Baltimore Orioles mull over Mark Reynolds as deadline looms - MLB News
The Baltimore Orioles are facing a Friday deadline to tender player’s contracts. Amongst the names the Orioles have to consider, the most important is Mark Reynolds. The Orioles declined his $11 million option on October 31, 2012.
The first baseman played with the Orioles for two seasons with reasonable success. In the 2012 season, Reynolds posted a batting average of .221 and a .335 on-base percentage. His 69 RBI’s and 23 home-runs certainly carried a lot of value for the team.
Dan Duquette, the executive vice president of the baseball operations for the Orioles has a liking to the skills Mark has to offer but did not like the option the club had on the right-handed hitter.
Dan believes that brining Mark back will be helpful for the ball club. However, if that did not happen, the club has enough resources to fill the spot from within the house. “If we don’t bring back Mark Reynolds, I know we have some people in-house that
are very capable of doing the job,” Duquette said.
He primarily was at first base and did a decent job defensively at the position in the 2012 season. He managed 926 put-outs along with 40 assists and committed five errors, posting a very acceptable .995 fielding percentage. His short stint at third base,
however, was a horror show as he committed six errors in a mere 40 chances, posting a fielding percentage of .850.
Should the Orioles offer arbitration to Mark, he will draw a better salary in 2013 than he did in 2012. He is one of the 14 arbitration eligible players in the Orioles this year. The Baltimore team also has other options at first base in the shape of Chris
Davis and Wilson Betemit.
Reynolds himself has expressed his desire to stay in Baltimore. If he is non-tendered, he can still return to the ball club as a free agent, under a completely new deal. If he is tendered, it is expected that he will make something around $9 million in salary.
The one issue that Orioles may face if they stick with Mark is that he will probably be playing as a first baseman only and will not be able to make an adjustment in the field if needed. He can be used as a designated hitter but he appears to be unhappy
with the idea.
Whether the O’s will go with Mark Reynolds or not is yet to be seen. He has both his pros and cons and the ball club will have to give it a serious thought whether his strong batting is enough to win him a ticket to the 2013 season despite his relatively
one-dimensional fielding abilities. It will eventually all come down to the strategy the management makes and how they wish to go about it.
Tags: