ThisIsBirdland

Imagine this could potentially impact the Montgomery market.

https://theathletic.com/5316894/2024/03/05/corbin-burnes-orioles-matt-chapman-giants/ Holliday is 20. He has played only 54 games above Double A. And he’s a mere 4-for-18 with a double and triple this spring. But one club official, granted anonymity in exchange for his candor, gives Holliday at least a 50 percent chance of making the club, though the Orioles might want to protect him against lefties initially.

This is where I’m at with it as well. Nice to have two RHB and two LHB, all of whom provide great offensive upside, for those three positions. I also agree that Westburg will likely be the one rotating the most, and I still think he can get 140+ starts per year.

I was only trying to show the relative limitations of Statcast, not the value of the comps necessarily. I agree those guys have better track records. I just quickly sorted by exit velocity and barrel rate and searched for the first good players within the same ranges as Bellinger to show that Statcast doesn't tell the full story on a player. I don't think Bellinger is some slam dunk acquisition. I just think he underperformed with the contract he received relative to what was expected at the beginning of free agency. I think that was driven as much by the unique market this year as by Bellinger's limitations; players with his limitations are often still signed to healthy 9-figure contracts, even if they probably shouldn't be. Snell and Montgomery struggling to land similar contracts falls into the same discussion. As players they're not without their limitations, but in most offseasons they would have landed 9-figure deals by now.

The Athletic projected 6/$162m and MLBTR projected 12/$264m. Both look hysterical in hindsight, but I think the Athletic's projection very well could have occurred in any other normal offseason where the big teams are spending. I'm sure that's disappointing for Bellinger at the end of the day, even if he has $80m guaranteed.

This offseason is unique. The typically big spending teams have either already spent, are reloading/rebuilding/in transition, or are too pressed against the luxury tax threshold to justify these contracts. Bellinger, Snell and Montgomery all would have almost certainly received better deals in prior offseasons. Statcast is valuable but it's not gospel, either. Ryan Mountcastle is a metrics-behemoth but it doesn't necessarily translate. And in general, Bellinger graded quite well on their metrics: For comparison, here's Alex Bregman. Do you expect him to fair poorly in free agency? And here's Altuve, who at 33 just got a 5/$125m deal:

https://theathletic.com/5298286/2024/02/25/cody-bellinger-cubs-scott-boras/ Not being reported that way. Expectations were considerably higher entering the offseason. Good article exploring the consequences of Boras’ players overplaying their hands in this market. Rosenthal indicates it may pressure his other clients to take the short term deals too, since teams have seen him blink first. I’ll go one step further and hope it influences his young pre-arb Os clients to give more consideration to long-term offers.

A. Unless you think they were lying in December. No real reason to do that though.

O’s brass has said Holliday will see some time at SS and I have no reason not to believe that. I think the reason you’ll see Holliday get the majority of his ST reps at 2B is because that’s where he needs to develop. I don’t think it’s an indictment of his play at SS necessarily.

Elias interviewed just now during the ST game. Same update as before, he’s tracking as they’d hope to see. Palmer pressed him further on any MRI/imaging results, to which he responded that the post PRP imaging did show improvement. Not out of the woods yet though.

If I wasn't clear, I don't think Montgomery should get the 7 year deal, and I think the AAV should probably be lower as well ($20m-$25m). Like I originally said, I don't think 5/$100m-$125m is off base here. Falling between Bassitt and Nola seems fair to me. Can he push for it in free agency, given the three year run he's had? He's been durable, he's had success in the playoffs and the AL East, he's left handed, he's exceeded Nola's ERA+ over those three years, and his rWAR over those three years has been close enough to push as a comp (10.5 for Nola to 9.1 for Montgomery). If Nola's full body of work, including a 2018 rWAR of 9.7, makes drawing the comparison that out of line, that's fine. I still don't fault him for asking for it in free agency, and I think I've been pretty clear and pragmatic about where I think he should end up. What contract terms do you think he should get?

Nola is also 30, coming off of a rather average/mediocre season (his second in three years it looks like) and is a RHP. I don't blame him at all for wanting something like that (7/$175m) in early January, but the market is pretty clearly telling him he's not in line to get that. Again, take two years off of that deal and to me it seems reasonable. It honestly looks like the Phillies overpaid given what the rest of the market is bearing out, but you can't fault Montgomery for wanting that given Nola's track record.

I wanted Bassitt last offseason, and they have some reasonable comps. I think the major differences are Bassitt (RHP) was 33 last offseason and Montgomery (LHP) is 30 now. I'd absolutely be looking for 5+ years if I were Montgomery. If he wants Nola security (7/$172m) then yes, there's no argument to be made here. I haven't heard that; most projections I've seen are around 5/$100m-$125m. I think that's still within reason, given Bassitt secured 3/$63m at 33 years old.

Thanks for sharing. As a fan I’m still preparing for the worst just to keep my own expectations in check. But bluntly speaking, they’re pretty much uniformly acting like he’ll be back and effectively contributing this year. The disconnect between what they’re saying and what we’re choosing to hear and interpret on this board is pretty stark.

I think a reliable 30 year old lefty who's averaged 175 innings and a 121 ERA+ for the last three seasons, with solid playoff and AL East experience, actually makes sense as a pretty worthy investment. What's disappointing to me is we've periodically heard about the O's checking in on these high priced guys for the last two off-seasons, just in case their price for whatever reason might fall, and here we are almost certainly looking at that scenario right now. I'm sure the lack of movement by the O's is tied to any number of reasons, whether it's that they don't like him too much, the ownership transition situation, or they're just never going to invest multiple years in FA SPs.

Agreed. I'm curious if they do follow-up scans on his UCL as this process progresses or if they just wait until if/when he feels something isn't right. Either way it's the best news we can hope for for now.

Agreed, but I think this is somewhat of an organizational choice by design, especially in the INF. Rutschman, Mayo and Westburg will all be RH options. I think they're hoping Gunnar + Holliday (and maybe Basallo) will become mainstays in the lineup regardless of if it's against LHPs or not. It's the outfielders where as of now I'm assuming they'll want more legitimate RH options down the road.

This is pretty much exactly my point. Wagner is not at all currently tracking towards a relevant major league career. Even if he turns it around, you're not seeing him on the field until 2025. Horvath generated a lot of excitement and thus far looks the part, but he's only played 5 games above Delmarva. If he stays on a good track you're hoping he gets a cup of coffee in late 2025, and goes through his growing pains as a rookie in 2026. To be slotting either of these players into your anticipated long-term plans is entirely premature, and in the case of Wagner almost certainly unrealistic. They're definitely not adequate reasons to carelessly include Westburg in an overpay. Again, that's not to say a deal with Westburg can't or won't be reached, but by all indications the O's have plans for him being a part of their INF for the foreseeable future.

Yeah he threw multiple times last September. A few highlights made their way to social media, and it honestly seemed somewhat encouraging. However, IIRC they claimed they ran out of time to get him ramped back up for the postseason. I always found that answer interesting, wondering if that meant if the injury was sustained one month earlier, would they have ran him out there with a manageable tear in his UCL for the playoffs? Or was he just not as effective with the tear? My guess is the latter had as much to do with it as anything.