An Alternate Offseason

[weams]

Reimold is hitting about as well in Norfolk as De Aza is in the majors, so the offense would be a bit worse. Reimold isn't remotely as good a glove as De Aza.

Reimold is not remotely as good defensively as Delmon.

[Can_of_corn]

Reimold is not remotely as good defensively as Delmon.

Then feel free to insert another name. He was a handy choice since Yaz and Almazar are not ready.

[eddie83]

No harder than avoiding a Nolasco, Romero, Fielder, Figgins, Hamilton each year.

If we aren't going to spend our money on starting picthing in FA and aren't wasting money on a Jim Johnson closer type at some point we will have to take some risks on FA hitters. Your point is fair but our system is not providing alternatives yet in the position player department. Once again I had no issues with the past off season but at some point risks we have to be taken.

[Can_of_corn]

Hindsight is 20/20. Why not mention of dumping Ubaldo Jimenez and dumping his entire salary or paying a team part of it get rid of some of it? No one has actually been ripping that signing lately.

It's easy to nitpick and criticize. We all have opinions and sometimes we are right and they are wrong. We just kind of keep quiet when they are right and we are wrong. Jimmy Paredes is a pretty good value. I thought he had no chance to make the team and I would have had no problem if the O's had taken if off the 40 man roster. Some people wanted Ubaldo dumped or banished to the bullpen to start the season. At 15-19 this is a pretty easy time to say we should have done this or that. And I have no problem with someone doing that. I do it myself.

I'm not nitpicking. I'm not criticizing.

I'm not saying that doing it the other way would have garnered better results.

I'm speculating on what the consequences would have been.

No where in my post am I stating that Dan did anything wrong.

I didn't mention Ubaldo because:

1- I think Dan did try and dump him.

2- My post was specifically about the players that were discussed on this board as non-tender candidates.

If I was playing with hindsight then I would have included Norris.

[Can_of_corn]

How can we speculate on what the consquences would have been if we don't know where the 20-30 million wold have gone. Are we speculating in the first 34 games or the whole season? It's kind of a pointless excersise. Would we be worse off without Hunter, De Aza, Matusz, Davis, and Wieters? The answer is yes, but not much. That just answers the first 34 games though. De Aza could start hitting again like he did last September. Davis could get hot. Wieters might come back and actually contribute.

So you think there is no room for speculation?

That it is all pointless?

Then why bother replying to the thread?

As for me, I think the idea of a GM doing a mass non-tender during an offseason is a fun thing to speculate on, even if it turns out that there was nothing better that he could have done with the money then what he actually did.

[Can_of_corn]

To say that it's pointless. It's the same amount of fun as all of the threads that say we should have signed Miller and Cruz. Okay, we could have non-tendered those guys. Now what?

I actually find that offensive.

You might not like this type of speculation but I put more effort into this then "Angelos is cheap and should have given Dan the money to buy all the players.". This is at least a realistic course of action.

[islandecho]

Knowing the players we are losing in 2016, I would have dumped Markakis, Matusz, Hunter and De Aza. Signed Miller and Cruz (or at least tried to). And added one more quality position player, preferably a RF. A team on paper going into the season of:

Cruz

Jones

XYZ quality RF

Machado

Hardy

Schoop

Davis

Weiters

Pearce

I would put that lineup against any team in the league and let the cards fall where they may. If injuries happen they happen, but at least they tried.

Yes, payroll would be up this year. But next year we would lose a few players to offset that, and plus with what should be a pennant drive into late Sept and a playoff run, the resulting revenue from the crowds and concessions would make up for the extra payroll. Excitement would be sky high and the ball park would be packed after what happened last year. Instead? We lost two great players and the air went out of the balloon. Now the crowds are going to be smaller, excitement non existent, and the resulting revenue smaller as well.

You have to spend money to make money. We went into turtle shell mode.

[Rene88]

We can all agree on one thing: what the heck were they thinking keeping Matusz. They gambled someone would trade for him and lost. Not huge, just puzzling.

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[Reboulet'sStache]

Dan's off-season was fine. I wouldn't have brought back Matusz or Norris, but Matusz is maybe the only inexcusable move of the two. There just wasn't enough high end talent waiting in the minors, and we weren't going to add those pieces through massive expansion of the payroll. So what was he suppose to do? The best move would have been to sell high on certain pieces in the past (Johnson, Davis) and not made certain trades (like Norris). But that would have come at the expense of those past teams too. At best all Dan can do is keep doing what he did this past off-season, and concentrate more on the draft. But even last year, how man 3+ WAR players did we have on the team? Jones, Pierce, Cruz, and Hardy? This was always going to be a team that walked the line in terms of margin for error, and you can't change that in one off-season.

[Bahama O's Fan]

I will play along. If we had done these things and had money to spend this offseason, which deal did a player get that you think was worth it that we should have done? Not whether we could afford it or not, but was worth the money, filled a position of need, or you would have been willing to give up similar players and pay that salary in a trade?

[VeveJones007]

I touched on this last night and want to explore it a bit more in depth.

This season's payroll is up 11 million over 2014. Most of us think that Dan spent pretty much all of his authorized budget but did he spent it correctly?

Despite the losses of Cruz, Miller and Markakis I think Dan's goal in the offseason was to keep as much of the core together that he could.

The arbitration raises severely limited his financial flexibility.

So what if he had cut ties with all the questionable arbitration cases?

I pretty much wanted Dan to cut ties with Matusz, Hunter and De Aza.

5.0 + 4.65 + 3.2 = 12.85 million. They could be replaced with Wright, TJ and Reimold who would cost the O's ~ 1 million.

Now if he really wanted to be aggressive then he also could have cut Davis and Wieters loose.

12.0 + 8.3 = 20.3 million. Obviously the O's can continue as they are without Wieters. They could put Pearce at first which would leave a roster slot open at the league minimum.

How much worse would the team be? What could have been added to the team with 30 million to spend?

Isn't this going to be the 2015 offseason anyway?

You still would have done the same thing for several reasons. 1) You give yourself a chance to make a run in 2015. 2) You can move those players during the season and get value back. 3) You get another year to decide who you want to extend. 4) You can get compensation for some of the players that move on.

[BohKnowsBmore]

I do think that Laroche made sense as mdbdotcom said, Melky at that money was a big risk. Right now we seem to be an organization that will retain it's own players if the deals are team friendly and have no desire-outside of Ubaldo- to take risks in FA. Unless we start developing more position player talent we are going to turn into the Rays on offense I am afraid. Hard to keep finding a McLouth, Pearce and Paredes type every year.

I would say Ubaldo is an interesting case. A calculated risk. Many here rip his contract size, but he is being paid like a #3 starter on the FA market (in the truest sense of the word, not "a #3 on a good team," or something like that). He has the ability to pitch like a #1, but pitches like a #5 sometimes.

[Dipper9]

Reimold is hitting about as well in Norfolk as De Aza is in the majors, so the offense would be a bit worse. Reimold isn't remotely as good a glove as De Aza.

This may or may not be true, but DeAza's glove hasn't shown me much this year. He takes bad breaks on batted balls, and he doesn't make the wisest decisions on throwing to the bases and hitting cut-off men. So I won't argue that Nolan is better, but DeAza isn't great either.

As Tony and I discussed at Hangout Night, its pretty sad when we're HAPPY to see Delmon Young starting in right field.