Raise your hand if you thought that the Detroit Tigers would be swept by the San Francisco Giants in the World Series when the matchup was officially announced. Yeah, me either.
Now that the World Series is officially over all eligible players become free agents and teams will have a five day window to negotiate exclusively with their own free agents before they are free to explore other options. More specifically, the Baltimore Orioles have two players that have now become free agents that they may look at re-signing before that exclusive negotiating window is up.
Left fielder Nate McLouth, who seemingly resurrected his career over the course of 55 games, had a batting line of .268/.342/.435 with seven homeruns and 12 stolen bases. Before McLouth was signed and called up late in the season the team had a rotating carousel of players in and out of left field when Nolan Reimold was lost for the season in April.
McLouth’s performance during the regular season makes you wonder the type of numbers he would put up over the course of 162 games as opposed to just 55. Is a 20/20 season out of the question for him? Well, if he has finally rediscovered his swing then I’m inclined to believe a 20/20 season, even a 20/30 season, is certainly not out of the question.
What it will essentially come down to, in regards to whether the Orioles attempt to re-sign McLouth or not, is the amount of money it will take to get him to re-sign with the team. He has expressed that he really enjoyed playing in Baltimore and would like to play for the team again next season. How much did he increase his value in his short stint in Baltimore and is it more than the Orioles are willing to pay?
According to FanGraphs, McLouth had a total value of $3.5 million dollars for the entire 2012 season – he was worth negative $2.4 million with the Pirates, but was worth a whopping $5.9 million with the Orioles. If you take into account that he was the only one hitting during the playoffs (he had a .308 batting average with a homerun and three stolen bases) then that could very well increase his overall value as well. The real question that the Orioles, and any team really, must ask themselves is whether McLouth really has turned the corner or if he was just hot for a period of time.
Watching him play during the last two months of the regular season and the playoffs made me a believer in him once again, and the fact that he passed the general eye test and also has some pretty decent numbers to back that eye test up makes me feel very comfortable re-signing him to be the team’s starter in left field for the 2013 season.
If I were the Orioles then I wouldn’t be shy about offering him a contract worth between $2 and $3 million dollars over one or two years. Even though he’s 31 years old he still has speed to burn on the base paths and still appears able to hit for a decent average, to go along with his on-base skills.
The other player who officially became a free agent at the end of the World Series is starting pitcher Joe Saunders, acquired from the Arizona Diamondbacks back on August 26 for reliever Matt Lindstrom and cash.
Saunders made seven regular season starts for the Orioles and went 3-3 with a 3.63 ERA over 44.2 innings of work. Even more impressive was that five of his seven starts were considered quality starts and his strikeout to walk ratio was 2.88 – all while pitching in the American League East. I’d be lying if I said I expected that kind of performance out of him each and every time he stepped on that mound, but he certainly made me more of a believer in his ability to come up big when the team needed it most. If you need an example then I will mention the Wild-Card game he pitched against the Texas Rangers (in Arlington) and then game four of the ALDS against the New York Yankees (in New York).
He pitched 5.2 innings of one-run ball in a win or go home scenario in the Wild-Card game against the Rangers to help the Orioles win their first playoff game since 1997. Many fans were nervous that he was getting the call to start that game considering he had a career record of 0-6 with a 9.38 ERA before then. Instead, Saunders performed at a high enough level to quiet the Rangers bats and do what he needed to do to guide his team to victory.
Being the guy to help propel his team to the ALDS to take on the Yankees had to of been a pretty special feeling, a feeling that stayed with him when he took the mound in game four of that series because he pitched 5.2 innings of one-run ball against them as well. The Orioles eventually one that game in extra-innings and Joe Saunders was now responsible for helping his team win not one, but two win or go home games in the postseason.
So what does FanGraphs view Saunders’ monetary value as?
Well, his total value for the 2012 season between the Diamondbacks and the Orioles is $11.4 million dollars, although his value in just seven starts with the Orioles is at a whopping $3.8 million. It’s pretty amazing that Saunders was worth half of his total value with the Orioles in just seven regular season starts than what he was worth in 21 starts for the Diamondbacks ($7.6 million).
Just as is the case with McLouth, whether the Orioles try to re-sign Saunders or not will come down to money and in this particular case I don’t think they will re-sign the veteran lefty. It won’t have anything to do with his performance, or whether they think he’ll be a capable starting pitcher over the next few seasons (because he will), but it will have far more to do with the fact that he likely has earned himself a multi-year contract worth more money than what the team will want to spend.
I’d expect Saunders to find himself either a three or four year contract worth between $8 and $10 million dollars a year, unless of course he decides to sign a team friendly contract with the Orioles during their exclusive negotiating window with him. The other thing we must take into consideration is that the organization finally has a plethora of pitching depth in the majors and minor leagues that they could use to take Saunders’ spot in the rotation, or to trade for someone to fill their current holes on the roster.
These two players are really the only major decisions the team has to make relatively soon outside of figuring out what to do with all of their arbitration eligible players, so it’s certainly worth keeping an eye on.
Final thoughts – I expect the team to get a deal done with McLouth but will allow Saunders to test free agency.
