Baltimore Orioles Right Field: Now What?
What are the Baltimore Orioles going to do with right field now that they failed to secure the services of Dexter Fowler?
Before pondering this outfield question, we should seek to weigh in on what went down yesterday. It has to be on the first handful of crazy things I have seen in recent years surrounding Baltimore baseball.
I certainly would not want either Dexter Fowler or his creepy agent Casey Close handling my finances! To turn down a qualifying offer, a multiple-year offer, and then sign for a smaller amount with the old team? That is a bit crazy. Apparently he wants to re-enter the market next year when it will be weak in outfielders and thereby get a bigger deal. He’d better have a good season.
I think Dan Duquette probably summed it up pretty well in saying…
“We made a very competitive offer. The issue was the opt-out. The Orioles have made it clear that that type of deal wouldn’t really work for us. Based on that, it sounds to me like he wanted to return to Chicago.”
Let’s move on. So now what? The assumption is that the Orioles need to go outside and get someone else. If there was a good someone else (and Fowler was a good fit from a skills and metrics point of view), that would be fine. But I don’t see that person out there anymore.
There is talk of Pedro Alvarez. We have enough guys who can strike out and hit home runs. The Orioles need on base percentage more importantly.
The name of Jay Bruce keeps coming up. Please. No! Yes, he hits home runs here and there and had some good seasons a while back. But the batting average and OBP over the past two season in the National League (not the AL East) do not give confidence. There were 44 combined home runs … not bad. But the average was .222 and OBP .288 over that time. All of this in 1194 plate appearances.
Not to always beat the Nolan Reimold drum here on The Baltimore Wire, but to make a point that the devil you know is usually better than the devil you don’t, let’s prorate Nolan’s numbers from this past season over Bruce’s past two seasons. Nobody really thinks Reimold had a great performance in his 61 games, but consider that he did hit .247 with a .344 OBP (that latter number being 22 points higher than the MLB average).
Reimold hit six home runs in 195 plate appearances, and if given the same times to the plate as Bruce, he would have only hit seven fewer homers. Nolan would have had 19 more base hits and 39 more walks. Those occasions of getting on base are worth more than the seven home run difference.
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Beyond that, there is strong reason to believe that Reimold could produce better with regular playing time. He had an injury-free season in 2015. And he is millions of dollars less expensive without giving up any other players. Put the savings in an account to use toward extending Machado.
As well, this opening created by Fowler going afoul gives either Dariel Alvarez or Henry Urrutia an opportunity to actually break through.
Right now at this moment I really agree with Buck’s frequent one-liner, “I don’t want to covet other people’s players, I like our guys.” Let’s play some baseball and forget this offseason crap for a while.