I believe this off-season will be different

Among Oriole fans, there is a lot of talk of what this off-season will be like.

The late former Oriole Executive Syd Thrift once stated, “It is like I am offering Confederate money,” when talking about his pursuit of impact Free Agents. It is often stated that perception is reality, and the perception among many Oriole fans is that the O’s will either not be able to attract top-talent to Baltimore, will have to drastically over-pay (compared to the player’s actual market-value) to do so, or is unwilling to spend the money necessary.

Each of those points have some truth, and some inaccuracies.

When you have had losing seasons every-year from 1998 through 2010, it obviously becomes a more difficult proposition to sell elite FA’s on coming-here as a destination. When you are talking about elite MLB FA’s, you are typically talking about players who are looking to sign a contract that will extend through most of the prime-years of their career. If all things ($$) are equal, it simply is going to be easier to sell that FA on going to an established contender, vs. going to a team that is building.

Even if all teams were on absolute equal-footing financial wise, that above point that it would be easier to sell an elite FA on going to a contender, vs. going to a team that is building would be accurate. As financial disparities do exist, it becomes even more difficult for those franchises with less overall resources to attract that type of talent.

More difficult does not equate to impossible though. If Teixeira had been a FA this Winter, he might have looked at the O’s roster, and been more likely to believe better days were ahead. It is possible you could have sold him on coming home, even if you were offering less money overall.

There are two marquee FA’s available this off-season in Carl Crawford, and Cliff Lee. If Darvish is posted in Japan, there will be three elite talents available. I would be surprised if anyone believes any of those players will be spending their 2011 Summer in Charm City. However, let us say that the O’s decided they wanted Crawford*, and were willing to offer a 6 year contract totaling $102M ($17M per season). Simply by offering that market-level contract, the O’s would be considered by Crawford. I think we can all agree though, that if the Yankees countered the Oriole offer with similar years, and dollars; Crawford would be heading to NY.

(*I do not believe the O’s have any interest in going after Crawford, just using him to make the point)

In a scenario where the O’s have offered Crawford 6 years $102M, and the Yankees have counted with 7 years $126M, the Orioles are left with two options. Option 1 would be going back to Crawford, and offering more money (and years) than you believe he is worth. (Something like 8 years and $136M) Option 2 would be walking away and allowing the Yankees to obtain him.

Consider me one who believes that the prudent move would be for the O’s to walk away from the table at that point. While I want the O’s to obtain difference level talent, it will rarely end well for the O’s (who will always have less resources available vs. NY, and probably Boston) to spend more money for a player than they are actually worth.

You will note that I said it will ‘rarely’ end well, instead of stating it will ‘never’ end well. My rationale there is that I do think it would be possible to build a team constructed around a few highly paid stars, combined with young pre-arbitration players making very little. In that scenario, you could argue that it would be worth-it to overspend for elite talent.

So, I believe it will be hard to attract elite-level talent to Baltimore (though not impossible) until you win. I believe that if you did obtain that elite-level talent, you would likely have to overspend to do so. I tend to believe the O’s would ‘overspend’ on a few select players, but are not going to make an extensive-investment in years and dollars to players if they have to pay over market-value to do so. I also think the Orioles are basically adopting the mantra from Boston’s Theo Epstein that, “If you convince yourself you need a certain player to win, then you’ve already lost. It just doesn’t work that way,” Epstein said. “One player doesn’t have that much impact. It’s about building organizations, not adding players. There’s no player you can add to make up for an inherent weakness in your organization, a foundational weakness. You need to build the foundation up to get to the point where you don’t need to add that one player. I mean, you can pursue that one player — and yeah, he’d be a great fit. But if it doesn’t work out or if the money gets ridiculous, you can turn to a different player and be in just as good a shape, almost.”

With that established, this gets us back to this off-season. As I stated above, I believe there are only 2-3 elite FA talents available this Winter. That does not mean there are not players available whom could significantly help this team.

I think the O’s would be willing to take the the payroll to around $90M (a $20M +/- difference vs. 2010), but that does not mean they will get there. They can make offers to the players they identify, but that does not mean those players will sign. I think 2010 was significant, because the core you want to move forward with received more time in the bigs – and the larger issues became further apparent. The O’s clearly want to address 1st, and 3rd and that is going to cost some money.

The O’s have some cash to burn, options that can improve them, and MacPhail’s desire for stark improvement. While not my preference (and also not the O’s preference), they also have the option of packaging together several younger players for a larger move.
All of this is coupled with a need for the O’s to build off the last 2 months, and build back their season-ticket (and corporate box) sales. MacPhail is always going to be somewhat patient, but I do think he is going to be deliberate/systematic about improving the team to the point that we go into spring-training believing contention is actually within the realm of possibility.

I would argue that acquiring Martinez or Lee for 1st, and Beltre for 3rd is the quickest and simplest way to improve the lineup without majorly disrupting the team. Meaning acquiring those players would not cost what they see as an overwhelming investment in Crawford. Would not be prohibitive in cost in-terms of players they trade from within for larger talents.

There is a dearth of top talent at the upper-level minors (in large part because of recently graduated talent to the bigs). If you assume that Markakis, Wieters, Matusz, Arrieta, and Jones are a fairly untouchable core at the Major League level, and that you are worried about your overall depth, you probably are not excited about the prospects of trading Tillman, Britton, Bell, Hernandez, Bergesen, Reimold, Snyder etc etc.

(Of course if you acquire Beltre, you would probably than be willing to package Bell.)

If you go into next season having resigned Uehara, Wigginton, and Izturis, while signing FA’s Martinez or Lee, with Beltre you would look like:

Starters:
Matusz, Guthrie, Arrieta, Bergesen, Tillman

Bullpen:
Uehara
Gonzalez
Hernandez
Johnson
Berken (?)
Simon / VandenHurk
Patton / 2nd Lefty

Everyday:
Roberts 2nd
Markakis RF
Martinez or Lee (etc. etc) 1st
Wieters C
Beltre 3rd
Scott DH
Jones CF
Pie LF
Izturis SS

Bench:
Tatum, Andino, Wigginton, Reimold

That is a team pretty close to contention. Reasonably, all that would have to happen is the growth you are already expecting of your younger talent, and an avoidance of your ‘older’ (ie Roberts, Scott, Guthrie, Martinez or Lee (etc etc), Beltre, Uehara) players falling through the floor. If the O’s had that team, at that point I could see MacPhail trying to trade Tillman, Bell, and etc. etc. for a veteran starting pitcher, or perhaps a better option at SS.

I think this off-season will be different. I do not think the O’s are going to be offering Confederate money this Winter. I think they have identified positions they want to improve, and have options available to them that are a step-below the true elite options which would be much harder to obtain. The Orioles will still have dollar and year limits that they will not want to go past for players like Martinez, Lee, and Beltre; but I do think the O’s will be aggressive in their pursuit. That aggression by itself would make this off-season different.