A few notes on the Orioles' agreement with pitcher Yovani Gallardo

So it is done and this time it seems pretty final, if not yet official. The Orioles have agreed to sign free agent pitcher Yovani Gallardo to a three-year deal worth $35 million with an option for a fourth year.

A $35 million deal will bring the Orioles' free agent spending this offseason to a total of $249.8 million.

They previously re-signed Chris Davis to a seven-year deal worth $161 million. They re-signed Darren O'Day to a four-year deal worth $31 million. They re-signed Matt Wieters to a one-year deal worth $15.8 million when he accepted their qualifying offer. They signed outfielder Hyun Soo Kim to a two-year deal worth $7 million.

The Orioles will lose the No. 14 pick in the 2016 draft for this acquisition. The projected slot value for that pick is $2,973,150. That is taking the 2015 value of the No. 14 pick and adding 4.6 percent, which is the bump this year, according to Baseball America.

Last year for the Texas Rangers, Gallardo went 13-11 with an ERA of 3.42. He was 7-8 with an ERA of 2.62 in 19 starts in the first half and 6-3 with an ERA of 4.69 in 14 starts in the second half.

While his strikeout rate has decreased since 2012, a concern for some fans and analysts, Gallardo's ERA also decreased over that span to a career-low mark last year.

2012: strikeouts per nine innings rate of 9.0 and 3.66 ERA
2013: strikeouts per nine innings rate of 7.2 and 4.18 ERA
2014: strikeouts per nine innings rate of 6.8 and 3.51 ERA
2015: strikeouts per nine innings rate of 5.9 and 3.42 ERA

More notes on Gallardo:

* His career ERA of 3.66 ranks first among the projected five O's pitchers for the starting rotation if you factor him into the mix. Next is Miguel Gonzalez at 3.82, then Ubaldo Jimenez at 4.01, Chris Tillman at 4.20 and Kevin Gausman at 4.21.

* Gallardo's career .576 win percentage would rank first among the O's five starters, while his .249 career batting average against would rank second, only behind Jimenez at .242.

* Gallardo has made 13 career starts against American League East teams that are not the Orioles, going 8-4 with an ERA of 3.54. Of his 33 starts for Texas in 2015, nine came against AL East teams. In those games, he went 5-2 with a 3.04 ERA. He went 2-0 with an ERA of 0.00 over two starts against Toronto. He pitched six scoreless innings in the Rangers' 2-0 win over the Orioles at Camden Yards on July 2.

* Gallardo features a solid career groundball rate of 46.7 percent. Those numbers the last three years starting in 2013 are 49.2, 50.8 and 49.3 percent.

* On the plus side, Gallardo ranked 11th among AL starting pitchers in 2015 in ERA, ninth in groundball percentage and seventh in left-on-base percentage at 77.2. But on the down side, he pitched fewer than six innings in 14 of his last 16 starts after going six or more frames in 11 of his first 17 starts.

MLB Network's Jon Heyman first reported the agreement with Gallardo.

What is your take on the deal?