7:15pm: Per Kostka, this deal is worth a guaranteed $2.625MM. That breaks down as a $2.5MM salary in 2025 with a $125K buyout on a 2027 club option worth $3.5MM.
3:58pm: The Orioles announced Monday that they’ve agreed to a one-year contract with left-hander Dietrich Enns for the 2026 season. It contains a club option for the 2027 campaign as well. Baltimore previously held a $3MM club option over Enns, a client of the Beverly Hills Sports Council. This new contract overrides that deal, per Andy Kostka of the Baltimore Banner.
Enns, 34, signed a minor league deal with the Tigers after a three-year run pitching in Asia (two years in NPB, one in the KBO). Enns pitched well enough in the Tigers’ Triple-A rotation to get a call to the big leagues in Detroit — his first MLB work since 2021 and just the third season in which he’s logged at least some MLB time. He struggled in 17 2/3 innings for manager A.J. Hinch’s club and was flipped to the Orioles for cash just prior to the July 31 trade deadline.
The change of scenery paid dividends. Enns thrived with the O’s, turning in 28 2/3 innings of 3.14 ERA ball (17 relief appearances, one start). He fanned 27.6% of his opponents in Baltimore and only issued walks at an 8.9% clip. Enns showed plenty of bat-missing ability with both teams, logging matching 13.5% swinging-strike rates in his two stops and topping a 34% opponents’ chase rate with each club.
Enns is out of minor league options, making him likely to break camp with the club next year. It’s at least possible that the O’s could try to pass him through waivers and stash him in Triple-A as a depth option, knowing he wouldn’t elect free agency and forfeit the guaranteed money on his contract. They’ve made similar depth-driven signings in the past under the current front office regime. Given how well Enns pitched for them down the stretch, however, there’s a good chance he’d be claimed, so today’s deal simply seems like a means of locking in some cost certainty and establishing another year of club control at a fixed rate.
