Jump to content

What FA would make you happy?


Bahama O's Fan

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 98
  • Created
  • Last Reply
McLouth, maybe. If he does get more than $6 million per year when he doesn't really hit lefties that well and is probably better suited to a platoon role then his agent is an absolute genius.

And I think if Mujica only gets 2/$9 million on the open market then I'm guessing Crain falls at least a little short of that figure based on the fact that he's coming off an injury-shortened season.

Chris Young got $7 million for one year; David Murphy got $12 million for 2 years; Marlon Byrd got $16 million for two years. All these guys have some strengths and some blemishes, like McLouth; they seem like a pretty good group of comparables. So I'm betting McLouth will wind up costing $6-8 M per season.

I'd be happy if we could get Crain for Mujica's contract, but Mujica's contract turned out to be a lot less than what was projected; I think he gave the Red Sox the World Champion's discount. Joe Smith got $15M for 3 years; Crain has an injury but he's arguably got a better track record otherwise than Joe Smith.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Garret Jones 2/7.5

I'm starting to warm up to this idea (though I don't want Jones in the field).

If you take Garrett Jones' and Danny Valencia's career numbers vs. RH and LH pitching, respectively, weigh them according to opportunity and project to 650 plate appearances, you get a triple slash line of .293/.346/.496 with 25 HRs. That's a nice little DH platoon.

Caveats - 1) Valencia's career sample size vs. lefties is not robust, and 2) like always, this requires the platoon to be managed correctly and the players to play to career numbers over less than a full season's worth of plate appearances.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So after five pages' date=' we have established that no matter what Dan does within the constraints given to him, we will complain. Okay, just wanted to establish this.[/quote']

Well, I think what this exercise has established is that even if Dan does the best he can do with $20 M, he's likely to wind up with a team that is no better on paper than the team we wound up with in 2013. The consensus best option seems to be to resign McLouth, resign Feldman, sign Garrett Jones (probably an upgrade on our LH DH production in 2013) and sign Jesse Crain as the closer (health concerns, not proven as a closer--you'd have to call that a downgrade on having Jim Johnson). Overall this seems like treading water. Don't you think we should complain if the O's aren't willing to spend what it takes to improve the team?

As long as we're in bargain shopping mode, here's a name for folks to consider: Eric Chavez. Hits righties well, can play corner IF positions, has experience in the AL East. I'd rather have him than Garrett Jones as my platoon DH.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm starting to warm up to this idea (though I don't want Jones in the field).

If you take Garrett Jones' and Danny Valencia's career numbers vs. RH and LH pitching, respectively, weigh them according to opportunity and project to 650 plate appearances, you get a triple slash line of .293/.346/.496 with 25 HRs. That's a nice little DH platoon.

Caveats - 1) Valencia's career sample size vs. lefties is not robust, and 2) like always, this requires the platoon to be managed correctly and the players to play to career numbers over less than a full season's worth of plate appearances.

Why waste money on Jones over Henry at LHDH. It's not the most pressing need, SP and LF is.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why waste money on Jones over Henry at LHDH. It's not the most pressing need, SP and LF is.

Urrutia's an option, but Jones' .826 OPS career vs. righties is more than I'd project for Henry. I understand it's a platoon, but you're talking about 450 PA.

Jones + McLouth combined shouldn't exceed the 11 MM saved on Johnson, which still leaves you with 12-14 MM to spend on pitching. Not sexy, but it's an idea.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why waste money on Jones over Henry at LHDH. It's not the most pressing need, SP and LF is.

Urrutia will get his chances, but I'm not convinced that he'll ever be more than a singles hitter. Going into the season with him as your primary DH would be like counting on Gausman, Britton or McFarlane as your fifth starter. It could work out, but why not bring in someone a little more proven and let the kids prove that they belong before handing them a job?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Urrutia's an option, but Jones' .826 OPS career vs. righties is more than I'd project for Henry. I understand it's a platoon, but you're talking about 450 PA.

Jones + McLouth combined shouldn't exceed the 11 MM saved on Johnson, which still leaves you with 12-14 MM to spend on pitching. Not sexy, but it's an idea.

Jones isn't an OF. He's a DH, that's it. Henry can play the OF and I bet he can hit as well as Jones v RHP. I want the best SP we can afford to sign or the best LF.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Jones isn't an OF. He's a DH, that's it.

Correct. That's right where I'd want him.

Henry can play the OF

Then why does one preclude the other? Are you advocating Urrutia as the starting LF'er? I said McLouth would be a logical target.

and I bet he can hit as well as Jones v RHP.

Maybe? But that has nothing to do with my post, which advocated a strict platoon for Jones. So this seems irrelevant.

I want the best SP we can afford to sign

My post left 12-15 MM to spend on pitching. I think that leaves every FA option open except (possibly) Garza. If Baltimore actually wants to make a serious run at Garza, sure, leave every last million available. But I highly doubt they will.

or the best LF.

Who is that, in your opinion, and what contract would it take?

EDIT: I misread and thought you said Henry could hit lefties as well as Jones. Righties? I highly doubt it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Chris Young got $7 million for one year; David Murphy got $12 million for 2 years; Marlon Byrd got $16 million for two years. All these guys have some strengths and some blemishes, like McLouth; they seem like a pretty good group of comparables. So I'm betting McLouth will wind up costing $6-8 M per season.

I'd be happy if we could get Crain for Mujica's contract, but Mujica's contract turned out to be a lot less than what was projected; I think he gave the Red Sox the World Champion's discount. Joe Smith got $15M for 3 years; Crain has an injury but he's arguably got a better track record otherwise than Joe Smith.

You could definitely be right. The robust contracts being handed out to marginal players this offseason are pretty shocking. Chris Young put up a .200/.280/.379 line in 375 PAs last year and received $7 million guaranteed dollars. Madness. Marlon Byrd, coming off a 2012 season in which he OPS'd .488, miraculously( ;) ) posts the highest SLG, OPS, and HR totals of his career at age 35 and gets rewarded with a 2 year deal for his age 36 and 37 seasons(!) at $8 million per(!!!). Absolute lunacy.

So yeah, in light of those deals, I guess 2 years at $7-8 million per for McLouth wouldn't be that outlandish of a scenario.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'll play the alternate version of this game where you allocate the remaining $20ish million between several FAs. Hm...let's see...

Garrett Jones- LH DH, $3 million(platooned with Valencia)

Nate Mclouth- LH LF, $5-6 million(platooned with Reimold or Pearce)

Scott Feldman- SP, $8 million

Jesse Crain- RP/CP, $3-4 million

They may not be terribly sexy but those moves would address most of our needs I think and give us a reasonable shot at contending again if a few things break in our direction.

Somehow I missed this post. This is almost exactly what I was trying to express. If it were doable I'd be fine forgoing Crain and/or Jones, filling one or both spots internally, and going after Garza vs. Feldman. I'm not saying this is the direction I would go in, but it's realistic.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Jones isn't an OF. He's a DH, that's it. Henry can play the OF and I bet he can hit as well as Jones v RHP. I want the best SP we can afford to sign or the best LF.

You really think that Urrutia is going to be that good, right out of the gate next year? Because Jones is rocking a .271/.337/.489 line vs. RHPs over the course of his career. Henry, on the other hand, had one XBH in 58 MLB PAs late last year and exactly zero walks. To my eye, it looked like he could use a little more time at AAA.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.




  • Posts

    • Thanks for the detailed explanation of all of the issues.  Sounds like a mess.
    • Yeah the amenities are pretty outdated at the yard and they seem to do nothing year over year to improve them. The touchscreens have been banged on to death to the point they barely function, so you can't accurately fill out your order at the kiosks, and they don't have a way for the people behind the counter to ring you up at many of the food places. The sound is low to non-existent in certain sections of the club level, like around 218. Seems like there should be speakers that reach there but they might have been damaged by rain, etc. and they are too lazy to fix them. If you go to a game that's even slightly busy, you will wait forever to get into the bathroom, and the sink will be an absolute mess with no soap or paper towels. It's even worse on the club level where they have one sink that's right by the door. Nearby businesses don't care, either. The Hilton parking garage reeks of decay, pot and human waste. They don't turn on the air circulation fans, even if cars are waiting for an hour and a half to exit from P3, filling up the air with carbon monoxide. They only let you enter the stadium with one 20 oz bottle of water. It's so expensive to buy a drink or water in the stadium, but with all the salty food, 20 oz of water isn't enough, especially on a hot day. Vegetarian food options are poor to none, other than things like chips, fries, hot pretzels and the occasional pizza. Vida Taco is better, but at an inconvenient location for many seats. The doors on the club level are not accessible. They're anti-accessible. Big, heavy doors you have to go through to get to/from the escalators, and big, heavy doors to get to your seats, none of them automatic (or even with the option to be automatic with a button press). Makes it hard to carry food out to your seats even if not handicapped. The furniture in the lounges on the club level seem designed to allow as few people as possible to sit down. Not great when we have so many rain delays during the season. Should put more, smaller chairs in and allow more of the club level ticket holders to have a seat while waiting for thunderstorms to pass. They keep a lot of the entrance/exit gates closed except for playoff/sellout games, which means people have to slowly "mooooo" all the way down Eutaw St to get to parking. They are too cheap to staff all the gates, so they make people exit by the warehouse, even though it would be a lot more convenient for many fans to open all the gates. Taking Light Rail would be super convenient, except that if there's at least 20k fans in attendance, it's common to have to wait 90-120 minutes to be able to board a non-full train heading toward Glen Burnie. A few trains might come by, but they are already full, or fill up fast when folks walk up to the Convention Center stop to pre-empt the folks trying to board at Camden Station. None of the garages in the area are set up to require pre-payment on entry (reservation, or give them your card / digital payment at the entrance till). If they were, emptying out the garage would be very quick, as they wouldn't need to ticket anyone on the way out: if you can't get in without paying, you can always just leave without having to stop and scan your phone or put a ticket in the machine. They shut down the Sports Legends Museum at Camden Station in 2015 because the Maryland Stadium Authority was too greedy. That place was a fun distraction if you were in the area when a game wasn't about to start, like if you show up super early on Opening Day or a playoff day. Superbook's restaurant on Eutaw is a huge downgrade from Dempsey's in terms of menu and service quality. Dempsey's used to be well-staffed, you could reserve a table online, and they had all kinds of great selection for every diet. Superbook seems like just another bar serving the same swill that the rest of the park serves, with extremely minimal and low-quality food. For that matter, most of the food at the stadium is very low quality these days. A lot of things we used to love are made to a lower standard now if they are served at all. These are gripes about the stadium and the area that haven't changed my entire adult life. Going to an O's game requires one to tolerate many small inconveniences and several major inconveniences, any number of which could easily be fixed by the relevant authorities if they gave a damn about the people who pay to come see the team play. You would think a mid-market team would be able to afford to invest in the fan experience. You would think the city and partnering organizations like garages, the Stadium Authority and MTA would at least try to do their part to make the experience enjoyable and free of kinks. You would think they would put some thought into handling the "growing pains" of the fanbase due to recent renewed interest after the dark years. Instead, all we get is the same indifference and the same annoyances year in and year out. The whole area is overdue for a revamp. Not sure if $600 mil will get it done, but at least it's a start. Hopefully they can start to patch up some of the many holes in the fan experience. If you're not going to invest in Burnes, at least make it so paying customers have an easier, more enjoyable time getting to/from the stadium and having some food while we're there.
    • Elias has only been in rebuild mode with the O's so there's not much to speculate on there.  Houston, where he spent his formative years, doesn't seem to like to be on the hook for more than a couple of big long-term contracts at any given time.  I can see that as being Elias' choice as well, albeit with a lower overall cost - Houston runs a big payroll.  But it's all guesswork.  I really don't know. If Elias takes the 2025 payroll to $150 million it will creep up to $200 million or so by 2028 just from keeping the core together.  That's where I start to wonder about sustainability due to market size, economic forces, etc., etc., etc... If it were up to me, I would add a couple of free agents this offseason even if the contracts were longer than ideal and be conservative about extensions elsewhere until the prospects establish themselves a little better.  I think there's a competitive opportunity that the team is already into that's worth exploiting. I think ownership is very happy to have Elias on board and they're not inclined to force him to do anything.  I also think Rubenstein's demonstrated business prowess is great enough to assume that he has had plenty enough time to come to a mutual understanding with Elias as to goals.
    • We need a RH O’hearn…in addition to Westburg. At least 3 batters that will push up the pitch count and cause damage in the top 5 of the lineup.
    • Boy,  that Jackson Merrill is a good young player that is playing his best ball down the season stretch and in the playoffs.   He's only 21.  I guess some young guys are able to play up to the pressure.   Who could have guessed that?
    • I’m aware.   You are arguing something im Not.
    • What agreement? The agreement you are talking about happened as a result of the move.  The MASN agreement would not have existed if Angelos had gone to court to block the move.
  • Popular Contributors

×
×
  • Create New...