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Offseason In Review: Baltimore Orioles

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It was another quiet winter for the Orioles, who continue to focus on building up their farm and keeping payroll down during a lengthy stretch of lean seasons.

Major League Signings

Trades and Claims

Notable Minor League Signings

Extensions

  • None

Notable Losses

The Orioles kicked off the winter with what appeared to be a rather straightforward decision on a $3.5MM club option for shortstop Jose Iglesias. It was somewhat curious that Baltimore waited until the last minute to formally exercise that option, considering that a $500K buyout made it a net $3MM decision, but the end result to pick up the option came as little surprise after a productive season for Iglesias. General manager Mike Elias said after the fact that the option was never in doubt and called his shortstop a “perfect fit for what we need right now.” Iglesias was traded to the Angels 29 days later.

As has regularly been the case for the O’s, their return included a pair of low-level pitchers. Righty Garrett Stallings has yet to appear in a pro game, though he was a 2019 fifth-rounder who is regarded as a polished arm that could quickly move through the ranks and become a back-of-the-rotation starter. Twenty-year-old righty Jean Pinto has just 12 pro innings under his belt and is further from the big leagues. Baseball America rated Stallings as the organization’s No. 26 prospect earlier this winter.

Absent the “perfect fit” comments from Elias, it wouldn’t have been much of a surprise to see Iglesias on the move. The O’s have been willing to listen on any players as they reshape the organization, after all, and as an affordable veteran with one year remaining on his contract, he was a logical player to market. To the Orioles’ credit, they eventually added a similar player in Freddy Galvis, who’ll fill the same role with an even more modest price tag for the coming season.

That proved to be the Orioles’ lone big league free-agent signing this winter, though it wasn’t the only player acquired to help the 2021 roster. Baltimore plucked 2019 Gold Glove winner Yolmer Sanchez off waivers and figures to give the 28-year-old plenty of run at second base. Paired with Galvis, he should form a strong defensive tandem in the middle infield, although Sanchez could eventually face some competition from the player acquired in the Orioles’ other major offseason transaction.

Few would’ve expected the Orioles to be able to both offload some of the remaining $15MM on Alex Cobb’s four-year deal and do so in a trade that brought a young player of some note back to the organization. But the Orioles managed to do just that, shipping Cobb to the Angels in a trade that saved the O’s about $5MM and brought in one-time top prospect Jahmai Jones.

While the 23-year-old Jones has seen his stock dip since he was on the back end of Top 100 lists at Baseball America, MLB.com and Baseball Prospectus, he’s still a near-MLB-ready piece who got his feet wet with a three-game call to the Majors for the Halos last year. The Orioles have said he’ll work mostly at second base, but if Sanchez settles in nicely at that spot, Jones does have a good bit of outfield experience as well.

It was a surprising trade on many levels. The market had plenty of mid- and back-of-the-rotation options available around the same price point as Cobb — many who are more durable than Cobb has been. The Angels clearly saw something they like in Cobb more than comparable, available arms (e.g. Rick Porcello), but the market for the right-hander couldn’t have been too strong. The O’s did well to shed some of that contract and add an intriguing young player, even if he’s in need of a rebound.

That said, it’s also worth pointing out that Cobb is still the team’s second-most expensive player. The $10MM they’re paying him to pitch for the Angels is more than they’re paying everyone other than Chris Davis. The money saved in their two trades and series of non-tenders apparently won’t be put back into the 2021 club, so fans will have to simply hope such moves lead to greater spending down the road.

Baltimore had the opportunity to choose among any number of veteran starting pitchers or relievers, but the Orioles settled on minor league deals with some veteran pitchers in dire need of a rebound. Felix Hernandez and Matt Harvey haven’t been high-end pitchers since 2015, and Harvey in particular has been clobbered in several stops since his days as Citi Field’s Dark Knight. Hernandez, meanwhile, barely cracked 90 mph with his average fastball in his final year with the Mariners. He opted out of the 2020 season after signing a minor league deal with the Braves. Hernandez was able to survive when his once 95-plus velocity dipped to the 93 mph range, but as it’s continued to drop further, his overall effectiveness has waned.

It’s a stretch to expect Hernandez and Harvey to regain their form at this point, yet that duo joins Wade LeBlanc and Tom Eshelman — both back with the club on minor league deals — as the only additions to the rotation competition. The Orioles have plenty of young arms they’d like to take a look at, some of which will get that chance in 2021. Keegan Akin, Dean Kremer, Zac Lowther, Bruce Zimmerman and Michael Baumann are all on the 40-man roster.

Still, it already feels as though there will be a frequent question of how they’re going to get through a given week of starts. John Means is locked into a rotation spot. The only other starting pitcher on the 40-man roster who has even 30 innings of MLB experience is out-of-options righty Jorge Lopez, who carries a career 6.03 ERA and isn’t even a guarantee to break camp with the team.

There’s something to be said for the pedal-to-the-metal, ultra-aggressive rebuild approach, and perhaps the Orioles will indeed catch lightning in a bottle on Harvey and/or Hernandez. But there’s also something to be said for the value of bringing in some stability to help such an unproven staff, and the Orioles chose not to lock themselves into such a commitment despite myriad options being available over the winter (and even up until the time of this writing). As MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes noted while he and I were chatting about this very subject: the Cubs probably wouldn’t have won the 2016 World Series if they hadn’t signed Scott Feldman in Nov. 2012. The Jake Arrieta trade is an extreme example of cashing in on a veteran placeholder, of course, but there’s value in making such additions and not relying too heavily on younger arms who aren’t accustomed to the rigors of a full MLB season’s workload.

Turning to the lineup, the Orioles didn’t add much beyond Galvis, Sanchez and Jones, and many onlookers — particularly Orioles fans — were stunned to see the club non-tender slugger Renato Nunez. The 26-year-old (27 in April) belted 43 homers from 2019-20 while batting .247/.314/.469 in Baltimore.

However, the Nunez decision was also in many ways foreseeable. He doesn’t walk much, has a higher-than-average strikeout rate and brings minimal defensive value to the table. The home runs are obviously nice, but clubs have stopped paying much for skill sets that are heavy in power but light in OBP and defensive value. That Nunez went unclaimed on waivers and ultimately settled for a minor league deal in Detroit only further underscores that market trend. Hanser Alberto found himself in a similar spot due to marginal on-base skills and a lack of power, and he was also cut loose before settling on a non-guaranteed pact in Kansas City.

While some holes in the game for Nunez and Alberto surely contributed to the Orioles moving on, the decisions were also accelerated by the growing number of MLB-ready bats Baltimore can evaluate in the near term. Austin Hays has seemingly put his injuries behind him and earned another chance to be a regular. Anthony Santander may have had a breakout in right field. Ryan Mountcastle debuted in 2020 and raked through 35 games. DJ Stewart showed some three-true-outcomes intrigue. Rio Ruiz hasn’t given much reason for optimism at third base, but prospect Rylan Bannon is more or less ready for a big league look. Chance Sisco will get another opportunity behind the plate, but uber-prospect Adley Rutschman looms in the minors.

Best of all for the 2021 Orioles, they’ll welcome back their clubhouse leader and best all-around hitter. Slugger Trey Mancini took a leave of absence a year ago around this time, disclosing weeks later that he’d been diagnosed with Stage 3 colon cancer. Mancini underwent surgery, endured chemotherapy and battled for several months until thrilling fans throughout the game by announcing that he was in remission. It’s been great to see Mancini get back into a game setting, and it’ll be a truly special moment to see him take the field for the Orioles on Opening Day. They’ll no doubt look forward to welcoming his leadership back to the clubhouse and welcoming the bat that produced a .291/.364/.535 slash in 2019 back to the heart of the lineup. For all the questions surrounding the pitching staff, the Baltimore lineup has its share of intriguing hitters.

All in all, the Orioles’ offseason was something of a mixed bag. Both trades of established big leaguers made sense, and the Cobb deal in particular was well-received around the industry. Galvis is a perfectly sensible stopgap option at shortstop, and they operated around the fringes of the 40-man with some waiver claims and Rule 5 adds. The non-tender decisions, while a surprise to some, were at the very least defensible.

At the same time, the Orioles appear set to trot out a $59.5MM payroll despite the fact that the 20 pitchers on their 40-man roster have combined for a total of 1036 2/3 innings at the Major League level. The top depth options they brought in to supplement the group haven’t been big league contributors for years. The hope is that several young arms will claim long-term spots both in the rotation and the bullpen, but the results along the way could be ugly.

How would you grade the Orioles’ offseason? (Link to poll for Trade Rumors iOS/Android app users)

Grade the Orioles' offseason:
C 28.78% (1,288 votes)
D 28.55% (1,278 votes)
F 24.58% (1,100 votes)
B 13.61% (609 votes)
A 4.49% (201 votes)
Total Votes: 4,476

Market For Maikel Franco “Heating Up”

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TODAY: The Orioles are one of the teams interested in Franco, Heyman tweets.

MARCH 5: There hasn’t been much buzz centering on third baseman Maikel Franco since the Royals non-tendered him at the beginning of December, but his market is now “heating up,” according to Jon Heyman of MLB Network. It’s unclear which teams are interested in Franco.

MLBTR’s Matt Swartz projected in October that Franco would land anywhere from $4.5MM to $8MM in 2021, his final season of arbitration control, though the Royals were unwilling to go to those lengths to keep him. But the 28-year-old did have a productive 2020 in his lone season as a member of the Royals, with whom he batted .278/.321/.457 (106 wRC+) with eight home runs in 243 plate appearances. Franco also appeared in all 60 of Kansas City’s games, earned nice marks at third (zero DRS, 1.3 UZR) and struck out in only 15.6 percent of his trips to the plate – which aligns with his lifetime K rate of 15.3.

Franco now looks like one of the most appealing players remaining on an ever-shrinking free-agent market, and it’s easier to dream on him when considering his past promise. He ranked as high as 17th in Baseball America’s top 100 list of prospects as a Phillies farmhand back in 2014, the year he made his major league debut. Franco didn’t play much that season, but he opened eyes over 80 games in 2015, hitting .280/.343/.497 (129 wRC+) with 14 HRs across 335 PA. He wasn’t able to keep that up from 2016-19 as a Phillie, however, as he batted an uninspiring .247/.299/.427 (86 wRC+) in 2,146 PA. The Phillies gave up on Franco when they non-tendered him going into 2020.

East Notes: Mets, Orioles, Nationals

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Mets President Sandy Alderson said that he expects extension talks with Francisco Lindor and Michael Conforto to begin soon, per Bob Nightengale of USA Today (via Twitter). Both players are scheduled for free agency after the 2021 season. Lindor, for his part, has made clear that he will not negotiate an extension beyond opening day, so the window is now for Alderson and the Mets. Alderson also put forth Noah Syndergaard’s name as a potential extension candidate as well, notes Tim Healey of Newsday (via Twitter). Syndergaard, of course, is on the way back from Tommy John surgery and won’t likely appear until mid-season, but he will also be a free agent at year’s end. Extending those three would certainly cost a chunk of change, but the Mets do have roughly $100MM coming off their payroll next offseason. Interestingly, Marcus Stroman was not mentioned as an extension candidate. His $18.9MM salary could help provide the necessary raises next season for Lindor, Conforto, and Syndergaard. While we’re here, let’s check in with some other clubs in the East…

  • Orioles outfielder Cedric Mullins is giving up switch-hitting to bat lefty full-time, writes Rich Dubroff of Baltimorebaseball.com. After a horrendous 2019, Mullins bounced back somewhat in 2020, doing enough to stay on the Major League roster to appear in 48 games and 153 plate appearances with a palatable .271/.315/.407 slash line. Mullins is trying to make the Orioles roster as a fourth outfielder, though there are certainly more at-bats available if he proves capable. Giving up his right-handed swing could force him into a more straight platoon, but he hasn’t been helped by his work on the short side of that split anyhow. For his career, Mullins has hit just .146 as a right-hander with a 26 wRC+ (versus 90 wRC+ as a lefty). The split was even more pronounced last season when he earned a 118 wRC+ as a left-handed hitter versus 34 wRC+ from the right side. If nothing else, Mullins should be able to simplify his routine by focusing on one swing.
  • Erick Fedde may have stumbled upon a solution to his wandering fastball command, writes Jesse Dougherty of the Washington Post. In his first start of the spring, Fedde turned to his cutter, a pitch that has long eluded him as he has tried to establish himself as a Major League pitcher. Fedde’s cutter did not help his cause in either 2018 or 2020, per Fangraphs pitch values, though in 2019 it was his best offering. Fedde is competing for the Nats fifth starter job, though he’s not likely to win the job out of camp. With one option remaining, the Nationals have more roster flexibility with Fedde than with his competitors Joe Ross and Austin Voth. For Fedde to stick long-term, he probably needs both his sinking fastball and his cutter to work with more consistency.

2021 Arbitration Hearing Results & Post-Deadline Agreements

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January 15 was the deadline for teams and arbitration-eligible players to officially submit salary figures for the 2021, and by the time the day was done, only 13 players didn’t reach agreement on a contract.  The majority of teams now adhere to the “file or trial” strategy, meaning that no further negotiations on a one-year deal will take place between the arbitration deadline and a hearing with an arbiter, which theoretically puts pressure on players to get a deal done if they are wary about taking their case to a third party.

“File and trial” tactics didn’t stop the Astros and Carlos Correa from agreeing to a one-year deal for just the 2021 season, which is also Correa’s last year before gaining free agent eligibility.  We also saw three multi-year deals reached, all from the greater Los Angeles area — the Dodgers reached two-year deals with Walker Buehler and Austin Barnes, while the Angels inked a two-year pact with Shohei Ohtani.

This left nine unresolved cases that went all the way to a hearing (held over Zoom) between an arbiter, the player, his representative(s), and front office personnel arguing the team’s side.  The teams won five of the nine hearings, continuing the very narrow edge teams have held over players in arb cases in recent years — over the last 99 arbitration hearings, teams hold a 51-48 record over players.

For the full list of every salary for every arbitration-eligible player this offseason, check out the MLB Trade Rumors Arb Tracker.  Sticking to the 13 players with unresolved cases from January 15, here’s the rundown…

Avoided Arbitration, One-Year Contract

Avoided Arbitration, Multi-Year Contract

Arbitration Hearings, Won By Player

Arbitration Hearings, Won By Team

Orioles Notes: Sánchez, Jones, Zimmermann, Valdez

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The Orioles will have a pair of fresh faces up the middle this season with free agent additions Freddy Galvis and Yolmer Sánchez. Sánchez is a Gold Glove winner at second, but he’ll be pushed for playing time by the newly-acquired Jahmai Jones. Jones will work out in the outfield as well, but the Orioles view him as a second baseman, per Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com. It was a bit surprising to see the Orioles net the former second round pick in exchange for Alex Cobb, as the former Angels farmhand was the top prospect in LA’s system as recently as 2017, per Baseball America. He was the 89th ranked prospect in all of baseball before the 2018 season.

On the pitching side, Baltimore made positive strides in 2020, finishing in the upper half of the league by fWAR and around the middle of the pack by measure of ERA (16th) and xFIP (18th). The struggle to allot rotation minutes remains a focal point, however. Bruce Zimmermann, for instance, hopes to make the rotation after seven debut innings in 2020. If Zimmerman doesn’t make the rotation, he could wind up in the pen as a bulk innings relievers, tweets Kubatko.

The same goes for César Valdez, notes Kukatko. Manager Brandon Hyde suggested that Valdez would be used in a number of different roles, but they will work to stretch him out in the spring in preparation for multi-inning stints and potentially turns in the rotation. The 35-year-old Valdez made nine appearances for the O’s in 2020 with a 1.26 ERA/2.14 FIP across 14 1/3 innings. It was Valdez’s first appearance in the bigs since 2017 and only his third stint since initially debuting with the Diamondbacks in 2010.

Orioles To Sign Matt Harvey To Minors Deal

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12:07PM: Harvey will earn $1MM if he makes the Orioles’ active roster, Jon Meoli of The Baltimore Sun writes.

10:32AM: The Orioles have agreed to a minor league deal with right-hander Matt Harvey, MLB Network’s Jon Heyman reports (via Twitter).

Baltimore was known to be looking for veteran pitching depth, and the O’s already brought in another prominent name in Felix Hernandez earlier this month on another minors contract.  King Felix will now be joined by the Dark Knight in competition for a spot in the Orioles’ rotation.

Whether Harvey sticks as a starting pitcher or perhaps is shifted to the bullpen is a question to be determined.  Since undergoing thoracic outlet syndrome surgery in 2016, Harvey has an ungainly 6.09 ERA over 319 Major League innings with the Mets, Reds, Angels, and Royals.  After inking a minor league deal with Kansas City last year, Harvey posted an 11.57 ERA over 11 2/3 innings for the Royals, allowing six home runs in that brief stint.

Three of Harvey’s seven appearances with K.C. came as a reliever, which marked his first bullpen work since the Mets removed him from the rotation after struggling early in the 2018 season.  If he can’t crack Baltimore’s pitching staff, it seems likely that Harvey would embrace a full-on conversion to relief pitching as a way of potentially sticking on a big league roster and getting his career back on track.

The seventh overall pick of the 2010 draft, Harvey immediately burst onto the scene with excellent numbers in 2012-13, and finished fourth in NL Cy Young Award voting in 2013 (his new teammate Hernandez, incidentally, finished eighth in the AL Cy Young race that same season).  After missing the 2014 season due to Tommy John surgery, Harvey rebounded with another strong year to help lead the Mets to the NL pennant in 2015.  Unfortunately, mounting injuries and off-the-field issues clouded Harvey’s remaining years in the Big Apple before he was dealt to the Reds in May 2018.

Arbitration Hearing Decisions: J.D. Davis, Choi, Santander

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This year’s round of (virtual) arbitration hearings kicked off earlier this week. While a perhaps surprising number of players agreed to one-year deals to avoid arbitration last month rather than risk a hearing, we’ll still have a handful of cases heard by a three-person panel of arbitrators over the next couple of weeks. Some results from the first wave of hearings…

  • Mets third baseman/outfielder J.D. Davis lost his arbitration hearing and will earn $2.1MM in 2021 rather than the $2.475MM at which he filed, MLB Network’s Jon Heyman reports (Twitter link). The 27-year-old has proven to be a good find for the now-former front office regime, hitting .288/.370/.483 with 28 homers and 31 doubles through 682 plate appearances since debuting with the Mets. Davis figures to see action at third base and perhaps in left field again in 2021, and he’ll be eligible for arbitration three more times due to his status as a Super Two player.
  • Rays first baseman Ji-Man Choi won an arbitration hearing against the club and will be paid $2.45MM in 2021, reports Mark Feinsand of MLB.com (via Twitter). The team had filed for a $1.85MM salary. Choi, 29, has spent the past three seasons with the Rays, batting a combined .257/.359/.461 with 30 homers, 45 doubles and three triples in 821 trips to the plate. He slashed .230/.331/.410 in 42 games last year and is controllable through 2023. Choi was one of two outstanding arbitration cases for the Rays — the other being left-hander Ryan Yarbrough, whose trial has not yet taken place.
  • The Orioles won their arbitration hearing over outfielder Anthony Santander, tweets Feinsand. Santander, like Davis, filed at $2.475MM with his club countering at $2.1MM. He’ll earn the lesser of those two sums. The 26-year-old is a former Rule 5 pick who had a solid showing in 2019 before breaking out with a huge performance in 2020. This past season, Santander batted .261/.315/.575 with 11 homers and 13 doubles in just 165 plate appearances. On the whole, he’s given the O’s a .261/.302/.505 slash with 31 homers and 33 doubles in his past 570 plate appearances. There are some obvious OBP question marks, but the power has prompted teams to look at Santander as a possible trade option. He’s also a Super Two player and is controlled through 2024.

Orioles Sign Felix Hernandez To Minor League Deal

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The Orioles are signing right-hander Felix Hernandez to a minor league contract, Jon Heyman of MLB Network tweets. Hernandez will earn a $1MM salary if he gets to the majors.

Hernandez is now the most accomplished of the Orioles’ pitchers, having earned six All-Star nods and won an American League Cy Young with the Mariners from 2005-19. However, King Felix’s production waned during his last few years as a Mariner, leading the team to cut ties with him.

Hernandez signed a minors pact with the Braves going into the 2020 campaign, and he looked like a realistic rotation candidate for the club, but he wound up opting out because of the COVID-19 pandemic. But Hernandez could now stand an even better chance to grab a spot in the Orioles’ starting staff. The O’s “ace” is John Means, who put up a 4.53 ERA a season ago.

Angels Acquire Alex Cobb

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FEB. 2: Both teams have announced the trade. The Angels will pay $5MM of Cobb’s $15MM, and some of that includes deferrals, Connolly tweets.

FEB. 1, 12:42pm: The Angels will send infield prospect Jahmai Jones to the Orioles as part of the discussed deal, Rosenthal and colleague Fabian Ardaya report (Twitter link). The Orioles are eating more than half of Cobb’s $15MM salary in order to facilitate the deal, according to Connolly.

It’s rather surprising to see Jones included in this swap. While his stock has tumbled in recent seasons, he’s a former second-round draft pick who at one point ranked among MLB’s top 100 prospects at Baseball America, MLB.com and Baseball Prospectus. Baseball America ranked Jones 11th on the Halos’ 2020-21 list.

The 23-year-old Jones went 3-for-7 in a very brief MLB debut with the Angels in 2020, so he’s a departure from some of the Orioles’ other prospect acquisitions. He’s a near-MLB-ready piece that could be plugged into the big league mix as soon as this season. Jones has played second base and center field throughout his minor league career. His bat has stalled a bit in Double-A, where he’s batted .237/.315/.338 in a very pitcher-friendly environment.

9:54am: The two teams are indeed in talks on the trade, though MLB.com’s Joe Trezza tweets that it’s not yet close to completion. Talks still “seem to be trending in the right direction,” per MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko.

9:20am: The Angels and Orioles are working out a trade to send right-hander Alex Cobb from Baltimore to Anaheim, Dan Connolly and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic report (via Twitter). Details are still being finalized, Connolly adds. The Orioles are surely including some cash to offset a portion of the $15MM that Cobb is owed under the final season of his four-year, $57MM contract with the O’s. That deal contains a 10-team no-trade clause, but the Angels either aren’t on it or Cobb is willing to waive it to move to a more competitive club.

Cobb signed late in the 2017-18 offseason, inking his surprising four-year pact with the O’s on March 21, when Spring Training was nearing its completion. He didn’t make his team debut until April 14 that year, but even with some extra time to tune up, it appeared that the lack of a full Spring Training was tough on Cobb, who was tagged for 17 runs on 30 hits in his first three starts.

From that point forth, Cobb largely righted the ship, pitching to a respectable 4.22 ERA from May through season’s end. Cobb’s strikeout percentage was nowhere near what it’d been at his best in Tampa Bay, however, and that remains the case today. A back injury torpedoed Cobb’s 2019 season, but he returned in 2020 to make 10 starts with a 4.30 ERA (4.65 SIERA), a 16.8 percent strikeout rate and an eight percent walk rate.

Cobb’s recent strikeout rates are well south of the league average, and last year’s eight percent walk rate was his highest since his rookie year back in 2011. His Statcast profile doesn’t paint a particularly favorable picture, as his hard-hit rate and average opponents’ exit velocity were among the highest marks of any pitcher in the league. Cobb’s 54.5 percent ground-ball rate is encouraging, though — particularly when considering that he’d be playing in front of a strong infield defense in Anaheim (Anthony Rendon, Jose Iglesias, David Fletcher).

Certainly, Cobb isn’t the top-of-the-rotation starter that most believe the Angels need, but the cost of acquisition here is likely to be relatively small, and he’ll give the Halos another able-bodied arm to soak up some innings. Teams need far more than five starters to get through a 162-game season under normal circumstances, and that reality will be amplified exponentially in 2021 after last year’s shortened schedule truncated every Major League pitcher’s workload.

Cobb joins Dylan Bundy, Andrew Heaney, Griffin Canning, Jose Quintana, Shohei Ohtani, Jaime Barria and Patrick Sandoval as rotation options on the 40-man roster for the Angels. It’s likely that everyone from that bunch will get some starts, and it’s worth wondering whether the Angels will consider a six-man rotation given their bulk approach to their rotation composition. That will be determined by new general manager Perry Minasian and manager Joe Maddon, the latter of whom is plenty familiar with Cobb after managing the first several seasons of his career with the Rays.

For the Orioles, subtracting Cobb from an already suspect rotation thins out the depth and, more importantly in ownership’s eyes, scales back the payroll. Even with Cobb on the books, the Orioles’ payroll sat at just $64MM, but this deal could drop them below the $60MM mark, depending on how the financial details are sorted out.

If Cobb indeed departs, left-hander John Means would be the only lock for the Baltimore rotation. Younger options like Keegan Akin and Dean Kremer seem likely to be given the opportunity to earn Opening Day spots, and the Orioles have several potential rotation pieces on their 40-man roster: Bruce Zimmerman, Jorge Lopez, Michael Baumann, Zac Lowther, Alexander Wells.

General manager Mike Elias spoke recently about the possibility of signing a veteran starting pitcher, and the need for depth is only further underscored by the trade of the team’s most experienced starter. It’s likely that whoever the Orioles bring in will command less in terms of salary than whatever sum the Orioles are saving in the Cobb deal.

Last year, Elias filled out the rotation by signing Wade LeBlanc and Tommy Milone to non-guaranteed deals that eventually paid them less than $1MM apiece upon earning roster spots in Spring Training. It’s plausible, if not likely, that the Orioles will take a similar approach in the weeks ahead.

Orioles Re-Sign Wade LeBlanc To Minor League Contract

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The Orioles have re-signed left-hander Wade LeBlanc to a minor league contract with an invitation to MLB camp, Jon Morosi of MLB.com tweets. LeBlanc will earn a $700K salary if he makes it to the majors this year.

The Orioles signed LeBlanc to a minors pact last offseason, and while he did ultimately earn a roster spot, he didn’t perform especially well or stay healthy. The journeyman ended up posting an 8.06 ERA/5.77 SIERA in 22 1/3 innings and six starts. LeBlanc’s season concluded near the end of August because of a stress fracture in his pitching elbow.

Although the soft-tossing LeBlanc wasn’t effective in 2020, Baltimore is still willing to take a low-risk chance on him again. The 36-year-old swingman does own a useful 4.55 ERA in 882 1/3 innings since he debuted in 2008, and the Orioles could use a veteran option – particularly if their potential Alex Cobb trade with the Angels goes through.

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