain in Baltimore for the next eight years. According to Heyman, multiple people familiar with the talks remember such negotiations taking place, also recalling that the contract would have represented “by far a record” for a player with that limited service at that point in time. Presumably, then, these negotiations took place during a year when Machado was not yet arbitration-eligible.

The people familiar with the negotiations apparently remember that Machado’s camp wanted an additional guarantee in the seven-figure range. More specifically, agent Dan Lozano was said to be open to a pact, but it had to “start with a 7”. As Heyman notes in his article, that means an amount as little as $1MM per year could have prevented a deal from getting done.

Clearly, not taking a deal has worked in Machado’s favor. While the extension would have shattered previous records for both total dollar amount and average annual value for a player with only a year or two of service time, such a contract would have offered team control over at least a pair of Machado’s would-be free agent seasons, for which he’ll now likely be paid at least $30MM a pop. It’s commonly accepted that the All-Star infielder could command a deal north of $300MM due to his young age and level of play, and any extension in the $70MM range would have promised him much less than that for the additional seasons of team control.

At first glance, it’s easy to think Orioles ownership might be kicking themselves for refusing to increase their extension offer. After all, the added control over Machado means he’d have commanded a far greater prospect package in order to be dealt at the deadline this season. But while it’s easy to see where the former Oriole is now and wonder why the heck Baltimore couldn’t loosen its purse strings a bit, one ought to remember that significant risk would have also come along with the deal. After all, he required surgery on both knees at different points throughout his career. And no young stud is a sure thing to replicate his production over the course of eight years, particularly if there’s injury risk in his player profile.

Machado will hit the open market on the heels of his fourth consecutive season of at least 33 homers, and a wOBA north of .325. His 29.7 career fWAR to date is more than a little impressive, and he’s even chipped in 14 steals on the season. He’ll receive the added advantage of entering free agency without the burden of a qualifying offer, since he’s ineligible for such a restraint after being traded mid-season.

Rosenthal’s Latest: Rox, LeMahieu, Arenado, Dodgers, O’s, Ripken

By Connor Byrne | September 15, 2018 at 8:59pm CDT

The latest from FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal (all video links):

Rockies second baseman DJ LeMahieu is set to become a free agent at season’s end, and the club may have a successor on hand in prospect Brendan Rodgers. However, Rosenthal floats the idea of the Rockies re-signing LeMahieu – who’s one of their “glue” guys, he notes – and trading superstar third baseman Nolan Arenado in the offseason. Although Arenado’s obviously far superior to LeMahieu, the former only has another year of arbitration control remaining, during which he’ll rake in upward of $20MM. Thus, if the Rockies aren’t confident about extending Arenado, Rosenthal posits that it may make sense for them to move the NL MVP candidate for a package of players who’d “supplement” their roster. That would enable them to re-up LeMahieu and use Rodgers at third base, Rosenthal observes.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts will reportedly return next year, though Rosenthal cautions that the skipper’s future is uncertain. While the 46-year-old Roberts has a club option for 2019, the Dodgers haven’t made a decision on it yet, and Rosenthal reports they’d like to hold off discussing his contract until after the season. But if the Dodgers don’t make a call on Roberts’ fate soon, they could put themselves at risk of losing him in the coming weeks, suggests Rosenthal, who says that “a large number” of managerial jobs might open up around the league. If so, Roberts could bolt for one of those positions or use any of them for leverage in order to get a better offer from the Dodgers. Roberts, who’s in his third year in LA, has helped the team to a 276-196 record with two division titles and an NL pennant.
It’s unclear who will manage the Orioles next season, but it definitely won’t be franchise icon Cal Ripken Jr., according to Rosenthal. Ripken’s uninterested in managing, per Rosenthal, who doesn’t rule out the possibility of the Hall of Famer joining the team’s front office. The 58-year-old would prefer a club president-type role, Rosenthal relays. For now, the highest-ranking baseball official in the O’s front office is executive VP Dan Duquette. He’s not under contract beyond this season, though.

Mesa Brothers Declared Free Agents By MLB

By Steve Adams | September 14, 2018 at 12:09pm CDT

12:09pm: The Mesas are planning on hosting a showcase for all 30 teams in the near future, Sanchez further reports. He lists the Orioles ($6.5MM), Marlins ($4.3MM), Rays ($3.6MM) and Dodgers ($2.78MM) as the teams with the most remaining money to spend.

Of course, as we saw last offseason in the case of Shohei Ohtani, that picture can quickly shift should those teams (or any other interested suitor) pursue additional international spending allotments on the trade market. The eight clubs that under the $300K limitation mentioned below would likely be particularly amenable to parting with some pool space in exchange for minor league talent.

11:19am: Cuban outfielder Victor Victor Mesa and his younger brother, Victor Mesa Jr., have been declared free agents by Major League Baseball and are now eligible to sign with a big league team, reports Jesse Sanchez of MLB.com (via Twitter). The brothers left Cuba in pursuit of Major League contracts back in May. Neither player meets MLB’s minimum age (25) or professional experience (six years) requirement to be considered a professional. As such, they’ll each be subject to international bonus pools.

While both are prospects of note, the elder Mesa brother is widely considered to be the top talent on this year’s international class, offering elite speed, a plus arm and a generally strong performance in his limited time as a professional in the Cuban National Series. At 22 years of age, he could already be advanced enough for a placement in Class-A Advanced or Double-A, per Baseball America’s Ben Badler, who tabs him as an elite center field defender and potential top-of-the-order bat.

In his most recent full season of play in Cuba, Victor Victor batted a hefty .354/.399/.539 with seven homers, 40 steals, 17 walks and just 19 strikeouts in 290 plate appearances. Scouting information on the 17-year-old Mesa Jr. is considerably more sparse, though he’ll presumably have no shortage of interest around the league. The brothers are the sons of Victor Mesa, a baseball legend in Cuba who enjoyed a 19-year career and has also served as the manager of Team Cuba in the World Baseball Classic on multiple occasions.

To this point, the Orioles and Marlins have been the two teams most heavily connected to Victor Victor Mesa. That pair still boasts the largest remaining signing pools, with the Orioles said at last check to have the largest pool available. And while the Orioles have a long history of sitting out the international amateur market, that philosophy has changed in recent months. Longtime owner Peter Angelos has largely ceded oversight of the club to his sons, John and Lou, and general manager Dan Duquette plainly stated after trading Manny Machado that the organization intended to begin investing in international amateurs.

As of early August, the Orioles’ max offering sat at a hefty $8.25MM following the acquisition of international funds in several summer trades, though they traded $750K of that sum away in a deal with the Phillies and have announced a handful of international prospect signings since that time as well. None of the prospects they signed were high-profile in nature, though, and the Marlins’ pool is lagging considerably behind at $4.35MM as of that Aug. 1 update.

Notably, there are eight teams — the Reds, A’s, Nationals, Braves, White Sox, Astros, Cardinals and Padres — that are in the international “penalty box” after shattering previous spending pools by more than 15 percent and are thus ineligible to sign a player for more than $300K. That, presumably, takes them out of the running in this picture.

It should also be noted that the 2017-21 CBA eliminated the possibility of exceeding the league-allotted bonus pool by any sum; teams are now hard-capped, though they can acquire up to 75 percent of their initial allotment in trades with other clubs. Full details on international signing rules can be seen in our most recent international prospect primer. To this point, the Blue Jays, Indians, Yankees and Mets have been among the more aggressive-spending teams on the 2018-19 international market, leaving them with relatively depleted pools.

AL East Notes: Orioles, Steinbrenner, Boone, Nunez, Blue Jays

By Steve Adams | September 14, 2018 at 9:41am CDT

Beyond the obvious rebuild with which they’re faced, the Orioles have numerous behind-the-scenes questions to answer this offseason, writes Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (subscription link). Longtime owner Peter Angelos has ceded day-to-day operations of the club to sons John and Louis, but the league is still unclear who the new “control” person of the team is at this point. The O’s will also have to make a determination on whether to retain longtime general manager Dan Duquette and/or manager Buck Showalter, as each will see his contract expire at season’s end. Beyond that, the ongoing MASN television rights fee battle with the Nationals will likely have an arbitration hearing in front of a panel of fellow MLB owners in November.

AL East Notes: Hays, Price, Yankees

By Steve Adams | September 12, 2018 at 9:20pm CDT

Orioles outfield prospect Austin Hays is set to undergo surgery to repair an ankle fracture, Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com was among those to report. Hays, who made his big league debut last September after an enormous minor league season sent him skyrocketing up national prospect rankings, was limited to 75 games in 2018 and batted just .235/.266/.410 in that time. Though he’s had a brief cup of coffee in the Majors, Hays has yet to even suit up for a Triple-A game; he hit .329/.365/.593 with 32 homers, 32 doubles and five triples between Class-A Advanced and Double-A last season and spent the bulk of 2018 in Double-A (when healthy). Hays had been slated to play in the Arizona Fall League, but it seems he’ll now forgo that to clean up the lingering ankle issue that has plagued his 2018 season. He only recently turned 23 and is still viewed as an important piece of the Orioles’ future, though the 2018 season looks to have gone down as something of a lost season for the 2016 third-rounder. Hays himself has also confirmed that he’ll have surgery tomorrow (Twitter link).

Elsewhere in the AL East…

David Price has an opt-out clause in his seven-year, $217MM contract following the season, but the left-hander’s recent comments to Christopher Smith of MassLive.com strongly suggest he’ll remain with the Red Sox. Asked if he would consider opting out because of his recent stretch of dominance, Price bluntly replied: “Why would I leave here to go to a team that’s not as good as this team? I came here to win.” Of course, it’s never seemed likely that the 33-year-old Price would opt out of the remaining $127MM on his deal (as explored here last week), but those comments make that outcome seem all the more certain. Over his past 128 2/3 innings (including tonight’s start), Price has a 2.94 ERA with a 137-to-27 K/BB ratio. Nearly 20 percent of the 42 runs he’s allowed in that 21-start stretch came in one outing; excluding that hiccup, he’s been a brilliant complement to Chris Sale atop the Boston rotation, creating a formidable one-two punch for rookie manager Alex Cora.
Aroldis Chapman could be activated from the disabled list sometime next week, Yankees manager Aaron Boone tells reporters (link via Newsday’s Erik Boland). Chapman, on the disabled list due to tendinitis, threw a side session Wednesday which Boone says “went really well.” The Yanks also announced prior to today’s game that righty Chance Adams has been recalled from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. He’s been working in a relief role in Triple-A since his last demotion, so he could give the Yanks some relief depth in the season’s final weeks. In four bullpen appearances in Triple-A, Adams allowed one run on five hits and two walks with five strikeouts in 6 1/3 innings.

Latest On The Mets’ GM Search

By Steve Adams | September 11, 2018 at 7:11pm CDT

Since Sandy Alderson announced that he’d be stepping down as general manager of the Mets due to a recurrence of cancer symptoms, there’s been plenty of chatter as to which direction the Mets will head with their front office. Assistant GM John Ricco and veteran execs J.P. Ricciardi and Omar Minaya have shared Alderson’s duties in the interim, but it seems increasingly likely that the Mets will hire a new permanent GM from outside the organization.

Here’s the latest on their search…

Mike Puma of the New York Post writes that there’s a disconnect between owner Fred Wilpon and his son, COO Jeff Wilpon, as to what type of executive should be hired to lead the charge. Fred’s preference, according to Puma, would be to hire an experienced front office veteran with roots in scouting and player development, while the younger Wilpon feels the team needs a more analytically inclined mind atop its baseball ops hierarchy. Additionally, it seems that former Mets manager Terry Collins, currently a special assistant, could take on a larger role next season, though he won’t be considered for the actual GM vacancy.
The Post’s Joel Sherman, meanwhile, wrote recently that the goal for the Mets is to have a list of 10 to 12 candidates by month’s end and to have a new GM in place by the time the annual GM Meetings begin on Nov. 4. Sherman runs through a host of potential names and references the same disconnect as Puma. Blue Jays president Mark Shapiro, former Red Sox GM Ben Cherington (a current Jays exec) and Cardinals director of player development Gary Larocque are a few of names prominently connected to the job. Sherman notes that whoever is ultimately named GM will be hired with the understanding that Minaya will maintain a fair bit of power in terms of player personnel decisions. That, along with the general dysfunction that is largely synonymous with the Wilpon name at this point, will complicate the hiring process.
Shapiro, for what it’s worth, has downplayed reports connecting him to the Mets and expressed that he remains committed to the Blue Jays organization. SNY’s Andy Martino, though, wrote this morning that in spite of Shapiro’s comments, “people around the team continue to point to” Shapiro as a potential candidate. It’s worth noting that Sherman’s column makes mention of tension between Shapiro and Jays ownership at Rogers Communications, though he’d also be an expensive hire for the Mets. Martino, too, lists Cherington as a name to watch, and he also adds current Orioles GM Dan Duquette to the pile. Duquette, notably, is in the final season of his contract in Baltimore, and there’s been previous speculation as to whether he’ll remain with the club.
Royals assistant GM Scott Sharp has also had his name come up in numerous reports over the past week (Twitter link via ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick). He’s been with the Royals for more than a decade and has some background in scouting, analytics and business, which could make him somewhat of a compromise between the Wilpons’ disparate preferences, though certainly other candidates would be able to bring a similar combination to the table for the Mets as well.

AL East Notes: Jones, Red Sox, Judge, Mujica

By Steve Adams | September 11, 2018 at 5:13pm CDT

The Orioles recently benched Adam Jones for the entirety of a three-game series, and Eduardo A. Encina examines the awkward situation, writing that it’s becoming more apparent that the organization doesn’t have long-term plans for Jones. Encina notes that Jones “threw a wrench” into Baltimore’s plans when he vetoed a trade to the Phillies prior to the non-waiver trade deadline but opines that it’s nonetheless surprising to see the popular Jones sitting behind a cast of waiver claims and former Rule 5 picks (e.g. John Andreoli and Joey Rickard). Cedric Mullins is the only well-regarded prospect who’s been playing over Jones — the team did call up DJ Stewart earlier today — making Jones’ lack of playing time in his final weeks as an Oriole all the more curious. Jones’ benching did occur on the road, so perhaps the organization plans to give him more playing time for the team’s remaining home games, where fans can show their appreciation for the 11 seasons Jones has given them.

Orioles Promote DJ Stewart

By Jeff Todd | September 11, 2018 at 2:01pm CDT

The Orioles have announced that outfield prospect D.J. Stewart is heading onto the active roster. His contract was selected today.

A few corresponding moves were announced as well. Righty Cody Carroll and catcher Andrew Susac were both activated, while outfielder Mark Trumbo and righty Pedro Araujo were bumped to the 60-day DL.

Stewart, a former first-round pick, will make it to the bigs in advance of an offseason Rule 5 decision. Clearly, the O’s expect to carry him on the 40-man roster throughout the offseason.

Now 24 years of age, the FSU product has moved steadily through the Baltimore system. He wasn’t able to follow up on a strong 2017 season at the Double-A level, however, as he struggled a bit in his 490 plate appearances this year at the club’s top affiliate. He hit a dozen home runs, swiped 11 bags, and slashed .235/.329/.387 on the year.

Quick Hits: Gore, Trout, Zobrist, Orioles

By Mark Polishuk | September 9, 2018 at 2:38pm CDT

After spending parts of five seasons in the big leagues, Terrance Gore finally collected his first Major League hit, notching a single during the Cubs’ 10-3 loss to the Nationals yesterday in the first game of a double-header. Though Gore has appeared in 55 games since the start of the 2014 season, he has only 16 career plate appearances due to his exclusive usage as a pinch-runner and late-inning defensive sub. Gore’s speed made him a valuable roster piece during the Royals’ two postseason runs in 2014 and 2015, and he’ll likely see similar work for the Cubs down the stretch this season and potentially into October.

Here’s more from around the baseball world…

The Angels are expected to approach Mike Trout about an extension this winter, which The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal (subscription required) feels could determine whether or not the team would ever consider trading the game’s best player. Management has been adamantly opposed to the thought of dealing Trout in the past, and the general feeling is that Arte Moreno wouldn’t okay a Trout trade as long as he owns the Angels. If Trout declines an extension or gives an indication that he’ll test free agency when his current contract is up after the 2020 season, however, Rosenthal feels that the Angels “would know where they stood” in counting the superstar outfielder as part of their long-term plans. The Halos could still just aim to build around Trout over the next two seasons or, conceivably, at least think about the possibility of a trade that could instantly add a lot of young talent to the Angels’ organization. “One of the best talents in the history of the game is rarely explored in the market. A team might be willing to do something absolutely insane to acquire him. We just don’t know,” one rival executive said about a potential Trout trade.
As you might expect, Ben Zobrist has no regrets about signing with the Cubs in the 2015-16 offseason, the veteran super-utilityman tells The Athletic’s Patrick Mooney. The decision has already led to one World Series ring for Zobrist, and unlike his other suitors that winter (a list that includes the Giants, Mets, and Nationals), the Cubs are still postseason contenders in 2018. Zobrist has strongly rebounded from a down year in 2017 to hit .313/.387/.458 over 443 PA for the Cubs this season, so it’s fair to say that the team is also quite satisfied in its decision giving Zobrist a four-year, $56MM deal that winter.
The Orioles are lacking in multi-positional players, Eduardo A. Encina of the Baltimore Sun writes, giving the team yet another area to address as it enters a rebuild period. Not even any of the players acquired by the O’s in their deadline deals looks like a candidate for such a role in the future, though the team will be looking at what Jonathan Villar, Breyvic Valera, and Steve Wilkerson can do at multiple positions.

East Notes: G. Sanchez, Red Sox, Marlins, Pirates, Phillies, O’s

By Connor Byrne | September 8, 2018 at 6:44pm CDT

This season hasn’t gone according to plan for Yankees catcher Gary Sanchez, leading Joel Sherman of the New York Post to wonder if the club could target Miami’s J.T. Realmuto or another starting-caliber backstop during the winter. It doesn’t seem that’s going to happen, though, as Yankees general manager Brian Cashman suggested to Sherman that he hasn’t lost any confidence in Sanchez. “If you are asking if [Sanchez] is a championship-caliber catcher moving forward, the answer is yes,” Cashman said. “Despite circumstances that have played out this year, we will stay with it and hopefully be rewarded for it.” After his bat helped propel him to elite catcher status from 2016-17, Sanchez has slashed an underwhelming .184/.280/.404 in 304 plate appearances this season. On the other side, the 25-year-old has drawn plenty of criticism for defensive miscues, including for his work in Oakland this past Wednesday. Still, it’s easy to see why Cashman remains bullish on Sanchez. With a .189 batting average on balls in play and a massive gap between his real wOBA (.298) and expected wOBA (.366), Sanchez has been one of the game’s unluckiest hitters in 2018, and he has still managed 15 home runs and a .221 ISO. Defensively, Sanchez’s issues may be a tad overblown, evidenced in part by the above-average marks he has earned from StatCorner.

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