General Sports Water Cooler

Anybody who is cheap and productive is someone we need to keep, not trade. Strop would be one of the few guys in that category I would consider trading.

The two things that should be done immediately is locking up Buck long-term/retaining the coaching staff and giving Wieters a 6-year extension. Then we can go from there.

do you guys see Flaherty as a career utility guy?

after we move macho to SS (sooner the better), how about giving Flaherty a go at 3b?

I wouldn't have thought this plausible but he has shown power.

Flaherty came on a little at the end of the year, but SSS and all that. I think he's a career utility guy, and I don't think his D is good enough to play 3rd on a regular basis. Wouldn't be surprised to see him start off in Norfolk next year.

what kind of money is Nate going to command?

question:
how long does it take for the ticket refunds to go through? Im still havent been credited for the tiebreaker tickets

I think service time will play a lot in to it as well.. O's have plenty of depth, so he's either going to come in as a top 2 in the rotation or in AAA

Reynolds at .800+ OPS with plus D might be worth $11M in this marketplace. His track record says this year was not the norm. Who knows? Hopefully they do something like 2 for $16M with a club option.

Reynolds was awful late, but I'm wondering how hurt he was. He took 3 or 4 shots, whether by HBP or foul ball, that looked pretty bad. He was beat up.

Reynolds was heating up when he started getting drilled. I think his track record says he'll have a better year in 2013. Hardy as well.

If Wieters is planning on playing the same amount of games next season, Teagarden is fine.

I'm not sure we should want that though.

Same with AJ.

This.

Reynolds found a home at First base and in Baltimore.

I think the plan will be very similar to this season. He'll start the year at Bowie or Norfolk pitching 3 innings a game for the first few starts and slowly building up his innings limit. That way come June/July he'll be ready for Baltimore with no restrictions and no need to shut him down late in September/October.

Some thoughts:

- I want at least two SP added to the roster. Whether that's through FA or trade doesn't matter to me. The SP market in FA is pretty strong. I'd be a very happy man with Anibal Sanchez but he may end up getting more than he's worth due to some of the top arms re-upping with their team.

- Ideally we bring Reynolds back for less money but I don't think picking up his 11M option is that big of a deal. Reynolds lost weight last offseason to try and make himself a better 3B and I think that may have impacted his hitting this year. I'm curious as to whether or not he'll add that weight back this offseason since he's no longer playing 3B. He actually cut down his K% for the third time in three years, down to under 30% for the first time in his career. He also posted his 2nd highest BB% of his career. If there's one stat that really stands out to me it's that Reynolds HR/FB% was the lowest of his career since his rookie season, down over 4% from last year.

- If we're bringing back Reynolds and McLouth than I'm not sure there's a spot on this team for Davis. Reimold should be healthy, Betemit will be back and is ideally platooning at DH and you have Hoes sitting at Norfolk. Davis' contract situation is very team friendly which makes him a very attractive trade chip. I love the guy but if we can flip him for a 2B or a SP than I'm all for moving him.

- I'll repeat again that trading Hardy this offseason would be foolish. You'd be hard pressed to find someone as valuable as Hardy is to this team. He's one of the best defenders in the game at SS, if not the best. What he contributes with his bat is just gravy. He's also coming off of one of his worst offensive seasons so what you would get for him now is less than what you'd likely get for him in July or next offseason.

- Backup C is something DD needs to upgrade. We can't continue to run Wieters out there as much as we do and I'm not sure the workload isn't negatively affecting his workload.

- It's going to be interesting to see how the finances work this offseason, not just the O's but for all of MLB. There's a huge influx of cash with the new TV deals signed by MLB, as well as all the RSN deals being signed by teams. The Orioles have also seen a big influx from ticket sales, merchandise sales and MASN. I'll be very interested to see where our payroll is come ST.