Orioles GM Mike Elias made a number of announcements as the club begins to finalize its Opening Day roster plans, as relayed by multiple reporters including Rich Dubroff of Baltimore Baseball. Most notable among those announcements is the fact that star shortstop Gunnar Henderson will open the season on the 10-day injured list. Additionally, Elias announced that southpaw Cade Povich will serve as the club’s fifth starter to open the season, with veteran journeyman Albert Suarez serving in a bullpen role.
The news regarding Henderson is a tough blow, given the star youngster is coming off an otherworldly 2024 campaign where he finished fourth in a stacked AL MVP class. A .281/.364/.529 (155 wRC+) hitter in 159 games last year, Henderson paired that excellent offense with 21 stolen bases and solid defense at shortstop en route to a 8.0 fWAR/9.1 bWAR campaign. With his 24th birthday still three months away, fans in Baltimore and around MLB have been looking forward to seeing how Henderson will build on his breakout campaign last year, though that will now be put on the backburner for at least the time being.
Fortunately, Elias indicated to reporters that the club remains hopeful that his absence, which is due to an intercostal strain that has sidelined him for much of Spring Training, should be a relatively short one. Henderson will miss at least seven days, as he’ll need to be placed on the 10-day injured list on Opening Day which can be backdated only a maximum of three days, but Elias’s comments seem to suggest that the club expects he won’t miss much more than that minimum time. For the time Henderson is out of action, the Orioles could look to Jackson Holliday at shortstop, thereby opening up second base for Ramon Urias.
Another option could be utility man Jorge Mateo, who has spent the spring recovery from elbow surgery. Orioles brass have previously cast doubt on his ability to be ready for Opening Day, but Elias noted this morning that the club is not ruling the possibility of Mateo breaking camp with the club out entirely. Mateo has experience all over the diamond but has played the overwhelming majority of his time in the majors at shortstop, which would make him a relatively seamless replacement for Henderson in the early days of the season if healthy. Of course, Mateo can’t offer anywhere near the offensive explosiveness that Henderson provides, having hit just .229/.267/.401 in 68 games last year.
Meanwhile, Elias also announced that the club’s fifth starter situation has been settled. The lefty Povich will join right-handers Charlie Morton, Tomoyuki Sugano, Dean Kremer, and Zach Eflin in the rotation to begin the year, with Suarez ticketed for the long relief role he opened the 2024 campaign in before eventually being pushed into a rotation job by injuries. It’s an exciting opportunity for the soon to be 25-year-old Povich, who debuted with the Orioles last year and made 16 starts, though he struggled to a 5.20 ERA with a 4.79 FIP in 79 2/3 innings of work. He’s looked quite good in Spring Training, however, with a 3.07 ERA in four starts throughout camp, and will look to carry that momentum forward into the regular season.
Povich’s time in the rotation figures to last only as long as Grayson Rodriguez’s absence due to elbow inflammation. The 25-year-old righty appears to be making progress in his return from the issue, though Andy Kostka of the Baltimore Banner cautions that Rodriguez is starting “near square zero” in his buildup towards game action. That would suggest the righty will need more or less a full spring workload before he can return to the rotation even after making two starts earlier in camp, which seems likely to give Povich at least four or five turns through the rotation before Rodriguez will be nearing a return, if not longer.
And Gibson will need ramped up too so won’t see Rodrigues or Gibson for a good bit of April. Hope Povich can maintain momentum. He looked real good at the end of last year.
so where does Gibby go after he gets built up?
“Built up”…Baltimore presumably. That’s why they signed him.
6 man rotation? Im curious too.
Given the orioles’ health-related pitching woes, there will be a need. Unfortunately, I can foresee all of Povich, Suarez, and Gibson as part of the starting 5 at some point this season.
Povich and Kremer have options, and Suarez could end up DFA’d.
Given the age factor with Gibson, Morton, and Sugano that may not be a bad idea
I hope he stays in the rotation all year. That’s good news for the Red Sox. Good luck staying out of last place. Lol
i can assure you,badmojo,baltimore will finish ahead of the red sox.baltimore and new york will be fighting for the division title.the red sox will be fighting for the 3rd wild card ,at best.and im a yankee fan.why are you so mad at baltimore?
i would positivly say, he goes to baltimore,or what ever city they are playing in,once he is built up.they did not sign him to trade him after he builds up.
Why so snakebit with injuries!
@coop
you could say they to all of baseball
Hm. Why not put Westburg at 2B and call up Mayo for 3B? Mateo has barely played and isn’t looking that good yet.
Because Mayo cannot play 3B at an acceptable level.
Unfortunately that seems to be the case. Interesting that in spring games, the Os gave Mayo the majority of his starts and time at DH rather than get him game experience at 3B. Very telling IMO.
He should be playing 1B basically everyday at Norfolk to get acclimated to the position since 3B is pretty clearly a pipedream at this point.
I wish they would try him out in RF since he has an absolute cannon for an arm, but I guess they feel it’s unnecessary with Cowser, Kjerstad, and Bradfield shaping up to be the regular 2026 OF (assuming O’Neill opts out, and if he doesn’t, he’ll probably be moved into more of a platoon role).
I’ve said the same thing for the same reasons about RF for Mayo.
BTW Don’t count out Beavers in the OF mix too. He looks like a different player this spring. He’s made a lot of good swing adjustments. Contact/hit tool is his only question. He’s got everything else.
Why cant we have nice things?
Because it’s the orioles and the owner has proven to be a complete cheapskate first by not signing burnes and the other not locking up long term any of the other stud position players.
Rubenstein has almost doubled the payroll he inherited from John Angelos in less than a year as owner and Burnes specifically wanted to play in Arizona to be close to his wife and infant twins, who reside in Scottsdale, AZ.
You act like Burnes wanted to stay in B’more. Pro tip for you: Free agents get to sign wherever they want–they don’t have to sign with a team just because they’re offered a contract. In Burnes’ case, his first choice was Arizona all along.
Money talks and if given the opportunity to sign a rich long term contract he would’ve re signed
It doesn’t matter anyway. The orioles are the most over rated team now and their pitching is really piss poor after dropping the ball with burnes. Good luck winning 90 lol
No, he specifically wanted to be in Arizona to be close to his family. He had plenty of suitors, including the Orioles, who he said were very aggressive in trying to re-sign him, but he reached out to the Diamondbacks, who were not even actively pursuing him at the time, and said “I want to play for you, please sign me.”
I mean, yeah, if they offered him like $400 million, he probably would have re-considered, but that would have been really stupid and irresponsible.
burnes was offerd 250 million by at least 3 teams he signed for 210 million in arizona.yes its true if he was offerd 600 million for 6 years he would of signed elsewhere.but 4o million wasnt enough to 250 million wasnt enough to bring him back to baltimore or any other team except arizona.
But why cant gunnar stay healthy?
He is the best player O’s have had since ripken
He played 150 games in 2023 and 159 games in 2024, and it’s a very minor injury that won’t cost him much time.
It’s honestly not a big deal.
He’s alredy missed a month
If it was “very minor” he woulda been in the lineup before ST wrapped & definitely in the lineup OD
It’s minor because he’s most likely only going to miss a week or 2 of the regular season.
If it happened today instead of several weeks ago, then it would actually be something to get upset about.
The starting rotation needed a big singing which they didn’t get….but they might be able to tread water if the offense doesn’t go into a 3 month funk. But the bullpen has serious problems. Get ready for a whole lot of blown leads
Hopefully Mateo is healthy enough to be given the SS gig in Gunnar’s absence because neither Westburg nor Holliday should play SS everyday, even just for a week or two.
They’re giving Holliday a ton of run at SS in spring games. That is probably intentional.
I think they wanted to see if he could handle it, at least for a short period while Gunnar recuperates.
I don’t think he passed the test if Mateo is being seriously considered for the day 1 roster after they previously said that it was unlikely he would be ready for opening day.
I do agree with you. Mateo is the far superior SS defensively. It’s kind of amazing he’s even playing in games. That was a nasty injury. Either way, we’ll know once we see the lineup card on Thurs.
Opportunity for FO to get Gunnar off SS permanently. Uber aggressive out there. He hurt himself this spring, put Mateo on the IL last year … plus he lead all AL defenders with 25 errors last season. His position his hitter. No good to the Os on the bench.
I usually agree with your takes, but this one – no way Jose! Do you have any idea just how elite of an athlete GH is? I’m talking pure athlete, not baseball player/skills. He’s easily most athletic on the team and is probably top 3 in baseball.
The best athlete on the team is usually the shortstop. He gets to balls that most wouldn’t be able to sniff. Most of his errors came on throws during a few week long cold spell.
You’re also not giving him any credit for his ability to make the spectacular play, of which there have been many since he’s been called up.
Hey skins. Agree. Gunnar is an incredible athlete. That said; give me boring at SS. Guys like Belanger, Ripkin, Bordick, Hardy went about their play in unspectacular fashion with spectacular results. Get Gunnar over to 3rd and keep him there.
With Rodriguez’s inability to play with any type of injury, I’m sure Povich will remain with the club for quite sometime.
lol no
Intercoastal Strain is what that guy would tape behind the toilet for your clandestine pickup at the Port St. Lucie drive-in.
Waiting for some dummy to chime in with: “How can he be otherworldly with a .281 average?”
Down 6 pitchers, and it’s 7 if Bautista begins on IL. And nearly all of them are pretty good pitchers, too.
If so would match ’24 peak, I believe, where worst time was Wells Means Bradish Bautista Webb Coulombe Rodriguez.
Other teams have 7 good pitchers laid up?
If Henderson’s recovery stalls or Rodriguez’s ramp-up hits setbacks, the Orioles risk bleeding wins in April and May—games that could determine playoff seeding in a tight AL East—due to a predictable failure to hedge against injury volatility.
I applaud the Os for the Povich decision. He went out and earned the job and too often teams derail the confidence of young players by making the safe decision to send them down. If he succeeds early it would a big boost while they wait for injured starters.
Only thing is i thought they might pitch him in game 4 and leave a veteran for home opener to ease the pressure a bit.