The Orioles have made contact with the representatives of Yovani Gallardo to express interest in the free agent righty, Eduardo Encina of the Baltimore Sun reports. Encina cautions that it is still early in the process and there does not appear to be any likelihood of near-term movement. Indeed, we heard recently that Gallardo’s agent expects it to take some time for his market to develop.
Gallardo, 29, took the twentieth spot on the top fifty free agent list of MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes. While he no longer profiles as a top-of-the-rotation arm, Gallardo fits in the mold of other recent free agent hurlers who have commanded four-year deals at better than $12MM annually. Dierkes predicts that he can achieve a $52MM guarantee on the open market.
Of course, one of those recent comparables — Ubaldo Jimenez — signed his deal with Baltimore two years ago. That contract was, and still is, the richest pitching contract ever given out by the club.
The O’s needed to give up a draft pick to sign Jimenez, and the same would be required to add Gallardo, who declined a qualifying offer from the Rangers. Baltimore owns the 15th overall pick in this year’s draft and stands to add two more top selections if and when Chris Davis and Wei-Yin Chen sign with new teams.
Baltimore’s staff certainly appears to be in need of supplementation, as MLBTR’s Mark Polishuk explained in his offseason outlook piece on the club. Gallardo comes with his share of risk — metrics suggest that his sub-3.50 ERA over the last two seasons has been about half a run per nine lucky — but he has been exceedingly durable and has a a nice overall track record of production.
If they’re serious about Gallardo, they should sign a better free agent with a QO attached to him first. He would be a decent pickup for them but he’s not worth giving up the 15th pick for especially since he can’t pitch deep into games.
If I was a general manager, gallardo would be on my avoid list.
That’s why you aren’t one.
oooohhhhh
The declining strikeout rate is a concern. Not worth giving up a draft pick to pay this guy.
Dan Duquette is an idiot.
He would fit in very nicely with the O’s, with his extreme ground ball tendencies and the Orioles’ excellent infield defense. I’d prefer Leake, but that guy will be getting 5/85 or better, and the O’s just won’t go that high on a pitcher.
Don’t like it. Better than not pursuing anyone, but I think there are better choices out there to look at that would be comparable in cost.
He would be a hit and miss for Baltimore especially when it comes to their luck with signing FA pitching, he was great last year and anything could happen with him next season so if anything I would focus on bringing back Chen because he’s preformed well in Baltimore and he’s familiar with the atmosphere there worse comes to worse I don’t think it would be a bad idea for them to go after kazmir or Kennedy
He wasn’t great last year.
If he was, he would be signing for more than $13
Million a year!
Health wise and he was a big reason the Rangers made the post season at all without him Rangers were nothing seeing as how Darvish holland and Perez were hurt and they never would’ve gotten hamels because they wouldn’t have been in a buying mode because they would’ve been dead last In the west, he wasn’t an ace but he’s a solid number two
Not to be a contrarian (Then again, why not?) but I think the Rangers more won the West last season because of having a healthy Fielder & Choo. Both playing like all Rangers management & fans expected them to perform like when they were first signed. For having a new voice in Manager, J. Bannister & lastly, because of stellar play of the bullpen. Particularily after Daniels traded for both Dyson & Diekman late in July. Not to mention him (Daniels) trading for Hamels in July, as well. Who last time I asked around, was told that he is a pretty damn good pitcher in his own right, as well. ; )
As a Rangers fan I can say he was absolutely not great last season. Unless you think pitching under 6 innings every outing is great. The Rangers just used him in the way that maximized his abilities
He still logged 184 innings and his home runs given up were down which is pretty good considering he was playing in a hitters ball park, was he an ace? No absolutely not but he’s a damn good option for a number two starter
Stay away from Gallardo, we need that 15th pick to add another player to our thin farm system. We’ll get another pick from Chen signing away and maybe Davis too, but I would try to sign Davis as he is key to being a contender in the east.
As someone who watched Gallardo pitch several times in person last season I can definitely understand concern when you look at the fact that he didn’t go deep into many games and tended to have a really high pitch count after a couple of innings in several games. He’s obviously not a power pitcher anymore and isn’t going to get you a lot of strikeouts. Fortunately in baseball there are other ways to get batter’s out and that’s what he did. At one point he had a consecutive inning scoreless streak of over 30 and because the Rangers have a solid core of relievers they didn’t need hm to go super deep in many of those games. Another thing to look at is they gave him horrible run support. I don’t know the numbers but I’d be willing to bet he had the worst run support out of all Ranger starters and easily could have matched Colby Lewis for most wins on the staff with just a few more runs. There were several of his starts where he’d leave in the 6th inning after only giving up a run or two and the Rangers hadn’t scored any. He could be a solid 4-5 guy on most teams.
Galladro was a good one year rental for Texas and had a great run in mid-June where he went four games without giving up an earned run in helping the Rangers turn things around. But he is what he is….a five-six inning pitcher.
No!
No player who’ll cost a draft pick!
No player who’ll projects to a 4+ ERA.
If you want mediocrity, troll around the Non-Tender list.
Angeles is largely responsible for the O’s years of woes. He spends big bucks on MASN and fights to keep the Nationals share to a minimum. The O’s need to resign Davis
and/or Chen, preferably Davis. They cannot afford to give up another draft pick as they need to build their farm system back up. With adequate money on the table a trade or purchase of a good starting pitcher might be possible. Identify a pitcher they would like to have then be aggressive. Money can speak loudly.
Gallardo is a good fit for the Oriols but it will be hard to get him from the Rangers