Some O's tidbits from Keith Law's chat yesterday

[Ruzious]

Smart teams trade players like Hardy at this point in their careers. JoeAverageFan says - "You're crazy, Ruz. He's a 30 homer Gold Glove SS. Why in the blue heck would you even consider trading him, you moron." Well, he also had a 081 OPS+ (which is bad and tells a lot more about him than his homerun total), and he turned 30 last season. The future is most likely on the downward slope for him. Hardy's been a blessing for the O's - a great acquisition. But the future for him is cloudy, imo.

[CO Birdlover]

I personally have no desire to tamper with the left side of our infield. Hardy has been a 7 WAR player over his two years here (3.5 WAR/yr), and Machado played at a 4.5 WAR/yr pace as a green rookie who had just turned 20 years old. The left side of the infield was virtually impregnable for the last two months, unlike anything I've seen since Brooks and Belanger were at their stations. I'm not changing anything about that. The fact that Hardy had a down year offensively and that Machado will one day be our SS doesn't change my opinion one iota.

I like the left side of the infield as it is too. Let's see what happens with this arrangement in 2013...I'm not one for making changes just for the sake of doing so, if it ain't broke (which it didn't seem to be once Manny was brought up), don't fix it.

[El Gordo]

I don't share your optimism. Machado is going to get better eventually, but I doubt he's any better next year than pro rating his 2012 performance. And I don't expect improvement from Hardy at his age.

I think you're wrong here, but if not, I'd still be happy with the 22 HR, 83 RBI, and great glove at 3B we'd get over a 162 G season from him. I would look for Hardy to put up similar numbers at SS. His career ave. is .741 OPS, and while he hit more LD last season than in any other year, his BABIP was .23 lower than his career ave.

[BohKnowsBmore]

Smart teams trade players like Hardy at this point in their careers. JoeAverageFan says - "You're crazy, Ruz. He's a 30 homer Gold Glove SS. Why in the blue heck would you even consider trading him, you moron." Well, he also had a 081 OPS+ (which is bad and tells a lot more about him than his homerun total), and he turned 30 last season. The future is most likely on the downward slope for him. Hardy's been a blessing for the O's - a great acquisition. But the future for him is cloudy, imo.

I doubt he slides enough that we can find any better value than his 2/14 remaining. Even if he were to slide to 2.5 and 2.0 WAR in 2013 and 2014, he would still be underpaid by ~7.5M over those two years (using $5M per win).