Brian Roberts in pinstripes. That will take some getting used to.
Can you imagine hearing John Sterling say “Jeter flips to Roberts”? Ugh. I feel sick.
I’ll have to get used to it though. Roberts days in Baltimore are over as he signed a one-year, $2 million deal with the New York Yankees. MASNSports.com’s Roch Kubatko tweeted that Roberts was ready to move on from Baltimore and never gave the Orioles a chance to match the offer he received from the Yankees.
Also, from everything I'm hearing, Roberts never gave #Orioles chance to match NYY offer. He clearly was ready to move on.
— Roch Kubatko (@masnRoch) December 17, 2013
I’m certainly surprised that Roberts and his agent didn’t at least reach out to Dan Duquette to see if the team he spent 13 seasons with was interested in bringing him back. Perhaps they thought the Orioles are content with their options (Jemile Weeks and Ryan Flaherty) at second base.
I don’t know. I can’t make any sense of this offseason. The O’s biggest acquisition this winter has been a closer and Gavin Floyd apparently turned down two-year, $20 million offer from Baltimore to sign a one-year, $4 million contract with the Braves.
You try and figure this winter out.
To play Devil’s Advocate, isn’t it possible that Roberts felt that he had given the club ample time to make an offer, and that he was rankled by the fact that it looked like the Orioles were moving on without hearing anything from them?
Their public stance was that Roberts was an afterthought. Might explain his comfort level with moving on when he got another offer.
Still wish he would have gone to another club…
Here’s what I find funny.
I’ve already heard fans grumbling about “signing a 36 year old reliever”, but those same fans are outraged that we let a “36 year old second baseman” go.
Signing Balfour does nothing for the real holes in this team – starting pitching, LF, DH, 2B – but signing Roberts wouldn’t have been a real fix either.
He is the #1 option to start in NY (for now). That is not anywhere close to a given in Baltimore. I don’t blame him one bit. He did what he had to do. Good luck to B-Rob, minus the 19 times we have to face him.