The Orioles’ payroll will likely increase next season, MASNsports.com’s Steve Melewski writes, adding up likely expenditures to reach a projected Opening Day payroll of about $121MM. That’s up from $107.5MM in 2014. Melewski includes free agent outfielder Nick Markakis for $12MM in his projections, in line with the four-year, $48MM contract MLBTR’s Steve Adams projected Markakis would get. (It’s since been reported that the Orioles were discussing a four-year deal with Markakis.) The Orioles could non-tender a player or two to drop their total, but one problem is that they’ve got 11 arbitration-eligible players, including many who were very good last season and two others (Chris Davis and Matt Wieters) whose salary baselines are already very high thanks to their performance in previous years. They also have Adam Jones, J.J. Hardy and Ubaldo Jimenez locked up to relatively expensive long-term deals. Here are more notes on the East divisions.
- The Yankees have tried to re-sign Brandon McCarthy, but McCarthy is waiting to see what the market has in store for pitchers like Max Scherzer, Jon Lester and James Shields, CBS Sports’ Jon Heyman tweets. After an outstanding stretch run in New York, McCarthy is attracting interest as a potential alternative to the top tier of free agent starting pitching.
- Emerging executive John Coppolella is now John Hart’s “right-hand man” with the Braves, but he got his start in the Yankees organization, MLB.com’s Mark Bowman writes. After turning down a lucrative job at Intel, Coppolella became a baseball operations intern in New York right after graduating college, also working part-time at Chili’s to make ends meet. That led to an opportunity in Atlanta, where he’s worked his way up to assistant general manager. He’s widely seen as a top GM candidate.
Why does McCarthy want to wait to see what the substantially better and substantially healthier pitchers make? If he wants close to Shields money, teams will just add the little bit extra and actually sign Shields.
This is business suply and Demand, If Shield is not available
Once the big 3 sign there is less supply, but also less demand. I don’t see McCarthy as the type of pitcher teams are going to alter their off-season plans for. He could put himself in a little trouble finding what he’s looking for if he waits too long.
There are more than 3 teams looking for quality starting pitching this off-season. McCarthy will still have plenty of suitors after those 3 sign. The only difference is the remaining teams who don’t get one of them will be more desperate.
It’s really no different than Ervin Santana last year. Of course teams always need pitching, but no one is desperate for Brandon McCarthy.
There is no Qualifying Offer for associated with Brandon McCarthy. A lot of teams will be interested.
There are now. But they know what he’s worth and willing to pay. No one is going to adjust their valuation of McCarthy based on a Scherzer or Lester contract.
I agree!
Not as much as those guys but Jason Vargas got a bigger deal than we thought he would last year with the Royals because of the dirth of pitching in the game.
True, True, True, that’s big!
Yes and be willing to give him much less money. The longer he waits the less he will get.
I don’t see the same teams in the market for the big three and McCarthy.
It’s called “establishing market value.” If he signs for X and the others sign for 5X it’s reasonable to assume he would have under-sold. That’s what a market is all about. Some teams no doubt have agreements with free agents they want to re-sign that they’ll let “market” establish prices before finalizing offers. McCarthy is being smart.
McCarthy is gambling by waiting, his market could go down and he probably won’t get more than the Yankees offer. They could go and sign someone else. Heck, I they change their mind they might go after one of the big three. They have the revenue to do it.
Yep, it’s always a risk. But when his agents made their case to him, he agreed. One thing teams need is pitching and lots of it, so unlike Stephen Drew I don’t think he’ll get pinched in market door. I can and have been wrong.
Shields money will be substantially higher than he second and third tier pitchers
This is not good news for the Yanks, I’m sure they wanted to sign him early!
while i don’t blame Mccarthy for the approach, i wonder just how much more money there will be for pitchers below that top tier. there’s an article on fangraphs that suggest that mccarthy and shields might actually perform at about the same level. that could be true, but the market rends to look for proven performance, and mccarthy was a sub-par and not very durable pitcher for arizona. Does 90 innings with the Yankees really make him a 4/60 or more type of pitcher? That’s a tough gamble for a FO to take, especially if the top three pitchers are swallowed by the high revenue teams.
He should change his name to “Big Game Brandon”, then post an ERA of 5+ and a WHIP of 1.5 in the post-season and watch the offers roll in.
the market for the Big Three WILL affect McCarthy, Liriano, Santana and others. There are more than 3 teams looking to get in on the Big Three – the losers from that competition will be extra interested in getting a pitcher from the second tier pitchers and the stock of those pitchers will go up. There was already a demand for the second tier among teams like the Dodgers who would not pay for the big three. When the losers from among the Bostons, Yankees, Tigers, A’s, Cubs and a few other teams in for the big guys get into the second tier bidding, the second tier pitchers’ $$$ will go up.
Smart of McCarthy to wait
One significant contract of the Orioles was overlooked by Steve M. Their payroll also includes nearly $1.5 million owed to Dylan Bundy, who’s working his way back from Tommy John surgery and doesn’t figure to be with the team any earlier than mid-season.