The Baltimore Orioles need an outfielder to replace the departed Nick Markakis, and they’ve been inquiring about two intriguing players – free agent Colby Rasmus and current Dodger Andre Ethier. MASN’s Roch Kubatko reports that Rasmus is the far more likely option, largely because of Ethier’s ridiculous contract with Los Angeles.
Manager Buck Showalter met with Rasmus yesterday, according to a source, and returned home last night. As I’ve written, he wanted to form his own opinion in the same way that he did with Delmon Young, Nelson Cruz and Alfredo Aceves.
Rasmus is willing to accept a one-year deal – my guess is he could get $7 million from the Orioles – and re-enter the free agent market next winter. He’s gambling on himself. It worked for Cruz and others this winter.
[…]
The strikes against Ethier, who turns 33 in April, include a contract that contains three more years at $53.5 million and a $17.5 vesting option for 2018 with a $2.5 million buyout. The better the player that the Orioles would surrender, the more money the Dodgers might be willing to absorb.
Kubatko also reports that Baltimore has kicked the tires on Nori Aoki and has been linked to Ichiro Suzuki.
Though he’s far from an ideal player, Rasmus is probably the best option for Baltimore, given the depleted crop of free agent outfielders on the market right now. On a one-year deal similar to the one given to Nelson Cruz last offseason, Rasmus could be an above average value for the Orioles.
He was disappointing in 2014 with Toronto, hitting .225/.287/.445 with 18 homers, four stolen bases, and some ugly looking advanced defensive statistics in center field. A year ago, Rasmus had a much better season, blistering the ball to a .276/.338/.501 line with 22 homers and a strikeout rate much lower than the career-worst mark he put together in 2014.
Rasmus isn’t a perfect player – he strikes out an obscene amount (124 times in 376 plate appearances in 2014) and isn’t great versus southpaws (.195/.293/.391 last season). But he *is* a better option than Ethier, who is simply not good.
Ethier is four years older than Rasmus, a worse overall player (.249/.322/.370 with only four homers in 2014), and is owed $54.5 million over the next three seasons. I’m sure Andrew Friedman and Farhan Zaidi would love to dump his contract on the Orioles, but Baltimore would likely balk at paying that much money for a guy who has hit more than a dozen homers once over the past four seasons and is on the downside of his career. The platoon issues the Orioles would face with Rasmus also exist with Ethier – his career line against southpaws is just .235/.294/.348.
Needless to say, neither solution is really ideal. But if the decision really ends up being Rasmus for 1/$8, Ethier for 3/$53.5 (with that numbers likely going down, depending on the quality of prospect the Orioles would give up), or the departed Markakis for 4/$44…Colby Rasmus is looking pretty damn good, isn’t he?
[MASN]
