The Orioles announced they’ve claimed right-hander Nick Avila off release waivers from the Giants. San Francisco had placed him on waivers over the weekend when they selected Spencer Bivens onto the big league roster. The O’s optioned Avila to Triple-A Norfolk and placed him on the minor league injured list with a shoulder impingement.
Injured players cannot be placed on outright waivers. To take Avila off the 40-man roster, the Giants either needed to place him on the MLB 60-day injured list (which would require paying him at the $740K league minimum rate for however long he’s out) or release him. They chose the latter route. The Giants may have wanted to bring Avila back on a minor league deal, but released players first need to go unclaimed on waivers before they hit free agency.
The Orioles had an open spot on their 40-man roster after waiving Corbin Martin last week. They’ll use that to stash Avila in Norfolk while he rehabs the shoulder problem. It’s not clear how long the 6’4″ righty will be sidelined; he last pitched for the Giants’ Triple-A club on May 29.
Avila, who turns 27 in July, changes teams for the first time in his career. The Giants drafted him in the 26th round in 2019. A Long Beach State product, Avila reached the majors in early April. He allowed 12 runs (11 earned) through his first 11 2/3 MLB frames, though he fanned 14 hitters against three walks. Avila’s fastball sat in the 94-95 MPH range, while he also showed a cutter and a knuckle-curve.
The righty spent all of last season working with San Francisco’s top minor league team. He allowed an even three earned runs per nine over 72 frames, striking out 21.3% of batters faced with a solid 46.2% grounder rate. Avila walked 12% of opposing hitters, but he’d shown slightly better control in his limited work this year before the shoulder injury.
O’s need to do some with SP and backend of BP. I don’t trust Cano and Kimbrel come playoffs. When it was Burnes, Grayson, Bradish and Means I loved those 4. Now is time to add someone IMO. I don’t think waiting until the trade deadline is beneficial. Now who u what trade capital and who is the tough part.
*sorry for the poor grammar. Too lazy to edit my work. Lol
I agree, unfortunately the injuries have put a dent in our depth. Still have plenty of position player depth to make some moves to bolster the rotation and bullpen. I do however have faith that Elias and Mejdal know what they’re doing. Its just rough to see 3 guys who were in your starting rotation at some point all go down with either season ending injuries or likely season ending injuries.
And yet they keep on winning. O’s fans, in my opinion, have far less to worry about than they think.
Until Kimbrel blows 3 leads first round of playoffs. Best to be proactive and not complacent
Unfortunately, any player worth trading for is on a team where the GM is perfectly content waiting until the price for said player is ramped up by competition
That is really unfair. It’s hard to find teams willing to trade top of the rotation pitchers that don’t want the moon for them.
Understand your reaction but at this point Suarez and Irvin have been as good as anything you’ll get in a trade without significantly overpaying. No reason to panic right now. Sure it sucks to lose guys the quality of Means and Bradish, but they still are tied for the fewest losses in baseball and are a lock for no worse than wild card.
Great point, don’t pay out of panic
Everyone says trade for Luzardo of Marlins… he would be by far worst pitcher in starting rotation we would have… if we trade for starter we need someone better then that.. Luzardo is no where near as good as he was last year
Agree. Focus on 8th and 9th inning help. Kimbrel not reliable with one run leads
The Orioles are one more injury away from disaster. They have been lucky to get the performances of Irvin and Suarez. If the Orioles are serious about contending this year and trying to win, they need to make a move for another top end starting pitcher. In the playoffs, it is all about pitching. Let’s not forget that Grayson hasn’t been healthy all season.
Right now they have to collect whatever they can get to have back up plans until the trade deadline when other teams with some talent realize this season is over and they got no chance. Then see what’s on the market and who you think you can afford. Perhaps another half season rental would be affordable in a trade.
The Orioles cannot afford to stand pat and hope to coast by. They’ve done that in the past. This is a short window with all the talent they have assembled. Get behind these young ones and do the right thing. Get another strong arm for the rotation.
I think they get the gravity of the situation. Maybe they’ll try for the Daily Double and move some of the farm talent and maybe Ramon Urias for Jesus Lizardo and the return of Tanner Scott.
I think that the Marlins match up well in that they need everything and Scott is a FA next year.
Hope they can keep Basselo though, I see him as the future at 1B and maybe also as the successor to McCann. His power is only going to increase as he’s amazingly still 19 in AA hitting .281 with 10 dingers. Wow do the O’s have a lot of lefty batters. Ideal for Camden, by no accident.
Bassello to me would be untouchable
A short window? The core of Adley, Gunnar, Westburg, GRod, Cowser, Holliday, Cano, Bautista, Bradish, etc is locked in until 2028 or so. O’Hearn and Mountcastle are two more years unless they decide to upgrade. They have 4 of the Top 18 prospects and Mayo, Holliday, Basallo and Kjerstad are arguably additional core players through the early 2030s. They will have a minimum of 7 First Round choices in the next two drafts. Maybe 9.
Remember Gunnar was picked at number 40, Westburg in the low 30s.
The window is roughly until Aaron Judge’s retirement.
Atloriolesfan;
lol
When I read “a short window” I was in disbelief.
You nailed it.
The O’s have arguably the most impressive, productive front office in MLB over the past 15 years. Yet for the last 2-3 years I read kids that come on here and talk about how they NEED TO DO SOMETHING!…ANYTHING!! BECAUSE TIME IS RUNNING OUT!!!
And it’s always about pitching. Because see, the O’s don’t really understand pitching. Meanwhile, as of tonight the O’s have the 2nd best team ERA of the 30 MLB teams.
You can be in disbelief all you like. There are a lot of pending free agents that the O’s have to consider if they can afford to retain them. The window with this CURRENT crop of talent has a short window because of the pending free agents within the next couple of years.
Mountcastle I would be trying to extend now… if he would take 15 mill a year it’s no brainer.. his defense is main reason Orioles pitchers are as good as they are.. almost 1 play every hand where he saves 1 or more runs with his glove
The Mountcastle issues are Coby Mayo, Sam Basallo and, indirectly, Westburg, Henderson, Holliday, Rutschman and Kjerstad.
Mayo and Basallo have the highest non-Gunnar bat ceilings. So where do they get 2025 and 2026 ABs, with Adley laying claim on 40 DH starts? Mayo is 3B, 1B or DH, but he’s taking 3B starts from Westburg with a real fielding gap. That makes Mountcastle a somewhat redundant piece in 2025 and more in 2026. Kjerstad and OHearn add more DH complication. Mountcastle extension beyond his 2026? If he’s a $15m AV guy (I agree), pay him $20m in his two arb years, allocate $22m to a QO and you’ve got a first round draft choice.
Might sound crazy but Westburg may end up have the best career out of all these young guys. He really keeps his cool in big moments.
That, plus the fact that Westburg is the most likely to stay with the Os for the long term. The bidding war for Gunnar will be epic.
You forgot the rest of the quote. They have a lot of key players that will be pending free agents within the next couple of years. They have to decide if players like Cedric Mullins, Anthony Santander, John Means, Kyle Bradish, Ryan Mountcastle, Adley Rutschman, etc. are going to be retained. There is only so much money to go around.
Chris Getz, is that you???
This injury is not even a month old. SIS can take up to 6 months to fully heal. He seems like an odd acquisition for this time of year?
Take a look at his numbers in 2022 and 2023, you will understand why Elias picked him up. My guess is he’s been hurt all of 2024.
@Samuel,
agreed. when I mention Elias, I don’t mean that he is solely responsible for the praise… he has put together a strong team for evaluations, scouting, Saber, development as well as the business side of wheeling and dealing. Eve, for instance, is a GM in waiting it seems and the O’s are lucky to have her.
it’s just easier to tag the FO and development team with a single, “Elias staff”.
as for the ERA, they’ve been extremely successful this year despite the injuries. Burnes is absolutely all we could hope for (maybe we could also hope for deeper starts but that is really nitpicking a guy that gives you a strong chance of winning night in and night out).
I don’t want to speak for @AE, but I assume that their intent is to bring light to the fact that there are several pitchers that are likely due for a regression to the mean (Irvine and Albert for instance).
Having suffered for this Orioles ailment myself for decades, I get the gut feeling that Lucy is going to pull the football out from us before the Orioles get to gloriously kick it through the goal posts though.
Go O’s!
Optionable arm (3 left), no downside outside of possible loss to Rule 5 if they don’t add him in the off-season. I don’t question Elias’s reliever black magic. Lots of people questioned the Jorge Lopez trade to the Twins and talk about knowing when to hold’em and when to fold’em. Feliz, Cano, Webb, Columbe… he’s not perfect but his ability to spot untapped potential is certainly above average. None of those were blockbuster high dollar arms for hire. What we haven’t yet seen (other than Burnes and now interestingly Irvin) is the Front Office showing that same success with big trades and FA signings. Although, I suspect that the latter is not going to be a big part of the ongoing plan for the Orioles.
Mariners very happy with two ex-Orioles Baumann & Voth. Not so happy with Bazardo lol. Mariners get Orioles hand-me-downs.
MacGromit;
Things like this are cumulative.
As I noted above, the O’s have the 2nd best team ERA in MLB.
One other point: Mr. Elias doesn’t work in vacuum. A lot of people are scouting, analyzing and when an acquisition is made are working with the pitchers. As with the stock market, at that point you cut your losses and let your winners run….which is what they’ve been doing for 3 years now with their pitchers.
@Ignorant
How did Erik Bedard work out for the M’s? lol
At this point whoever they calling up this year has been magic. You see the difference between Povich’s 2 starts. It’s hard to potentially give up a future star for a rental that might turn into a pumpkin.
@MacGromit Thanks for the reminder!!! Very painful memory. I might still have trauma about this one.
sorry, low hanging fruit to tease you about that.
I’m actually extremely glad that both Voth and Baumann hooked on with the M’s, Seattle is a perfect place for them to improve, esp Baumann. He has tools but unfortunately some major inconsistencies too. their pitching development folks will be great for him.
The Orioles find a way to uncover cheap and effective bullpen arms.
The problem is the rotation is thin and hurt. They can’t depend on guys like Irvin and Suarez, who have not given any indication that they can maintain close to the level they are on, and Kremer when he’s healthy gives “good Kremer/bad Kremer” performances, leaving them with just Burnes and Rodriguez as dependable healthy starters at the moment. (Povich too soon to tell, lit up once, pitched very well once). Getting a good starter and not a Flaherty type would remove some of the margin of error.
This season in my mind and likely many others is considered to be successful solely on postseason success. They are expected to make the playoffs and building up a cushion to get in on WC if not the div. But if they don’t make the ALCS at minimum this year I can’t call 2024 a success.
These 3 games against the Yankees are big. But that said, I was hoping they just be a few games above .500 in this brutal stretch (June 1-July 4) and have started it 11-5.
You again?
For 2-plus years you’ve been warning us about the poor O’s pitching – particularly the starters. (And you’re not alone on here.)
The O’s have the 2nd best team ERA in MLB.
There isn’t a team out there that hasn’t had problems keeping their 5 starters healthy.
It’s all relative.
P.S. I’m really enjoying this season!
5 healthy rotation pitchers would be nice. Bradish and Means being out hurts a lot. I’m looking at September and October. Burnes and Rodriguez have pitched very well, Irvin and Suarez have been pitching above their body of work and not sure how long that goes on. The bullpen is holding up. All good signs and contributing to their record to date.
Its funny how well the flaws are covered up. The hitters aren’t taking walks and they K a lot but seem to be slugging their way to the top.
Just wish the Yankees would lose a few here and there.