Baltimore Orioles Executive Vice President Dan Duquette has a lot on his plate this offseason.

With only eight players currently under contract eating up about $98 million in payroll – not counting the arbitration-eligible and pre-arbitration players – he’ll have to be creative just to maintain the status quo and keep the O’s on the fringe of playoff/wild card contention.

He has said he’d like a left-handed hitting outfielder, and with Matt Wieters likely gone he’d love to find a catcher to at the very least platoon with Caleb Joseph. He also could use some starting pitching, not to mention a talent-influx in the minor leagues.

There is one way he could address some of those issues, and while it won’t be a popular idea, it is nonetheless a good one: The Orioles need to trade Zach Britton.

Before you gather the masses together and take to the streets with torches and pitch forks, let’s examine why dealing Britton this offseason is a good idea.

(You can discuss this on the BSL Board here.)

Britton’s value will never be higher than it is right now

Britton is coming off an historic season — a 0.54 ERA, a perfect 47-for-47 on save chances, a 0.836 WHIP, an 80 percent ground ball rate, an 827(!) ERA+ — you know the numbers by now, and they’re eye-poppingly good.

With apologies to Aroldis Chapman and Kenley Jansen, Britton was the best closer in baseball last season, and there is every reason to believe he will continue to rank among the best going forward for several years to come.

But while smart money says he has many more good seasons ahead of him, the odds of him repeating his 2016 performance are virtually nill. That’s why they’re called historic seasons – they only happen once. And Britton, at 29 years old, is not some young prodigy who is revolutionizing the sport. He’s a veteran who came into his own and had everything fall into place in 2016.

It’s like that time Kobe Bryant scored 80 points in a game. It was an historic performance, but he never did it again. Why? Because scoring 80 points in a game is damn near impossible. Zach Britton’s 2016 season was his 80-point game. It was damn near impossible. And while he’ll undoubtedly have several great seasons in his future, he’ll never do again what he did last year.

His contract status makes him extremely attractive to other teams

The other reason Britton’s value will never be higher than it is now is that he will never be cheaper than he is now. As an arbitration-eligible player, Britton is projected to make around $11.4 million in 2017. Assuming he is not locked up with a long-term deal, he’ll make more under arbitration once again in 2018. After that, the really big bucks will come with the arrival of free agency in 2019.

With the price on closers skyrocketing this offseason, Britton looks like a steal.

Chapman is reportedly seeking a six-year deal. The Marlins are rumored to be preparing a five-year, $80 million offer for Jansen. And Mark Melancon will get a four-year, $62 million contract from the Giants.

Knowing these types of crazy numbers are being thrown around out there, what GM of a contending team wouldn’t trip over himself to get two years of elite closer performance at a controlled salary?

The Dodgers are loaded with minor league talent and are probably going to lose Jansen. Same for the Cubs and Chapman. The Nationals need a replacement for Melancon. Duquette should have Andrew Friedman, Theo Epstein and Mike Rizzo on speed dial right now.

How valuable is a closer anyway?

As great as Britton’s season was, the value of a closer is muted within the context of a 25-man roster. After all, he usually only takes the mound when the other 24 men on the roster have handed him a lead. Looking at WAR illustrates this pretty clearly. Where did FanGraphs rank Britton among MLB pitchers in WAR last season?

The answer is tied for 67th, at 2.5.

Clayton Kershaw and Noah Syndergaard tied for first at 6.5. Jansen was the highest-rated closer at 3.2, which ranked him only tied for 27th. Britton, in fact, didn’t even lead all Baltimore pitchers in WAR. That honor went to starter Kevin Gausman, who came in at 3.0.

Now you can argue the merits of WAR, and it’s hardly perfect, but those numbers are a pretty stark reminder that when you only play in 4-5 percent of your team’s innings, your impact is going to be pretty limited no matter how great you are.

The counter argument to that is that despite his limited innings, Britton was still the biggest reason the Orioles made the playoffs last season, and that’s an argument with some serious merit. But there is more than one way to get things done. Keep in mind that the Giants got just as far as the Orioles did last season and their bullpen was laughable in the second half. But the Giants, with a strong rotation, a deep lineup and great defense, would be in much better shape to repeat their performance moving forward even if they hadn’t signed Melancon.

The Orioles, meanwhile, with a weak rotation, declining defense and one-dimensional offense, are far less likely to be handing leads to Britton next season. Which brings us to the final point …

Britton has more value to other teams than he does to the Orioles

When you look at the Orioles’ place within the AL East, it’s difficult to see them continuing to contend as they are currently constructed.

The Red Sox aren’t going anywhere, and are likely to get even better as their young core matures. The Yankees showed last season that they have some good young players as well, and Brian Cashman figures to be aggressive in bulking up his roster this offseason. And the Blue Jays, while facing the potential departure of Edwin Encarnacion, Jose Bautista and Michael Saunders, return a starting rotation — Marcus Stroman, Aaron Sanchez, Marco Estrada and J.A. Happ – that is far superior to Baltimore’s.

Given all of this, it’s not inconceivable that the Orioles are the fourth-best team in the division, which would mean even fewer opportunities for Britton to work his magic. This in turn, makes Britton far more valuable to a contender in need of a closer, preferably one willing to part with several stud prospects.

That the Orioles have been contenders despite having a shoddy rotation and a homer-or-nothing offense is a testament to the magic touch of Buck Showalter and the ability of Duquette to fill the back end of a 25-man roster with serviceable complementary pieces.

But it’s unlikely that this method will be sustainable for much longer.

Sure, Duquette can continue to plug holes and bail water. He can sit around and hope Wade Miley and Ubaldo Jimenez and Yovani Gallardo – who were little more than middling long-shots to do much of anything anyway — have career years in their contract seasons. He can hope Adam Jones rediscovers his health and with it his range in the outfield.

Or he can be aggressive and try to improve this roster in a significant way. The quickest way to do that would be to deal Britton. By doing so he could address his rotation. Or he could address his outfield. Or he could address his catcher situation. Or he could dress some combination of these, along with his threadbare minor league system.

And he could bolster his pen by signing a cheaper option like Brad Ziegler (1.3 WAR in 2016) to add to an already strong group that includes Brad Brach, Darren O’Day, Dylan Bundy, Logan Verrett and Mychal Givens.

It would be difficult to part with the best closer in baseball, but Britton’s talent and his affordability make him incredibly valuable and should bring a treasure trove of talent in return.

The Orioles need to figure out how to take the next step. They need to show they can be more than the fringe contender they currently are. And they need to do if quickly if they’re going to convince Manny Machado to stick around beyond the 2018 season.

Because if Machado leaves, they’re not going to need a closer anyway.

Bob Harkins
Bob Harkins

Orioles Analyst

Bob Harkins is a veteran journalist who has worked as a writer, editor and producer for numerous outlets, including 13 years at NBCSports.com. He is also the creator of the Razed Sports documentary podcast and the founder of Story Hangar, a network of documentary podcasters.

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