Not too much going on in the contract front with spring training starting and games only a few days away, but it seems the dregs of the AL East the Baltimore O's signed one of their few all-stars to a long term deal, and I can't help to wonder why they did it. Roberts, 32 is certainly deserving of some recompense for his work on this crappy team the last few years, being one of the few shining stars there these days, but he's on the wrong side of 30 and for a team that is really years from competing it doesn't make sense.
As I said Roberts has given the O's a great deal of value with his bat, especially from second base, giving them speed and power giving them a .296/.378/.450 line with 40 stolen bases, not bad numbers at all and certainly deserving of his all star nomination this past year, his second for his career. But giving a 31 year old second baseman a 4 year 40 million dollar deal is indeed curious when you look at the rest of the team. While the team is emerging with a great deal of young talent, whether that be the ultra-talented outfield of adam jones, nick markakis and felix pie, or the up and coming matt weiters, the stud catching prospect who is expecting to be up sometime this season, its no where near ready to compete. Aside from former Indian castoff Jeremy Guthrie they have very little starting pitching, and their bullpen is equally unimpressive. Indeed, if this last postseason showed us anything pitching wins championships and Baltimore just isn't there yet.
In my opinon, they were much better served trading the guy for prospects and continuing building. While he is one of the few name guys on that team, someone you can put on your billboards, thats not really going to help their long term success. Yes he's a valuable player, but premium offense at second base is a luxury, good pitching is not. If you can improve yourself where it matters, namely pitching depth, you have to do it, and Baltimore really missed the boat here. He'll probably help them sell a few more seats and win a game or two more but its not really going to matter, they're still going to be looking up at the bottom of the AL this year and for years to come, and a move like this is not going to change that.
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