Trade gives glimpse of offers for stars

Schoop agrees to deal with Twins for one year

Baseball’s hot stove season, especially when the Orioles aren’t involved, is an occasion to compare what other teams are doing now to what the Orioles could have done in the past.

But this month, it’s not the salarydriven trade of Robinson Cano to the NewYork Mets and the flawed notion that it could be compared to Chris Davis’ situation that’s worthy of local attention. Instead, Wednesday’s fourplayer trade that sent Diamondbacks star Paul Goldschmidt to the St. Louis Cardinals for three prospects harks back to last year’s attempt by the Orioles to trade infielder Manny Machado with one year of club control and is the biggest case of what could have been.

This time last year, then-executive vice president Dan Duquette was taking offers at baseball’s Winter Meetings for Machado’s services a year out from free agency, testing the market for a trade that some felt was overdue for the first time. Machado was coming off a relatively down year that included a first-half swoon and a second-half rebound, and while the Orioles were all ears and ultimately got multiple offers for Machado, they ended up holding onto him.

Duquette decided to instead build on the team’s only significant need — its rotation — and hold onto Machado, though there was a sense that some of the offers were satisfying enough if he could have gotten the deal approved at the highest levels of the organization.

Whenthe season tanked, Duquette dealt Machado to the Los Angeles Dodgers for five players — outfielder Yusniel Díaz, right-hander Dean Kremer, infielder Rylan Bannon, reliever Zach Pop, and infielder Breyvic Valera — at the All-Star break in July.

While it’s hard to glean whether that’s better or worse than the offers they got in December for Machado, the Orioles were then asking for two high-end, controllable starting pitchers a la the Jason Heyward trade to the Cardinals in 2014. Not only was that a fair ask, but that was their glaring need at the time — the high minors were light on starting pitching, and the rotation at the time returned only Kevin Gausman and Dylan Bundy.

The offers then never became public, yet when the Cardinals traded right-hander Luke Weaver, catcher Carson Kelly and infielder Andy Young to the Diamondbacks Wednesday for Goldschmidt, it became natural to look back on what the Orioles might have gotten for Machado last year — and whether they came out ahead.

Comparing the two requires the situations to be assessed reasonably — Arizona has a better farm system than the Orioles did at the time, especially at the top. They’re light on pitchers, but that’s where Weaver, the former first-round pick who topped out as the No. 50 prospect in Baseball America’s top-100 in 2017 comes in. He had a 4.95 ERA in 2018, but is still just 25 and reached the majors quickly.

Kelly, too, was a high pick (second round in 2012) who entered 2018 as Baseball America’s No. 55 prospect but has a .154 career batting average despite his strong defense behind the plate. Young hit .289 with 21 home runs over two levels in 2018.

Add in the competitive balance round B draft pick the Diamondbacks got, and it’s a fine haul for one year of Goldschmidt. But that type of package might not have been one that enticed the Orioles, not with how thin the top of their farm system has been and the variety of needs they have in the minors.

Schoop agrees to deal with Twins: Former Orioles All-Star second baseman Jonathan Schoop will look to rebuild his value after a disastrous 2017 in Baltimore and Milwaukee after agreeing to a one-year, $7.5 million contract with the Minnesota Twins.

Schoop's deal would allow him to earn a $100,000 performance bonus for reaching 600 plate appearances, plus additional award bonuses. He was an All-Star in 2017 when he hit .293 with 32 home runs with 105 RBIs, all career highs for the Orioles.

He was traded to Milwaukee last summer before the non-waiver deadline and became a free agent last week, when the Brewers declined to offer him a 2019 contract rather than allow him to be eligible for salary arbitration. Schoop made $8.5 million in 2018.