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<\/p>\nThe Orioles made a three-year contract offer to Anthony Santander, apparently last month some time before he signed with the Blue Jays.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s according to Santander himself, who spoke to The Baltimore Sun\u2019s Matt Weyrich for an article that published today.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey made an offer that we didn\u2019t like,\u201d he said. Santander ultimately signed a five-year contract with the Jays that when factoring in deferrals counts as almost $70 million guaranteed.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Athletic\u2019s Ken Rosenthal reported on January 11 that Santander was open to shorter offers after having entered the offseason looking for a longer deal that probably would have paid over $100 million.<\/p>\n
After Santander signed with the Blue Jays, Rosenthal reported that the Royals had shown shorter-term interest, and so did the Angels. It seems that the Orioles engaged back in at this stage as well.<\/p>\n
This is an interesting bit of reporting to think about.<\/p>\n
An obvious question presents itself: How the heck do you even contemplate squeezing Santander onto the roster in addition to the already-signed Tyler O\u2019Neill? It would have made more sense if the Orioles pursued Santander early and once that didn\u2019t come together quickly, they pivoted to O\u2019Neill and that was that.<\/p>\n
Had this come from a random rumor-monger, I wouldn\u2019t have believed it. Santander himself is the source in this case.<\/p>\n
The timing of all of this is such that Santander\u2019s consideration of shorter deals happened before the Orioles had added either Dylan Carlson or Ram\u00f3n Laureano into their outfield mix.<\/p>\n
Santander signing would have almost certainly precluded the later addition of Laureano, although even that\u2019s making a big assumption that Colton Cowser would end up as the backup center fielder. Cowser is also a lefty batter and Mike Elias has spent the offseason putting righty batters into the lineup mix.<\/p>\n
A re-signing of Santander would have tipped the \u201cThey\u2019ve really got to trade Heston Kjerstad now, don\u2019t they?\u201d meter off the readable scale.<\/p>\n
For now, there\u2019s at least the idea that he could play a decent amount even though the Orioles have apparently promised most games starting to O\u2019Neill. That promise itself is puzzling given O\u2019Neill\u2019s career splits suggesting him as more of a \u201conly against lefties\u201d bat, but they\u2019re not paying O\u2019Neill like a platoon player. O\u2019Neill isn\u2019t talking like one either.<\/p>\n
As for Kjerstad, there is just no way you could squeeze him in at the beginning of the season with O\u2019Neill and Santander in the way. At first base\/designated hitter, lefty batter Ryan O\u2019Hearn is in the mix as well. Maybe the Orioles would have just had Kjerstad in the minors until the inevitable O\u2019Neill injury.<\/p>\n
It would have been weird. I\u2019m surprised the Orioles even made an offer of any sort at that stage of the offseason.<\/p>\n
Would the Orioles have been better off making different choices than they did? The health and performance of O\u2019Neill, Santander, and Kjerstad as this season and possibly the next two seasons play out will point towards a probable answer.<\/p>\n
We will only ever know for sure what flows from the choices that they did make, which was signing O\u2019Neill early, and sorta trying but not succeeding in signing Santander late. As fans, we can only hope that outcome is fun for our favorite baseball team and not full of regret for us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Orioles made a three-year contract offer to Anthony Santander, apparently last month some time before he signed with the Blue Jays. That\u2019s according to Santander himself,… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":36081,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb"],"yoast_head":"\n