Pitchers and catchers report to Sarasota today, so Birdland is ready to welcome in yet another season of hardball. However, with rumors still swirling that the team’s roster manipulations are far from over, interspersed between the blurry pictures of players standing by buckets of baseballs fans will be hoping to see a tweet or two with some actual news. Particularly, the news that the Orioles have come to terms with either starting pitcher Yovani Gallardo, outfielder Dexter Fowler, or both.
According to several reporters, both national and local, the O’s are still the frontrunners to land both of the veterans.
Sources: The expectation of O's is that they will finish deals with both Gallardo and Fowler; Fowler expected to be BAL's right fielder.
— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) February 18, 2016
Also told #orioles would be interested in signing Fowler even if they don't get Gallardo (which they still expect to do. just sayin').
— Roch Kubatko (@masnRoch) February 17, 2016
Sources: The talks between the Orioles and Dexter Fowler are about a deal in the range of $12m-$13 million annually, for 2 or 3 years.
— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) February 18, 2016
As our own Andrew Stetka cautioned this morning in his Thursday Thoughts, we shouldn’t count our chickens before they’ve hatched. Still, it’s tough not to get excited at the prospect of adding two solid major leaguers to the team.
The majority of the speculation to this point has surrounded Gallardo – understandably so, as starting pitching remains, perpetually, forever and always, the Orioles’ biggest area of need – but personally I’m a bit more excited about the speedy Fowler. While there are some questions about his arm strength (more below), the guy has range:
Dexter Fowler had pretty good range last year for the #Cubs. Fowler & Adam Jones should cover good ground together pic.twitter.com/yqOIjNbG9k
— Daren Willman (@darenw) February 18, 2016
Additionally, he can get on base. He has a career OBP of .363 (though last year’s .346 was a career-low), stole 20 bases in 2015, and would immediately give the Birds their first true leadoff hitter since Brian Roberts (though Nick Markakis did admirably from that spot as well).
How’s this look to you?
RF – Fowler
3B – Manny Machado
1B – Chris Davis
CF – Adam Jones
C – Matt Wieters
DH – Mark Trumbo
LF – Hyun-soo Kim
2B – Jonathan Schoop
SS – J.J. Hardy
That’s just off the top of my head. We can argue about positions in the lineup for hours, but regardless, that group of nine men will score some runs, however you arrange them.
Now, obviously Fowler isn’t an All-Star caliber player, or he wouldn’t still be on the market, so let’s talk about some negatives. First, that arm strength. As Matt Kremnitzer pointed out over at Camden Depot this morning, Fowler has an outfield arm runs above average of -15 for his career (Adam Jones is +44). For those of you who prefer more traditional measures, he has just 30 assists in seven seasons (Jones: 85).
Kremnitzer also notes that, while Fowler can steal some bases, he also gets caught a lot – over 30% of the time. We know how Buck hates giving up outs on the basepaths, so we shouldn’t assume that Dex is going to come in here and have the green light from the get-go.
To my mind, the positives far outweigh those negatives, and the price seems quite fair. I wouldn’t mind giving up the #14 pick for Fowler even if Gallardo falls through. I’m still not completely sold on Yovani, but I’m not disagreeing that he makes the O’s rotation better than having a guy like Mike Wright, Vance Worley, or Tyler Wilson pitching every fifth day does. I just wish that, if Peter Angelo is indeed prepared to keep his checkbook wide open…
#Orioles likely will end up biggest free-agent spenders of off-season if they finish Gallardo, Fowler deals, moving past CHC, DET, SF, BOS.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) February 18, 2016
…then I don’t understand why they weren’t in the mix for some starting pitchers earlier this offseason, when there were more talented players available (not to mention guys who didn’t come with draft pick compensation). Scott Kazmir, Doug Fister, Mat Latos, heck even Wei-Yin Chen all represented, to varying degrees and for myriad reasons, better value than Gallardo likely will.
But hey, those ships have sailed, as they say. No need to look back in anger at this point. Let’s just hope the Birds brass can get these deals done, and put the best possible 25 men on the field come April.
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2 Responses
Well the pitchers that went before Gallorda either had injury concerns (Kazmir)or went for much more then 40 mil. Even after Kazmir signed there was rumblings of arm concerns.
I think people are making these signings sound way bigger then they are. Do real fans understand what may becoming with these signings.
We get Fowler who is a very solid outfielder and will be 100% an upgrade to what we had last year and leave us with a solid lead off hitter. Trumbo gives us a plus from last year at DH which is good and Kim gives us an alright option in left. I’m not going to say it is a better option because he is a real wild card that no one knows how will turn out and is similar to the David Lough deal they made a few years ago and we all know how that turned out.
The biggest problem people are avoiding is our rotation. A rotation of Tillman, Gonzales, Ubaldo, Gausman and Gallardo as much as fans want to celebrate that is a very average to piss pore starting rotation for a team that is about to spend the most money in the off-season in the MLB. Gallardo did have a decent ERA last year but that is very masked. His strikeouts over the last few seasons have been decreasing and his WHIP last year was the highest it has been in his career. On top of that, these bad stats last year do not even show the amount of times he even made it through six innings which was a huge problem with our rotation. Last year, in fact, he only made it through 6 complete innings was 13/33 times which is really dissappointing for a guy we are going to be giving 15 million a year. Ubaldo last year had a better WHIP, better Hits per 9 inn, and 47!!!! more strikeouts then Gallardo (but apparently he is still our rotation’s savior). After last year wasn’t it evident enough to fans that hitting was not the problem of this team but having a capable pitcher make it to through six innings to get to our bullpen. If our starting pitching has an average year we cannot make the playoffs no matter how strong the lineup is.
Now comes the question what happens if this route fails? What if Tillman or Gonzo go out for an extended period of time? What happens when the weaknesses get exposed? Our minor league system is 27th in the MLB with no real prospect to give up to buy at any point in the season and on top of that we are signing Fowler and Gallardo giving up two top draft picks. I want to win like every fan so do not try and spin this as a downer fan being upset but look at this as questions that need to be asked.
Who falls on the sword when this fails? Someone has to accept responsibility if this doesn’t work and I am worried that’s the case.
To win in the AL East or in the MLB you must be able to score a lot of runs…check
To win in the AL East or in the MLB you must play strong fundamental defense…check
To win any MLB game you must have a rotation capable of holding a team to minimal runs to give your bullpen a chance to win…error.