Ty Wigginton and Luke Scott will not be traded this season. Both players were claimed when the Orioles placed them on waivers earlier this month, according to Dan Connolly and Jeff Zrebiec of the Baltimore Sun. The Orioles pulled Wigginton and Scott back, so a trade is no longer possible. Technically, the Orioles could re-expose the players to waivers, but they would no longer have the option of pulling them back.
Orioles president of baseball operations Andy MacPhail could not confirm which players have been claimed, but he told the Sun that it’s “highly unlikely” that the Orioles make any trades in August. The Braves and Cardinals, two teams that appear to be monitoring the market for infielders, can cross Wigginton off of their respective lists.
Wigginton hits free agency this winter, but the Orioles have ample time to consider offers for Scott, who has 22 home runs and a .932 OPS. The 32-year-old is under team control through the 2012 season.
I doubt we would get anything better then a low to mid level prospect for Wiggy. He’s not exactly an elite player, on a playoff team he’d be a “super sub”. Combine that with him becoming a free agent this off season and he’s not going to fetch us anything in return. I’d rather have him stay with us and start for us for the rest of the season then sell him off for organizational depth. With the way the O’s are playing now, we look like a little better free agent destination then we did when we were the worst team in baseball. Even if Wiggy ends up leaving, his presence here for the next 2 months could result in us landing some better free agents this winter… or if nothing else makes the O’s watchable, so i say keep him.
Why?
Is he really going to make a difference over the next 40 games? What if that organizational depth turns into a valuable ML player down the road?
Just letting a FA walk, receiving no compensation for him, on a team like the O’s makes ZERO sense to me.
Well yes there is a chance that the prospect we would get for Wiggy could turn out to be a viable MLB player (or hell even a star) BUT the percentages just don’t support it. I’d rather have Wiggy for 40 more games this year then have 3 years of a guy who never gets above AA ball. If we would off load Wiggy and Scott we’d replace them with god knows what and we would probably fall right back into last place and look like a club that has no direction. Right now the Orioles are winning and playing well, i’d like to keep this team together for the remainder of the season and try to lure some free agents in this off season under the promise of moving in the right direction.
can i just make an observation here?
you are not on the Baltimore Orioles, i checked the active roster and the employee list and nobody by the name jeff thompson is there.
stop saying ‘we can’t this, we shouldn’t that, we, us blah blah’… as the monday night countdown folks say… “come on man!!!!”
No im not but typing “we” is a lil easier then typing “the Baltimore Orioles franchise”… plus the fact that i have an emotional connection with the team i feel i can use the word “we”… if the O’s win the series ill be just as happy as any of those players, while i may not receive a ring i will still get to experience the thrill of it. If you aren’t emotionally connected to your team then why bother being a fan at all? The people who are not emotionally connected to “their” teams are called BANDWAGON fans.
That sounds really logical on paper, but this is real life. Converting every scrip of old value into new value works in the abstract, but we are talking about management of people. The Orioles are predominantly a very young team, mostly around 23-25 yr olds. The lack of true good vets can instill some bad habits and disciplines in the young guys, and this year might be a pretty good example of that. For one thing, the lack of plate discipline on the team is predictably atrocious, and, their numbers have suffered for it. If you take out what few vets there are, who know the game situations and can play to them, you take out the protection and should expect even worse numbers from the young guys.
I think of it like this:
Is the C+ prospect (likely a future RP or bench player at best) you’d get for Wigginton worth 2-3 months of the young players maybe regressing more due to a lack of support from the vet?
That’s what it comes down to. If Wigginton could land you a B prospect then, sure, pull the trigger, but that was never the case. “Letting him walk for nothing” is meaningless here. He would likely have only netted a player/prospect you could have filled with a cheap signing in the offseason anyways.
Wow, you actually bought the crap that MacPhail spewed this offseason when he said he spent $33MM despite knowing they wouldn’t win, because he wanted to improve the club’s record to appeal to future free agents.
Wigginton’s not going to result in your club winning 3 more games or anything. Moving him in July would’ve resulted in receiving something that could potentially help your future.
Hell you probably could’ve gotten someone with some upside like Trevor Plouffe for him back in early July before Danny Valencia established himself as a reasonable option at 3B in Minnesota.
Wigginton was heavily shopped. You make it sound like the Os weren’t trying to trade him. The fact was that the team with the best match was the Rangers and they filled their need elsewhere. Other teams in the mix were weak farm systems.
I don’t get it. If the Os dealt every vet they had, they’d get ripped for fire selling the team. Here they wanted to maintain some measure ofbprotecting the development of the young guys, and you criticize them for keeping these minor parts.
Despite the fact that his haircut makes it look like 1995 (not actually a bad thing- retro cool) Luke Scott is legit. He’s got 30 HR power, a good arm and a respectable average. If I were the Orioles I’d try to buy out his remaining arb. years for about $13.5MM with a club option for $6MM.
Why on Earth didn’t the O’s move Wigginton in July? The guy can play all over the field, hits for decent power, and is having an all-around decent season. Any number of teams would’ve given up a prospect or at least taken the salary off their hands.
He doesn’t come even close to being a ranked free agent, so now they just watch him leave for nothing. Completely senseless.
The supposed offers were very very weak. Remember that the trade market was flooded with quite a few good bats, front lined by Dunn.
Maybe the Os could have pulled a sick deal of picking a C prospect who is special? But more likely, he nets them a AAA depth guy, bench player, or reliever which is what they were really being offered for him. I think Wiggi was perceived as a “Fools’ Gold” type of role player enjoying good numbers at the break, so weren’t willing to deal real prospects.
I wish they would have got something for Wigginton cause he probably wont be back next year. I am very glad they kept Luke Scott cause he is awesome for the O’s
I agree. They should have traded Wigginton when all of those middle infielders went down with injury. I like the idea of extending Luke Scott but I think they should really work him out at 1B though. I am not a fan of the installed DH (David Ortiz,Travis Hafner,Jim Thome). I think that position should be used as a way to keep bats in the lineup while resting them at the same time. I think in a few years when Machado comes up and Bell is comfortable that will be a team to reckon with. I think the balance of power will eventually shift to Baltimore and Toronto when the Yankees and Red Sox realize their prospects they have been shoving down everyones throats as can’t miss—actually miss. The Rays are straddling the line as far as I’m concerned. They have a tremendous amount of talent in the farm system but you have to wonder about a team that is so haphazardly ran like Tampa Bay. Will they squander the talent? No one can really say. I guess New York and Boston can always buy ball players in order to win a championship but who knows how the Steinbrenner sons will run the show now that King George is gone. Who knows how Boston is going to re load after this misguided attempt at buying into the defense/speed craze. They need sluggers at Fenway. Period. Thats all there is to it. I think if Toronto keeps building through the draft with pitching and speedy guys they will ultimately be in a better place than Boston or NY. However I think with guys like Machado,Bell,Wieters,Markakis,etc., Baltimore has the much more rounded team moving forward. Im a White Sox fan but Im also a baseball fan and I would love to get back to the glory days of the Orioles winning their division and the Yankees and Red Sox being bottom feeders. Ahh the good old days.
It’s easy to rail on about why the O’s should have traded Wigginton yet didn’t. But consider that their second baseman (Roberts) has been hurt most of the season, their third baseman (Tejada) was traded to San Diego, and their alternatives for first base have been suspect at that position (Atkins and Scott). And consider that Wigginton can play all three of these positions. Then consider that the O’s probably never got much of an offer for him in the way of a trade, and it’s not that hard to see why the O’s kept him. It’s not like contending teams see Wigginton as a difference maker. Perhaps the O’s could have gotten as much for him as they did for Miguel Tejada (Wynn Pelzer), but not much more. And I suspect the O’s are going to try and re-sign Wigginton, which they were not intending to do with Tejada (though somehow I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw Tejada back in Baltimore for a third stint considering the O’s problems at both short and third).