OriolesFan1964

Jim Hunter on Baltimore Baseball Tonight said that his sources were saying any Orioles trade offer for Dylan Cease were all met with an ask for Jackson Holliday. Starting Pitching prices were very inflated. El Rod was also apparently very tricky, with his op-out. The Dodgers settled for Lance Lynn and Ryan Yarborough. We were lucky to land Flaherty.

I agree with the previous comment regarding preferring Ortiz over Norby. I think Ortiz is the better overall player. However, if Norby can have a Dan Uggla type career, that would be a win for Norby. Uggla was a hit first 2B, although not the best fielder (he did finish with a .979 fielding%). Uggla had a very decent career. Over 10 seasons he hit 235 HRs, had a career .783 OPS, 107OPS+. He had 5 consecutive seasons of 30+HRs as a 2B (MLB record). Actually, I think Norby would probably be a better 2B than Uggla and also can play LF, but I doubt he would be as productive as a hitter, since Uggla was a very productive hitter.

Agree, I was really hoping we would sign him. Only 19yrs/4 months old at signing. His JUCO was in Sarasota, so maybe the O's scouts got a good look at him.

After Baumeister signing, it looks like the most the O's could offer Ritchie was about $650K, $150K slot value and $499,700 additional cash subject to the 75% Tax. That is all in. Unless there is a late breaking announcement, I guess Mr. Ritchie will be playing at Oklahoma State next year.

They spent pretty much all of the 5% over draft pool last year (2022) on Carter Young (SS) and Zach Showalter (P).

Forgot to deduct Baumeister from the draft pool if he's not signed. That's 5% of 1.243 MM or $62K less to Ritchie. O's could offer about $950K.

So Forret signed for $450K ($300K overslot) today 7/25. So deducting Baumeister from draft pool, etc., could offer Ritchie about $950K.

So Forret signed for $450K ($300K overslot). Could now offer Baumeister up to $2.1MM, not signing Ritchie. OR could now sign Ritchie for up to $1.0 MM, not signing Baumeister.

What I've heard about Baumeister. 1) Florida State program was subpar this year. Probably affected his production. So why return? 2) Sophomore eligible, but he just turned 21. So if he returns for next year's draft he would be 22 at the draft. Not optimum. So I think he wants to sign, if the Orioles can meet his price. But he may suck up all their remaining available bonus funds to get him done. Slot $1.24 MM, O's all in with Baumeister at $2.4 MM. That would be equivalent to Competitive Balance Pick @ 35 (2.42MM).

Looks like the Baumeister/ Forret/ Ritchie bonus triplet may not work out. Here's hoping for 2 out of 3. We are now under 22 hours to get this done. Baumeister may turn into another McLean (no signing), or might require ALL the overslot money. Be interesting to see who signs, who doesn't. The little bit I could find on line would indicate Ritchie is also a long shot. We'll know tomorrow at 5.

For 2022 Draft I stand corrected about O's not going over for the Carter Young and Zach Showalter bonuses. Interested in seeing what the O's did last year, to see what they might do in '23 with Baumeister, Forret, and Ritchie. In '22 they accumulated $748K in net underslot/overslot savings round 1-10 signings. Their pool minus McLean ($794K) was $16.14MM. So if they used max 5% bonuses over their pool value they could have spent an additional $807K (subject to the 75% penalty tax). This gave the O's an additional $1.55MM ($748K+$807K) to negotiate with. Looks like they used almost all of it $1.20MM to Young and $315K to Showalter over and above the $125K signing value for those picks. So they used $1.515MM of the $ 1.55MM available. $767K would have been subject to the 75% tax. I could find no articles or posts to confirm this. For Baumeister, Forret, and Ritchie it looks like they can go above slot $634K (underslot savings) + $526K (subject to %5 penalty) for a total above slot figure of $1.16MM. Baumeister slot is 1.24MM, Forret and Ritchie 150K. Be interesting to see how much of the pot Baumeister takes and what $'s are left to get either (or both) Forret and Ritchie.

For 2022, I was going by SPOTRAC which lists O's estimated Tax Bill as $0. They list original Draft Pool as 16.933 MM, Pool Allocation as $16.906, Pool Remaining as $27,400. BUT I don't think they properly accounted for McLean not signing ($794K to Draft Pool lost). So I guess I agree. MLB.com doesn't list TAX.

Nothing on Baumeister signing yet. With Bragg signed (@$100K), O's have a Pool Allocation of $ 1,878,100 remaining. Baumeister slot value is $1,243,300. So they have $634,800 to play with without exceeding their draft allocation. FYI- Their 5% taxable overage is $526,740. They didn't go over last year (2022), even with the Carter Young signing. So they probably will not go over in 2023 either.

Braxton Bragg is listed as signing for $100K on MLB.com Draft Tracker. This is a $97.8K UNDERSLOT signing. This completes the first 10 picks except for Jason Baumeister (2 Comp B pick). Remaining Draft Allocation is $1,878,100 (not counting any overage).

Braxton Bragg is listed as signing for $100K on MLB.com Draft Tracker. This is a $97.8K UNDERSLOT signing. This completes the first 10 picks except for Jason Baumeister (2 Comp B pick). Remaining Draft Allocation is $1,878,100 (not counting any overage).