This time around, I accurately predicted the Orioles wouldn't have the $17.2 million appetite for catcher Matt Wieters via the qualifying offer that they had last offseason for $15.8 million. But I must say, it seems to me that Wieters is not walking away from Baltimore softly into the good night.
Clearly, with catcher Caleb Joseph coming off a 2016 season in which he failed to drive in a single run, getting some production from him cannot be counted on. An early possible target could have been the recently signed Jason Castro, who the Minnesota Twins inked for three years at $24.5 million. That's an awfully big contract for pitch framing.
What that contract did was take one of the Orioles' real targets, Nick Hundley, who made $3.1 million with the Colorado Rockies last season, and turn him from a projected one-year, $4.5-5 million contract to a two-year, $11-12 million guy.
