More from Dan Duquette, plus John Manuel on O's farm, J.J. Cooper on Rule 5 draft

NASHVILLE - So here is an interesting question: What if Chris Davis accepts what Dan Duquette termed "a really aggressive offer?" Will the Orioles have enough cash remaining to fill other needs?

Here is what Duquette said when I asked that yesterday:

"Well, keep in mind we have a really strong core of this ballclub. When Matt Wieters made the choice to come back he gave us a real solid catcher to go along with Caleb Joseph. That is one of the more dynamic catching combinations in the league. We have J.J. Hardy, who we hope can rehabilitate where he can hit some home runs again. We've got Jon Schoop up the middle. He has excellent power and took a big step forward last year. We still have Adam Jones, Gold Glover and perennial All-Star in center field. So that is the core of our team.

"We return all the pitchers but one. We've got a strong bullpen with an excellent closer. We're working hard to re-sign Darren O'Day. We haven't even talked about Manny Machado yet, one of the most talented players in the league.

"So we're going to have a good ballclub. We're going to staff it well and we're going to add some players here over the next couple of weeks that should help the ballclub remain very competitive and entertaining."

Minor matters: We've all heard the rumblings that the Orioles will be ranked near the bottom five to teams when publications like Baseball America release their organizational rankings in January.

In a video interview here yesterday, Baseball America's John Manuel said seems likely. I asked Manuel if fans should be concerned by that.

"I think I'd be more concerned if they weren't contending at the major league level," he said. "To me, I'd rather be contending in the majors than be rated highly on the farm. If Baltimore's big league team slips this year for the second consecutive year and their farm system is not ranked highly, then I would start being concerned.

"To me, it's a trend kind of thing. The way the game is set up right now, it is very difficult to both contend and have a highly ranked farm system. Not contending goes along with having the big international bonus, the big signing draft pools. There are only a few teams that are able to pull that off consecutively right now. Houston is one of them. Let's see them do it again at the major league level. I think they will. It is hard to do both. That is when I would start to get concerned - if the major league product falters along with the minor league product."

I asked Manuel to project how many Orioles would be on Baseball America's top 100 prospects list.

"I would say it's anywhere from zero to three. I have not done my own top 100 yet. I could see (Dylan) Bundy and (Hunter) Harvey toward the back of that list and I could see Chance Sisco and maybe Jomar Reyes toward the back of the list."

Rule 5 fever: The Rule 5 draft is this morning. In an interview yesterday, Baseball America's J.J. Cooper provided some thoughts on players that might intrique the Orioles if they are around when they pick. The O's have the 15th pick, but some teams are likely to pass on taking players, so it's not like 14 players will be drafted ahead of them. Last year, a total of 14 players were taken in the Major League phase of the Rule 5 draft.

Click here to read his thoughts but Cooper felt three outfielders might interest the O's. They are Teoscar Hernandez (Houston), Wuilmer Becerra (New York Mets) and Tyler Goeddel (Tampa Bay). But he now projects that Goeddel could be the first player taken in the draft. He listed two pitchers the O's could consider if they're still around when they pick: Reymin Guduan (Houston) and Alberto Tirado (Philadelphia).

Cooper said he felt the Orioles would not lose any players today in the Rule 5 draft. But he also pointed out we did our interview on Wednesday morning and that could have changed overnight. We'll know soon enough. It would surprise me if any O's got selected today. Last year in this draft, any team could have selected right-hander Mychal Givens. But he was coming off a 2014 season where he struggled with control and no one took him.