The Baltimore Orioles finally made some moves yesterday, and most likely you didn’t need to “google” them to find out who in the world they were…that might have been a first this off-season.
The Orioles made it official yesterday signing Suk-min Yoon after he passed his physical. He is the first Korean born played to play for the team. He signed a three-year $5.575 million deal that could be worth more than $13 milion with incentives. His best season was in Korea in 2011 when he went 17-5 with a 2.45 ERA. He has worked both as a starter and a reliever, but will be used out of the bullpen for the Orioles.
Then, hours later, a surprise! Roch Kubatko of MASN reported the Orioles had made substantial progress with free agent pitcher Ubaldo Jimenez. Then within an hour, he had agreed to a deal. Jimenez is an Oriole, pending a physical.
File this under “You can’t make everyone happy.” All winter, the only thing you’ve heard from Orioles fans is “Spend money!” “Upgrade the team!” “Go sign a front line starter!” Finally, the Orioles go out and spend money to improve the team, and fans are screaming “NO!” “Not Jimenez!” “You overspent!”
You can’t have it both ways. The Orioles were NEVER going to go sign a front-line #1 starter. We have to get over it and move on. This team is playing “money ball” and Dan Duquette has proven to be pretty good at it. So if you want them to spend money to compete, then you have to be happy when they do just that.
The Orioles were interested in both Ervin Santana and Jimenez, but both would require the Orioles give up their first-round draft pick. According to reports, the Orioles were very interested in Santana, but then offered a three-year-deal to Jimenez. Others in the American League East were said to be going after Jimenez also, so the Orioles added a fourth year to the deal to ensure they could get Jimenez. How many times have we heard the Orioles would never go beyond three years for a pitcher? To me, going four years for Jimenez to outbid rivals in the AL East just goes to show that the front office knew they HAD to make a move to upgrade their pitching.
I know some fans were ready to see the Orioles go with what they had, and give Kevin Gausman a chance at the fifth Starter role. But to me, signing Jimenez and Yoon are low-risk, high-reward moves. If they don’t pan out, they aren’t any worse than they were if they didn’t sign them. But more than likely, these two signings make the Orioles a better team right now. It’s worth the risk. Their window of opportunity is small and so they need to try something. They can’t afford to just stand pat and hope for the best. Having multiple options in Spring Training is always better for the team. Competition is never a bad thing.
I spoke to someone who said that Jimenez was no better than our #4 starter, Miguel Gonzalez. Gonzalez had more Quality Starts (19) and Innings Pitched Per Start (5.72) than Jimenez (16 and 5.69) last season. But that was for an overachieving Indians team. Jimenez ranked 7th among MLB starters last year with 9.6 strikeouts per 9 innings pitched. That put him ahead of guys like Chris Sale, Stephen Strasburg, Felix Hernandez and Clayton Kershaw. Plus, last September Jimenez went 4-0 with a 1.09 ERA over six starts. In 41.1 Innings Pitched, he only walked 7 batters while striking out 51. He was 6-5 with a 1.82 ERA in the second half of last season (h/t to @MASNSteve for those numbers).
To me, this was a deal you have to be happy about if, as a fan, you wanted the Orioles to go for it this season. Was Jimenez our first choice? No, but you rarely get that first choice. He’s a very good choice, especially picking him up this late. And by waiting, they saved money as Jimenez was asking for much more money earlier in the off-season.
Another thing this move does, is open the Orioles up to sign another free agent that requires the loss of a draft pick. Because now it’s no longer a first round pick…it’ll only cost them a second round pick. So they could still go after Santana, or a DH-type like Nelson Cruz, or my top choice…Kendrys Morales.
Believe it or not, after all the grumbling we’ve all done about the Orioles lack of moves this offseason, I think with the addition of Yoon and Jimenez, to go with the additions of David Lough to play left field and Ryan Webb for the bullpen, if the Orioles can pick up Morales to DH, I might actually call this off-season a success. That is a team that I think could be successful this year, if their pitching holds up.
