Baltimore Orioles talk hitters at Nashville Winter Meetings - MLB News
The Baltimore Orioles are focused on adding a middle of the order hitter to their ranks and preferably through the trade route. The team discussed trade possibilities with several clubs and was in contact with a few free agents as well during the Winter
Meetings that kicked off in Nashville, Tennessee.
Dan Duquette, the executive vice president of baseball operations for the Orioles stated that they had more funds to invest in players this time around. He believed that the players have earned their raises and have performed well for the team.
"We have to fund an additional $22 million in salary raises," Duquette said. "The good news is those players are going to be on our roster and they earned the money by having good years."
He also said that the players will understand that if they perform well for the ball club, they will be reaping rewards for their good work. "So I think it's important for people to focus on, the team is paying the players the money that are producing for
the ballclub," said Dan.
The executive vice president was confident that the ball club has enough in the way of money to field a competitive team in the 2013 season and with the rejuvenated fans support, they can afford to be aggressive in their pursuits. He was also glad that the
team was much more connected to the fans after the successful 2012 season.
Dan also commented that the pitching unit was full and perhaps with surplus resources as well, both in opening pitcher and reliever departments. There was no immediate search for more pitching arms.
"We think we have accumulated some solid pitching depth and there's a surplus of starting pitching and surplus of relievers on the roster," Duquette said. "So that's not an immediate need. But we need to fill out our ballclub. We need to fill out our lineup."
The pitchers could well be used for the trade purposes, particularly someone like Jim Johnson who had over 50 saves last season and is expected to draw some interest.
Orioles’ payroll is expected to be around $85-90 million. The team has been careful in spending on the players previously but they may have more aggressive pursuit of highly valuable players as hinted by Dan Duquette this time. It will be interesting to
see who they go about filling their line-up this winter.
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