A take on the Franco signing and some game notes

The Orioles made the signing of third baseman Maikel Franco official today. He passed his physical and signed a one-year deal for the 2021 season.

The move could mean the Orioles have a mostly set infield for many games in the coming season with Trey Mancini at first, Yolmer Sánchez at second, Freddy Galvis at short and Franco at third.

It would a clean slate in the Baltimore infield, as none of those four played a game for the team in 2020.

MLB Network reported the deal is for $800,000, with another $200,000 in incentives. Franco had been non-tendered each of the last two years by Philadelphia and Kansas City. He played for $5.2 million for the 2019 Phillies and for $2.95 million for the 2020 Royals.

He is coming off an offensive year where he posted the third-best OPS of a career that has spanned 716 games and 2,782 plate appearances. For Kansas City last summer, he hit .278/.321/.457 with 16 doubles, eight homers and 38 RBIs. He posted an OPS of .778, which was 9 percent above league average. He recorded his best batting average and OBP since 2015 and his best slugging since 2018.

Franco started all 60 games for Kansas City with 51 starts at third base, eight as the designated hitter and one at first.

In FanGraphs.com's defensive ranking of qualified third baseman in the American League last year, Franco rated fourth and the O's Rio Ruiz was eighth. In Defensive Runs Saved, Ruiz was third and Franco fourth.

Ruiz could remain an Oriole and has two minor league options remaining. It's possible the O's could keep both on the spring roster in competition, but it is hard to envision both on the roster come opening day. With bench spots so valuable, it would be hard to see the club keep one of these two on the bench since they don't play middle infield or outfield. The versatility is just not there. If Ruiz did get optioned, that could create a playing time issue at third base at Triple-A, with Rylan Bannon likely to start the year with the Tides.

Franco had a strong finish to his 2020 season. In his last 33 games, he batted .303/.353/.440 with eight doubles, three homers, 25 RBIs and an OPS of .793. He hit .378 with runners in scoring position in that span.

Over the last three years, he has been just below league average with an OPS+ of 97 and he's hit .258/.309/.443. From 2016-2018, he hit 71 homers with 232 RBIs.

Platooning Ruiz and Franco seems very unlikely. For one reason, they both have reverse splits. The righty batting Franco has an OPS of .730 against lefties in his career, but .739 against right-handers. The lefty hitting Ruiz has an OPS of .649 versus right-handers, but .759 against lefties.

Meanwhile, we await word on O's right-hander Félix Hernández. Making his third spring start today, he got a strikeout, flyout and strikeout of Randy Arozarena. A 1-2-3 first inning on 13 pitches. Then he didn't take the mound for the second inning. As to why, there has been no announcement yet from the club.

Eric Hanhold came on and the Rays scored six runs off him, as he got just two outs. He faced eight batters and gave up two doubles, two walks and three-run homer to Mike Zunino. Marcos Diplán came on and the Rays scored once off him for a seven-run inning.

A loss today would be the Orioles' ninth in 11 games and would leave them with a spring record of 4-11-1. The Rays snapped a five-game losing streak with a win Monday, but had scored just 14 runs in those six games.

The O's got on the board in the fifth when Rylan Bannon doubled and scored on Austin Wynns' two-out single.

Jorge López came on to pitch in the last of the third. He pitched three scoreless innings today on one hit with five strikeouts. He has a spring ERA of 2.45.

Today's game, which initially was expected to be nine innings, will be cut to seven, with the O's bringing just six pitchers to Port Charlotte. And they needed to use three before the second inning was over.