Jones all but certain to play somewhere else next season

During the course of the Orioles’ disastrous 2018 season, it became increasingly apparent that cornerstone center fielder and de facto team captain Adam Jones was destined to become a free agent.

In the end, there was no one around to prevent it.

Jones and every other player eligible for auction on the open market this winter officially entered that market on Monday, though players cannot sign with new teams until five days after the end of the World Series.

Their original teams get that exclusive window to make final overtures to players they want to retain, but it’s almost unheard of for any player who has come

this far to forgo the opportunity to find out what he’s really worth.

Jones said at Orioles Fanfest way back in January that he was looking forward to seeing who might pursue him if the Orioles didn’t. Now, he’ll get to find out.

If that was just an early attempt at public negotiation, it did not have the desired effect. The Orioles made no serious attempt to extend his expiring contract during the season and now the front office is in a holding pattern while ownership decides who to put in permanent charge of baseball operations.

There was always a case to be made for keeping Jones around during the rebuild, but the Orioles also need to open up playing time for the next generation of young outfielders.

Where he will end up is anyone’s guess. He vetoed a trade to the Philadelphia Phillies while they were still in playoff contention because he felt they would not keep him in a full-time role, so it’s fair to assume he’ll hold out for a team that will promise him140-plus games in right field or center.

He might be waiting awhile regardless if baseball owners double down on last year’s apparent free agent freeze and keep the bulk of the available veteran players at arm’s length until very late in this offseason.

Perhaps the possibility exists that the incoming GM — whoever that might be — will want more of a veteran presence on the developing roster, but it appears that the direction of the club was set when ownership allowed now-departed baseball operations chief Dan Duquette to oversee the midseason tear down and choose the young players the O’s got in return for their established stars.

Nationally, there will be much more interest in Manny Machado and Bryce Harper, of course, but they also could find themselves waiting until January to see if they can fulfill years of predictions that they will both stretch the top end of baseball’s salary scale. Kline added to 40-man roster: Orioles right-hander Branden Kline missed almost three full years due to elbow surgery and the ensuing complications, but his comeback as a hard-throwing reliever in 2018 was rewarded Tuesday as the team selected his contract from Double-A Bowie and added him to the major league roster.

Kline, a Frederick native, was set to be a minor league free agent after completing his sixth full minor league season after the Orioles selected him in the second round of the 2012 draft out of Virginia. Kline was on the verge of a breakout year in the Bowie rotation in 2015 when he first hurt his elbow, and after surgery that fall, needed two cleanup procedures to get him back to full health on the mound.

Once he did that this season, first in the Frederick bullpen and then in Bowie, Kline was nearly unhittable. He struck out 23 in 201⁄ innings with a 1.31 ERA for the Keys, allowed two runs in his first outing in Bowie, then didn’t have another multi-run outing all year. With a fastball that ran up to 97 mph along with a pair of wipeout secondary pitches in his slider and changeup, Kline struck out 48 in 45 innings with a 1.80 ERA and a 1.04 WHIP at Bowie.

A popular figure among the organization’s homegrown pitchers at every level for his perseverance through injuries and his positive personality, many Orioles pitchers had hoped Kline would join the club in September when rosters expanded. However, the Orioles decided his 65 innings after so long a layoff were enough, and waited until the offseason to add him to the roster.

Had his contract not been selected, Kline would have become a minor league free agent by Friday at 5 p.m., making him free to sign with any team — and there would have been plenty of suitors. If the Orioles simply just re-signed him to a minor league contract, as they did with left-hander Chris Lee and infielder Ryan Ripken earlier this season, he would still have been required to be added to the 40-man roster by the end of November to protect him from the Rule 5 draft. They had an open 40-man roster spot when Jones became a free agent.

As it stands, the Orioles also need to add right-hander Dillon Tate in the next month to keep him from the Rule 5 draft, with several of the other players who fit that category, like right-hander Luis Ortiz, already added in September.

The Orioles also announced that 16-yearold outfielder J’Rudjeanon Isenia of Curacao signed as an international free agent. Isenia, whose signing was reported as part of their initial wave of additions in August, signed for $125,000.