With three big offensive free agents remaining — outfielders Yoenis Cespedes and Justin Upton as well as, of course, Chris Davis — and just five weeks left until spring training opens, it’s beginning to come down to crunch time for these players and their agents to start considering possible contingency plans should the offers they’re seeking not come in.
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Oftentimes at this point in the off-season, rumors will be floated that a player is willing to take a one-year pillow deal to bridge themselves into the next off-season. And almost always, that ends up not happening as a player ultimately gets something near what they were reportedly seeking earlier in the winter.
And while some of those rumors have floated in recent days among national MLB reports, it’s a rumor and reporter local to Baltimore who has the scoop on one of those three perhaps landing with the Birds — and it might not be who you think.
Indeed, Roch Kubatko of MASN reported — and it was backed up by MLB.com’s Brittany Ghiroli — that the club had made an offer to Cespedes. And while terms aren’t known for certain, ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick piped up that he’d heard the club was willing to go to five years and $75-90 million. Kubatko added in a blog post that no deal is imminent, or particularly close. He also added that, unlike Upton, Cespedes would not cost the Orioles draft pick compensation due to the fact that he was traded mid-season from Detroit — perhaps another team in the Yoenis Derby this winter — to the Mets.
But while that deal wouldn’t necessarily be a slap in the face, it probably isn’t the sort of value that Cespedes was seeking when he hit the market either, most likely. Is it a public offer being leaked as a poker play against Davis, who doesn’t appear to have any other public suitors but insists, per Kubatko, that he isn’t holding the team hostage? That theory holds a bit of water.
An interesting thought exercise at this point in the off-season is to survey the players left available and the teams that are a fit. And in some ways, you can see which players could have overplayed their hands all winter, and which teams might end up without a dance partner when the music stops.
The Orioles are clearly still in the mix for one more big player, it seems. After missing out on Denard Span — who signed for three years and $31 million with San Francisco — and seeing Wei-Yin Chen depart for Miami, it would still appear that the O’s have room in the budget and on the roster for a big-time player. All things being equal, it would seem likely that Upton would be the least likely with the compensation tag tied to him. Obviously re-signing Davis would be high on the list, with the only compensation changing hands if he were to depart.
So with these big three players left, who else is in the mix besides Baltimore? The Chicago White Sox, in the second straight year of massive overhauling to the big league roster, would seem to be a fit. That is, for either Cespedes or Upton, but not Davis. The Pale Hose are already stocked at first base and DH with Jose Abreu and, failing to move him, Adam LaRoche. The outfield is more iffy with Adam Eaton flanked ostensibly on each side by Melky Cabrera and Avisail Garcia — both of whom are coming off disappointing 2015 seasons. Adding Cespedes or Upton to play right field while platooning Garcia and Cabrera in left makes a ton of sense, and as always it’ll come down to making the finances work. But on a team that added Todd Frazier and Brett Lawrie already, it appears as though they want to make another run at the division crown after last offseason’s attempt — with LaRoche and David Robertson entering the fold — failed miserably. The White Sox seem like a sound bet to compete with the O’s for one of the two outfielders.
The Mets could also be in the mix, though their financial woes are well documented. After missing out on Ben Zobrist — their No. 1 target in free agency — they did come into a bit of financial fortune when Michael Cuddyer retired with a year left on his deal signed one winter ago. But at one year and $12-plus million, is that really enough to make the Mets jump into the fray for either of the two outfielders? It doesn’t seem terribly likely, and they’ll probably go into 2016 with an outfield of Michael Conforto, Juan Lagares and Curtis Granderson with Alejando De Aza flanking them as the fourth.
The Rangers are also a sneaky bet, as Jon Heyman floated them as a possible landing spot for Upton late Thursday night on Twitter. Heyman noted that some in the game see them as a possible landing spot if they can scrape the dough together. And while it’s unclear what that means — short of trading Elvis Andrus, for instance — that’s an intriguing fit that doesn’t make a ton of sense when seeing their current starting crew of Josh Hamilton, Delino DeShields Jr. and Shin-Soo Choo. None of those guys — Upton included — can play center other than Deshields, with Choo and Hamilton making too much money to be a fourth. Then again, with Hamilton’s re-worked deal contingent on his trade from the Angels, maybe finances won’t be an implication with regards to him. Still, Hamilton as a bench bat doesn’t make a ton of sense. Maybe if he moves into some sort of timeshare with Mitch Moreland and Prince Fielder between first base and DH? That just seems like more trouble than it’s worth, but they’re a backburner team to keep an eye on.
Could there be a #MysteryTeam, as Heyman likes to tweet about? Most certainly — the Marlins were with Chen, after all — and if that were the case, maybe the Braves? They aren’t going anywhere in 2016, yet have been in the mix for higher-end free agents this off-season such as Zobrist and Darren O’Day. It makes no sense, but here we are.
But here’s the funny angle this could all be leading up to: What if the music stops and the Orioles haven’t signed anyone….and Davis hasn’t signed? In the last month, the only other team to even be loosely tied to Davis is Detroit, and that was as a “sleeper team” according to the Boston Globe’s Nick Cafardo. Now that would mean Davis is playing a corner outfield spot most likely — something agent Scott Boras keeps trying to drum up for interest — but the most fascinating part of this scenario is if the slugger is essentially “forced” to return to Baltimore, what does that contract look like? Is it anything close to the alleged seven year, $154 million deal that was reported pulled from the table? Is it less than that? Or are the O’s at that point so desperate to add a bat with no one else on the market that they increase the offer?
For a hot stove that’ll soon cool down, it’s still pretty hot.
Orioles Analyst
Warne is a Minnesota Twins beat reporter for 105 The Ticket’s Cold Omaha website as well as a sportswriter for Sportradar U.S. in downtown Minneapolis. He also contributes to FanGraphs / RotoGraphs.