The Orioles have claimed utilityman Weston Wilson off waivers from the Phillies and designated left-hander José Suarez for assignment, reports Ari Alexander of 7 News.
Wilson, 31, was designated for assignment by the Phillies last week when they re-signed J.T. Realmuto. He’s spent parts of the past three seasons in the majors with them, hitting a combined .242/.328/.428 with nine home runs in 245 trips to the plate. Almost all of that production came in 2023-24, however. Wilson hit just .198/.282/.369 in a career-high 125 plate appearances this past season but raked at a .288/.375/.490 clip the prior two seasons.
Wilson has never hit righties much but feasted on southpaws in ’23-’24 before taking a huge step back in ’25. Even with last year’s lack of production in platoon settings, he’s a career .250/.359/.475 hitter (130 wRC+) against left-handed pitching. Wilson also owns a solid .247/.339/.462 output in nearly 1700 plate appearances of Triple-A work.
He’s played all around the diamond, but despite occasional reps in the middle infield, Wilson is primarily a corner infielder/outfielder. He’ll give the O’s some righty-swinging depth at all four corner spots, but he’s also out of minor league options, which significantly hinders his chances of sticking on the roster. He’d need to break camp on the club or else be designated for assignment once again.
The Orioles are as aggressive as any team in the sport when it comes to claiming players off waivers and then trying to pass them through waivers themselves in order to cultivate depth. Suárez, who’s being designated for assignment, is a product of that very churn. It should come as no surprise to anyone if Wilson is designated for assignment in the near future, whenever the O’s make their next waiver addition or sign their next free agent. At that point, they’d hope to outright him and keep him in Triple-A.
Baltimore claimed Suarez just one week ago, plucking him off waivers from the Braves, who’d signed him to a $900K deal to avoid arbitration. He’s out of minor league options, so simply optioning him to Triple-A Norfolk was never in the cards. The O’s will hope to sneak him through waivers and stash him in Triple-A as depth. Suarez has enough service time to reject an outright assignment, but doing so would mean forfeiting the $900K base salary on the big league portion of his deal (and any notable minor league split he secured as well).
Injuries limited Suarez to 19 1/3 innings this past season, but he posted a sharp 1.86 ERA in that time — albeit with a less-encouraging 16-to-10 K/BB ratio. The 28-year-old has started 62 games and made another 44 relief appearances in a career that’s seen him amass 396 innings with a 5.30 earned run average. Suarez posted disastrous numbers with the Angels in 2020, 2023 and 2024 but was a strong swingman for them in 2021-22. During those two seasons, he logged 207 1/3 frames with a 3.86 ERA, 21.5% strikeout rate and 7.9% walk rate.
The Orioles can trade Suarez or place him on outright waivers at any point within the next five days. Waivers are a 48-hour process. His DFA will be resolved by next Thursday afternoon.
Wong Jose Suarez
Wrong Jose Suarez bio.
And then in a few days they’ll designate Wilson. This use of the waiver system is an abuse of the players and the Orioles should be ashamed. But instead all anyone whines about is teams like Dodgers and Mets who are trying to win, not just screwing over the players and pocketing hundreds of millions in profits and increasing ticket and concession prices beyond reason.
Deep breaths. And, for what it’s worth, the O’s are trying to win too. This happens to be one of their strategies to build quality depth. Win some, lose some
This is probably the third or fourth time I’ve seen a comment about “the abuse” of the waiver system by Baltimore. It’s comical that some of these commenters actually believe that only Baltimore does this and that they do it in such a way that it can be labeled “abuse” or as one commenter stated, “cheating.”
They are following the exact rules that are in place by MLB and are not violating any of those rules. The process is completely above board and legal, regardless of certain individual’s poor understanding and interpretation of the process.
This is a ridiculous comment. It’s like a stock comment for the Pirates or Marlins pasted onto the Os.
For all the Orioles’ imperfections and valid criticisms, this isn’t one of them. They’ve been spending a lot and one of the most active this offseason trying to win. And they’re not done yet.
@ORising
Ignore the AI Whine Bot and it’s hallucinations.
Hmmm it doesn’t seem ridiculous. Elias over uses the waiver wire obviously, there should be some limitations or tweaking, maybe that will happen during the 2027 strike/lock out.
The orioles spending money this off season doesn’t negate the complaint about Elias’ over use of the waiver system.
It’s actually a pretty clever method of building depth pieces. Most times, the players he picks up are very good AAA players who haven’t found their footing in the majors. You never know when lightening will strike
Hope they can get you some playing time, Weston.
Orioles love ex-Phillies players (Wilson, Serantony, Kyle Gibson, Eflin, Gregory Soto.)
Cody Asche and Tommy Joseph were hitting coaches there, too. You may have a point…
Having watched the guy for the past few seasons, he has some solid tools and even hit for that cycle, but bad luck cost him his shot when he went down with an oblique strain in ST last year and lost his role to Otto Kemp. It’s always seemed like what he needed was confidence through regular playing time in the bigs. Wishing WW success wherever he sticks.
Right, his monster year at Lehigh Valley should have earned him a spot on the Opening Day roster in 2024. 30/30 season with an .879 OPS and was still behind Rojas, Pache, and Cave on the depth chart.
Solid claim
Not the orioles news we’re looking for.
Framber or bust
You are going to run out of AAA roster space if you keep stashing.
Keep stashing, O’s.
Ramon Urias Part Deux
I’m sure Perry Minasian is chomping at the bit to claim Jose Suarez.
I would love it if they did. Angel fans have an irrational hate for Suarez, the guy wasn’t good for them, but a lot of his failure was poor bullpen management
I wish the Orioles were this aggressive in the top of the rotation market