MLBTR's Top 50 Free Agents Sorted by Position and QO

[SteveO]

Y

17 million for Zobrist .....LOL

Zobrist made 7.5 million in his age 34 season. A GM would be a fool to pay him anywhere near that.

That is the cost of doing business. If you don't want to sign high priced free agents, you have to do a better job of developing meaningful prospects.

Anyone who think the Orioles are in a position to field a winning team, nevermind a competitive one while only signing free agents who are gonna provide top value needs to stop smoking whatever they are smoking, its causing brain damage. The only way your getting great value for your money is signing guys with comp picks attached which only worsens the real issue which is the farm system. The whole reason we have to sign the number of guys we do, is our farm system is terrible.

The free agent market is not set up to provide value, we got winning the lottery lucky on Nelson Cruz, that is the type of lucky sign and value you might get once every 5 years or so on the free agent market. Most the time your overpaying for production.

If you want to be a value conscious team, it starts with the farm system. If you have a horrible farm system and still want to be value conscious, that is a recipe for a pretty bad organization. To overcome this situation, the Orioles will either have to spend their way through it or just suck for a few years. The prospects are not on the farm at this point to help all that much. Hopefully the comp picks and some smart drafting will rectify that in the future.

[24fps]

And yet? He'll get 4/48

Maybe. I certainly wouldn't be surprised if somebody paid him that. If I were the Orioles, I think I would draw the line at 3/36 and consider it a slight overpay.

[SteveO]

Maybe. I certainly wouldn't be surprised if somebody paid him that. If I were the Orioles, I think I would draw the line at 3/36 and consider it a slight overpay.

The problem is, if you draw the line at what you perceive a players value to be, your gonna end up with the Travis Snider types of the baseball world. You just do not get good baseball players on the cheap in free agency. We struck gold with Cruz, that does not happen often, more often than not you get less than you pay for.

The point is this, if you like a player, your gonna have to overpay for someone if you want to improve, then I think you have to have lines but those lines need to be a little more flexible than in the past. Expecting to get good value for good players on the free agent market is gonna have you sitting there in February trying to decide which dreg left on the market you want to sign. If this team wanted to not have to overpay free agents, they should have done a better job drafting and developing talent.

[24fps]

The problem is, if you draw the line at what you perceive a players value to be, your gonna end up with the Travis Snider types of the baseball world. You just do not get good baseball players on the cheap in free agency. We struck gold with Cruz, that does not happen often, more often than not you get less than you pay for.

The point is this, if you like a player, your gonna have to overpay for someone if you want to improve, then I think you have to have lines but those lines need to be a little more flexible than in the past. Expecting to get good value for good players on the free agent market is gonna have you sitting there in February trying to decide which dreg left on the market you want to sign. If this team wanted to not have to overpay free agents, they should have done a better job drafting and developing talent.

I agree that the free agent market is a difficult place to find value and that there are risks.

[SteveO]

I agree that the free agent market is a difficult place to find value and that there are risks.

I think that getting value for the money you spend is an admirable quality for a team in the market the O's are in. The problem though is that the situation that O's find themselves in does not mesh well with that philosophy. You can't be a team that wants value for it's money and yet not be a team that produces prospects at even an average level. It's like a pacifist trying to join the Navy Seals, it makes no sense.

I think that DD deserves a lot of credit for the successes we have had since he arrived, I think he also deserves some consternation over the predicament that we find ourselves in now. DD's job is to field a winning team (check) and to draft and acquire the talent to keep it that way (tbd but kinda meh at best). I think there are number of ways that DD can navigate this successfully but I can't think of to many that do not involve spending some money and that is gonna mean loosening the philosophy about value to some degree. Not abandoning it completely but when you don't develop your own, you have gamble and that is where we are right now.

[weams]

I think that getting value for the money you spend is an admirable quality for a team in the market the O's are in. The problem though is that the situation that O's find themselves in does not mesh well with that philosophy. You can't be a team that wants value for it's money and yet not be a team that produces prospects at even an average level. It's like a pacifist trying to join the Navy Seals, it makes no sense.

I think that DD deserves a lot of credit for the successes we have had since he arrived, I think he also deserves some consternation over the predicament that we find ourselves in now. DD's job is to field a winning team (check) and to draft and acquire the talent to keep it that way (tbd but kinda meh at best). I think there are number of ways that DD can navigate this successfully but I can't think of to many that do not involve spending some money and that is gonna mean loosening the philosophy about value to some degree. Not abandoning it completely but when you don't develop your own, you have gamble and that is where we are right now.

I would think that the organization is still very risk averse. I think as a small market team it has to be. The first goal was to win at the MLB level. Then to develop a pipeline. I think action on both of those fronts has occurred.

[Can_of_corn]

I would think that the organization is still very risk averse. I think as a small market team it has to be. The first goal was to win at the MLB level. Then to develop a pipeline. I think action on both of those fronts has occurred.

I think they fell into success at the MLB level and that damaged their attempt to develop a pipeline.

[weams]

I think they fell into success at the MLB level and that damaged their attempt to develop a pipeline.

Other folks agree with you.

[ChuckS]

I would think that the organization is still very risk averse. I think as a small market team it has to be. The first goal was to win at the MLB level. Then to develop a pipeline. I think action on both of those fronts has occurred.

Are we a small market team though? We were around the middle of the pack in payroll this past season and we have the lion's share of cable revenue from the MASN deal which was upheld in court. I would call us mid-market and mid-market teams spend on quality talent when they need to which is where we are at. We need to at a minimum spend every penny of the cash coming off the books.

SteveO makes a good point about the futility of the organizations strategy toward acquiring talent. I personally am sick of hearing the team cry poor when it comes to acquiring legitimate free agents as I'm sure the majority of the fan base is.

[SteveO]

I would think that the organization is still very risk averse. I think as a small market team it has to be. The first goal was to win at the MLB level. Then to develop a pipeline. I think action on both of those fronts has occurred.

Not sure whose pipeline your evaluating because I am pretty sure your not talking about ours which is pretty awful comparative to even the other teams in our division never-mind the rest of baseball.

DD did a good job building a winner at the MLB level not so much on building the pipeline or we would not be in the situation we are in now. If the Orioles want to be risk averse that is fine, then they also have to do the tough things that teams like that do, you know, trade guys like Britton, AJ and Manny for max value. I tend to find a lot people want this team to behave like the Rays in terms of spending and being frugal but do not want to swallow the tough medicine like letting guys who are studs go when they can bring back max value.

[weams]

Are we a small market team though? We were around the middle of the pack in payroll this past season and we have the lion's share of cable revenue from the MASN deal which was upheld in court. I would call us mid-market and mid-market teams spend on quality talent when they need to which is where we are at. We need to at a minimum spend every penny of the cash coming off the books.

SteveO makes a good point about the futility of the organizations strategy toward acquiring talent. I personally am sick of hearing the team cry poor when it comes to acquiring legitimate free agents as I'm sure the majority of the fan base is.

It's a pretty small market. And the MASN case is by no means finalized. They won round two. On a split card.

[DrungoHazewood]

I would think that the organization is still very risk averse. I think as a small market team it has to be.

I don't think you have to be. I think the problem is that it's even riskier when you try to win with unusual strategies AND a small budget. A big team can take a risk and absorb it. A small market team probably should be taking risks that might pay off exponentially, but they're all afraid of being both bad and crazy. You can usually only get away with one of those.

[weams]

Are we a small market team though? We were around the middle of the pack in payroll this past season and we have the lion's share of cable revenue from the MASN deal which was upheld in court. I would call us mid-market and mid-market teams spend on quality talent when they need to which is where we are at. We need to at a minimum spend every penny of the cash coming off the books.

SteveO makes a good point about the futility of the organizations strategy toward acquiring talent. I personally am sick of hearing the team cry poor when it comes to acquiring legitimate free agents as I'm sure the majority of the fan base is.

I think the level of spending over the last years were indicative of ownership thinking they were really going for it.

[weams]

I don't think you have to be. I think the problem is that it's even riskier when you try to win with unusual strategies AND a small budget. A big team can take a risk and absorb it. A small market team probably should be taking risks that might pay off exponentially, but they're all afraid of being both bad and crazy. You can usually only get away with one of those.

Pretty good point.

[SteveO]

I think the level of spending over the last years were indicative of ownership thinking they were really going for it.

I think ownership invests enough into the on the field product. A 120 million payroll is more than enough to win.

I would even prefer to see a flat or slightly reduced payroll with more money and freedom for DD to spend on international amateurs etc and perhaps improving on other resources. Clearly we are missing the mark somewhere.