Chris Davis salary dump matches

[Just Regular]

Ignoring the deferred bits we still owe 3/63 to Davis.

I do hope the Rutschman/basket of pitchers group will justify buying other good players to supplement 2022's team, and clearing the $20M obligation that year would help.

This is really more of a math question than a baseball question as he is nearly worthless or worse and so would be the expensive contracts of players other teams might exchange.  The Braves/Dodgers trade in which cap was swapped around is the model here.  The goal would be to pay our $63M of dead money out before 2022 so that year's MLB payroll, wherever it is set, can be the best it can be.

I was looking at the Giants, who have:

A. 2/47 owed Cueto

B. 2/32 owed Crawford

C. 1/19 owed Samardzija

D. 2/34 owed Belt

I don't think Samardzija or Belt are bad enough, so think A/B the Giants deadest money.  Even Cueto and Crawford aren't as hopeless as Davis - they are only $15M extra and might earn that on the field.  The 2020 Giants like the 2019 Orioles, are a club that could use Villar (or Crawford for that matter) full time.  Who would say no to Villar/Davis for Cueto/Crawford?

[ShaneDawg85]

Nobody in baseball, dead money for dead money or not, is going to trade for Chris Davis.  Lets not even kid ourselves into thinking that somebody will take on that contract, no matter who the Orioles would take back.  

[Moose Milligan]

I agree with @ShaneDawg85.  No one would take on Davis.

@OrioleDog I think you gotta put yourself in the shoes of the Giants in this situation.  You've got some contracts that are dead weight but...would you be interested in taking on Chris Davis?  Even if he was packaged with a better player, it doesn't seem to make much sense for you.  Having Davis on your team would present the same problems that the Orioles currently have because of him, which is roster flexibility.  Actually, it's more of a problem for you because you can't put him at DH.  And if you're struggling to find a 1B type, you could call up whoever you have in AA/AAA or find someone in the Rule 5, waivers, etc...All of who would be significantly cheaper than Davis and most likely have some kind of upside.

I'm as annoyed by the Davis contract as much as anyone else but, IMO, there's just no chance we'd be able to offload him somewhere else.  

It's my hope that Elias/Sig have a true plan for him this offseason and can get him back on track.  But as I said towards the end of last year when it was announced he'd be back...why wait until now to implement some last effort plan?  I can't imagine that whatever they're having him do this offseason is supposed to be better than anything they had him working on during the season.

Anyway, we're going to have to get comfortable with the idea of another year of Davis, unfortunately.  Maybe he makes it out of ST, maybe he doesn't.  In the end, I don't see anyone taking the remaining contract on, the Orioles are going to have to eat it at one point or another.

[Tx Oriole]

46 minutes ago, ShaneDawg85 said:

Nobody in baseball, dead money for dead money or not, is going to trade for Chris Davis.  Lets not even kid ourselves into thinking that somebody will take on that contract, no matter who the Orioles would take back.  

I agree. He is an albatross. 

[Can_of_corn]

20 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

I agree with @ShaneDawg85.  No one would take on Davis.

@OrioleDog I think you gotta put yourself in the shoes of the Giants in this situation.  You've got some contracts that are dead weight but...would you be interested in taking on Chris Davis?  Even if he was packaged with a better player, it doesn't seem to make much sense for you.  Having Davis on your team would present the same problems that the Orioles currently have because of him, which is roster flexibility.  Actually, it's more of a problem for you because you can't put him at DH.  And if you're struggling to find a 1B type, you could call up whoever you have in AA/AAA or find someone in the Rule 5, waivers, etc...All of who would be significantly cheaper than Davis and most likely have some kind of upside.

I'm as annoyed by the Davis contract as much as anyone else but, IMO, there's just no chance we'd be able to offload him somewhere else.  

It's my hope that Elias/Sig have a true plan for him this offseason and can get him back on track.  But as I said towards the end of last year when it was announced he'd be back...why wait until now to implement some last effort plan?  I can't imagine that whatever they're having him do this offseason is supposed to be better than anything they had him working on during the season.

Anyway, we're going to have to get comfortable with the idea of another year of Davis, unfortunately.  Maybe he makes it out of ST, maybe he doesn't.  In the end, I don't see anyone taking the remaining contract on, the Orioles are going to have to eat it at one point or another.

You would have to find a team willing to cut him

[Moose Milligan]

1 minute ago, Can_of_corn said:

You would have to find a team willing to cut him

Thankfully not my problem.

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

10 minutes ago, Tx Oriole said:

I agree. He is an albatross. 

Would have to include a prospect for any chance of trading Davis. Even then it’s a long shot. 

[Just Regular]

There's no disagreement here that no one in MLB will want him, as it is math not baseball.

It's also possible the 2022 worry is over-silo'ing based on annual budget - if ever a GM started out with a 4-year or 7-year budget, it's here now.

I do think we've passed a point where the 3/63 is no longer the very deadest money (Ellsbury, Stanton, Pujols, Cespedes, Cano), around the league, but do still expect him here until the DFA decision gets here.

[Moose Milligan]

2 minutes ago, OrioleDog said:

There's no disagreement here that no one in MLB will want him, as it is math not baseball.

It's also possible the 2022 worry is over-silo'ing based on annual budget - if ever a GM started out with a 4-year or 7-year budget, it's here now.

I do think we've passed a point where the 3/63 is no longer the very deadest money (Ellsbury, Stanton, Pujols, Cespedes, Cano), around the league, but do still expect him here until the DFA decision gets here.

I understand where you're coming from but these guys all have different situations that lump them in the dead money category.

Ellsbury, for example, is Mr. Glass.  He's perpetually hurt.

Pujols has not aged well, his body is beat up and he's slowed down by a significant amount.  Yet he still had a .734 OPS this year...I think we'd all take that from Davis.  It's certainly dead money but it's not Davis dead money.

Cano...probably the same as Pujols.  Just hasn't aged well.  Dead money but still gave .3 bWAR last year...again, it's dead money but it's not Davis dead money.  

As much as I'd like to make it a black and white issue when comping these guys, it's not that easy.  It's math, but it's certainly very much baseball, too.

 

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, Moose Milligan said:

I understand where you're coming from but these guys all have different situations that lump them in the dead money category.

Ellsbury, for example, is Mr. Glass.  He's perpetually hurt.

Pujols has not aged well, his body is beat up and he's slowed down by a significant amount.  Yet he still had a .734 OPS this year...I think we'd all take that from Davis.  It's certainly dead money but it's not Davis dead money.

Cano...probably the same as Pujols.  Just hasn't aged well.  Dead money but still gave .3 bWAR last year...again, it's dead money but it's not Davis dead money.  

As much as I'd like to make it a black and white issue when comping these guys, it's not that easy.  It's math, but it's certainly very much baseball, too.

 

Y'all are forgetting that big contract in Detroit.

 

[Aglets]

5 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Y'all are forgetting that big contract in Detroit.

 

Only 4 years and $124M to go in guarantees!

Not bad for exactly 0.0 WAR.  heh

[Redskins Rick]

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, Moose Milligan said:

Cano...probably the same as Pujols.  Just hasn't aged well.  Dead money but still gave .3 bWAR last year...again, it's dead money but it's not Davis dead money.  

Cano may be dead money now, but he’s produced 24.1 rWAR in the first 6 years of his 10 year, $240 mm deal.   Even if he produces nothing over the next four years, he’ll only have been paid $10 mm/WAR over the life of his deal, which is far from the worst deal out there.    And, I wouldn’t be that shocked if Cano regrouped and had a decent year or two.   He managed an .861 OPS over his final 50 games this year.    

[TonySoprano]

2 hours ago, Tx Oriole said:

I agree. He is an albatross. 

 

[theocean]

12 hours ago, OrioleDog said:

Ignoring the deferred bits we still owe 3/63 to Davis.

I do hope the Rutschman/basket of pitchers group will justify buying other good players to supplement 2022's team, and clearing the $20M obligation that year would help.

This is really more of a math question than a baseball question as he is nearly worthless or worse and so would be the expensive contracts of players other teams might exchange.  The Braves/Dodgers trade in which cap was swapped around is the model here.  The goal would be to pay our $63M of dead money out before 2022 so that year's MLB payroll, wherever it is set, can be the best it can be.

I was looking at the Giants, who have:

A. 2/47 owed Cueto

B. 2/32 owed Crawford

C. 1/19 owed Samardzija

D. 2/34 owed Belt

I don't think Samardzija or Belt are bad enough, so think A/B the Giants deadest money.  Even Cueto and Crawford aren't as hopeless as Davis - they are only $15M extra and might earn that on the field.  The 2020 Giants like the 2019 Orioles, are a club that could use Villar (or Crawford for that matter) full time.  Who would say no to Villar/Davis for Cueto/Crawford?

I get what you're saying, but I can't see it happening. Davis gets paid a base salary of $17M a year - so there'd have to be a team out there with a Luxury Tax issue that also has disposable players that collectively exceed $17M per year. And then, the total money owed would have to be similar on both sides.

It's my understanding that if Davis was hypothetically traded, the deferred portion of his contract would stay with the Orioles - so he has $51M left over the next three years.

I can't really think of a match. Closest possibility I could think of is if the Yankees traded Ellsbury and his $21M base salary (2/$21M) - but that's still a $9M loss for the Yankees just to get $4M in space under the luxury tax.

Also- even if they cleared Davis' money before 2022, I don't think that would really have any difference on their spending power that year. If anything, waiting to pay Davis is advantageous to the Orioles. It's why you see so much deferred money in big deals - inflation helps to decrease the true-cost of money owed over time.