J.J. Hardy has been the Orioles’ best player this season. There’s very little question surrounding that; it should basically be taken as fact at this point in the season even though he missed a month with a strained oblique muscle. Acquired this past winter for a couple of random relievers (why were the Twins so eager to give up Hardy for seemingly nothing?), Hardy has put up a .307/.369/.547 line this year, which is awfully valuable at the shortstop position. The Orioles have now made contact with Hardy’s representation about a possible extension to presumably bridge the gap to Manny Machado.
And Hardy has partially put to rest the idea floating around in my head that any player’s ability turns to dust once he puts on an Orioles uniform. For that, he deserves a nice round of applause. Or a small trophy. Anyhow, Baltimore Orioles J.J. Hardy has rediscovered Milwaukee Brewers J.J. Hardy, only he’s better now. There are a handful of ways the situation surrounding the 28-year-old slick fielding shortstop could unfold by the July 31 trading deadline and beyond. Here are four options with Hardy:
A.) Lock up Hardy to whatever terms necessary in order to bridge the gap at shortstop to top prospect Manny Machado. It would be a seamless transition and the Orioles would have quality play at the shortstop position until Machado arrives, and fans wouldn’t have to suffer through an entire year of Robert Andino playing shortstop in 2012. If it means giving Hardy some incentive to stay as far as extra dollars or years than the team would prefer, do it.
B.) Try to lock up Hardy to a team-friendly deal (in the area of two years, $15 million), but if he doesn’t accept it, deal Hardy for prospects.
C.) The Orioles are no where close to competing in the American League East, so the best move is to trade Hardy — the team’s best trade chip — for the best package of prospects available at the deadline. Hardy’s value is as high as it’s going to get and there’s no reason to be even entertaining an extension.
D.) Hold onto Hardy for the rest of the season, offer him arbitration and take the two draft picks as compensation this winter. Hardy will almost certainly be a Type A free agent.
Those are the Orioles’ options. My thoughts? Let’s get to it.
The problem with Option A is that Hardy will probably want at least a three or four year deal to ink an extension since the free agent waters would probably treat him quite well this winter. Hardy is currently producing at a high level with the bat at a premium defensive position, so the Orioles would have to compensate him quite well in terms of dollars and years for him not to test free agency.
The Orioles are not in a position to be committing any sort of significant dollar figures and years to many contracts at this point. It’s probably best to save that cash until the organization is actually competitive rather than spend a lot of money on a player that most certainly will not be on the next winning Orioles team. (In the meantime, dump that cash into the draft and international market.) And all teams, no matter what position they’re in, should be extremely wary of giving Hardy more than two years given his injury history.
(Side note: If the Orioles were to stupidly give Hardy a four-year deal, what happens when Machado comes up anyway? It’s not like Hardy, upon signing an extension, is going to agree to move to second or third base once the hot-shot prospect comes up. Hardy will want to stay at shortstop for as long as he can, as he should.)
The problem with Option B is that Hardy will probably not accept any team-friendly contract offer. Coming off two injury-plagued years in Milwaukee and Minnesota, Hardy might have signed a team-friendly two-year extension in March or April. But not now, when his value is sky high. Some team desperate for a shortstop will give him as many as five years this winter and hope that three of those five years turn out to be the slick fielding and power-hitting J.J. Hardy we see this season. And they’ll hope he doesn’t get injured too much (but he probably will).
The problem with Option C is that Baltimore management might not be planning to have a terribly busy July because they’ve outlined a bizarre and misguided attempt to finish .500 (Twitter tag: #thequestfor500) and have therefore hindered the development of young talent (i.e. signing Vladimir Guerrero, which effectively blocked the promising Nolan Reimold, a possible piece for the future who also happens to be one of the team’s better hitters right now). If the front office remains as staunch in their attempt to get to .500, they might not want to trade away their useful veteran pieces (Hardy, Jeremy Guthrie, Luke Scott, Koji Uehara) for prospects that could pay dividends down the line.
Daniel Moroz of Camden Crazies lays out the reasons step-by-step of how this quest for .500 has manifested itself this year and will probably continue to do so in July here.
The problem with Option D is that if the Orioles don’t trade him, the draft picks resulting in Hardy leaving may not be as good as a package of prospects that a team desperate for a shortstop is willing to give up at the trade deadline.
Quite frankly, I don’t trust the front office all that much anymore due to incredible shortsightedness (signing Guerrero), lack of activity internationally (detailed here), lack of innovation and creativity (there seems to be very little effort to do business in ways no one else is, like finding the next market inefficiencies and exploiting them), and just plain idiocy (handing out multi-year deals to relievers in consecutive off-seasons). So I’m not terribly entrusting of Andy MacPhail and the people who surround him to do the correct thing in terms of Hardy’s situation.
What would I do? I’d offer him a team-friendly extension, just on the off chance that he accepts it. (After all, if Toronto’s Yunel Escobar agreed to a two year, $10 million extension with two club option years, maybe Hardy would agree to a two year, $15 million offer.) But chances are that Hardy and his representation will want as many as four years, as they should. I’d then trade him to the team offering the best package of prospects for him, assuming I believe that package is more valuable than two additional draft picks next June would be.
Check out Dave Cameron’s speculation on how the Orioles and Cincinnati could make a deal work involving Hardy here. I personally don’t have much idea on what two months of J.J. Hardy could bring back in a trade, but check out Cameron’s piece.
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Hopefully, we can re-sign J.J. Even if it causes a little bit of overlap with him and Machado, I feel like he’s definitely worth the shuffling. For the last few years, we’ve had terrible players at short, who not only are not as great of fielders as Hardy, but they also can’t produce at the plate like he can. Hardy has been a rare bright spot for the O’s this season, especially after having to watch player after player botch games for us at short. Lock him up. We should be more willing to get rid of other players despite their value not being as high as Hardy’s.