O's consider Matsuzaka

[El Gordo]

I'm considering putting in a bid myself... do you think $42 will do it?

-m

Just add six more 0 and your in like Flint.

[srock]

I can't imagine that he's good enough to justify a $66m commitment or $22m a year over the next 3.

What happens if Schmidt and Zito both get 18-20 million a year contracts this offseason? Then $22 million [EDIT] a year for 3 years would look pretty sweet for a 26 year old with Cy Young potential. Especially if you consider the $30 million bid as a one time investment in the team instead of salary. I don't see how that money could go to a better use.

Changed from "over 3", sorry.

[geschinger]

What happens if Schmidt and Zito both get 18-20 million a year contracts this offseason? Then $22 million over 3 would look pretty sweet for a 26 year old with Cy Young potential. Especially if you consider the $30 million bid as a one time investment in the team instead of salary. I don't see how that money could go to a better use.

$22m over 3? It would be minimum of $30m over 3 on top of the posting fee.

Maybe I'm totally misreading the market but I don't see Zito or Schmidt getting anywhere near 18-20m. More like 12 to 15m a year.

[bigbird]

I'm told there is ZERO chance we bid on this guy.

[srock]

$22m over 3? It would be minimum of $30m over 3 on top of the posting fee.

Maybe I'm totally misreading the market but I don't see Zito or Schmidt getting anywhere near 18-20m. More like 12 to 15m a year.

Edited the over three to be 22m a year for 3, my bad.

How much did 40 something middle reliever Mike Timlin just get?

Oswalt signed a $14 million a year extension with a hometown discount. This will be the starting point of negotiations for both those guys.

As the threads about the new CBA agreement tend to state, inflation is kicking in because revenues are up. We are going to see bigger money contracts over the next couple years because more money is the pot. Zito and Schmidt are going to "set this market", if you will, making the contracts over the last 5 years irrelevant.

They get between 16 and 20 million a year, average, stamp it and call me on it later if I'm wrong.

[NewMarketSean]

This is where the O's fail in my eyes. They'll waste time "considering" putting in a bid for someone they'll never get in the end -- when they should be going hard after someone they could sign, someone like Catalanotto or Dellucci, or even Lee or Soriano.

[bigbird]

This is where the O's fail in my eyes. They'll waste time "considering" putting in a bid for someone they'll never get in the end -- when they should be going hard after someone they could sign, someone like Catalanotto or Dellucci, or even Lee or Soriano.

But they can't go hard after those guys for another week or so.

[NewMarketSean]

Yeah but they are wasting time "considering" putting in a bid for Matzsutaka or whatever his name is when they should be finishing the deal they should offer to Franky Cat and Dellucci.

[paulcoates]

Face it, they are out of the bidding for Zito, Schmidt, and Matsuzaka. While they claim to be interested in Suppan, so are the Yankees. You know for a fact that Suppan will go play in NY for several obvious reasons.

1)Money

2)They win

Now we are looking at Soriano wanting a ridiculous contract. And Carlos Lee's contract won't come cheaply either. My guess is we sign neither one of the big hitters. If you were Soriano or Lee would you want to come to place where the teams' best hitter griped about the ownership not going out and getting good players? And even worse, there are still plenty of rumors about Tejada being traded? This is not a stable organization and I am pretty sure that these guys want to play for winners.

[Moose Milligan]

Seems like one of these "see, we tried" stuff.

Exaaaaactly.

[bej6789]

the paper said it would take close to 70 million to wrap him up most likely. If that's the case, I still don't have a problem with it. This organization isn't going to get better just sitting and waiting for our prospects (who won't produce a 1st place team as is) to develop. We have to take a chance, and 40 million for a pitcher seems like a bargain to me.

[Flosman]

I think If I owned the O's I would post 31,000,050.00. It would be primarily a blocking move, if it wins then figure out what can be worked out if nothing can be worked out then it has blocked him from becoming a Yankee for a year. If the Yankees still have a higher bid atleast they did not get him on the cheap. I would not spend much time at all on the issue I would authorize the CFO to make provisions for the cash and move on the the next issue. Should take about 2 hours of the offseason to make all this happen. Angelos has the cash available to make a move like this and he should look at it has simply a strategic move.

[mskrulz]

From Buster Olney...

In pursuit of Matsuzakaposted: Wednesday, November 1, 2006 | Feedback | Print Entry

The Orioles are thinking about getting in on the Daisuke Matsuzaka bidding, writes Jeff Zrebiec.

The posting system is deeply flawed. For example, here's one sabotage scenario that might interest a team like Baltimore, which is faced with the possibility that Matsuzaka will land with either of the big market monsters in its division, the Yankees or the Red Sox. The Orioles could post a huge bid -- say $50 million -- and blow everybody else out of the water. With exclusive negotiating rights, they then could offer Matsuzaka a take-it-or-leave-it minimum bid, like a six-year, $6 million deal. Matsuzaka and agent Scott Boras, with just 30 days to negotiate and with no ability to generate a competing bid from another major league team, would have the stark choice of taking the Orioles' lowball offer or remaining in Japan. If Matsuzaka came to the U.S. under those circumstances -- and that would seem very unlikely -- the Orioles would have a frontline pitcher for much less than the total package of $80 million that everybody expects it will cost to get Matsuzaka. And if he were to stay in Japan after such a lowball offer, the Orioles would get their posting fee back and would still serve their own purposes, as well, by keeping him out of the hands of the Red Sox and Yankees.

Many people in baseball are already conceding that the Yankees will get him, writes Dave Lennon, but the Mets will be involved.

• No matter what happens with Matsuzaka and the other free agents, you can be assured that huge amounts of money will be spent.

This is what this offseason will be like, with the individual teams thriving but faced with a weak free-agent market: Imagine that it's Dec. 26, and you've got 30 different teenagers, their pockets stuffed with Christmas cash from grandpa and grandma and mom and dad, all headed to the mall at the same time. There is only one Xbox left on the shelf, however, only one great pair of basketball shoes; in fact, there's really not much good stuff at the mall. But the 30 teenagers are going to spend their money, no matter what. Some contracts signed this offseason are going to make you shake your head in wonder, or in shock, depending on your perspective. "Whatever scenario [of spending] you think of," said one AL executive yesterday, "tack on another 20 percent. I think that's what you're going to see."

It may be, by the way, that we're all going to be sitting around for a couple of months waiting to see where a lot of these guys land. The arbitration deadlines that once drove the free-agent market are not in place anymore, leaving spring training as the real deadline for agents and teams to get deals completed.

[scOtt]

Face it, they are out of the bidding for Zito, Schmidt, and Matsuzaka. While they claim to be interested in Suppan, so are the Yankees. You know for a fact that Suppan will go play in NY for several obvious reasons.

1)Money

2)They win

I don't know about that. First, for a second-tier guy like Suppan, I think the O's will be willing to be very competitive on money. He's just what we need. Decent, stable, rotation filler. A solid pitcher to fill out our young rotation. Kinda like Kenny Rogers.

Second, he may want to go to NY. Of course they win. But there, Suppan wouldn't even be "one of the superstars". He'd be almost a fill-in. He might like that anonymity. Or he might want a larger role, like we could give him. In Baltimore he'd be a prominent part. I guess it depends on what he wants.

[TonySoprano]

For example, here's one sabotage scenario that might interest a team like Baltimore, which is faced with the possibility that Matsuzaka will land with either of the big market monsters in its division, the Yankees or the Red Sox. The Orioles could post a huge bid -- say $50 million -- and blow everybody else out of the water. With exclusive negotiating rights, they then could offer Matsuzaka a take-it-or-leave-it minimum bid, like a six-year, $6 million deal. Matsuzaka and agent Scott Boras, with just 30 days to negotiate and with no ability to generate a competing bid from another major league team, would have the stark choice of taking the Orioles' lowball offer or remaining in Japan.

That sounds familiar.