BALTIMORE – This past winter the Baltimore Orioles were at the type of organizational crossroads the Toronto Blue Jays are going to face at the end of the 2016 season.
Chris Davis, Matt Wieters, Darren O’Day and Wei-Yin Chen headlined their deep group of free agents and there were needs to address in the outfield, rotation and bullpen. Faced with the choice between taking a step back and regrouping versus anteing up to remain competitive, they chose the latter.
“We had a lot of free agents in terms of sheer numbers, fortunately we did have a core group of returning players, like Adam Jones and J.J. Hardy up the middle and Matt Wieters committed to the club early on in the process, which helped,” says Orioles general manager Dan Duquette. “We needed to strengthen our outfield, that’s why we acquired Mark Trumbo and signed Hyun-soo Kim. We drafted Joey Rickard so that was an attempt to address that. Our big signings were Darren O’Day, who’s shown very good leadership in our bullpen and been very consistent, and Chris Davis, who’s had two dynamite years for the club.”
Chen left for the Miami Marlins, but the Orioles signed Yovani Gallardo for $22 million over two seasons as spring training approached to help shore up the rotation. Davis re-signed for $161 million over seven years, O’Day got $31 million over four years and Wieters accepted the $15.8 million qualifying offer which tied his hands in free agency.
Slugger Pedro Alvarez was another late add, signing a $5.75-million, one-year deal as the Orioles pushed their payroll from roughly $125 million last year to about $148 million at the start of this season.
“We were just trying to have as good a team as we could have every year,” Duquette said of the club’s strategy. “Our fans have been very supportive of the club the last couple of years and they like those players and those players have done a very good job for the team, so we thought it was the right thing to bring them back and take another shot at winning the pennant.”
Having emerging superstar Manny Machado and second baseman Jonathan Schoop under club control helped in their decision-making process, too. The Orioles lineup remains among the best in baseball, they have a shutdown bullpen and how their rotation fares over the season will likely settle their fate.
Off to a 10-4 start heading into Friday’s action after taking two of three from the Blue Jays, they sit atop the deep and highly competitive American League East.
“You see some teams go into a rebuilding mode, that doesn’t usually happen in the American League East,” says Duquette. “These guys come out and try to win the division each year and you’ve seen how even it’s been the last several years, each of the teams has won the division, so it’s always very competitive.
“You have the two behemoths in New York and Boston, they have a lot of resources, and then you have the whole country behind the Blue Jays, they have a lot of resources. Tampa, they always have a good pitching program which keeps them very competitive. So it’s always wide open at the start of the year. I’m not sure if there’s a dominant pitching staff in the American League East. That’s what we’re going to find out.”
