“Orioles will significantly escalate payroll in the offseason “

[Roll Tide]

This is from the summer but Elias already talked about it. I think he’s been pretty online thus far when he told us what he was going to do.
 

 

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2022/08/gm-mike-elias-orioles-will-significantly-escalate-the-payroll-during-offseason.html

[tabletop]

 “I think a lot of that’s going to come through our own guys going into arbitration"

[Sports Guy]

Cots had our OD payroll at 43M for the 2022 season.

Their current estimate, with arb projections (some high, some low imo) as well as the money owed to Davis, has them right about the same number.  Add in money owed to guys like ODay and Cobb and the current payroll, without making any moves, is probably in the 45-50M range. 

The arb guys are probably adding 10-15M on the payroll.

So even without Mancini and Lyles, the 2 guys who made the most money last year, the payroll will still jump up to the area (and likely higher) than it was last year.

My guess is the payroll ends up in the 60-80M range. 
 

One could say 20-30M is a significant increase and others may say that’s nothing.  Elias never said where it would go, so significant is totally subjective.

 

[DrinkinWithFermi]

I think there is a much better chance that "significantly" means an increase of $25-30 million than an increase of $50-75 million, especially since Elias has repeatedly added qualifiers to his statements about payroll increasing:

"A lot of that will come from arbitration raises for our guys"

'We aren't going to go from 0 to 60 in a single offseason"

That does not sound like a spending spree to me.

[jerios55]

1 hour ago, Sports Guy said:

Cots had our OD payroll at 43M for the 2022 season.

My guess is the payroll ends up in the 60-80M range. 

One could say 20-30M is a significant increase and others may say that’s nothing.  Elias never said where it would go, so significant is totally subjective.

 

43 mill to 77 mill, would be an 80% increase in payroll.  Collectively, we may not like what limited moves are made, especially if they are in tier B/C.  However, I don't think it would take much "spin" for Elias to talk about that 80% as significant and hold true to his quote above.  It would be a bit hard not to be significant change considering where we started 2022,

[Sports Guy]

Just now, jerios55 said:

43 mill to 77 mill, would be an 80% increase in payroll.  Collectively, we may not like what limited moves are made, especially if they are in tier B/C.  However, I don't think it would take much "spin" for Elias to talk about that 80% as significant and hold true to his quote above.  It would be a bit hard not to be significant change considering where we started 2022,

Yea I agree although I tend to think they will be closer to 60M than 80M but your point here is correct.

Os fans are all over Twitter complaining about the lack of spending. Why aren’t we spending now, we have the money and cheap contracts.

Thats not wrong but it’s not what the team will do and it’s not what Elias will do. It’s not what Houston did or does and that’s where he learned. 

Free agency is, by and large, an awful way to build a team. Spending huge money for 5+ years will almost always blow up in your face. This organization is just not going to do that and, for the most part, they are right about that philosophy.

Houston doesn’t give out 4-5 year deals to free agents. They do 3 years or less.  Maybe Contreras will get a 4th year?

But overall, they just don’t it.  The Orioles don’t really do it either and it’s doubtful that will change. 
 

So, who is available for trade and who is a real upgrade that signs for 3 years or less?  Those are the guys we should be talking about.

[Sports Guy]

I said it heading into last year. Everyone wanted to sit back and wait to add guys. I said, you add the talent you can when you can. Some teams were crying poor me after the COVID season. You had a chance to take advantage of that.

The team chose not to and many agreed. The problem is, you can’t get guys for 50 cents on the dollar this offseason. You are now back to paying full retail.

Some of this still goes into how they attacked last offseason. If they had a mindset of making this year a contending year, maybe they make moves that look really good right now.

Edited December 2, 2022 by Sports Guy

[Frobby]

This has already been discussed ad nauseum, including a poll about how high payroll will be next year.  

Now we are in the hand-wringing phase.  The first couple of big moves of the offseason have been made, and the Orioles haven’t done anything yet.   Neither have most other teams, but because of the Orioles’ recent low payrolls and longstanding habit of slow-rolling the offseason, fans are going to be increasingly nervous as each day goes by and players start coming off the board, even if it’s players who nobody had mentioned as a potential Orioles’ target.  

Honestly I hope the O’s have made at least one move by the end of the winter meetings just so we don’t have to rehash this topic on a daily basis.  But it won’t be the end of the world if the moves come later, so long as they are smart, significant moves.   And we’ll see.  Elias promised he won’t be sitting on his hands.   I believe him, but understand why some people are nervous about it.  

 

[Roll Tide]

4 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

Cots had our OD payroll at 43M for the 2022 season.

Their current estimate, with arb projections (some high, some low imo) as well as the money owed to Davis, has them right about the same number.  Add in money owed to guys like ODay and Cobb and the current payroll, without making any moves, is probably in the 45-50M range. 

The arb guys are probably adding 10-15M on the payroll.

So even without Mancini and Lyles, the 2 guys who made the most money last year, the payroll will still jump up to the area (and likely higher) than it was last year.

My guess is the payroll ends up in the 60-80M range. 
 

One could say 20-30M is a significant increase and others may say that’s nothing.  Elias never said where it would go, so significant is totally subjective.

 

He said adding two bats including a moo and a starting pitcher that one would assume is better than Lyles. You can’t  do that with $30 million imo

Also, the deferred money on those contracts I believe is escrowed. So it shouldn’t affect the current year payroll. That’s if I’m correct 

Edited December 2, 2022 by Roll Tide

[Frobby]

4 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

I said it heading into last year. Everyone wanted to sit back and wait to add guys. I said, you add the talent you can when you can. Some teams were crying poor me after the COVID season. You had a chance to take advantage of that.

The team chose not to and many agreed. The problem is, you can’t get guys for 50 cents on the dollar this offseason. You are now back to paying full retail.

Some of this still goes into how they attacked last offseason. If they had a mindset of making this year a contending year, maybe they make moves that look really good right now.

I have thought a bit this offseason about some things you said last offseason.  I don’t think players came particularly cheap last year, in fact, I don’t see that at all.   But I do think last winter’s FA pitcher class had a bigger supply of the kind of pitchers the Orioles would like to be chasing this winter.   So, you may have been right that it was better to get a pitcher a year too early than to shop from this year’s thinner supply of suitable candidates.   

[Roll Tide]

3 hours ago, tabletop said:

 “I think a lot of that’s going to come through our own guys going into arbitration"

Beyond Santander’s 7.5 million there isn’t much arb money. He might even be dealt 

[theobird]

6 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Yea I agree although I tend to think they will be closer to 60M than 80M but your point here is correct.

Os fans are all over Twitter complaining about the lack of spending. Why aren’t we spending now, we have the money and cheap contracts.

Thats not wrong but it’s not what the team will do and it’s not what Elias will do. It’s not what Houston did or does and that’s where he learned. 

Free agency is, by and large, an awful way to build a team. Spending huge money for 5+ years will almost always blow up in your face. This organization is just not going to do that and, for the most part, they are right about that philosophy.

Houston doesn’t give out 4-5 year deals to free agents. They do 3 years or less.  Maybe Contreras will get a 4th year?

But overall, they just don’t it.  The Orioles don’t really do it either and it’s doubtful that will change. 
 

So, who is available for trade and who is a real upgrade that signs for 3 years or less?  Those are the guys we should be talking about.

This. Exactly this. And I agree with the philosophy 100%. I believe that Elias has a goal of a long term contending window, and signing 30 plus year old guys for ridiculous sums of money is not how you do that. I think they will make a trade or two and add a reasonable cost free  agent or two if the opportunity arise. But I am not on board for overpaying for the big majority of these guys available in free agency. I think Benintendi makes good sense. I think a trade or two out of our infield surplus and current OF makes sense. I never expected the O’s to spend crazy money on the top of this free agency class

[Sports Guy]

1 minute ago, Frobby said:

I have thought a bit this offseason about some things you said last offseason.  I don’t think players came particularly cheap last year, in fact, I don’t see that at all.   But I do think last winter’s FA pitcher class had a bigger supply of the kind of pitchers the Orioles would like to be chasing this winter.   So, you may have been right that it was better to get a pitcher a year too early than to shop from this year’s thinner supply of suitable candidates.   

There were very likely a lot of players who didn’t get traded that easily could have.  Just because moves weren’t made, doesn’t mean they weren’t there to be made.  Teams just had to be willing to take on money to do it.

Maybe you get a good prospect because you took on a contract. Something like that.

A lot of teams were crying poor me after 2020. You could have taken advantage of that. 

[Roll Tide]

42 minutes ago, DrinkinWithFermi said:

I think there is a much better chance that "significantly" means an increase of $25-30 million than an increase of $50-75 million, especially since Elias has repeatedly added qualifiers to his statements about payroll increasing:

"A lot of that will come from arbitration raises for our guys"

'We aren't going to go from 0 to 60 in a single offseason"

That does not sound like a spending spree to me.

The math doesn’t work if he does what he said.

The arb number is pretty low. Santander’s is the only real significant bump to 7.5

you can’t get two hitters including a MOO bat plus a staff leaders for the difference between the bump and your number. 
 

plus they have the extra $30 million that they weren’t expecting. Hopefully they invest it in the team. 

[Can_of_corn]

6 minutes ago, Roll Tide said:

The math doesn’t work if he does what he said.

The arb number is pretty low. Santander’s is the only real significant bump to 7.5

you can’t get two hitters including a MOO bat plus a staff leaders for the difference between the bump and your number. 
 

plus they have the extra $30 million that they weren’t expecting. Hopefully they invest it in the team. 

They were expecting the 30 million.