John Means contract

[wildcard]

John Means will be 31 on April 24th.   He will be a free agent after the 2024 season if he is not extended.  He will be the senior starter in the rotation next year replacing Gibson.   John has a career 3.74 ERA pitching on  bad O's teams with poor catchers, poor defense and poor run support.  A healthy John Means probably gives the O's 30 starts and 150 innings based on is past performance.

John came back from TJ surgery in September.   He started important games down the stretch and pitched to a 2.66 ERA.  

MLBTR projects Means at 5.93m and Cots at 4M in 2024.  An extension of a FA year in 2025 would probably cost at least 15M and might be even more for 2026.   I favor an extension for Means 31-33 age years.  3/35-40m.  The O's don't have many prospects coming that project to do what Means has done in the past or probably will do in the future.

I think he showed enough to make this offer. His starts were:

5 innings vs the Cards,   3 ER in a 5 to 2 loss.  The offense and pen did him no favors

5 innings vs Houston,     1 ER in an 8-7 win

7.1 innings vs Cleveland,  1 ER in a 2-1 win,  Hyde credits Means with stepping up big time in a game he said saved the season.  He threw 96 pitches.

6.1 innings vs Boston,  2 ER in a 3-0 loss.  Title had been clinched an the offense  did not show up.

John showed in these 4 games that he was  back.   91.7 mph fastball.  Same as 2019.  His change up was his best pitch at 80.9 mph.   His slider  at  85.4 mph was used sparingly but no one hit it.  Curve  77.7 mph was not used much and was not effective.  The curve has been effected in the passed and probably just needs more work.

SG has said that the extension if there is one should be made next year during the season.   However, Means was taking the O's to an arbitration hearing when he was injured in April of 2022.   He is a tough negotiator and may just decide to become a free agent if he feels the O's are not respecting him.  JMO.

What contract do you think the O's should offer Means this off season?

 

[Can_of_corn]

How did he pitch in the playoffs?

 

[wildcard]

1 minute ago, Can_of_corn said:

How did he pitch in the playoffs?

 

You don't know?

[Can_of_corn]

3 minutes ago, wildcard said:

You don't know?

Oh I know.

Just thought you should have added that he was dealing with elbow soreness and couldn't pitch in the playoffs.

I think that's a pretty important data point.

[Frobby]

14 minutes ago, wildcard said:

He will be the senior starter in the rotation next year replacing Gibson.  

* *  *

What contract do you think the O's should offer Means this off season?

 

For some perspective on this, Means has thrown 10 more innings in his career than Dean Kremer.  So, his “senior status” isn’t too meaningful IMO.

If I were offering Means a multi-year deal, I’d probably want it extremely incentive laden based on innings.   I’d offer him something like 3/$18 mm but incentives that could take it to 3/$28 mm if he throws 150 innnings per year.   If that’s not enough to entice Means to sign, they can re-evaluate at the all-star break.

 

[Sports Guy]

I like Means a lot. He and his wife seem like really good people.

But  I  don’t give a rats ass if he “gets his feelings hurt” that we go to arbitration with him.

He proved nothing when he got back that says, hand this guy a multi year deal and a bunch of gtd money.  If by June or so the stuff looks back and he’s pitching well, I’d look into an extension and if he says no and wants to wait until the offseason, so be it.

But just making an assumption that he’s going to be fine makes little sense to me. Even when he was “fine”, he has durability issues and would land on the IL at times during the season. 
 

 

[ChosenOne21]

33 minutes ago, wildcard said:

I favor an extension for Means 31-33 age years.  3/35-40m.  

What contract do you think the O's should offer Means this off season?

 

I'd offer him that.

Zero chance he takes it.

You'd probably have to get into 4/80 or 5/90 territory before he even considers it.

[oriole]

It seems imperative to see how he pitches next year before offering any kind of contract. Sure, if he wants to take a team friendly deal then I’m all for it, but that doesn’t strike me as a possibility. 
 

[OriolesMagic83]

9 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

I like Means a lot. He and his wife seem like really good people.

But  I  don’t give a rats ass if he “gets his feelings hurt” that we go to arbitration with him.

He proved nothing when he got back that says, hand this guy a multi year deal and a bunch of gtd money.  If by June or so the stuff looks back and he’s pitching well, I’d look into an extension and if he says no and wants to wait until the offseason, so be it.

But just making an assumption that he’s going to be fine makes little sense to me. Even when he was “fine”, he has durability issues and would land on the IL at times during the season.  He’s a very risky pitcher to hand gtd money to. 
 

 

Say it again for the people in the back!

[Just Regular]

I feel like even if Means has a Jordan Montgomery season in 2024, Elias would rather an extra 1st round pick to giving him $80mm dollars for his mid 30's.

Obviously the Club's demand for 2025 and beyond Means could shift depending on Elias's success or lack thereof closing a significant pitcher trade or FA contract this year.     Dylan Cease or not on the '25 Orioles affects him.

Go get those mega bucks, John Means!

During the playoffs Elias gave some quote like the elbow was "a small thing" because of course he did.

[FlipTheBird]

Guy has thrown 31 innings the last two seasons and would be getting extended starting with his age 32 season. Sorry, pass.

[btdart20]

Means feels like a QO to me.  But I think he rejects it and goes for total contract value.  Which is fine by me too.  

[interloper]

His ERA was good but his K/9 was a paltry 3.8 in the small sample. If he shows he's actually back next year then I'd be in favor of the extension in the OP. 

[Too Tall]

Patience! Then I'm not the gambling type and this is too soon to drop a big bet IMHO. Need more info that the rest of this off season and next year will bring. 

[Frobby]

2 hours ago, ChosenOne21 said:

I'd offer him [3/$35 as proposed by wildcard]

Zero chance he takes it.

You'd probably have to get into 4/80 or 5/90 territory before he even considers it.

I think you’re wildly off base here on Means’ market value.  First of all, you need to realize that the first year of this, he’s under team control and probably not getting more than $3-4 mm in arbitration.  So wildcard is suggesting about 2/$31 mm for the two FA years.  For a guy who’s never thrown enough innings to qualify and can’t be expected to this year considering how little he’s thrown the last two years.

Your range of 4/$80 mm or 5/$90 mm boils down to 3/$76 mm or 4/$86 mm for the FA years.  Nobody is paying that to John Means.