After back-to-back excellent seasons in 2023-24, the 2025 Orioles stumbled to a last place finish. They responded with their biggest offseason of Mike Elias’ tenure running baseball operations.
Major League Signings
- 1B Pete Alonso: Five years, $155MM
- RHP Ryan Helsley: Two years, $28MM (deal includes opt-out after ’26)
- RHP Chris Bassitt: One year, $18.5MM
- RHP Zach Eflin: One year, $10MM (including buyout of ’27 mutual option)
- CF Leody Taveras: One year, $2MM
2026 commitments: $73.5MM
Total future commitments: $213.5MM
Option Decisions
- OF Tyler O’Neill bypassed opportunity to opt out of two years, $33MM
- Team exercised $9MM option on RHP Andrew Kittredge over $1MM buyout
- Team declined $5.5MM option on SS Jorge Mateo
Trades and Claims
- Acquired RHP Shane Baz from Rays for four minor leaguers (C Caden Bodine, OF Slater de Brun, OF Austin Overn, RHP Michael Forret) and Competitive Balance Round A draft pick (#33 overall)
- Acquired LF Taylor Ward from Angels for RHP Grayson Rodriguez
- Acquired RHP Andrew Kittredge from Cubs for cash
- Acquired 2B/3B/OF Blaze Alexander from Diamondbacks for RHP Kade Strowd, minor league RHP Wellington Aracena and minor league IF José Mejia
- Acquired RHP Jackson Kowar from Twins for cash
- Traded C Alex Jackson to Twins for minor league INF Payton Eeles
- Claimed RHP George Soriano off waivers from Marlins (later lost on waivers to Braves)
- Claimed OF Pedro León off waivers from Astros (later lost on waivers to Phillies)
- Claimed OF Will Robertson off waivers from Pirates (later outrighted off 40-man roster)
- Claimed C Drew Romo off waivers from Rockies (later lost on waivers to Mets)
- Claimed OF Jhonkensy Noel off waivers from Guardians (later outrighted)
- Claimed OF Marco Luciano off waivers from Pirates (later lost on waivers to Yankees)
- Claimed LHP José Suarez off waivers from Braves (later lost back to Atlanta on waivers)
- Claimed IF/OF Weston Wilson off waivers from Phillies (later outrighted)
- Acquired 3B Bryan Ramos from White Sox for cash (later lost on waivers to Cardinals, then re-claimed off waivers from St. Louis)
Notable Minor League Signings
- Jose Barrero, Hans Crouse, Thairo Estrada (granted release at end of Spring Training), Sam Huff, Enoli Paredes, Albert Suárez
Extensions
- Restructured deal with LHP Dietrich Enns to one-year, $2.625MM guarantee (including buyout of ’27 club option)
Notable Losses
- Grayson Rodriguez, Tomoyuki Sugano, Alex Jackson, Gary Sánchez, Jorge Mateo, Kade Strowd, José Castillo (lost on waivers), Dylan Carlson (outright), Daniel Johnson (outright), Shawn Dubin (outright), Carson Ragsdale (lost on waivers)
On the heels of back-to-back playoff appearances, the 2025 Orioles were 15 games under .500 by the end of May. They fired manager Brandon Hyde seven weeks into the season. The team played better under interim skipper Tony Mansolino, but they’d dug themselves a hole from which they never had much chance to crawl out.
Before making any significant roster moves, the O’s needed to decide on a manager. Guardians associate manager Craig Albernaz has been viewed as a manager in waiting for a few seasons. The O’s hired the 43-year-old to his first MLB managerial job, though he’d previously held the position at the lower levels of the Rays’ farm system.
Albernaz also has minor league playing experience and had worked on big league staffs in San Francisco and Cleveland over the past few years. Managerial changes frequently come with coaching staff adjustments. This was no exception. The O’s brought in Donnie Ecker as bench coach and Dustin Lind as hitting coach, though they stayed the course on the pitching side. Drew French is back for his third season as pitching coach; assistant pitching coach Mitch Plassmeyer and pitching strategy coach Ryan Klimek are also holdovers.
The focus then turned to the roster. President of baseball operations Mike Elias hinted at the possibility of a big offseason, saying they were open to pursuing free agents who had declined qualifying offers. Starting pitching was the natural target with the team not having replaced Corbin Burnes at the top of last year’s rotation. The O’s would be tied to Framber Valdez and Ranger Suárez as frequently as any team throughout the offseason.
They didn’t come away with either pitcher, though they reportedly did offer Suárez a five-year deal in the $125MM range. Baltimore’s biggest free agent splash would instead come on the position player side. The O’s were involved on the top power bats available both in free agency and trade.
Kyle Schwarber and Pete Alonso were the preeminent free agent sluggers. The Orioles pursued both, with Schwarber seemingly their top target. They reportedly offered him a five-year, $150MM deal around the Winter Meetings. Unfortunately for Baltimore, Schwarber preferred to return to Philadelphia if all else was equal. The Phillies matched, and last year’s NL MVP runner-up will spend another five years in the City of Brotherly Love.
Undaunted, the Orioles moved quickly to Alonso. One day after Schwarber’s agreement with Philly, the O’s hammered out a five-year deal to slot Alonso into the middle of the order. He signed for $155MM — it’s probably not a coincidence that his camp topped Schwarber’s deal by $1MM annually — and will be the everyday first baseman. Alonso was not eligible for the qualifying offer, so he didn’t require draft pick forfeiture. He rebounded from a slightly down 2024 season to hit .272/.347/.524 with 38 homers in his final season as a Met.
The deal raised some eyebrows around the league. It’s a lot of money for a player in his 30s whose game is built almost entirely around his bat. (The same can be said for the Schwarber deal, to be clear.) Alonso is as durable as any player in the game and will surely upgrade the offense. His first base defense has never been great and has declined over the past two seasons — to the point that the incumbent Mets were seemingly only interested in bringing him back on a shorter term that involved more work as a designated hitter.
It’s easily the biggest investment of the Elias era. They’d made nine-figure offers to other players — the ones to Burnes, Schwarber and later Suárez have all been publicly reported — but this is the organization’s first nine-figure signing since the Chris Davis extension a decade ago.
Alonso was one of seven right-handed hitters who hit at least 35 homers last season. He’s one of two whom the Orioles acquired over the winter. Taylor Ward popped a career-high 36 longballs with a .228/.317/.475 slash over 157 games for the Angels.
Ward was entering his final season of arbitration and felt a little superfluous to a Halos team loaded with right-handed power bats and lacking starting pitching. That arguably describes the Orioles as well, but the teams nevertheless lined up a one-for-one trade. Baltimore gave up four years of control over Grayson Rodriguez for one year of Ward, who’ll make $12.175MM.
It’s frankly difficult to imagine the O’s would have made that move if they had any faith in Rodriguez staying healthy. Formerly the top pitching prospect in the entire sport, Rodriguez pitched at a mid-rotation level between 2023-24. He has battled shoulder and elbow injuries over the last two seasons and didn’t pitch at all in ’25. Rodriguez was healthy at the time of the trade and has shown mid-90s velocity this spring, but a “dead arm” will again send him to the injured list to begin his Angels tenure.
The Ward trade preceded the Alonso signing by a couple weeks. Yet even at the time, it made for a bit of an odd roster fit. Baltimore’s top free agent signee of the previous offseason, Tyler O’Neill, is a right-handed hitting left fielder with huge power and modest on-base skills. O’Neill’s first season in Baltimore was a disaster, as he landed on the injured list three times and didn’t perform over 54 games when he was able to play. He made the obvious call to forego an opt-out and wasn’t going to be easy to trade with two years and $33MM remaining on his contract.
Baltimore presumably hopes to salvage something from the O’Neill investment, but the corner outfield picture is cluttered. He and Ward each fit best in left field. Dylan Beavers had a huge year in Triple-A and is coming off an impressive 35-game MLB showing. He should get regular playing time in right field, at least against righty pitching. Colton Cowser is coming off an injury-plagued season and stretched defensively up the middle, but they’ll need to play him in center field to get him regular playing time.
In the O’s defense, it’s not as if there were a ton of alternatives in center field. They were never likely to outbid the Yankees on Cody Bellinger. After that, Harrison Bader was the best of a middling group in free agency. The trade market was led by Luis Robert Jr., a reclamation candidate who’ll play the 2026 season on a $20MM salary.
The Orioles made a pure depth add at the position by signing Leody Taveras to a $2MM deal. He has been a capable defender for most of his career but hasn’t hit at all in the past two seasons. He’s a fourth/fifth outfielder who’ll round out the bench.
The glut of corner bats extends to the infield. Baltimore’s catching tandem of Adley Rutschman and Samuel Basallo are going to take a lot of at-bats at designated hitter. They haven’t found playing time for former top corner infield prospect Coby Mayo. Meanwhile, Ryan Mountcastle’s rough 2025 season and near-$7MM arbitration salary made him a clear non-tender candidate on paper. The Orioles opted to retain Mountcastle for his final year of arbitration, an odd decision in November that seemed particularly regrettable when they signed Alonso two weeks later.
Baltimore dangled Mountcastle in trade talks into Spring Training. There was unsurprisingly a limited market for a moderately expensive first baseman coming off a .250/.286/.367 season, even though the O’s managed to secure a club option over him for the 2027 campaign. It’s always possible an eleventh-hour trade will come together. If not, he’ll enter the season without much of a path to playing time as a right-handed bench bat.
Camp injuries opened a greater opportunity for Mayo, if only because he’s nominally capable of playing third base. Jordan Westburg has battled an oblique injury and, more ominously, has a partial UCL tear in his throwing elbow. He’s trying a platelet-rich plasma injection in the hope of avoiding surgery. He’ll miss at least the first month of the season.
Mayo will open the year as the primary third baseman. The defense is a concern, but he’s yet another potentially impactful right-handed power hitter. Mayo hasn’t shown a whole lot in 340 scattered big league plate appearances, but he has been a consistent 20+ homer bat in the minors. He’s also coming off a huge Spring Training performance.
The injuries extended to the other side of the infield. Second baseman Jackson Holliday suffered a right hamate fracture during batting practice early in camp. He underwent surgery and will begin the season on the injured list. The O’s had serendipitously made a trade to fortify their infield depth just one day before Holliday suffered that fracture.
Baltimore acquired utilityman Blaze Alexander from the Diamondbacks for reliever Kade Strowd and a pair of minor leaguers. Alexander is a righty hitter with a little bit of power and some defensive versatility. He should be a serviceable stopgap at second until Holliday is healthy. He can then work in a multi-positional role or push Mayo off third base if necessary (depending on Westburg’s progress).
The O’s made a number of minor transactions on the position player side, largely in claiming players off waivers and trying to run them through waivers themselves a week or two later. They added corner infielder Bryan Ramos and outfielders Weston Wilson, Jhonkensy Noel and Will Robertson to the organization that way. They also traded out-of-options third catcher Alex Jackson to Minnesota for non-roster infielder Payton Eeles, a 5’5″ utility player with minimal power but strong on-base numbers in the minors.
Baltimore remained active in the free agent starting pitching market even after the Alonso signing. It’s likely that their offer to Suárez came towards the end of the winter, as he didn’t sign his $130MM deal with the Red Sox until late January. Valdez was unsigned into February, as were reported mid-tier targets Justin Verlander, Lucas Giolito and Chris Bassitt. (Giolito, of course, remains unsigned.)
The O’s eventually added Bassitt on a one-year, $18.5MM deal as Spring Training got underway. The veteran righty has started 30+ games in each of the last four seasons, typically allowing around four earned runs per nine with a league average strikeout/walk profile.
There are some similarities to late-career signings that haven’t worked for the O’s in past years (e.g. Charlie Morton, Tomoyuki Sugano, Kyle Gibson), but Bassitt is at the higher end of that group. They got him for one year in an offseason when Merrill Kelly commanded a two-year deal from the Diamondbacks at the same age and with a similar profile. He should raise the floor in the middle of the rotation.
On the opposite end of the risk-reward spectrum, the Orioles made their biggest rotation add via trade. Baltimore packaged four prospects and a 2026 Competitive Balance draft pick (No. 33 overall) to the Rays for Shane Baz. The righty is entering his age-27 season and under arbitration control for three years. Baz is a former top prospect who still has plus stuff. He averages 97 mph on his fastball and has a trio of secondary pitches (knuckle-curve, cutter and changeup) that can miss bats.
There’s a path for Baz to become a high-end No. 3 starter who can slot behind Trevor Rogers and Kyle Bradish in the top half of the rotation. There’s work to do if he’s to reach that ceiling, however. Baz had seven scoreless starts last year; he also had 10 outings in which he allowed five or more runs. The O’s are chalking up some of the inconsistency to Baz’s struggles at Tampa Bay’s 2025 temporary home field, where he had a near-6.00 ERA and allowed 18 of his 26 home runs. Baz had a 3.86 ERA over 84 innings on the road.
They paid a hefty prospect cost to take the swing. The headliners of the return, Caden Bodine and Slater de Brun, were respectively selected 30th and 37th overall last summer. They parted with a similarly high pick in the upcoming draft. It’s also a bet on Baz to stay healthy, as last year was his first full season at the MLB level. Baz had undergone Tommy John surgery at the end of the 2022 campaign and was sidelined for nearly two years.
The new additions will respectively land third and fourth in Albernaz’s rotation. The Orioles round out the group by bringing back Zach Eflin on a one-year, $10MM deal. The righty had a nightmare of a 2025 season, allowing a near-6.00 ERA over 14 starts. He went on the injured list three times due to lat and back injuries. Eflin underwent a season-ending lumbar microdiscectomy in August but will be ready for Opening Day. The O’s are placing a moderate bet that he’ll return closer to the mid-rotation form he showed between 2023-24.
Baltimore’s three rotation moves pushed right-hander Dean Kremer to Triple-A to begin the season. He’s overqualified for a sixth starter in Triple-A, though an injury is sure to reopen a rotation spot before long. The Orioles will use Tyler Wells out of the bullpen. He can work in long relief but might be needed more often in leverage situations given the uncertainty in the late innings.
The Orioles lost Félix Bautista to rotator cuff surgery as the 2025 season was winding down. It was a massive blow to an already thin bullpen. Baltimore responded by making a pair of high-leverage pickups early in the offseason. They reacquired setup man Andrew Kittredge from the Cubs, picking up a $9MM team option that Chicago evidently wasn’t going to exercise. Kittredge is effective when healthy but missed time last season with a knee injury and will start this year on the 15-day IL due to shoulder inflammation.
Baltimore’s bigger relief add came in the ninth inning. The O’s dipped into a robust free agent closing market to sign Ryan Helsley to a two-year, $28MM guarantee that allows him to opt out after one season. A two-time All-Star with the Cardinals, Helsley has a triple digit fastball and a wipeout slider that can make him one of the best relievers in the game. The end to his 2025 season couldn’t have gone any worse though.
Helsley was rocked for a 7.20 ERA over 22 appearances after being traded from St. Louis to the Mets at last year’s deadline. His strikeouts dropped, the walks increased, and his home run rate skyrocketed. It’s believed that Helsley was tipping his pitches and unable to correct the issue in-season. The Orioles clearly agree, betting on the track record and stuff over the most recent results. Helsley had an encouraging spring, firing six scoreless innings with eight strikeouts against three walks.
Yennier Cano will get some high-leverage assignments, as will Kittredge and Keegan Akin once they’re healthy. Baltimore restructured their contract with lefty Dietrich Enns, who missed a decent number of bats after being acquired from the Tigers in a minor deadline trade. They took a flier on former supplemental first-rounder Jackson Kowar, who is out of options and trying to win a middle relief role.
It was the busiest offseason of Elias’ eight years running baseball operations. It didn’t take the form many expected, as the Orioles emphasized adding power bats over a clear top-end starter. They invested a lot of trade capital and a decent amount of money to build out the middle of the rotation, hoping that’ll be enough to support a high-powered lineup. Can they follow the path of the 2025 Blue Jays in going worst to first in the AL East?
How would you grade the Orioles' offseason?
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B 56% (1,158)
-
A 23% (467)
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C 16% (326)
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D 3% (72)
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F 2% (41)
Total votes: 2,064
Looking at what they added vs what they lost this team got a whole lot better. A.
I think their offseason was great, would give them an A minus. Only issue is they seem to have a bit too many position players. That doesn’t always seem to sort itself out as easily as extra pitching. They added tons of power to an already good lineup. Ward was a steal, even for one season. While it made sense to keep Mayo, they money they spent on Mountcastle could have been used elsewhere. Would have been nice to get Framber instead of Bassitt but I believe they tried. Helsley can be a bit of a risk though, maybe they jumped the gun signing him early? The prices and extra depth won’t hurt them though if they make the playoffs and look great.
I’m very happy overall with our offseason, which was easily the best of Mike Elias’ tenure as Orioles GM.
I do wish we had added another established RP or two, but even so, I have to give it an A given the context of how Elias has usually operated over the last 7 years (although, to be fair, a lot of that inaction was likely driven by the previous ownership’s refusal to spend).
Absolutely no excuse for his offseason of misfortunes last year.
He did a lot more. But I again don’t think he did enough. But there’s the deadline. Certainly will be acquiring a reliever at that point. I’d give him a B/B- for this year. Absolutely no way I give out an A when we got Yaramil Hiraldo, Grant Wolfram, and Dietrich Enns in the opening day bullpen.
Why do the O’s get competitive balance picks still? Its tough to find revenue information but BAL is 16th in payroll according to Fangraphs.
@Ducey
they don’t rank it by what a team spends (quite honestly, that would be counter productive to encouraging ownership to spend, MLB wants to encourage teams like the Padres to spend despite their market size).
It’s been forever since I’ve read an article on the relative market comparisons but I’m nearly certain that the Baltimore market is in the bottom 1/3 of the 30 teams. it was higher before the Nations peeled off the DC/NoVa area from the Orioles.
Anyway, I believe that’s the answer to your question.
Payroll/revenue isn’t how CBP are determined, rather it’s market/population size. It’s likely that the Orioles will be permanent members of the CB picks going forward since the mid-market they had been was divided up for the Nationals. (Please note: the Nationals do not receive a CBP… because of…??? Market…ugh) 😤
This team improved quite a bit, they should be at the very least a Wild Card team.
The division is the most stacked I’ve ever seen. Really anything can happen. O’s, Sox and Yankees are nearly 7 deep in starters with deep lineups too. Jays have a fantastic group too and the Rays look weak by comparison but not a normal last place team.
Geez, Tony, you sell Eflin short with “mid-rotation form he showed”
Hurt last year but he was a top 20 starter the previous 3 years by fWAR. The ones before and after him on the list should tell you who he is when healthy:
Max fried, Logan gilbert, luis castillo
then Eflin
then alcantara, chris sale, ranger suarez.
Yeah, mid-rotation. On the all star team.
2024 is the one and only season Eflin cracked top 20 pitchers in WAR.
I looked at the fg ranking for the 3 years ’22-’24 and thats what came up.
I think they did pretty well but they really should’ve added a frontliner for it to be an A. Baz looks good but I think it was an overpay and they should’ve gotten Valdez/Suarez.
I’m not upset at all that we did not outbid the eventual winners of the Valdez and Suarez sweepstakes as both guys have some serious red flags (rapidly declining fastball velo in Suarez’s case and attitude issues/declining metrics in Valdez’s, along with his extreme groundball profile not really looking like a good match for the Orioles’ middling IF defense).
Do not like this team’s defense. It’s pretty bad almost everywhere (Gunnar and Adley are the exceptions with Westburg out) and will cost them. They should have gone out and traded for an elite CF who can actually hit well enough to play.
If such a player was available, why did none of the other teams that needed an everyday CF go out and trade for him?
Also, Bradfield will probably be ready by midseason and will immediately be one of the best defensive CFs in all of MLB the moment he steps foot onto an MLB field for his debut.
I was impressed with Bradfield in the WBC. I never saw him play before that but it seems his speed and defense should give him a good shot to be a productive player, even if the bat never catches up to his other skills.
JDG- He may not ever even hit 5 HRs in a single seqson, but with his elite defense in CF and baserunning ability, if he can post even like a .320 OBP in the 9 hole to turn the lineup over for Gunnar, Alonso, Ward, etc., he will have a place in the big leagues.
Agree none available except at ridiculous prices. Cowser D grades out kinda meh; i’m more worried about his bat.
Re: bradfield, dont agree. His hitting has been unplayable. Unless something changes, he is a 5th OF D replacement and nothing more. No mlb pitcher will walk him.
D makes up for a crumby bat but not a useless one. The team is taking the opposite approach – smash enough and below avg D wont matter.
saj- His power is basically non-existent, but Bradfield has excellent bat to ball skills, decent plate discipline, and top of the scale speed.
With his elite defense (at a premium defensive position at that) and baserunning, he really won’t have to hit much to be a solid, productive everyday CF.
Those excellent bat to ball skills only hit .240 b avg overall last year, league avg. Ops in mostly AA and some below that. V few xbh, mlb pitchers will just throw strikes and let him have at it.
He needs to hit more, dobt see him improving enough. Hope to be wrong. They traded overn but nate george will be a level below him v soon and pass him by before year end.
His overall average for the year was dragged down by a 15 game cup of coffee at Norfolk late in the year and 8 games at high Aberdeen earlier in the season.
In a much larger sample of over 200 PAs at AA, he hit .269 with a massive .393 OBP.
I want you to be right so i went looking for comps that had a two year window of bradfield stats: 750+ pas with 100-110 wrc+ and great wsb, which will approximate CF defense.
Its not pretty. 2010 to 2020, a bunch looked like enrique; say about 15 guys. Nearly all had better availability. I never heard of most of them. The ‘successes’ were role players. Mateo, billy burns, delino deshields.
Only one, billy hamilton, managed to become an avg mlb asset by bWAR.
So 25%ish chance he makes it as a 4th OF, with 5% chance of regular. I suggest you curb your enthusiasm, but still want you to be right.
With his elite defense at a premium defensive position and his elite speed/baserunning, he doesn’t have to be an above average hitter to be a productive player.
Andrelton Simmons put up nearly 37 rWAR despite being a career 87 OPS+ hitter thanks largely to his elite defense at a premium position (note: I am not predicting that Bradfield will be worth 30+ WAR for his career, just pointing out that his low offensive ceiling does not preclude him from having a successful MLB career).
“does not preclude”. Ok, but for him to be mlb avg everyday player is a long shot.
Those comps had similar speed. Hamilton had elite D, delino was good. Mateo was +D at short and was fast enuf to be + at CF.
Simmons was the best defender of his generation. Thats just silly to bring him as a comp for a too often hurt,aa outfielder.
Bradfield does not bring near enough extra D over those comps to put himself into a different category. The elite speed CF list is long, and Bradfields odds are also.
No one is so bad on D except alonso, and its not like 1st base is such a key spot. ’24 westburg was ok, holliday wasnt but should do better since he was ok in minors. Cowser grades as meh, ’24 oneill was fine, beavers is avg,, ward is meh. Ss and C are fine.
Its by no means a good D. No one is saying its brooks, blair, belanger. But its not as bad as its made out to be, just fair. Of course it all depends on health. Thats what killed D last year and could do so again.
Luis Robert was the guy who was available and made CF better btw. He’ll likely hit the same or better as Cowser and provides elite D. 45 abs 18K’s for Cowser in the Spring. That’s brutal.
But problem with Robert was his $$ were more than his value. Before Ward trade, he woulda made OF D better but hurt the O quite a bit. And you overpay for it and need to send some talent back.
Cowser is acceptable, grades out as +LF and ok CF. Robert rbat+ last 2 yrs was 87 vs cowser 101, war 2.8 vs 3.8, $22 vs $1.
Dont want to be a troll so i will just say that i am glad that it is Elias who is GM.
Cowser’s 2024 numbers aren’t very important to me. I don’t think he repeats
Think what you want, but the only thing we have to inform expectations is what has been. Injury history mattersand salary matters. Its not all just about a players peak performance ceiling
O’s needed homerun power and got it. The O’s weakness at the moment is BP arms and defense.
The Orioles have decided they’d be much happier in the AL Central & would like to know who they should speak to regarding that matter. 🤣
I’ll give it a B+. Like last year, the Orioles built the rotation middle-out rather than top down. They had the access/money for Top of the Rotation free agents (and stated publicly/repeatedly as a goal) as well as a plethora of talented/controllable players to deal from. The Burnes trade demonstrated how the Warehouse can operate (and maybe set a false standard for us fans), but this off-season, with the ownership settled in for the first time in Elias’s tenure plus Ownership being very eager to spend, it is confusing as a fan that the resources were allocated toward offense first (only Cease had signed when Pete signed?), and then watch the market go slowly from there through February…and still no TOR.
I like the Baz trade for many reasons, but mostly that it demonstrated that Elias will “make an offer you can’t refuse” for the right player. However, from a roster construction stand point, the trade only replaced Grayson who was already traded (similar profiles too). Kinda a wash, rotation wise.
This team looks and feels a lot like previous Orioles teams/designs: out score your rotations deficiency. Bradish is hardly a secret to anyone, but Rogers is an enigma. Rogers is very clearly hard to pickup for hitters, they take odd swings regularly and were baffled by his 2/3 pitch mix. Unlike a Chris Sale who has a wipe-out/elite second pitch, Rogers second offering is a change-up, that even last year when he smoked hitters all over the place, his changeup was inconsistent, and that new breaking ball ended up being the out pitch more than the change. All that to say…there’s such a wide variance in outcomes for Rogers, it’s hard to know how he’ll add up. Rogers and Baz are good pitchers, and Burnes type pitchers don’t grow on trees, still though, the dip in production/value from Bradish to Rogers/Baz could be large. Further, any injury/injuries to any of Rogers or Baz change the rotation outlook considerably without much to back fill. The Orioles upside pitching prospects are still 1-2 years from being MLB ready so the rotation has to all play toward better than expected outcomes and health. And who ever counts on that.
The bullpen definitely needs some more seasoning, but that’s something that seems to work out through the course of a season and Elias has tweeked the bullpens well every year, so I’m less concerned.
So yeah, hopefully they score by the dozens and pitch to their best. (A-duh, right?!?)
2 cents, thanks.
Let’s go O’s!!
“this is the organization’s first nine-figure signing since the Chris Davis extension a decade ago.”
Reading that sent a shiver down my spine. The Alonso deal can’t possibly work out that badly, right? Right? RIGHT?????
You do not want to look at FG and see how 30 hr hitters at age 30 perform at ages 33-35. Dont look, dont.
I graded a C.
(First of all, very comprehensive write up with analysis, the best one I’ve seen on MLBTR in at least a couple months for the Orioles).
Elias flunked on top of the rotation arm to anchor that staff. Baz COULD be a good pickup, Eflin COULD bounce back to 2023-24 form. Bradish COULD put up 30 overall high quality starts. Rogers COULD avoid regressing to the mean this year versus last as much as all expect. The rotation floor is higher than 2025 for sure, but the ceiling is still very low. They still have the 17th rated rotation from Fan Graphs, worst in the division. I agree with that.
Bullpen is also still thin, thinner than in recent years. That may be a worry if the starters don’t pan out as expected (like last year – fried by Memorial Day). But this is also easiest to fix.
Good to very good job on offense – not totally great. Ward and Alonso add tons of missing pop to the middle of a lineup that had no one exceed 17 HR. Henderson and Rutschman have to bounce back, Holliday, Cowser, and Basallo all have to take steps forward which is not a guarantee after 1.5 years of regression.
Why not great? General Soreness and Mountcastle seem redundant and wastes of roster spots/money. They have to try and salvage something out of the O’Neill $ debacle. Still confused why Mountcastle was tendered. Its also a very strikeout, power-dependent, low OBP group overall which could precipitate slumps, though I think overall its a pretty potent lineup.
Hopefully the defense as other mentions is just below average and not one of those 3 or 4 outliers where its noticeable.
I had predicted 84-78 back in January before all the projections came out, and the projections ended up similarly. Seems fair. Things can go right and they can take the division, sure, but certainly not favorites.
They absolutely cannot stagger out of the gate like last year. Hoping for 22-18 at the quarter mark or better. Not 16-34 after 50!
I don’t think O’Neill is redundant tbh. He’s an overpaid platoon bat but we don’t know if Beavers can hit lefties yet. Definitely doesn’t hurt to have a corner guy. Cowser has been so bad the last year that I can see them putting Beavers out in CF in a month or so.’
I give them a more positive B- but the team has holes that could’ve been addressed.
Agree on Cowser – wow. He really will need to hit too, he’s been K just as much as last year. But Bradfield didn’t hit in the spring to push him.
For O’Neill if he plays I think they sit Beavers or Ward if RF and Rutschman, Basallo if he’s DH, he’s not an improvement on that anticipated production (and likely less than Ward). If Mountcastle plays, that’s a minus to the lineup overall.
If Albernaz turns out to be a good manager then I can go C+ or B-minus but its hard to grade a first time manager not seeing what he does.
I think A seems plausible!
I agree with the sentiment that a frontline starter added to the rotation would have made it an A+. As it stands I say B+ maybe A- since I’m an o’s guy. Certainly leaps and bounds better an offseason compared to last year.
A solid B. Got a big bat and a pair of rotation arms. Helsley is a wild card as a Closer though. He did not fair well with the Mets so not sure how he will handle the AL East pressure cooker
C grade at best. Just because this was better than previous off-seasons when they did nothing doesn’t make it good. No TOR starter and bullpen is a hot mess. Tendering Mounty and then going out and signing Alonso made no sense, especially with Mayo and Basallo needing AB’s. I hope Baz pans out because that was a lot to give up for someone with his track record. Hard to see anything better than maybe 3rd in the ALE.