Please feel free to skewer me if my FA numbers are completely off. That's something I've never been very good at.

Arbitration-eligible players - tender or non-tender

Of the eleven arb-eligible players, there are two that I'm choosing to non-tender. They are Brian Matusz and Ryan Flaherty. Matusz won't, in my opinion, be worth the $3.4M, and I think that Flaherty can be replaced by Paul Janish. Sure, Flaherty can hit better than Janish, but that's not to say he can hit particularly well. It seems that the bulk of the backing up in the middle infield will be for the torn-labrum'd J.J. Hardy, and I'm much more comfortable with Janish at SS than I am Flaherty. Hopefully Flaherty will be interested in signing a minor-league deal to stay in the organization.

I am not going to include Manny Machado in the arbitration numbers because I intend on signing him to an extension. More on that later in the article.

That leaves eight players: Zach Britton ($6.9M), Chris Tillman ($6.2M), Brad Brach ($1.1M), Miguel Gonzalez ($4.9M), Paul Janish ($600K), Nolan Reimold ($900K), David Lough ($800K), and Vance Worley ($2.7M).

I really struggled with Vance Worley. I like the idea of having him around to get a shot, but $2.7M is a lot to do that. I don't feel great about keeping him, and you could probably talk me out of it, especially with MiGo set to make even more than that.

As for Reimold and Lough, I don't necessarily expect both of them to make the team out of spring training. But for less than a million each, it's worth it to me to have them around in spring training.

That makes the total of money committed for the arb-eligible players to be $21.7M (not including Manny).

Pending free agents - QO, try to re-sign, let go

Qualifying offers will be extended to Chris Davis, Wei-Yin Chen, and Matt Wieters. For the purposes of this article I am assuming that all three decline.

I will not pursue Wieters in free agency. I had no hesitation in offering a QO.

I know that the real world says that Chen is gone, and he probably is. But in this fantasy scenario I am getting him. I'm signing Chen for four year, $50M contract, with $12.5M due to him in 2016. I think it's possible someone might offer Chen five years, but I'm not confident enough in that to bump up an extra year.

As for Davis, MLBTR predicts that he'll receive a six-year, $144M deal. I'm going to go one year better than that and sign him to seven years, $168M. I'm going to back load the deal so that it's $20M, $20M, $24M, $24M, $24M, $28M, $28M. That might make things dicey towards the end with Manny's contract, but that's a problem for future Stacey.

I will also re-sign Steve Pearce to a two-year, $8M contract ($4M in ‘16).

To Darren O'Day I give a tearful goodbye, and to Gerardo Parra I say good riddance.

The total to bring back pending free agents is $36.5M.

Free agents

Other than bringing back Davis, Chen, and Pearce, the only big name FA I'm going after is Yoenis Cespedes. You may recent remember him floundering in the outfield for the Mets during the World Series. But good news, we already have a center fielder. Cespdes is a good left fielder, and that's where he'll play in Baltimore.

I'm giving Cespedes a six-year, $120M contract. The years will breakdown as $15M, $17M, $19M, $21M, $23M, $25M.

Extensions

Manny Machado and Jonathan Schoop are getting locked up this offseason. I'm extending Manny with an eight-year, $186M contract. That will buy out his final three years of arbitration and extend him five years beyond that. The contract will end when he is 30 years old. The impact on this extension won't be felt much in 2016, as the contract basically matches what he'd get in arbitration. Here are the eight years broken down: $6M, $12M, $18M, $25M, $25M, $30M, $35M, $35M.

As for Schoop, his extension will be more conservative. He's not arb eligible until 2017, so in 2016 we'll give him a modest $1.5M. The full contract will be for seven years, which will buy out three years of arb and the first three years of FA. The total will be for $72.5, with a breakdown of $1.5M, $4M, $8M, $11M, $15M, $15M, $18M.

Summary

The toughest thing for me while doing this was realizing that the starting rotation is really hard to deal with. It doesn't seem plausible to dump half of the rotation and start over, and the Orioles couldn't afford to do so and restock with much better given their budget. And they don't have the prospects to trade for a pitcher, so what we're left with is making one move (in my case, re-signing Chen) and then hoping that Tillman and MiGo forget 2015 and that Jimenez can hold, and that Gausman improves and Bundy stays healthy and Worley can be a gem in the rough.

My plan in a nutshell is to hope the pitching doesn't stink too bad and that the dingers make up for it. That's solid Baltimore baseball logic.

Salary Table