Trumbo an Oriole (For Clevenger Done Deal)

[SteveO]

I'd guess that almost every team has more than 20% of their payroll in very poor $/win contracts. And many at 50% or more. The only way to avoid that is to avoid free agent (and a fair % of arb players).

That is fair.

I agree. The best way is to develop your own players and not have to rely on FA. Really all this is a function of our poor farm system.

Long term that should be the organizations #1 priority.

[DrungoHazewood]

That is really not a good way to look at it IMO. Last year Caleb Joseph put up 2.2 WAR for league minimum salary.

Even if you believe that was CJ's best, he is likely gonna give you close to 1.5 WAR for peanuts. How is paying 15.8 million for a guy who has not even approached 2.0 WAR since 2012 a good idea?

If the Orioles signed any other catcher not named MW who profiled exactly the same as MW does while they have all these holes to fill, nobody would have defended that. Regardless if you feel that offering him was the right choice or not, his accepting it is not the best news.

It was a good idea because of the potential return of a pick and the long odds of him accepting. Of course it would have been stupid to offer another 2-win catcher a 1/16 deal because there wasn't a draft pick waiting at the other side of the 70%, 80%, 90% chance of him declining.

[SteveO]

This is presumptuous at best. ''Whomever will want a multi year. How to you really compare $15.8 million for one year to any contracts which will most likely be 2-5 year affairs and possible cost a draft pick?

Take it a step further, Trumbo at $9.1 million means Wieters, Joseph, and Trumbo are eating up $24.9 million in 2016. Versus Joseph and Clevenger for peanuts.

That does cover signing Chris Davis. For ONE year.

Chris Davis is about long term commitment, using up resources for many years.

Ok so spending 15 million plus on a position you have a guy making league minimum and put up a 2.2 WAR last year is somehow preferable to going out and singing a guy for 15.8 million AAV who fill a position where you have NOBODY ??? I am not suggesting we sign a guy and pay him 15.8 million for the next 4 years while playing only next year lol. Look at this teams future payroll. Clearly the only thing that would prevent you from signing a guy to a 4 year deal is not future payroll, its what money you have available next year in particular, the payroll beyond that is clearly at a position where signing a 4 year 15.8 million deal would be a major issue unless we are now gonna say we only sign guys for 10+ million on one year deals which is completely unrealistic.

[SteveO]

It was a good idea because of the potential return of a pick and the long odds of him accepting. Of course it would have been stupid to offer another 2-win catcher a 1/16 deal because there wasn't a draft pick waiting at the other side of the 70%, 80%, 90% chance of him declining.

I agree it was the right choice to offer. I was convinced he would not take it.

That said, if he should have been offered and if his accepting it is a good thing are two completely different questions.

Yes if you offer you have to be willing to deal with the consequences as we will have to, it does not mean though we have to pretend that somehow having 15.8 million less to address the multiple needs we have is a good thing.

Offering on the surface seems like the right choice, I agreed with it. Now if we find out later that they knew, suspected or otherwise had information that would indicate that MW would take the QO then its one of the most idiotic things I have ever seen. I gotta believe that is not the case, I pray its not.

[srock]

Ok so spending 15 million plus on a position you have a guy making league minimum and put up a 2.2 WAR last year is somehow preferable to going out and singing a guy for 15.8 million AAV who fill a position where you have NOBODY ??? I am not suggesting we sign a guy and pay him 15.8 million for the next 4 years while playing only next year lol. Look at this teams future payroll. Clearly the only thing that would prevent you from signing a guy to a 4 year deal is not future payroll, its what money you have available next year in particular, the payroll beyond that is clearly at a position where signing a 4 year 15.8 million deal would be a major issue unless we are now gonna say we only sign guys for 10+ million on one year deals which is completely unrealistic.

I take it the crux of your argument is that Joseph + Clevenger for about league minimum is > Matt Wieters + Joseph for $15.8 million.

I think it debatable. Possible yes, but debatable.

Matt Wieters has the potential to be hit. Its a gamble for $15.8 million but its a one year gamble.

Joseph may be exposed playing more often and his offense tank. Its not like it track record is super long.

Drungo makes the best point, it was worth the risk to make MW the QO because even if he takes it, its not a huge problem.

It was a good idea because of the potential return of a pick and the long odds of him accepting. Of course it would have been stupid to offer another 2-win catcher a 1/16 deal because there wasn't a draft pick waiting at the other side of the 70%, 80%, 90% chance of him declining.

[DrungoHazewood]

I take it the crux of your argument is that Joseph + Clevenger for about league minimum is > Matt Wieters + Joseph for $15.8 million.

You also need to include the value of the pick, and weigh/discount the costs or values associated with Wieters and the pick by the odds of accepting the QO.

[DrungoHazewood]

Or look at it this way: Let's say you have 10 guys like Wieters and there's an 80% chance of them declining. Also assume the six-year value of the pick is 5 WAR, I'm just making stuff up, but maybe that's close.

So you get 8 picks worth 40 wins, that you'll end up paying cents on the dollar for. But at the expense of having to pay a one-time charge of $32M for 2-4 wins.

I think that's pretty close to a no-brainer to offer the QOs, and that's without considering that 1-2 of your picks will probably be worth much more than five wins.

[SteveO]

I take it the crux of your argument is that Joseph + Clevenger for about league minimum is > Matt Wieters + Joseph for $15.8 million.

I think it debatable. Possible yes, but debatable.

Matt Wieters has the potential to be hit. Its a gamble for $15.8 million but its a one year gamble.

Joseph may be exposed playing more often and his offense tank. Its not like it track record is super long.

Drungo makes the best point, it was worth the risk to make MW the QO because even if he takes it, its not a huge problem.

I agree it was worth the risk. The question of should they have offered vs is it good he accepted a good thing are two very different questions. I suspect a lot of people saying that it is good he accepted are doing so more because they also though we should offer and he would refuse than the fact it actually is good he accepted it.

At the end of the day though, your paying a guy 15.8 million who has put up about WAR in the past 3 seasons combined around what Caleb put up last year alone.

If MW can return to his 2011, 2012 form then sure it looks better but even then he averaged around 3.5 WAR and given that CJ put up 2.2 last year your essentially getting at best 1.5 WAR more for 15.8 million. Not wonderful.

[SteveO]

Or look at it this way: Let's say you have 10 guys like Wieters and there's an 80% chance of them declining. Also assume the six-year value of the pick is 5 WAR, I'm just making stuff up, but maybe that's close.

So you get 8 picks worth 40 wins, that you'll end up paying cents on the dollar for. But at the expense of having to pay a one-time charge of $32M for 2-4 wins.

I think that's pretty close to a no-brainer to offer the QOs, and that's without considering that 1-2 of your picks will probably be worth much more than five wins.

I agree here. Little to argue with IMO.

I think its ok though to say, yes we should have offered but to also feel like it is a disaster that he accepted. We gambled and lost. It happens, we can say it was a bad thing without necessarily having to find a scapegoat or having to convince ourselves that it is somehow a good thing he took the QO. Just my opinion.

Maybe its just me, it feels like there is an awful lot of people trying to convince themselves that this is a good thing, simply cause like us, they believed it was the right thing to do given the circumstances. It is possible to make a right choice and have it end poorly, happens in real life all the time and baseball is no exception.

The only way I would blast DD if he had indications that MW would accept and still choose to offer. Other than that, it was the right choice with an unfortunate outcome.

[Bahama O's Fan]

I think I would have told Matt, if I'm Dan, is that if you accept, you will be splitting time with Joseph and not starting. Hard to build your value if you aren't the starter.

[DrungoHazewood]

It is possible to make a right choice and have it end poorly, happens in real life all the time and baseball is no exception

.

I think most firings in baseball are the result of reasonable choices ending poorly and people in charge acting like outcome tracks process perfectly.

[DrungoHazewood]

I think I would have told Matt' date=' if I'm Dan, is that if you accept, you will be splitting time with Joseph and not starting. Hard to build your value if you aren't the starter.[/quote']

That's why I don't get Boras and Wieters' thought process. It is far from certain that Wieters gets better offers in a year. Many, many possible paths to him getting a worse contract after this coming season. If he tears something in spring training he's looking at a 1/7 deal for 2017.

[Frobby]

Oops. Completely my fault. I read CD. I apologize.

As for CJ + whomever, I think Wieters has a chance of outperforming a "whomever" that could be had for $15.8 MM AAV. Definitely not a given. Might turn out that Wieters is a train wreck for Baltimore in 2016, sure.

If Wieters performs at 2011-12 levels, this works out OK. The situation is not ideal and I would rather have spent the $15.8 mm elsewhere. I don't think it cripples us.

[SteveO]

I think most firings in baseball are the result of reasonable choices ending poorly and people in charge acting like outcome tracks process perfectly.

I think almost all are.

If DD gets fired, we will look back at decisions some of which we agreed with and some we did not but most of which we could look at and say....yea I kinda get what he hoping for here, even if we did not agree with the move.

Virtually no GM or manager is fired for their decisions, they are fired cause those decisions lead to a negative result. Some bad decisions are more egregious than others, some do not seem like bad decisions and others seem bad and work out great. As a GM your job security is a culmination of all those outcomes. Fair or not that is the gig.

[SteveO]

If Wieters performs at 2011-12 levels, this works out OK. The situation is not ideal and I would rather have spent the $15.8 mm elsewhere. I don't think it cripples us.

Agreed.

I don't think that it cripples us, it does however make it more challenging to assemble a competitive roster to some degree IMO.