Orioles second baseman Brian Roberts is set to become a free agent after the 2008 season. The O’s would like to sign him to a deal to cover 2008-09 in the neighborhood of $12-14MM. The two sides decided to focus on two years. Wow, that sounds downright…reasonable. In fact, it’d be a huge bargain. Five-win second basemen are worth significantly more than $7MM a year to a team, but the market undercompensates the position.
The Baltimore Sun’s Jeff Zrebiec notes that Orioles have tons of players up for free agency after the ’09 season – Miguel Tejada, Ramon Hernandez, Aubrey Huff, Melvin Mora, Jay Gibbons, Erik Bedard, Danys Baez, Chad Bradford, and Jamie Walker. If there was ever a time to bring for new management to give this team a complete makeover it’s before the 2010 season.
