The Orioles announced that they have selected right-handers Kade Strowd and Brandon Young to their 40-man roster, protecting them being available in next month’s Rule 5 draft. The 40-man roster now has 39 players on it.
Strowd, 27, was a 12th-round pick of the Orioles in 2019. He has posted some intriguing numbers in the minors in terms of strikeouts and grounders, but also with a notable amount of walks. Over the past two years, he has thrown 106 2/3 innings with a 5.32 earned run average. His 12.3% walk rate in that time is certainly high but he’s also struck out 28.4% of batters faced while getting grounders on more than half of the balls in play he’s allowed.
Young, 26, signed with the O’s as an undrafted free agent in 2020. He missed decent chunks of both 2022 and 2023 due to elbow surgery but seemed to get back on track this year. He tossed 111 innings over 27 appearances between Double-A and Triple-A with a combined 3.57 ERA. He struck out 28.5% of batters faced while giving out walks just 8% of the time.
Both players have reached Triple-A and will give the O’s some immediate depth in 2025, Strowd in the bullpen and Young in the rotation. The starting staff just lost Corbin Burnes to free agency while Kyle Bradish and Tyler Wells are going to start the season on the injured list after undergoing surgeries this year. The club will presumably be making some moves to alter their staff in the coming months, but they didn’t want these two to be plucked away by another club in the Rule 5, so they get roster spots today.
Both are fine candidates to be selected to the 40 given that the Orioles don’t have too much upper minors pitching needing to be protected/not already on the 40.
At the moment the rotation consists of two above average starters in G Rodriguez and Z Elfin. I think they were lucky with Suarez last year (ended up around average) and they can’t count on that again, and are otherwise hoping Kremer suddenly finds something in his 4th year in the rotation and Povich in his 2nd. I don’t see either turning into anything above average. As it stands, as the article mentions external help is going to be needed to build a competitive rotation.
Last season during the 2nd half this was pretty much the rotation plus Burnes, and they couldn’t keep the team at .500.
It will be interesting to see what new ownership is willing to do to move the Orioles to a higher competitive level.
Yea. They better get a #1 caliber starter and a #3. Plus plenty of bullpen help. Hopefully Tyler wells can be a solid backend bullpen guy again.
If Adley sucks for another half a season the team will be in trouble. At this point he’s only there for his bat and in-between inning encouragement to the pitchers. Despite solid end of season numbers for the offense, they really didnt pass the eye test on a daily basis. The inconsistency with RISP was dreadful. They need a high average bat or two. Juan Soto anyone???
Huh?
Adley’s downturn directly coincided with an injury. Hoping that’s all it is. I’m surprised they didn’t select Pham.
SSS and not saying he’s a bonafide 1 or 2, but Povich was very dominant over his last 5 starts.
No starting staff could have kept the team at .500. They weren’t getting run support for 3 straight months. The rotation was not Baltimore’s weakness. Their offense and their bullpen were.
I think the pitching was even worse.
First 90 games: they had .256 BA, .316 OBP, .776 OPS
Last 72 games: had .243 BA, .314 OBP, .718 OPS
Last 72 games was slightly above MLB average of .243 BA, .312 OBP, .711 OPS
Pitching
First 90 games: 3.57 ERA, 7.6 H, 8.6K, 2.9 BB, 1.0 HR/game
Last 72 games: 4.42 ERA, 8.6 H, 8.4 K, 3.0 BB, 1.2 HR/game
Last 72 games noticeably below MLB average of 4.07 ERA, 8.3 H, 8.6K, 3.1 BB, 1.1 HR/game.
While there might be something to be said for “clutch” hitting, their pitching at one point was #2 in the AL and ended up below average, that’s what I noticed more than anything else.
Are those SP stats though? Doesn’t look like it.
Their RISP numbers were deplorable. Without that, no SP was going to make a difference.
S-S-S-…Swammy (he says that in the movie too)
Those #’s are for the whole staff; I couldn’t separate. Obviously the starters took the hit with injuries and the bullpen burnt out (this also coincides with when Kimbrel imploded).
Anecdotally it seemed the RISP hitting went down in the 2nd half and they seemed to get unlucky too, so I agree to some extent. But even a great offense will struggle to carry a bad pitching staff much above .500.
You should separate them. The SP was never the problem.
And it’s just fact that the hitting was the glaring issue. The starting staff was not bad.
SSS-
This is a great exercise! For July 8 through end of year:
Burnes – 14 starts, went 8-6, 81.2 innings. 3.75 ERA, .240 BA against. He was ok in July and had the August slump, then great in September. He came into this period with a 2.32 and ended with 2.92 so overall he was worse in the 2nd half. Some of this is probably bad luck (.285 BABIP high for him)
Suarez – 13 starts (14 games), went 4-5 over the period with 4.87 ERA/4.89 FIP. BA against .276. Walks up, K’s close. He was very good in 5 August starts and 2 in September, but was lit up 3x in September and 2x in July. His 2nd half overall was worse than 1st half (2.43 ERA/3.30 FIP coming in). I think he just got tired.
Kremer – 14 starts, went 4-6 over 74.2 innings with 4.22 ERA/4.16 FIP, BA allowed .241. Even though his ERA went up it appears overall his 2nd half was slightly better. (There’s “good Kremer” and “Bad Kremer” – lit up 4x but also had 4-5 very effective or better starts)
Rodriguez/Eflin. Let’s assume Eflin replaced Rodriguez whose last start before injury was 7/7. Rodriguez was 13-4 with a 3.86 ERA/3.66 FIP, 1.243 WHIP. Eflin better ERA and WHIP, the FIP slightly worse and he walks less but K’s less than Rodriguez. Pretty close.
Irvin/Povich. Most of Irvin’s work was early in the season. Povich came up in 2nd half. Neither pitched well, #’s are roughly similar. The main difference is Povich’s last 3 starts (and 4/5 September starts) were very good and he shows promise, while Irvin is a known ineffective quantity. Let’s call this a wash.
The rest of this is making up for 8 effective Bradish 1st half starts, 4 effective Means starts and 4 bad spot starts in H1 versus H2 with 4 bad Trevor Rogers outings and 1 bad McDermott start.
I would say overall the 2nd half the starters dropped off but not as drastically as I thought. I don’t have time to do relievers today.
Reasonable additions. Will be interesting to see if they each survive the offseason roster moves.
Interested to see if some of these younger pitchers can make the next step. Saw some flashes with Povich, McDermott has a reasonable chance at becoming a mid rotation guy as well.
They should look to add 2 pitchers in the rotation at a minimum with 1 being at the higher end. Burnes would be great to come back but he’s likely out of the O’s spending range.
Remember, we have a winning mentality now. The window is open. Can’t be hoping for this that and the other thing to fall our way with pitching. Go get the best pitching available and win the freakin thing.
IMO the Orioles reached “s–t or get off the pot” stage in 2024, let alone 2025. They can’t nibble around the edges any longer, they must fully jump through the open window with WS titles as the goal and not be satisfied with “we’re good enough.”
We all know where the holes that need to be filled are, so I’m excited to see if the new ownership fills them and how.
(This does not mean spend like the Mets BTW)
if they’re at 39 and the O’s see 2 players that they want to pick up from another team… I wonder who of the 39 is most likely to be dropped first?
I’m excited to see what Brandon young can bring, it’s easy to root for the undrafted players
Luis Gonzalez, Thaddeus Ward, or Colin Selby would be first to go I’d think since they are all essentially interchangeable, out of option bullpen roster pieces.
Maybe even Mateo
Very doubtful. Elias spoke the other day about Jorge and how he figures to play a role with the team in ‘25.
One of Pinto or Blake Hunt probably doesnt make it either. Livan Soto could be dropped again.
I’m surprised they didn’t protect Juan Nunez. Must think he’s too far off from the bigs.
skins-I would interpret having Mateo still around and playing a significant role on the 2025 team as a sign the team isn’t 100% committed to going for it. If Holliday isn’t the answer they can find someone more productive than Mateo.
Apparently, many talented players didn’t require protection. Strowd didn’t even pitch well in college.