Santander ended up signing a five-year deal with the Blue Jays that included big deferrals.
The Orioles made a three-year contract offer to Anthony Santander, apparently last month some time before he signed with the Blue Jays. That’s according to Santander himself, who spoke to The Baltimore Sun’s Matt Weyrich for an article that published today. “They made an offer that we didn’t like,” he said. Santander ultimately signed a five-year contract with the Jays that when factoring in deferrals counts as almost $70 million guaranteed.
The Athletic’s 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. 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.
This is an interesting bit of reporting to think about. 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’Neill? It would have made more sense if the Orioles pursued Santander early and once that didn’t come together quickly, they pivoted to O’Neill and that was that. Had this come from a random rumor-monger, I wouldn’t have believed it. Santander himself is the source in this case.
The timing of all of this is such that Santander’s consideration of shorter deals happened before the Orioles had added either Dylan Carlson or Ramón Laureano into their outfield mix. Santander signing would have almost certainly precluded the later addition of Laureano, although even that’s 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.
A re-signing of Santander would have tipped the “They’ve really got to trade Heston Kjerstad now, don’t they?” meter off the readable scale. For now, there’s at least the idea that he could play a decent amount even though the Orioles have apparently promised most games starting to O’Neill. That promise itself is puzzling given O’Neill’s career splits suggesting him as more of a “only against lefties” bat, but they’re not paying O’Neill like a platoon player. O’Neill isn’t talking like one either.
As for Kjerstad, there is just no way you could squeeze him in at the beginning of the season with O’Neill and Santander in the way. At first base/designated hitter, lefty batter Ryan O’Hearn is in the mix as well. Maybe the Orioles would have just had Kjerstad in the minors until the inevitable O’Neill injury. It would have been weird. I’m surprised the Orioles even made an offer of any sort at that stage of the offseason.
Would the Orioles have been better off making different choices than they did? The health and performance of O’Neill, Santander, and Kjerstad as this season and possibly the next two seasons play out will point towards a probable answer. We will only ever know for sure what flows from the choices that they did make, which was signing O’Neill 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.