Knee-Jerk Reactions: O’s, Alex Cobb Reportedly Agree on 4-Year Deal

The Baltimore Orioles have reportedly agreed to terms on a four-year deal with free agent starting pitcher Alex Cobb.

cobb and orioles have agreement on terms. four years. believed to be close to 60M. @Ken_Rosenthal and @masnRoch are on top of it.

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) March 20, 2018

ESR staff react to the news here…

Derek Arnold

Patience paid off in Baltimore, as the move that so many O’s fans have been hoping for all winter finally happened on the first day of Spring. A rotation of Gausman-Cobb-Bundy-Cashner-Tillman/Castro/Cortes isn’t striking fear in the hearts of other AL East squads, but when combined with the O’s offense and bullpen? It certainly makes this team very interesting here on the eve of Opening Day.

Perhaps most shocking is that, just as they clear Ubaldo Jimenez from the books, someone convinced Peter Angelos to give ANOTHER pitcher a four-year contract. Color me shocked.

Two of the three main projection systems don’t like Alex (PECOTA: 4.73 ERA, Steamer: 4.43 ERA, ZiPS: 3.77 ERA), but hey – doing better than the computers say you will is part of any Orioles contract, right?

Paul Valle

The addition of Cobb makes Baltimore a legitimate playoff contender. He immediately becomes the staff ace, though there’s little-to-no chance he starts Opening Day. His addition means Chris Tillman is now your number five starter with Mike Wright moving to the bullpen, if not given his walking papers.

A starting rotation of Cobb, Bundy, Gausman, Cashner, and Tillman is formidable, and arguably the Orioles’ best Opening Day staff since 1997. Still, there will be a lot of ground to cover with the additions the Red Sox and Yankees made over the offseason, but there is no doubt that the Orioles are a better team today than they were yesterday, and a far superior team than the one that won 75 games in 2017.

Phil Backert

This is the move all O’s fans and most definitely the players were clamoring for all offseason. It was also the move, most expected, myself included, not to happen. However, now that it has, the Orioles have a strong rotation that can compete for a playoff spot. It appears that if this is truly the last year for the “core” group, the front office has given them one final chance to make a run at it and that is all you can ask for.

Andrew Stetka

Coming into the off-season, I was the only person I saw saying the Orioles needed to sign four (not three) starting pitchers to have a snowball’s chance in hell at being competitive this season. The signing of Alex Cobb brings that number to three, which is what many expected and wanted.

While I still don’t think the O’s have much of a great shot, having Cobb on board still makes me much more confident in their ability to do anything. He allows the Orioles to rely on Chris Tillman OR some combination of Mike Wright Jr. and others to fill in the 5th starter’s spot, instead of both filling the four and five. What is crazy to me is that Cobb was still able to land a four-year deal after this crazy off-season. It makes Lance Lynn‘s free agency even more puzzling.

Among the realistic free agent pitching targets, Cobb was at the top of my list, so I can’t complain really. He’s not going to be a savior, but he’s going to make a putrid rotation a little bit better. When it comes to these Orioles, that’s really as nice as it can get.

Jonathan French

With Cobb the Orioles bag their biggest Bird of the offseason, and now the rotation actually has a chance to give the team a chance to win with four true starting pitchers instead of only two or three. The trio of Brady Anderson, Buck Showalter and Dan Duquette, as dysfunctional as they are, have managed on paper to improve a starting rotation by adding Cobb, Andrew Cashner and bringing back (hopefully) a healthier Chris Tillman. It really couldn’t get much worse than 2017 though.

Cobb isn’t going to be an innings eater as he pitches around 6 innings per start, and he hit his career high in starts and innings pitched with 29 and 179.1 last season, so health is still a concern. However, he’s proven in the AL East when he does pitch, and just about every rotation in the AL East has question marks. The Orioles now have one less hopefully and are much closer to another playoff appearance than they were at the beginning of the offseason.

Joe DiBasilio

“I’m in love I’m in love and I don’t care who knows it.” At first glance, I absolutely love the move. We’ve been clamoring all off-season for Cobb or Lynn (good cost to production ratio), and we finally nabbed one of them. He immediately improves the rotation, and the O’s effectively replaced Miley and Jimenez for Cashner and Cobb – two guys coming off years with ERA’s in the 3’s vs 6+. The additional attraction to Cobb comes with his successes and comfortability pitching in the AL East, a truly valuable asset to have.

HOWEVER, the more I turn over his numbers the more tempered my excitement becomes. He’s never pitched more than 179.1 innings or 29 starts, only appeared in 5 games in 2016 and 0 in 2015. So, durability is obviously a concern, which is an increased concern for a rotation with Mike Wright Jr. and Rule 5 acquisitions as alternatives.

You know what, I’m done looking at the stats, Cobb for President!