The long, drawn-out saga has finally come to an end. Mark Trumbo will be a Baltimore Oriole next season. The club agreed to a three-year, $37.5 million deal with the slugger on Thursday, as first reported by Jon Heyman.
Trumbo, O's have agreement at 37.5M/3
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) January 19, 2017
At first glance, this deal is an absolute win for the Orioles. They’ll be getting last season’s Major League Baseball leader in home runs for just over $12 million per year. Considering that Trumbo was reportedly asking for as much as $80 million at one point, this deal has to be looked at as a steal.
The main reason for Trumbo’s asking price declining so rapidly had to be a weak free agent market. The slugger never garnered much interest outside of Baltimore, at least not at the salary that he was asking for. So at a reduced price, he’ll be back with the Orioles in 2017.
The sudden deal also is interesting considering where the two sides were just weeks ago. The Orioles reportedly pulled their original, four-year, $52-$55 million offer to Trumbo after he continued to ask for more.
Trumbo now follows in the footsteps of his fellow slugger, Chris Davis. Baltimore pulled an offer off the table from Davis last offseason before finally coming to terms on a deal with him as well.
Davis, however, received a big, $161 million deal. Trumbo’s $37.5 million won’t exactly break the bank for Baltimore — as they gear up to re-sign Manny Machado to a massive contract in 2019 — especially considering that he was asking for upwards of $80 million earlier in the offseason.
From an on-the-field standpoint, this deal obviously does nothing but help Baltimore as well. While Trumbo doesn’t do a whole lot besides slugging home runs, that is a major part of the Baltimore offense.
With Trumbo returning and joining an offensive core of Machado, Davis, Adam Jones and Jonathan Schoop, the Orioles should have no issues scoring runs once again in 2017.
Troy Mauriello is a Staff Writer at Outside Pitch MLB. You can follow him on Twitter @TroyMauriello and contact him by email at troy.mauriello@yahoo.com.
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