I was hugely excited about Téo last season in large part because he didn't have a pick attached. I like the player a lot, but if we sign him now for a bigger deal that costs a pick I will be furious at the failure to get to yes last offseason.
He wanted 4/$75m; we offered 2/$28, and he took 1/$24 with deferrals that made it worth a bit less. We should have raised the AAV or added an option/buyout third season or something to get him to take our money: Like 2/$28m with a third year at $17m/buyout at $8m, so the deal would either be 2/$36 or 3/$45. I bet he would have taken that! Meet him in the middle!
Those compensation picks are worth a ton — way more, IMO, than any difference between Hernández and O'Neill over a couple seasons. Our drafting and development group have been spinning them into gold at a pretty decent clip, so we should absolutely be hoarding them. Roman Anthony and Kristian Campbell were both comp picks. I've seen comp picks and their attached bonus pool valued around $10m, but that feels low to me.
Relatedly, we also should have QO'd O'Neill; if he accepts, we have a mildly overpriced solution to our RH bat situation. It's on the line; he might very well have preferred 1/$22m and reaching FA without a QO next season to the 3/$45m he just got from Baltimore, but he of course wouldn't know in advance what his market would be and maybe a player with his injury history should take the largest deal in total commitment that he can get. The argument against QO'ing O'Neill was that it might be too much of our budget if he accepted, but now that we've offered "at least $700m" to an outfielder, I think we can safely put to rest the idea that the team has an inflexible budget at the first CBT line.