Orioles Release Kyle Gibson

The Orioles announced that right-hander Kyle Gibson has been released. That was the expected outcome after he was designated for assignment on the weekend. Assuming he’s already cleared release waivers, he’s free to sign with any club.

Gibson, 37, was a late signing of the O’s. He and the club agreed to a one-year, $5.25MM deal in the latter half of March. He had lingered unsigned throughout the winter while the Orioles had some concerns about their pitching depth due to some spring injuries.

Adding a stable veteran like Gibson made plenty of sense but it did not work out at all. He agreed to be optioned to the minors at the start of the season, effectively as a delayed spring training ramp-up. He was recalled to the big leagues in late April but was quickly shelled. His first start was against the Yankees, with Gibson allowing four home runs in the first inning. He would eventually log 3 2/3 innings on the day, allowing five homers in total.

His next three starts weren’t much better. On May 5th, he allowed three earned runs in four innings against the Royals. He squared off against the Angels on May 10th, allowing five earned runs in four frames. On Saturday, he didn’t make it out of the first, getting tagged for six earned runs in two thirds of an inning against the Nationals. Put it all together and Gibson has an ugly 16.78 ERA through 12 1/3 innings this year. The O’s clearly ran out of patience, cutting him from the roster on Sunday.

Given those poor results and his salary, no club was going to claim him and take on the remainder of his contract. As a veteran with years of experience, he has more than enough service time to reject an outright assignment.

But as a free agent, he might generate interest. With the O’s on the hook for the remainder of his salary, another club would only have to pay him the prorated version of the major league minimum salary for any time spent on the roster. The recent results have obviously not been good but perhaps some teams will chalk that up to his unusual ramp-up period. Gibson has almost 2,000 big league innings and has generally been a serviceable back-end guy. As recently as last year, he posted a 4.24 ERA over 169 2/3 innings with the Cardinals.

Given his track record and the number of pitching injuries around the league, it wouldn’t be a surprise for him to secure a minor league deal from some club in need of experienced depth. That’s what recently played out with Kenta Maeda, who was released by the Tigers but then landed a minor league deal with the Cubs. If Gibson follows a similar path, he could perhaps get a chance to get in a nice groove in the minors and earn his way back to the big leagues.

It’s also possible that the O’s are the club to give him that minor league deal, as they still have rotation depth concerns with Grayson Rodriguez, Kyle Bradish, Tyler Wells and Albert Suárez all on the 60-day injured list.

Photo courtesy of Daniel Kucin Jr., Imagn Images