The Orioles are interested in free agent right-hander Lance Lynn, Jon Morosi of MLB Network reports (Twitter link). Morosi adds that the Orioles slightly prefer fellow righty Alex Cobb, however, thanks to his vast experience in the American League East. Morosi first linked Cobb to the Orioles on Friday.
Either Lynn or Cobb is the third-best established starter on the market behind Yu Darvish and Jake Arrieta, and signing one of the two second-tier arms would ostensibly be a boon to a Baltimore rotation in dire need of help. Orioles starters placed 27th in the majors in fWAR (5.5) and dead last in ERA (5.70) during the regular season, and with 2017 rotation members Chris Tillman, Jeremy Hellickson, Wade Miley and Ubaldo Jimenez now on the open market, the team is on the hunt for multiple starters.
Lynn debuted as a regular in the Cardinals’ rotation in 2012 and has quietly been among the majors’ most consistent workhorses since then. With the exception of 2016, which he missed after undergoing Tommy John surgery, Lynn hasn’t finished with fewer than 29 starts or 175 1/3 innings in any full season. The fastball specialist has also thrived at keeping opposing offenses at bay, evidenced by a 3.37 ERA that ranks tied for 22nd among big league starters since 2012.
The 30-year-old Lynn spun 186 1/3 innings of 3.43 ERA ball in 2017, though his terrific run prevention came in spite of underwhelming rates in the strikeout (7.39 K/9; down from 8.46 lifetime) and walk (3.77; up from 3.4) departments. A fair amount of Lynn’s success last season was on account of a .244 batting average on balls in play, way down from his .297 career mark, but it wasn’t solely a product of good fortune. Lynn tied with a handful of starters – including National League Cy Young winner Max Scherzer – for 25th out of 94 qualifiers in average exit velocity allowed (85.7 mph). Thanks in part to that, his expected weighted on-base average allowed (.310) was right in line with the .309 wOBA he surrendered.
Considering both Lynn’s track record and the dearth of big-time starters available in free agency, he’s in line to land one of the offseason’s richest contracts. With Lynn having rejected the Cardinals’ $17.4MM qualifying offer, signing him would cost Baltimore its third-highest pick in next summer’s draft, which isn’t much of a deterrent in and of itself. But, as much as Lynn could help the O’s rotation in 2018, it’s debatable whether they’d be wise to hand a lucrative long-term deal to him, Cobb or anyone else this winter with core players Manny Machado, Zach Britton, Adam Jones and Brad Brach scheduled to hit free agency next year.
Shocking
In other news water is wet
Ask Trump if water is wet… We all know he will call it fake news unless Fox reports it..
It’s hysterical people post the work from home crap on here
Slow day at CNN I see!
Slow day at work lol
They are going to do nothing just talk as always
I disagree. They basically have to sign an entire rotation this offseason so I think we will see a lot of O’s moves this year.
that’s what everyone thought last year but look what happened
Nobody thought that last year since they still had Jimenez, Tillman and Gallardo on the books. Now they’re all gone and they have more money to spend on FAs than they’ve had in awhile.
They also had Miley as well
The problem is that if a pitcher has ever been on the DL in his career he automatically will fail the Orioles physical. So they are their own worst enemy when it comes to bringing pitchers aboard
Complete nonsense. They have signed plenty of pitchers who had prior DL stints. Also you will note the ones that failed physicals had legit issues surface. Ballfour and Gallardo being the most recent example.
The Orioles are interested in signing Cobb and Lynn. I am interested in dating a super model and owning a Ferarri. It doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.
Cobb and Lynn as ferrari’s? Pretty sad. Lynn is more like a Toyota Camry you pay sticker price for.
No, but the way Angelos views paying players they may as well be.
Angelos has never been stingy as much as he’s been overly conservative, cautious and wrong headed. It’s not that he won’t pay as much as he pays the wrong guys — like Jimenez and Chris Davis. The Orioles have screwed up their starting pitching situation so bad that I suspect they will be more aggressive this year in the free agent and international pitching markets.
Its gotta be super hard for the Orioles to attract top shelf FA pitchers. One would think a star pitcher who wants to protect his baseball legacy would cringe at the thought of throwing half of his starts in a band stand homer heaven ball park like Camden Yards.
The new Yankee Stadium is worse. Philly’s stadium is the worst. Camden Yards maybe used to be the worst offender until half the other teams started building band stand parks as well. Also more runs are scored in a lot of other stadiums. More runs are scored in Fenway than in Camden even with that excellent Red Sox staff. Of course it’s often that excellent Ree Sox lineup doing the scoring.
Why not sign Lynn? Your 3rd highest draft pick isn’t that much of a deterrent. You’d think if the team starts losing and Lynn was 4/5 of what you expected you could get something of similar value in return or at the least dump the salary. I have a feeling the guys we sign are more like Andrew Cashner and Vargas who is probably real close to being an oriole. Unfortunately.
4/5 of what can honestly be expected of Lynn moving to a hitters park in the AL East would be a terrible season.
I would like to see Lynn with the Texas Rangers, if the Cardinals do not sign him.
The O’s better start signing some pitching before they sign elsewhere,
If they do sign Cobb, they should go after Cashner, or Vargas. That would put a solid 4 in the rotation.
Vargas only has a 40% GB rate and doesn’t K guys. That’s a LOT of fly balls either going out or being manhandled by the incompetent fools we have in the outfield.
Vargas had MLB-best OF defense in KC. In Bmore he would have MLB’s worst.
And he’s pegged for getting a 2/24 contract. That would be so stupid.
We’ll miss Lynn wherever he lands, but the Cards are dealing from strength pitching-wise. He’s not worth more than the $17M he’s been offered. We’re stacked at SP in the organization.
We need to/focus on landing power bats, it’s no secret.
I dont know what delusions the Orioles front office have about next season, but theyre not a couple signings away from winning the division. They should stop wasting their money, become sellers, and rebuild before they ink even more people to expensive long term contracts just to have their best players leave after the season.
The only player the O’s should sell is Machado. On paper the team is only two bad starters different than the team that made the playoffs in 2016. If Gausman is half decent the O’s can definitely compete but only if they sign a couple of decent starters. Even for the Orioles their starting pitching was way worse than average this past season. Machado is overrated, the rest of the offense should improve a bit,and their bullpen is one of the league’s best. It will be an interesting offseason for them.
Anyone the O’s would sign would have to pass a physical. No pitcher will be 100% clean like the Orioles think. They will sign no one
They always sign someone whether it’s Jimenez, Wei-yin Chen or Gallardo. The last couple of years they thought they could get by with what they had. Now they know they can’t, and they have more free agent money to spend.
can’t wait for the next article to come out: Orioles miss out on Lance Lynn and wait till the last minute to sign someone else who pitches horribly
Yeah that has been their MO the last few years. Duquette got lucky with Wei-yin Chen several years back along with Miguel Gonzalez. Since then they have made one bad move after another with their starting pitching. Something tells me they know they have to get serious with signings this offseason or blow up the team. The window is closing if they don’t sign two or three good to decent starters.
Sad but true a six rated pitcher
Over/under on the number of weeks before the Orioles publicly back out of signing Lynn due to concerns over medicals?
Lance Lynn is going to have a lot of suitors, as is Alex Cobb. The Orioles are going to have to outbid a team or two to sign Lynn or Cobb. Will they be willing to do that? They haven’t in the past. They’ve waited for the market to drop & then strike. That isn’t going to work with Lynn or Cobb.
We haven’t been very aggressive in FA at all. Our rotation is in worse shape then usual this year though. There’s so many open slots in the rotation, it would not surprise me if we actually jumped on one of the two. If we had even 3 starters signed for next season I’d say there was no shot. But, we only have bundy and gausman. Even angelos knows we need an actual starter. Before the Seth smith trade last year we had 6 rotation options. Gallardo, Miley, Tillman, Jimenez, Bundy, and Gausman. There wasn’t a move that was going to get made last year and that’s not even considering how bad the FA Pitching class was. It has to be different this year.
I agree. I think it’s different this offseason because so many players are off the books this time, and Angelos is more desperate to compete than ever. That doesn’t mean they’ll get they need or screw something up, though.
Lynn is a starting pitcher, much like Sams Choice potato chips are potato chips. So if the Os want to pay small batch artisan made chip prices for Sams Choice brand, have at it. Guy is generic.
He has a very good career, I’d be worried about his HR rate though. He just about doubled his career hr rate last season. That problem will be amplified in baltimore. Hopefully we shoot for Cobb. Though I seriously doubt we’ll be disappointed with Lance Lynn. Any pitcher who can go 6innings and keep his ERA under 4.5 is a novelty.
To be fair idk that many pitchers HR rates didn’t get hacked because of the juiced ball.
Plus one for the poetry
If I were the Twins upper management, I’d seriously consider signing LL for a myriad of reasons! #1, he’s a proven playoff pitcher. #2, he’s only 30. #3, he’s from the Midwest and if I’m not mistaken, a big outdoorsman so Minnesota would be a natural fit!
I wish STL would resign him but with all the youth in the organization, he’s expendable and I wish him all the luck.
Just in the American League…
Interested until they see the price….from the folks that brought u Ubaldo @14 mil a yr……better chance of bringing Freddy Lynn back….
4/50 for ubaldo. MLBTR predicts Lynn @4/56 I dont think that’s all that bad if that’s what he ends up going for. Won’t be a value deal by any means but that’s the price you have to pay.
Can any P pass Angelos’ expectations in a “simple” physical…? Especially after the 50 mill wasted on Ubaldo….would be great, O’s need him plus a cpl more to fill out staff….spend some of that Nats MASN money !!!
You won’t get Lynn for 4/56 ! There are way too many teams that need pitching
I️ wonder if the O’s would trade Britton, like has been discussed, and try hard to sign both Lynn and Cobb. Moving Britton would free up another $12 million that they could use towards signing both.
No reason to sign a couple of 2nd tier starters in order to compete and then trade the closer away.
The O’s need to either commit to the rebuild or commit to contending. Contending is going to take signing 3 good arms for the rotation and keeping Britton.
In order to sign a desirable free agent, the Orioles have to demonstrate that they have a short and long term plan and a definite process to accomplish that plan.
Right now the Orioles have NOTHING. no leadership, no philosophy, no plan, nothing.
Why would anyone want to come to the Orioles when literally every other team has some direction? Even the Braves, Angels and Marlins have more potential.
Lynn was a good SP for the Cardinals. If he had gotten any run support in at least half the games he started, he would have won 17 or 18 games easily. He was pulled many times in the 5th or 6th inning after only giving up 2 or 3 runs, and his team had scored 0 runs. He was pulled mainly because his team was behind, and his at bat was due to come to the plate, and he is not like Martinez or Wainwright, who are decent hitting starting pitchers. In the AL, that is not an issue.
I think it’s safe to say that Lynn and Cobb will be signing somewhere other than Baltimore. Probably with a winning team.
I’m an Orioles fan – have a gut feeling we get a few groundball pitchers like Chatwood, Cashner, that American guy from the Japan league, and the guy who pitched for Yankees and Twins this year. All of em getting 8 to 10mil per year for 2 years. Yippee.
As much as I would love to see the O’s sign Lynn, I don’t think he can help the team win the AL East or even catapult them into the WC alone. The O’s need at least one Ace. Arrieta is not coming back, but maybe Darvish? Darvish, Lynn and an innings eater for the back of the rotation would put the O’s close. The offense is good enough.
Im not an O’s fan but from outside seems like O’s are caught in between. They have a few stars but not enough else esp pitching to win enuf to be truly competitive. Couple that with FO decisions to sign players with QO that costs O’s picks over last several years has stunted their ability to stock farm.
Signing guys with QO’s has done little to nothing for the orioles farm system. We’ve only signed gallardo who required giving up a draft pick. And obviously guys like Davis who we signed back after rejecting the QO, instead of receiving compensation. Our farm system has improved a good deal over the last few years. The only thing stunting our farm system growth is the lack of spending in the international market. The draft is going just fine.
Darvish? No thanks. I’d rather sign Cobb and Lynn for the money you’d have to send darvish’s way. Darvish is not an ace and the postseason showed that. Didn’t trust the guy to go 6 innings. No shot either one of the scenario plays out anyway. That’s a pipe dream. Lynn cashner and Chatwood or Garcia would be a hell of an off-season for the orioles. That’s the most you can hope for and even that is probably pushing it.
This is a croc the O’s will go after lower tiered less expensive pitchers
I honestly think Cobb ends up with the cubs, It makes too much sense there. He will be back with joe maddon and jim hickey.
Please take him off the board so the twins don’t overpay for a guy like him and then try to tell fans they’re done shopping for pitching.
Poor Orioles fans. Hope they don’t get fooled with this propaganda. Angelos only shops in the nearly expired Free Agent section. February’s scraps he picks up for “cheap.” Recipe to never sustain winning. Working since he took over. But hey they overpaid for Adderall Davis
Imagine having Lance Lynn pitch for 6 innings every game and then handing the ball off to the Orioles bullpen. It’d be terrific!