Baseball is so flush with money at any given moment that even free agents who at first glance are nothing special are still able to get multiple guaranteed years for millions of dollars. The latest signing on this tier is lefty reliever Antonio Bastardo, who agreed to a two year, $12 million contract with the Mets on Wednesday. The O's even had some mild interest in Bastardo, though, since they weren't the ones who signed him, it's safe to say they weren't interested.
Perhaps the price tag for a player in that role was more than they wanted to pay, or they felt they might be able to spend the money better elsewhere than on a LOOGY,
The LOOGY - that is, Lefty One Out Guy - is one of the stranger phenomena in modern baseball.