MW QO Acceptance: For or Against the QO?

[Aristotelian]

If Matt is healthy and hits 280 w/ 20-25 homers and knocks in 80+ (all things that seem reasonable) how can that be bad this year?

If he flounders it's bad for the team....but not for certain. So far the only thing you've lost is a AAAA guy in Clevenger.

Talk about it after its clearly impacted the team which doesn't appear to be a certainty.

He could put up .300/30/100 and it would still hurt us just by virtue of having committed $16M to a C when we already have Joseph. He effectively prevents us from signing any big name free agent so we are left with the Trumbos and Fisters of the world to fill all our holes.

[Il BuonO]

Disagree on the last part. The O's debated this internally. This was not a slam dunk decision.

I think it was unfortunate the market played out like it did. There's a couple teams, including the Braves, which signed catchers and may have been landing spots for Wieters. I don't think he had it in mind to accept the QO from the beginning.

[webbrick2010]

If Matt is healthy and hits 280 w/ 20-25 homers and knocks in 80+ (all things that seem reasonable) how can that be bad this year?

If he flounders it's bad for the team....but not for certain. So far the only thing you've lost is a AAAA guy in Clevenger.

Talk about it after its clearly impacted the team which doesn't appear to be a certainty.

Hitting .280 reasonable, for a career .258 hitter who's best full season is .262.

and the big problem that no one wants to even broach is his pitch framing and how much better the O's pitchers stats are with Joseph than with Wieters. Wieters catching 120 games could cost the staff .25 or more on ERA

[Il BuonO]

It's reasonable for a .258 career hitter whose topped 80 RBI once, to have a career year this year? Okay. Isn't it more reasonable to go back to his last healthy year in 2013 when he did hit 22 homers, with 79 RBI, and hit .235. Even then his WAR was only .6. Why? Because his defense has slipped.

Is it reasonable to expect Wieters to revert back to the player he was in 2011-12 when he was at his best offensively and defensively? I don't think so. At the same time, Joseph has put up a 1.2 and 2.2 WAR in 180 games total the last two years. Now you pay Wieters 15.8M to hopefully put up 2 WAR in 120-140 games and minimizing Joseph's WAR by playing him 20-40 times at catcher. Not my idea of good allocation of resources.

No, I think that's right. I'm certain they didn't want him to accept. It was the worst possible outcome.

[Aristotelian]

It's reasonable for a .258 career hitter whose topped 80 RBI once, to have a career year this year? Okay. Isn't it more reasonable to go back to his last healthy year in 2013 when he did hit 22 homers, with 79 RBI, and hit .235. Even then his WAR was only .6. Why? Because his defense has slipped.

Is it reasonable to expect Wieters to revert back to the player he was in 2011-12 when he was at his best offensively and defensively? I don't think so. At the same time, Joseph has put up a 1.2 and 2.2 WAR in 180 games total the last two years. Now you pay Wieters 15.8M to hopefully put up 2 WAR in 120-140 games and minimizing Joseph's WAR by playing him 20-40 times at catcher. Not my idea of good allocation of resources.

I think they split more like 50/50, with Wieters also picking up ABs as DH...which hurts us less at C but more at DH. Still not a good use of resources no matter how you look at it. If he is splitting DH ABs with Trumbo, the splits also don't work, as others noted on my lineup thread.

[BohKnowsBmore]

He could put up .300/30/100 and it would still hurt us just by virtue of having committed $16M to a C when we already have Joseph. He effectively prevents us from signing any big name free agent so we are left with the Trumbos and Fisters of the world to fill all our holes.

Ummmm, but the spike in production that you're positing would very much offset an inability to sign other FAs. That is the type of production we could only hope for from a high $$ FA and far more than we would get from Joseph even in our wildest dreams. Joseph will still play a fair amount either way by virtue of the position he and MW play. Joseph is good, but folks are getting their judgment clouded here IMO. If Wieters can play at all star level we should be happy to pay him the QO price.

[Es4M11]

I was against Wieters getting the QO before it was offered, and certainly still am displeased with it.

A month before QO's were offered I definitively stated on this forum that Wieters would accept the QO if offered.

Paying Wieters $16 mil this season is a terrible allocation of resources, and renders Joseph almost useless - because you can be damn sure Wieters is catching 115+ games this year. This is going to hurt the pitching staff more than anything.

DD miscalculated big time here. And if I could see it plain as day - along with a few others - why couldn't DD?

[BohKnowsBmore]

Let's discount what Joseph has done the last two years and hope Wieters reverts to his 2012 form. Got it.

The premise of the post I responded to was that if Wieters hit 300/30 hr/100 RBI, then the QO acceptance would STILL hurt the team. My point was that Wieters doesn't need to reach that level (which exceeds his past production significantly) to be a plus. Given the lens of the discussion I don't see the need for snark...

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Roll Tide]

Hitting .280 reasonable, for a career .258 hitter who's best full season is .262.

and the big problem that no one wants to even broach is his pitch framing and how much better the O's pitchers stats are with Joseph than with Wieters. Wieters catching 120 games could cost the staff .25 or more on ERA

I was more interested in your response to my post directed at you.

Wieters is still only 29. Before he got hurt he was hitting .308 with 5 homers and 18 RBI over 112 ABs. Last year was a recovery year IMO.

If you project that production over 500 ABs its 25 & 90.

It's possible he hits .250 with 20 & 60 ...but again age wise he's in his prime.

[Stotle]

Maybe, but Joseph could give similar value overall. Now you minimize Joseph's value by playing Wieters 120 games or more. Joseph/Clevenger would have been fine. Catcher was not a top priority. Starting pitching is.

Caleb Joseph has never caught 100 games in a season. I don't think it's a certainty he has the physicality to handle a full catcher's workload, and if he did I think there is a risk his offensive numbers could sink lower. Maybe the Joseph could hold it together for 125 games and the overall package is still 2+ wins. I don't know.

[Stotle]

He could put up .300/30/100 and it would still hurt us just by virtue of having committed $16M to a C when we already have Joseph. He effectively prevents us from signing any big name free agent so we are left with the Trumbos and Fisters of the world to fill all our holes.

If Wieters puts up .300/.350/.475, 30 HR you are probably talking about a 5-6 win season, and it most certainly would not hurt Baltimore, even at the price tag. It's not likely he does that, but it isn't impossible. And if he can be a 3-4 win player that production is making up for lighter production at an outfield corner.

It isn't a horrible outcome having Wieters behind the plate for 2016, but it does require Duquette to be more creative with the payroll and to account for extra risk of dead money.

[Es4M11]

If Wieters puts up .300/.350/.475, 30 HR you are probably talking about a 5-6 win season, and it most certainly would not hurt Baltimore, even at the price tag. It's not likely he does that, but it isn't impossible. And if he can be a 3-4 win player that production is making up for lighter production at an outfield corner.

It isn't a horrible outcome having Wieters behind the plate for 2016, but it does require Duquette to be more creative with the payroll and to account for extra risk of dead money.

Is it a horrible outcome? No - you are right.

But it is a bit devastating to this years off-season plans. And all for a comp pick - which I didn't/don't understand everyone's absolute obsession with. If the Orioles drafted like say the Cards, or any other organization with competent player development I could understand. But the Orioles track record of drafting and developing talent is pathetic, and paying that 16 mil to Wieters is more harmful to this organization than missing the opportunity to gain a pick would have been.

[DrungoHazewood]

Caleb Joseph has never caught 100 games in a season. I don't think it's a certainty he has the physicality to handle a full catcher's workload, and if he did I think there is a risk his offensive numbers could sink lower. Maybe the Joseph could hold it together for 125 games and the overall package is still 2+ wins. I don't know.

SSS, n=2, correlation doesn't equal causation and all that, but Joseph's bat has totally disappeared the last two Septembers with his moderate workload.

[DrungoHazewood]

He's never had a 5 or 6 win season. His last really good year was 2012 with a 3.5 WAR. His last healthy season was a .6. There is no logical reason to expect more than a 2 WAR season from him. 3 is possible but very unlikely. His defense accounted for a significant portiion of his WAR and that seems to have slipped over the last 3 years. We still don't know what his arm will be like this year.

I think he was just responding to the post that said Weters could hit .300/30/100 and still hurt the team.

[24fps]

If Matt is healthy and hits 280 w/ 20-25 homers and knocks in 80+ (all things that seem reasonable) how can that be bad this year?

If he flounders it's bad for the team....but not for certain. So far the only thing you've lost is a AAAA guy in Clevenger.

Talk about it after its clearly impacted the team which doesn't appear to be a certainty.

Barring an unexpected major increase in the payroll, the team has lost $15.8 worth of flexibility in addressing multiple needs for 2016, catcher not being one of them. Unless you believe that the entire sum would have been spent on one-year contracts, the impact of this situation will extend beyond next season. This is considerably more detrimental than the loss of Clevenger.