Buck Showalter announced last night that Chris Davis would be designated to the 15 Day DL in the upcoming days. However, there were interesting comments made by Buck Showalter during his post game interview. At 4:50, Buck drops the bomb and the media instantly silence and begin tweeting out in mass. However, its interesting to see Buck fill in that dead space and the comments that are made.
When he brings up the point of them bringing up someone, Buck uses the collective “They” several during this process. It’s interesting that he does not use the pronoun “We” as if Buck is distancing himself from the situation. He knows there are several cogs working right now and this is not as simple as bringing one player up form the Minors to fill in for Davis on the DL.
He also states that he knows what the MRI states, but is unwilling to discuss it further as to not show their hand. This is strange because if it was simply going to be a two week stint, Buck would have had already disclosed that with the DL announcement. This could lead to two assumptions being that the recovery period is going to be much longer and that the Orioles may be making a move to fill in for Davis.
He also brings up the off-days as being of benefit in this process as they might not need to call someone up right away. If that’s the case, the Orioles could be using the 25 man roster and 40 man roster to their benefit with the number of off-days in order to arrange a big move. With off-days coming up on Monday, Thursday, and the following Monday it was an interesting statement made by Buck when making this announcement.
Looking through Norfolk and the minors, there is no clear 1B option for the Orioles. Ike Davis currently has been traded to Pirates and former players like Travis Ishikawa, Wilson Betemit, and Mark Reynolds are all unavailable after being signed to contracts.
The one player that most fans will bring up with be Kendrys Morales. As of three days ago, Jon Heyman had reported the Orioles had serious talks with him. It would be interesting to sign Morales and use him as 1B/DH option in the near future. Even if he were to come off the bench once Davis returned, he would be a significant upgrade over Steve Pearce who started with the team.
Are the Orioles going to sign Kendrys Morales? Maybe. Right now is likely the best chance for any team unless Morales is firm on waiting it out until after the MLB Draft.
Unless Davis is going to be out a while (i.e. over a month), signing Morales probably wouldn’t be worth it. And outside of pinch hitting, he’d have no value coming off the bench because he can’t play anywhere except first base. Not to mention having Morales would force the Orioles to play Cruz in left field. No offense to Cruz, but I like his bat infinitely more than I like his glove, if you catch my drift.