C Matt Wieters Accepts Orioles' One-Year Qualifying Offer

Catcher Matt Wieters has become just the second MLB player to accept a one-year qualifying offer, agreeing to return to the Baltimore Orioles on Friday at a 2016 rate of $15.8 million. Per Jon Heyman of CBS Sports:

wieters is taking the qualifying offer #orioles

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeymanCBS) November 13, 2015

Heyman added that Wieters had opportunities to land a multi-year deal, but he enjoys Baltimore and will be more than happy getting a significant raise to $15.8M. He's also just 29 years old, so he'll still be in his prime when he hits the free agent market next year.

One thing of note is that Wieters did show reduced arm strength after returning from Tommy John surgery in 2015. It started to return to him a bit as the days went on, but a full year at 100% capacity will do wonders to boost Wieters stock and the amount per year he will be able to command next winter.

At his peak, Wieters caught 38.5% of base stealers back in 2012 -- about as good as it gets for a catcher. That number dipped dramatically in 2015, but there's still too small a sample size when it comes to catchers coming off of Tommy John surgery to speculate whether he will or won't be able to return to his thief-nabbing ways in 2016 and beyond. 

In 75 games this season, Wieters slashed .267/.319/.422 with 8 HR and 25 RBI in 258 at-bats.