Baltimore Orioles set to submit arbitration salaries ahead of Friday deadline

Today is the deadline for MLB teams and arbitration-eligible players to file salary figures for 2019 – here’s how it could play out for the Baltimore Orioles

The Baltimore Orioles have just three arbitration-eligible players on the roster heading into 2019: Dylan Bundy, Mychal Givens, and Jonathan Villar.

Heading into a full-scale rebuild, the Orioles are crunching payroll as tight as possible this year. How that will affect the figures they offer to Bundy, Givens and Villar remains to be seen.

MLB Trade Rumors released their projected arbitration salary figures early in October, and none of the aforementioned Orioles will command much. Villar is projected to make $4.4 million, while Bundy and Givens were projected at $3 million and $2 million, respectively.

2019 will be the first year of arbitration for Bundy, who to this point in his career has the expectations of an ace, with the statistics of a back-end rotation guy.

Now 26, Bundy has a career 4.63 ERA in 452.2 innings. He has passable strike-out rates but has allowed far too much hard contact and is currently pitching in front of one of the worst defenses in the majors.

Bundy made $1.64 million in 2018 and had a dismal season, leading the league in home-runs allowed while completely falling apart in the second half. $3 million is probably fair, though I can see the Orioles offering in the $2.6 million range – it’s tough to see him getting much more than that.

Like Bundy, 2019 will be Mychal Givens’ first year of arbitration eligibility. He had a mostly effective season in 2018 while making the league minimum.

Givens pitched to a 3.99 ERA in 76.2 innings last year, and he saved 9 games. Arbitration judges are generally preferential to traditional statistics like home-runs, runs batted in, and saves.

Though Givens was the Orioles’ closer for much of the second half last year, the O’s didn’t provide him with many save opportunities, and he finished with just 9. That, coupled with him posting the worst numbers in his four years at the major league level will deflate his 2019 salary.

$2 million feels a bit low for a pitcher with Givens’ skill-set, but consider that he’s heading into his age-29 season and coming off a down year. Givens won’t get more than $3 million.

Villar feels like a wild-card here. He made $2.55 million last year in his first year of arbitration and is projected to make $4.4 million in 2019.

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In 2016, his age-25 season, Villar hit 19 homers and stole 62 bases with a 120 wRC+. He fell off significantly in 2017 but rebounded nicely in 2018, finishing with a .260/.325/.384 line with 35 steals and a 94 wRC+.

Steamer projects Villar for 1.3 fWAR, good for third on the Orioles behind Renato Nunez and Cedric Mullins, though it doesn’t take much to see Villar becoming the Orioles’ best hitter in 2019.

I might be high-man on Villar, but $4.4 million seems right – it’s roughly double his 2018 salary. It feels like he should be in the $6 million range, but when he joined the Orioles last year, things were dire. Villar’s results were average; it’s just that we didn’t have anyone close to average in Baltimore last year, so he looked better than he actually was.

As it stands, the Orioles are just over $51 million in total payroll for 2019, $21 million of which is tied into Chris Davis‘ contract. At most, it seems that the Orioles will add $10 million with arbitration salaries, pushing them barely past $60 million.

It’s a steep drop-off from where we’ve seen the Orioles operate. As recently as 2017, the Orioles had a $175 million payroll. But for the next few years, the O’s won’t come close to that figure.

Next. Tanner Scott is poised for a break-out in 2019. dark

The Orioles won’t be afraid to spend money in the right places, but for now, especially with these three guys, their offers will be on the low side as they look to build organizational depth and a winning culture in Baltimore.

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