Orioles To Activate Kyle Bradish
The Orioles will reinstate right-hander Kyle Bradish from the 60-day injured list to start tomorrow’s game, per a club announcement. It’ll be the 28-year-old righty’s first time taking a big league mound since undergoing Tommy John surgery last June. Baltimore has a full 40-man roster but could open up a space by transferring righty Brandon Young to the 60-day injured list, if it’s been determined that his current hamstring strain won’t allow him to make it back to the mound this year. The O’s have also claimed several players off waivers since the trade deadline and could DFA anyone from that group again if there’s still hope that Young can return for a brief look in September.
Selected by the Angels in the fourth round of the 2018 draft, Bradish came to the O’s by way of the Dylan Bundy trade — one of the first deals made by general manager Mike Elias upon taking control of the team’s baseball operations. He debuted with 23 starts of 4.90 ERA for the 2022 Orioles but was a surprise breakout star in 2023. That season, Bradish made 30 starts and logged a terrific 2.83 ERA with a 25% strikeout rate, 6.6% walk rate, 49.2% ground-ball rate and 0.75 HR/9 — all considerably better than the league average rates.
Bradish has thrown only 39 1/3 big league innings since that time, however. He opened the 2024 season on the injured list due to a UCL sprain and was recommended for a rest-and-rehab approach rather than immediate surgery. For awhile, it looked as though he’d made the right call. Bradish was activated for his 2024 debut on May 2 and remained in the rotation until mid-June. He started eight games and posted a 2.75 ERA with quality rate stats before returning to the injured list due to renewed elbow discomfort. This time around, Bradish underwent surgery just five days after making his final start of the ’24 season.
When he’s activated, Bradish will have missed more than 14 months due to his Tommy John/internal brace procedure. He’s tossed 22 innings of minor league rehab work so far and seen mixed results along the way. He tossed five shutout innings with nine punchouts in his Aug. 14 outing against the Marlins’ top affiliate but was roughed up for three runs in 4 2/3 innings versus the White Sox’ top club last time out. Overall, Bradish has a 4.91 ERA in his rehab stint.
The Orioles have played better since early in the summer, but the colossal hole in which they dug themselves with an awful April/May performance ultimately proved insurmountable. They’re still 10 games under .500 (60-70) and sit last place in the American League East.
While they may not have much to play for in terms of postseason aspirations, there’s still plenty of benefit to getting Bradish back on the big league mound and seeing how he looks. Doing so will give the organization a better sense of how much he can be expected to contribute next year, and it’ll give Bradish the opportunity to end a largely lost season on a high note while building confidence for 2026. Plus, the more innings he throws this year, the less stark the uptick in workload will be next season.
Bradish is being paid $2.35MM this season in his first year of arbitration eligibility as a Super Two player. He’ll be due a small raise for the 2026 campaign and is under club control for three additional years, through 2028. A healthy Bradish would go a long way toward stabilizing the 2026 rotation, where Dean Kremer and the resurgent Trevor Rogers are the only real locks. Bradish joins Young, former top prospect Cade Povich and fellow UCL rehabber Tyler Wells as candidates for next year’s staff, but the O’s will once again enter the offseason in need of bolstering the starting rotation.
Orioles Notes: Bradish, Wells, Mateo
While the 60-70 Orioles are nine games back of a Wild Card spot and would need nothing short of a miracle to make it into the postseason at this point, that isn’t stopping them from doing what they can to best set themselves up for 2026. So far, that’s meant offering ample playing time to young players like Coby Mayo, Dylan Beavers, and the recently-extended Samuel Basallo. One other way to set the roster up for 2026, however, is to get reps in for players who are working their way back from injury.
Three such players are nearing returns from the injured list for Baltimore. Danielle Allentuck of the Baltimore Banner was among those to relay that Kyle Bradish is likely to be activated from the injured list to start Tuesday’s game for the Orioles, while Rich Dubroff of Baltimore Baseball was among those to note that both Tyler Wells and Jorge Mateo figure to be activated from the injured list when rosters expand on September 1. All three players are currently on the 60-day injured list and will need to be added to the 40-man roster when activated.
For Bradish, Tuesday’s expected start will mark his first time on a big league mound since he was sidelined last June due to Tommy John surgery. He’s been on the mend ever since, and has made six rehab starts in the minor leagues as he prepares for his return to the majors. Getting Bradish into a good place to help front the Orioles’ rotation in 2026 figures to be a top priority for Baltimore over the next few weeks. The righty was emerging as an ace before he went under the knife last year, as he followed up a fourth-place finish in 2023 AL Cy Young award voting with a 2.75 ERA and 2.50 FIP and a 32.5% strikeout rate in eight starts last season.
If Bradish can be counted on for anything like his numbers over the last two years, where he pitched to a 2.81 ERA and 3.12 FIP in 38 starts, that would be a massively encouraging turn of events for the Orioles as they look to get back on track next year. Starting pitching was undeniably Baltimore’s Achilles heel this year, as short-term fliers on players like Charlie Morton and Tomoyuki Sugano were unable to compensate for the loss of Bradish due to injury and Corbin Burnes due to him signing with the Diamondbacks in free agency last winter. Burnes went on to have a difficult season of his own in Arizona that ultimately ended in Tommy John surgery, but his absence at the top of the Orioles’ rotation has nonetheless been felt as Baltimore starters have combined for a 4.76 ERA this year that stands as the worst mark in the American League.
Another arm who could help right the ship in terms of starting pitching is the right-handed Wells. Wells underwent an internal brace procedure on his UCL just a few days after Bradish’s own surgery, and while his contributions in 2024 were limited to just three starts where he surrendered 11 runs (ten earned) in 15 1/3 innings of work, he was a useful back-of-the-rotation starter and swing man for the Orioles prior to that year with a 3.96 ERA and 4.53 FIP across 43 starts and 49 relief appearances from 2021 to 2023. If Wells can get back to being that sort of dependable, league-average piece, that would go a long way to raising the floor for the Orioles next year. It’s not entirely clear whether Wells will be able to squeeze into Baltimore’s rotation upon returning given the presence of Sugano, Dean Kremer, Cade Povich, and Trevor Rogers (not to mention Bradish), but it’s not impossible that the club could at least consider a six-man rotation down the stretch.
On the position player side of things, the Orioles also figure to welcome Mateo from the injured list. Mateo, 30, is a pending free agent after this year who has been limited to just 32 games due to a number of injuries this season. After undergoing elbow surgery last August and beginning the season on the injured list, Mateo was sidelined by inflammation in that same elbow back in June. He suffered a hamstring strain about a month after that, which was severe enough to sideline him for what at the time was expected to be between 8 and 12 weeks.
His return will be on the shorter end of that timeframe, as he’s expected to return just under eight weeks after sustaining that injury. Mateo will look to finish the season strong ahead of free agency after struggling to a .180/.231/.279 (41 wRC+) line in 32 games for the Orioles this year, though that body of work includes just 65 trips to the plate. Typically, he’s been a below average but decent enough hitter for a bench role, and hit .225/.271/.371 (78 wRC+) in 423 games from 2022 to 2024.
Rubenstein: Orioles Hoping For More Extensions With Young Players
The Orioles officially announced Samuel Basallo‘s contract extension at a press conference yesterday, with several players in attendance along with Basallo, GM Mike Elias, and team chairman/CEO David Rubenstein. Among the many topics addressed was Rubenstein’s desire to make such events a fairly regular occurrence, as the owner showed interest in extending more members of the Orioles’ young core.
“The Orioles’ ownership group is really well capitalized and we have the resources to do these kind of deals,” Rubenstein told Steve Melewski and other reporters. “It takes two to do deals, but we thought this was a perfect one, for the first one of this type….We have a lot of other talented people on the team who we hope will ultimately want to spend their entire career here or want to spend long-term arrangements with us. We’re committed to doing more of these as soon as we can.”
Basallo’s deal represents an intriguing turning point for an organization that more or less eschewed long-term extensions for years under previous owner Peter Angelos. As MLBTR’s Contract Tracker indicates, Adam Jones‘ six-year extension from May 2012 was the last long-term extension signed by the Orioles. Other multi-year deals within the last 13 years were short-term pacts to cover arbitration years, plus there was the unusual circumstance of the three-year extension signed by J.J. Hardy just a few weeks before he was set to hit free agency in the 2014-15 offseason.
Even as the Orioles amassed a wealth of young talent in their recent rebuild, extensions didn’t follow. This naturally could’ve been a product of the ownership turmoil the organization was going through for much of that period, and Rubenstein’s group only bought the team in early 2024. It should also be noted that such O’s building blocks as Gunnar Henderson, Jordan Westburg, and Jackson Holliday are all represented by Scott Boras, whose clients have traditionally passed on signing early-career extensions.
Still, it was noteworthy that the Orioles didn’t lock up even any of the non-Boras clients until Basallo (who is repped by CAA) this week. The fact that the O’s didn’t spend much overall during the first full offseason of Rubenstein’s tenure also created concern amongst Baltimore fans that things weren’t going to change under the new regime, and the discontent only grew when the Orioles stumbled to a losing record after two seasons in the playoffs.
Management can now point to Basallo’s extension as proof that the club is willing to both keep its cornerstone players in place, and to spend the money necessary to make those deals happen. The catcher’s deal is also an example of how quickly contract talks can escalate, as Elias said negotiations began exactly a week ago, on the same day Basallo was called up from Triple-A to make his MLB debut.
Could more extensions be coming soon? Henderson didn’t comment on whether or not his camp had already had any talks with the O’s, but expressed a willingness to consider any offer and stated that “the No. 1 thing for me is being on winning teams.”
Henderson’s price tag is about to jump considerably, as the shortstop will enter the first of three arbitration years this coming offseason. His pro career has already seen Henderson bank a little over $8MM, counting his MLB minimum salaries, his $2.3MM signing bonus from the draft, and roughly $3.4MM from the pre-arbitration bonus pool. Between this bit of financial security already and escalating arb salaries, Henderson may have already made enough to feel comfortable in betting on himself all the way to free agency, like so many Boras clients. While the three years of remaining control mean that the Orioles aren’t exactly under the gun to extend Henderson, he’ll only get more expensive the closer he gets to the open market.
Adley Rutschman also declined to comment on any extension talks between his reps at Wasserman and the Orioles, simply telling the Baltimore Banner’s Danielle Allentuck and other reporters today that he was happy to see Basallo rewarded. The fact that the O’s made such a hefty commitment to a young catcher like Basallo naturally led to speculation about Rutschman’s future, and whether or not Basallo has now supplanted Rutschman as the team’s long-term choice behind the plate.
As one might expect, right now the Orioles believe there’s plenty of room for Rutschman and Basallo to operate in tandem. Yesterday, interim manager Tony Mansolino told reporters (including Matt Weyrich of the Baltimore Sun) that the O’s could have both players in the lineup in a catcher/DH capacity, or Basallo could play first base. “The fact that Sammy is so versatile, that’s going to help that a lot…Any time you have two guys that can catch at a high level, on a big league team, you have a massive advantage over teams that don’t,” Mansolino noted.
Rutschman has two arbitration years remaining before he is scheduled to hit free agency following the 2027 season. As Weyrich notes, extending a player who has had some Major League success is much trickier than extending a player like Basallo right at the start of his career, so locking up Rutschman would represent another spending frontier for the Rubenstein ownership group. There’s also the question of whether or not the Orioles still view Rutschman as worthy of a long-term investment, considering how his numbers have declined at the plate over the last two seasons.
Orioles Extend Samuel Basallo
The Orioles locked up a key piece of their future on Friday afternoon, signing rookie catcher Samuel Basallo to an eight-year extension. The deal, which covers the 2026-33 seasons and comes with a 2034 club option, reportedly guarantees the CAA Baseball client $67MM. Basallo, who celebrated his 21st birthday just nine days ago, receives a $5MM signing bonus and can max out the contract at $88.5MM via various escalators. Baltimore buys out at least two would-be free agent seasons with the option for a third.
The salary breaks down as follows:
- $1MM annually between 2026-28
- $4MM in 2029
- $7MM in 2030
- $11MM in 2031
- $15MM annually between 2032-33
- $18MM club option ($7MM buyout) for 2034
It’s a testament to Basallo’s status as one of the most impressive prospects in the entire league. He was a consensus top-15 prospect in the sport entering the 2025 season and has only improved his stock since then after slashing .270/.377/.589 (151 wRC+) in 76 games for Triple-A Norfolk this season with 23 homers and a 13.7% walk rate. He did all that while being the youngest qualified hitter in the International League this year. That sort of sensational production left nothing for Basallo to prove at Triple-A in terms of his bat, and while his time in the majors has barely begun he’s already gotten off to a hot start by going 3-for-10 with a double, a run scored, five RBI, a hit-by-pitch and just one strikeout across his first 11 plate appearances in the majors.
With that said, questions have been raised about his defensive ability behind the plate by outside prospect evaluation services. Even GM Mike Elias himself acknowledged that he felt Basallo’s skills behind the plate needed more work before he came to the majors back in June, though the fact that he’s not only been called up since then but has now inked a massive extension certainly suggests that Elias and the rest of the Orioles’ brass have liked what they’ve seen. Just yesterday, Adley Rutschman was placed on the injured list due to an oblique strain which figures to have the secondary effect of opening up plenty of playing time for Basallo behind the plate down the stretch. That should give the Orioles plenty of opportunity to see how he handles the rigors of the position at the big league level and make an informed decision about how he’ll be used in 2026.
Whether Basallo winds up behind the plate or at first base, however, the deal is a reasonable enough sum that the Orioles can feel comfortable with the investment. Basallo’s $67MM guarantee is seventh-highest figure among 12 hitters who have extended with their clubs after making their big league debut but prior to reaching one year of MLB service time, according to MLBTR’s Contract Tracker. Two such players have signed extensions this year: #1 overall prospect Roman Anthony, who had 38 days of MLB service time when the Red Sox locked him up on a $130MM guarantee over eight seasons, and Anthony’s teammate Kristian Campbell, who had just six days of MLB service time when he landed an eight-year, $60MM extension that guaranteed him $59.2MM over seven years in new money.
Basallo, who is also signing an extension less than a week after his major league debut, wound up receiving a contract that narrowly beats out Campbell’s in terms of total guarantee. Of course, it can be somewhat fairly argued that both Basallo and Campbell fit better with the group of six players who have signed pre-debut extensions in the past decade given how shortly after their MLB debuts both players signed an extension. After all, players like Julio Rodriguez and Ronald Acuna Jr. signed nine-figure deals during their rookie seasons, but only did so after they had already accumulated more than 100 days of MLB service time and put up performances that would go on to win them their league’s Rookie of the Year award. If compared to the pre-debut group, only Jackson Chourio‘s $82MM guarantee from the Brewers prior to the 2024 season was higher, as Basallo eclipses both Campbell’s aforementioned deal and the $50MM pact Luis Robert Jr. landed with the White Sox.
Because Basallo’s extension came after his MLB debut, he’s eligible to earn a draft pick for the organization via the Prospect Promotion Incentive. Because Basallo debuted too late in the 2025 season to exhaust his rookie eligibility, if he earns a full year of service time in 2026 the Orioles could stand to gain a PPI pick in the event that he wins the 2026 AL Rookie of the Year award or is a finalist for the AL MVP award in the years before he would become arbitration-eligible. Players who sign pre-debut extensions like Chourio are not eligible for the PPI, but that’s not the case for players who sign extensions following their MLB debut. Bobby Witt Jr. and Corbin Carroll have both netted their teams PPI draft picks even after signing extensions, for example. It’s at least plausible that those rules regarding PPI picks contributed to Baltimore’s decision to wait until after Basallo’s big league debut to finalize their extension with the youngster.
While Basallo’s guarantee is hardly onerous even for a low-spending club like the Orioles, the deal is surely both exciting and encouraging for fans in Baltimore. Previous star prospects produced by the farm system like Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson have developed into star players ticketed for large paydays without signing an extension, and the lack of extensions for that first wave of youngsters has led to pessimism in some circles about the possibility of extending up-and-coming prospects from the next wave like Jackson Holliday and Coby Mayo. Considering that Basallo’s deal is the first long-term extension for an Orioles player since they locked up Adam Jones all the way back in 2012, it serves as much-needed assurance for fans that the organization is willing to commit to its homegrown talent long-term.
Andy Kostka of The Baltimore Banner first reported that the Orioles and Basallo were nearing an eight-year, $67MM deal with a club option and a max value of $88.5MM. Noah Trister of The Associated Press reported the specific salary structure.
Orioles Place Jordan Westburg On Injured List
3:48pm: The Orioles announced Westburg’s IL placement and the selection of Machin’s contract. Catcher Gary Sanchez was transferred from the 15-day IL to the 60-day IL to open a 40-man roster spot. He’s been out since early July due to a knee sprain.
3:35pm: The Orioles are placing infielder Jordan Westburg on the injured list and will select the contract of fellow infielder Vimael Machin to take his spot on the roster, interim manager Tony Mansolino announced to reporters (via Matt Weyrich of the Baltimore Sun). They’ll need to make a 40-man roster move before those transactions become official.
Westburg, 26, has been out of the lineup since being removed from Monday’s game after tweaking his ankle while rounding second base. This is the former No. 30 overall pick and top prospect’s second IL stint of the season. He missed more than a month early in the year due to a hamstring strain. He also missed nearly two months last summer due to a broken right hand.
Despite the injury troubles over the past calendar year, Westburg has emerged as a clear piece of the Baltimore core. He’s played in 180 games and taken 751 plate appearances since Opening Day 2024 and slashed .269/.317/.478 (123 wRC+) with 33 homers, 35 doubles, six triples, seven steals and a 21.7% walk rate. The free-swinging Westburg has only walked in 4.9% of his trips to the plate during that time, but he’s made enough contact and hit for enough power to keep his on-base percentage close to the league average.
The O’s haven’t provided a timetable for Westburg’s return yet. He’ll be out at least a week — the IL stint will be backdated to this past Tuesday, the maximum three days allowed — and there are only about five weeks left on the regular season calendar.
In place of Westburg, the O’s will promote the journeyman Machin, who signed a minor league deal over the winter. Machin has played in 107 games and tallied 443 plate appearances with a strong .285/.344/.470 batting line with Triple-A Norfolk this season. He’s popped 15 homers and swiped 13 bases in that time, drawing walks at an 8.4% clip against a 16.7% strikeout rate that’s considerably lower than league average.
This will be Machin’s first major league action since the 2022 season. The former Cubs farmhand was a Rule 5 pick by the A’s prior to the 2020 season and spent parts of three seasons with the now-former Oakland club. He hit just .208/.290/.261 in 361 plate appearances from 2020-22, but Machin is an accomplished Triple-A hitter, evidenced by a .289/.371/.449 slash in nearly 1400 plate appearances at the top minor league level.
Orioles Select Matt Bowman
The Orioles selected the contract of right-handed reliever Matt Bowman and placed righty Brandon Young on the 15-day injured list due to a strained left hamstring, the team announced. Right-hander Felix Bautista, who recently underwent shoulder surgery, was moved from the 15-day IL to the 60-day IL to open a spot on the 40-man roster.
It’s the third big league stint of the season with the Orioles for Bowman. The 34-year-old journeyman has previously pitched 23 1/3 innings with Baltimore in 2025, recording a 5.79 earned run average while striking out 15.7% of his opponents against a 5.6% walk rate. The O’s have designated him for assignment multiple times this season, but he’s accepted outright assignments to Triple-A Norfolk after clearing waivers despite having the right to reject in favor of free agency.
Bowman has been solid in Norfolk, tossing 26 1/3 innings for the Tides and posting a 4.10 ERA. He’s set down 21.8% of his opponents there on strikes and notched a 5.5% walk rate that mirrors his strong mark in the majors. The former 13th-rounder has now pitched in parts of seven big league seasons with seven different teams and worked to a 4.32 ERA in 239 1/3 innings.
It’s not yet clear whether Young, a 27-year-old rookie, will make it back to the big leagues this season. With only five weeks left on the schedule, virtually any injury has the possibility of ending a player’s season. He’s pitched to a 6.24 ERA in his first 57 2/3 innings as a big leaguer. As for Bautista, his move to the 60-day IL is a pure formality. The shoulder procedure comes with an estimated 12-month recovery, so he was always going to be moved to the 60-day IL the first time the O’s needed to open up a 40-man spot.
Orioles Place Adley Rutschman On Injured List With Oblique Strain
For the second time in three months, an oblique strain has sent Adley Rutschman to the injured list. Baltimore placed the switch-hitting catcher on the 10-day IL, retroactive to August 18, due to a right oblique injury. Outfielder Daniel Johnson is up from Triple-A Norfolk to take the vacated roster spot.
Rutschman missed five weeks between mid-June and the end of July with a left oblique strain. He’s now dealing with an injury to the opposite side. Interim skipper Tony Mansolino told reporters (including Matt Weyrich of The Baltimore Sun) that it’s a “mild” strain. That’d seem to give Rutschman a shot to return this season, but even minor oblique strains usually cost a hitter a few weeks.
This has been a career-worst season for the two-time All-Star. Rutschman is batting .227/.310/.373 in 348 plate appearances. It’s his first subpar offensive showing in his four-year career. Last season’s .250/.318/.391 line was only narrowly better than average. Rutschman’s bat has fallen off since his excellent first two seasons.
The declining production comes as top catching prospect Samuel Basallo reaches the big leagues. Baltimore promoted the 21-year-old on Sunday. Basallo has started one game apiece at catcher and designated hitter. The initial plan was for Rutschman and Basallo to split catching work with a decent amount of DH at-bats for the rookie. Basallo will now be the #1 catcher while Rutschman is on the shelf. The youngster’s bat has long been ahead of his glove. A few weeks of regular reps behind the plate won’t entirely wipe away concerns about Basallo’s defense, but it should be a good developmental opportunity.
Baltimore was already operating with three catchers on the active roster. They didn’t want to lose the out-of-options Alex Jackson when they called up Basallo. Jackson will back him up for the time being. That meant they could add an extra outfielder, Johnson, in the corresponding move rather than bringing up another catcher.
Orioles Claim Josh Walker
The Orioles have claimed left-hander Josh Walker off waivers from the Phillies, according to announcements from both clubs. The O’s have optioned the southpaw to Triple-A Norfolk. They already had a 40-man vacancy from outrighting outfielder Jordyn Adams a few days ago, so no corresponding move was required. The Phils designated Walker for assignment earlier this week.
Walker, 30, has a limited amount of big league experience. He has thrown a combined 27 1/3 innings over the three most recent seasons. In that time, he has a 6.59 earned run average, which is obviously not strong. His 10.9% walk rate is also a bit high. However, his 24.2% strikeout rate is a good figure. His ERA has seemingly been inflated by a .380 batting average on balls in play and 59.4% strand rate. His 3.99 FIP and 2.70 SIERA paint a more optimistic portrait.
Ultimately, it’s a small sample of work and the O’s are probably putting more stock in his minor league numbers. From 2022 to the present, Walker has thrown 125 innings on the farm with a 3.96 ERA. His 12% walk rate is a bit high but his 30.6% strikeout rate is very intriguing.
For the O’s, they are playing out the string on a lost season, so they are making moves focused on the future. They sold at the deadline and have grabbed a number of players off waivers since then. Walker is in his final option season. That means he can be kept in the minors for the rest of this year but will be out of options going into 2026. He has less than a year of service time, so he is still a ways away from arbitration and even further away from free agency. If he can carve out a role in Baltimore’s bullpen, they can cheaply retain him well into the future. It also wouldn’t a surprise if they try to pass him through waivers at some point in order to keep him as non-roster depth.
Photo courtesy of Vincent Carchietta, Imagn Images
Félix Bautista Undergoes Shoulder Surgery, Expected To Miss 12 Months
The Orioles announced today that right-hander Félix Bautista has undergone surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff and torn labrum in his right shoulder. He is expected to miss the next 12 months. Jake Rill of MLB.com was among those to relay the news.
The news is obviously brutal for the O’s and Bautista. He just missed the entire 2024 season while recovering from Tommy John surgery. He got back on the mound this year and showed some flashes of his old self. However, he’s now going to miss the remainder of the 2025 season and a huge chunk of 2026 as well. Given the estimated timeline, any kind of setback could lead to him missing another entire season.
Prior to the injury setbacks, he had established himself as one of the most dominant relievers in the game. Over the 2022 and 2023 campaigns, he gave the O’s 126 2/3 innings with a tiny 1.85 earned run average. His 10% walk rate was a bit on the high side and his 39.9% ground ball rate wasn’t special but he punched out a massive 40.4% of batters faced.
As mentioned, he showed some hints of that form in 2025, though also with some rust. He logged 34 2/3 innings this year with a 2.60 ERA. His 35.2% strikeout rate was technically a drop-off but still a great figure. Meanwhile, his grounder rate jumped to 50.7%. On the worrying side, his walk rate spiked to 16.2%.
Perhaps he would have continued refining things as he got more innings and shook off the rust, but that won’t happen now. He landed on the 15-day IL in July due to shoulder discomfort. It was announced by the team in August that his injury was “significant” and that he wouldn’t be coming back this year. Today’s news provides more clarity on how dire the situation is. It’s possible that Bautista eventually throws less than 40 innings for the 2024-26 stretch. If he returns late next year, he could push a bit beyond that number, but likely not by much.
Bautista is controllable through 2027. He is making just $1MM this year. He will be due a raise in arbitration for 2026 and 2027 but the missed time cuts into his ability to substantially increase his salary. Given his ceiling, the O’s will surely tender him a contract with the hope of him contributing late in 2026 and/or for the entire 2027 campaign.
For the O’s, it’s the latest kick to the nuts in a season that has seen them pummeled by injuries. They came into the year knowing that Kyle Bradish and Tyler Wells would be rehabbing from last year’s surgeries, but then they have also seen guys like Grayson Rodriguez, Zach Eflin, Andrew Kittredge, Albert Suárez and others miss significant time. On the position player side, Tyler O’Neill, Adley Rutschman, Colton Cowser, Ryan Mountcastle and others missed chunks of time.
Those injuries helped push the O’s down in the standings. Though they came into the year with clear postseason aspirations, they wound up deadline sellers. Cedric Mullins, Kittredge, Gregory Soto, Seranthony Domínguez, Bryan Baker, Charlie Morton, Ramón Urías, Ramón Laureano and Ryan O’Hearn were all flipped prior to the deadline.
The club is now playing out the string on the 2025 season, so the Bautista injury is fairly moot for the short term. But his extended timeline obviously hurts for 2026. As mentioned, the O’s already flipped four relievers last month, putting a big dent in the bullpen. Bautista is an even bigger loss.
Though they sold at the deadline, it’s assumed that the club intends to rebound and compete again in 2026, as they have a young and exciting core to build around. Presumably, the Orioles already planned on making a few bullpen moves in the coming offseason. This news should only enhance the need.
For Bautista personally, it’s another delay in him unlocking a notable paycheck. The late bloomer didn’t crack the big leagues until he was in his age-27 season. Despite his excellent results, he’s now 30 and hasn’t made more than $1MM in a season, which is barely above the league minimum. The two lengthy surgery absences will dampen his earning power in arbitration. He’s not slated to reach free agency until after his age-32 campaign. It’s possible he’s healthy by that point but the injury track record will be still be noted by clubs.
Photo courtesy of Jonathan Dyer, Imagn Images
Orioles Outright Jordyn Adams
The Orioles announced that outfielder Jordyn Adams has cleared waivers and been sent outright to Triple-A Norfolk. He had the right to elect free agency but has accepted the assignment. It wasn’t previously reported that Adams had been designated for assignment, so this move drops Baltimore’s 40-man count to 39.
Adams, 25, signed a minor league deal with the Orioles in the offseason and has been on and off the roster this year. He was selected to the 40-man in late May but was designated for assignment and outrighted a few days later. He was added back to the roster August 1st, after the O’s made a number of deadline trades.
Around those transactions, he has appeared in ten big league games but mostly as a pinch runner or defensive replacement. He has only been sent to the plate five times, going hitless in those with two strikeouts.
He has received more playing time in the minors with his speed being his biggest asset. He only has 11 steals this year but has gotten that figure as high as 44, which came back in 2023. He has slashed .252/.332/.405 in 1,272 minor league plate appearances since the start of 2023.
Photo courtesy of Stephen Brashear, Imagn Images