Ladies and gentlemen, it is here. With the Super Bowl in the rear view, baseball season is upon us. Baltimore Orioles pitchers and catchers report this Wednesday, February 14th, with the full squad joining them soon thereafter on the 19th.
It has been an interesting offseason, to say the least, here in Birdland. We were staring down the barrel of another disappointing winter only a couple weeks ago. There had been no moves at all, and it looked bleak. Despite winning over 100 games and a window that looked wide open, this team needed support. Yes, they would get better and more prepared naturally for postseason baseball by just being together and having done it, but with the best farm system in baseball and a need to upgrade multiple spots on the roster, where was the urgency?
They had to go big this year. Even if it wasn’t a huge signing, at least trade for a starting pitcher to help cover some innings. Outside of signing Craig Kimbrel to help ease the blow of Felix Bautista‘s absence, little to nothing had been done.
Truthfully, this slow offseason was starting to lessen my faith in this front office. Held back by John Angelos or not, they had to make a move, yet they stayed put, not wanting to pay the high prices attached to the best starters on the trade market.
I had a piece ready to go slamming Mike Elias, similar to a FanGraphs article a few weeks ago titled, “Come on, Orioles do Something.” So why didn’t I go through with it? The simple answer is, I wanted to wait it out, hoping against hope for more moves. While it was true that the Orioles had done nothing, most teams were in the same boat.
The moment a big trade went through – and it didn’t involve the Orioles – that piece would get posted.
Then, a week after I decided to shelve that article, Birdland had, arguably, our best week in the last 40 years.
So today, we will go over everything: the small, the big, and the essential things that happened this winter.
To start, the biggest news for this franchise is obviously the team going from Pepsi to Coke.
In all seriousness, even if the Orioles still did nothing to help the team on the field, I wouldn’t have minded because of the change in ownership. It was the one thing holding back this team, a dark cloud that hung over the franchise day in and day out. Every opportunity that John Angelos had to embarrass himself over the past year or so, he took it. From attacking beat reporters, promising to open the financial books, banning beloved broadcasters for stating facts, explaining that it wasn’t financially possible to extend the young core, and the cherry on top lying to the fans on Clinchmas about the lease agreement and making the moment about himself instead of the team.
That was in the last year; all that damage was done in a year. It makes the Wilpons and Dan Snyder blush. Some of those statements – especially all the crying poor – were probably done to get a better deal for himself in lease negotiations. It doesn’t even begin to excuse the rest, though, and that is not even mentioning that he has yet to extend one player from this young core or had a payroll above $100M since Elias got here.
Yes, even the Oakland Athletics had a higher payroll than the O’s last year.
So when the fans saw the big news that the team was being bought by a group led by David Rubenstein, the excitement level could not have been higher.
Of course, we have no idea how much this group will spend, and they technically aren’t even the new owners yet, as we keep hearing the deal will be approved “quickly,” but it still takes some time. Here’s the thing, though: it can’t get worse. At the bare minimum, we won’t have an owner who constantly puts his foot in his mouth, cries poor, and shows little-to-no interest in doing what it takes to bring home a World Series. That’s not a hard line to cross, but this is how low Angelos has set the bar.
The more prominent names involved in the group, like Cal Ripken Jr. and Grant Hill, also give optimism that this group will spend and get the Orioles toward the top of the League. It would be awesome if this team turned into the East Coast Dodgers, but we don’t need to be that. We don’t need a payroll of $280M-plus. Would it be cool to see? Yeah, but the current payroll is so low, and the team is so good, that just doing the bare minimum will probably be enough. Again, this is something that John Angelos couldn’t give us.
After news of the pending sale, even the most optimistic fan would say that the impact of the new group taking over would have no effect on this offseason. It was too late for Rubenstein’s group to make a significant enough factor in the slow market, right? But we have hope for next winter!
Well, the next huge news came less than 48 hours later when the Orioles traded for Cy Young winner Corbin Burnes from the Milwaukee Brewers.
Full transparency: I was in the group that was poo-pooing the need for a true “ace” from outside the organization. Starting pitching was a need, but was lower on my list, primarily due to Kyle Bradish and second-half Grayson Rodriguez. I had been all in on the Dylan Cease train because he would benefit greatly from being on a better team and working with this coaching staff. That train derailed when the White Sox wanted way too much for Cease, who is a science project. So the options seemed limited, and I expected, at best, we were going down the road of a Michael Lorenzen-type of starter and banking on Bradish and Rodriguez repeating what they did last year.
I was OK with that. At least, I thought I was, until the edits of Burnes in orange and black started showing up.
Burnes gives the Orioles another true number-one pitcher to pair with Bradish, and it is such an easy fit. This move rockets this rotation up into the upper echelon of pitching staffs. Cease was a project for this team, while Burnes is an established ace-level pitcher that we don’t have to fix.
This is the best this rotation has looked since the 90s. When you consider what the O’s had to give up – compared to what was rumored to be required for Cease – it looks even better.
D.L. Hall was a former top prospect who never could put it together. His long list of injury issues bumped him into a bullpen role, and while he is going to begin as a starter for the Brewers, he wouldn’t have been that here. Roch Kubatko has said he sees Hall becoming “the next Josh Hader.” While that seems a bit optimistic, if Hall ever signs an eight-figure deal, then good for him! It would have been great to have him as an option out of the bullpen, especially with Bautista’s absence, but you have to give something to get something, and this was a no-brainer to me.
The other piece of this trade is Joey Ortiz. The Orioles have worked hard to turn him from a glove-first player with little offensive impact to a player with a good enough offensive profile to pair with premier defense. The problem is that he was just blocked. Gunnar Henderson, Jordan Westburg, Jackson Holliday, and even Coby Mayo were in his way, and he is older than them all.
Ortiz’s best shot to make the team would have been if they’d gotten rid of Ramon Urias and Jorge Mateo, and he won a utility role. It just wasn’t going to happen for Ortiz in Baltimore, and I’m glad he’s going somewhere that he’ll get to play a lot of MLB innings, instead of continuing to languish in AAA.
The final piece of the deal was a Comp Pick. Of course, it might turn into a good player. But if worse comes to worst and Burnes walks next year, declining the O’s Qualifying Offer, the team recuperates the pick. In the end, the most you gave up was a reliever and a depth shortstop who had no path to MLB playing time.
Hall and Ortiz will be more than that for the Brewers, no doubt, but no for the Orioles. Burnes has already said he wants to test the free agent market, and he is a Scott Boras client, so it is a real possibility that he will only be here for 2024. It would be awesome if he loves it here and the Rubenstein group decided money is no object and re-signs him, but even if he departs next winter, I won’t sweat it because we gave up so little, in the grand scheme, to get him.
At the end of the day, the Orioles got a true ace without giving up any of their top 5 Prospects. That is a massive win for Elias, even if it is just for a year of that arm.
Now, it is time for a speed round.
The Orioles have been making smaller moves that we should discuss.
Johnathan Heasley was the first trade of the offseason. He has intriguing stuff and a good breaking ball, and Elias gave up nothing to get him, so let’s see if he makes an impact out of the bullpen. He probably has the best shot out of these three acquisitions to make a big impact.
Next up is Livan Soto. The Angels released him, and he has some interesting numbers. He is almost a Joey Ortiz-like player with good defense and some decent offensive potential. He seems like Triple-A depth at this point though. With Ortiz gone, they can use that.
Lastly is Nick Maton. Some Fans are worried Maton will be another Rougned Odor or Adam Frazier, a veteran who will block younger players. I’m not too concerned about that. I see him as spring training camp depth. He does walk a lot and plays decent defense but does basically nothing else. I certainly don’t worry about him blocking Jackson Holliday. With new ownership coming in and the team’s core getting older, I think the days of Odor/Frazier-types playing significant innings are behind us.
It has been a complete turnaround for the Orioles over the past few weeks. We have eliminated the team’s biggest problem (Angelos) and gotten the flashy ace everyone wanted without giving up one of the top five prospects.
The hype and excitement for this team can’t get any higher, can it? What is funny about that is that there are four big free agents out there that the Orioles could still sign. Will they, with Rubenstein, not even having complete control yet? Probably not, but Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery are still out there.
And wouldn’t it be great for the sale of the team to be approved here shortly, then during spring training we have a press conference announcing a contract extension for a member of this young core?
I am not saying that will happen, just that it’s OK to dream about such things now, whereas a month ago I’d have laughed you out of the room for suggesting it.
Whatever happens, to say this has been a satisfying last couple of weeks would be an understatement.
So, if you were a fan who had reservations about supporting John Angelos, it’s time to put that behind you and get out to Camden Yards because this is about to be a fun team that deserves to play in front of packed houses.
Baseball season is here, and it’s never felt better, so celebrate Orioles fans. You deserve it.
