After another uninspiring loss last night, the 2025 Orioles are 6-10, and Birdland is in full freak out mode. Everything that can be said about this team, the offseason, Mike Elias or Brandon Hyde has been said. People are upset over the pitching, the lack of clutch hitting, the young players not performing, “bad” lineups, etc.
I get it. There is a lot of frustration, and I agree there is validity to some of the criticisms, but I also think this is just what happens when you get off to a slow start to begin a sports season. The fans go into full panic mode because they are impatient and want satisfaction right now.
The reality is that if this were July and the O’s had a stretch of 6-10, the angst wouldn’t be there, (at least not to this level). We wouldn’t notice a player going through a 1-for-13 or 0-for-16 stretch, but we notice it now.
With that said, I am not saying there isn’t reason for concern. I just think some of the complaints I’m seeing are a bit short sighted.
Rotation Woes
Let’s first address the fans’ biggest issue heading into spring training: the rotation. And if you are being honest as a fan, your real issue was the Charlie Morton signing. No O’s fans were upset about Grayson Rodriguez or Zach Eflin near the top of the rotation. Additionally, most of Birdland is fine with Dean Kremer as a back end starter with a little more upside than that. Even most fans were fine taking a chance on Tomoyuki Sugano. He had been an excellent pitcher in Japan and while that is obviously not the majors, the NPB is looked at as basically AAAA level. No one expected him to be a sub-2 ERA pitcher, but many projection systems had him around a 4-4.30 type guy. He can absolutely be that guy, but not if he doesn’t show better command than he has thus far. If he doesn’t, he isn’t an MLB pitcher.
But the Morton signing was the issue. People pointed to his age, but honestly, his age didn’t really bother me because he was showing no signs of that being a concern, with decreased velocity or worse stuff. Even watching him now, the stuff isn’t an issue. The command just isn’t there and, as he said last night, he is getting nothing from his curveball.
Charlie Morton's ever-reliable curveball has been anything but to start the season.
Morton on that offering's struggles and its importance. pic.twitter.com/Vq2B5PORHQ
— Orioles on MASN (@masnOrioles) April 16, 2025
The real issue with the Morton signing was that even in the best-case scenario, he’s your number three. The O’s needed more than that. Had the O’s signed (for example) Jack Flaherty instead of Morton, I think most fans wouldn’t have had an issue with this offseason. That’s why I say this is all about that one move.
The problem is people are ignoring what the alternatives to Morton are doing so far. Let’s look at some names that fans asked for:
He is off to an ok start; nothing great but not bad either. He has faced some poor-ish lineups pitching in pitchers’ parks.
Hurt and hasn’t pitched yet. Likely back around late May.
He was never coming here or to the east coast at all. Oh and he is on the IL for his shoulder.
Very meh start…most fans didn’t want him because of his injury history.
Has one excellent start and one decent start. His ERA is still over 5.
Both are off to very good starts. I wanted Eovaldi, but he wanted to stay in Texas and likely wasn’t an option for the O’s unless they put four or five years on the table. Even that may not have mattered. Fried was also likely never an option for the O’s. Was he someone you wanted to go $30-35M for 7-9 years? I’m fine with losing him.
Jack Flaherty
To me, this was Elias’ biggest miss of the offseason. Even though I say that, it’s still possible Flaherty wasn’t an option either, due to his previous stint in Baltimore. There was some talk that he either didn’t want to come here or the O’s didn’t want him back. We really don’t know. But judging by his contract, I would have liked to see Elias offer a 3rd year and $55-60M.
Nick Pivetta and Andrew Heaney
These were both names I wrote about wanting in the offseason, but the draft pick attached to Pivetta was a hindrance and most O’s fans didn’t think he was that good anyway. I wanted Heaney as a reliever that could start if needed. For the contract he got, this was also a miss by Elias That said, had he been one of our pitching acquisitions, the fan base would have likely called it dumpster diving.
Those were the free agents. Next, you can look at the trade market. Lots of rumors were out there but it sounds like the asking prices (if rumors are to be believed) were outrageous.
In the end, the only guy dealt was Garrett Crochet. Now, you can argue the O’s should have beaten Boston’s offer because Crochet was the best talent available.
However, it’s not that simple. First, Samuel Basallo was likely to have been included in any deal. While some fans say Coby Mayo could have been the headliner, the issue is Baltimore didn’t have the second prospect to pair with Mayo like the Red Sox did with Kyle Teel (no, Enrique Bradfield was not a top 60 prospect, so he likely wasn’t valued as highly). Since that was the case, Basallo likely needed to be in the deal.
My issue with Crochet is that he is an injury waiting to happen. He is absolutely a difference-making talent and has an elite skill set but if you trade a ton for him and then he misses a year or more, that turns out to be an awful deal. There were only a few teams really pushing for Crochet as well, which is odd considering his talent.
That should tell us that teams were very worried about him.
This is to say that the starting pitching acquisitions that were likely available wouldn’t really have the O’s in better shape than they are in now.
Of course, long term they could have, but short term? The Birds would still be struggling.
In the end, they entered spring training with 10 viable starting pitching options. No team has more than that and no team is going to have 10 definitive options that are #4 starters or better. That just doesn’t happen. However, the O’s did have a lot of options and guys capable of being MLB starters. Some had upside to being more than just back end starters. Clearly, so far, it’s worst-case scenario.
Everything Else
As for the rest of the offseason, it should be clear what Elias wanted to do. He wanted a team that had very few holes and a lot of depth.
Unfortunately, they have run into a lot of injuries to especially important players as well as to some of that depth. Also, the bench acquisitions they made have been terrible early on. Ramon Laureano was a head-scratching decision after they signed Dylan Carlson. The move looks even worse because it appears the O’s have no interest in playing Laureano in CF and he is just 1-for-13 so far. However, he has been in the majors since 2018 and has been a well above average hitter against lefties in every full season except 2021. He was a sensible signing in that regard. While I would rather just have Carlson up here, you still have him in AAA, so it’s not like you lost him to get Laureano. Again, an emphasis on depth.
The Orioles likely overpaid a little for Gary Sanchez (but not by a lot) and there was reason to think he would be fine as a backup. I still think he will, but he looks bad early and really, the biggest issue with Sanchez is that it appears Brandon Hyde is going to play him too much. He should get ~40 starts at catcher and perhaps a few at DH if his bat is hot and you want to get him in the lineup. However, like James McCann recently, Hyde is pacing him more toward 55-70 games and that is absurd. There’s no reason he should start every time they face a southpaw. Hyde (and Elias) need to stop treating these mediocre players as if they should play a lot.
All this being said, make no mistake about it: the issues early on are largely at the feet of the young talent that was already here, and the injuries. Entering March, the O’s had Andrew Kittredge at the back of the pen, Eflin and Rodriguez leading the staff and Colton Cowser as possibly the second-best all-around player. Now they have none of them, and two of those injuries happened after Opening Day, resulting in some scrambling.
Let’s also not forget that they were without Gunnar Henderson for the first week of the season and then he needed time to get himself back to normal, having not had a spring training.
Those are major injuries that would affect any team. The O’s are also just not getting consistent hitting from the players they need to hit. There has definitely been some bad luck. The EV rate, barrel rates, etc.. are all very good, but the results aren’t there. I feel that it will even out and the offense will be excellent but again, everything is magnified right now.
These next few weeks are going to be interesting. It sounds like there is a good chance that the four key injured players will be out at least another four weeks, with maybe Eflin being the only one who can return sooner. Brandon Young will start this weekend. Kyle Gibson will be up here in a few weeks. The schedule gets easier in May. What can this team do in the next two weeks to stabilize things? You don’t make the playoffs in April, but you can miss them in April. How the Orioles right the ship, if they do, for these next few weeks could determine the direction this season goes.
All the O’s fans need to relax a little. Let things continue to play out. Let’s wait for some of this bad luck to balance out. Hopefully, we stop being the target of bad umpiring, bad breaks on balls in play, etc…The rest of the division is off to a mediocre start as well and the AL in general is very underwhelming, so its not like the season is over. The Yankees are hitting right now but their rotation ERA is second-worst (to just the O’s) in baseball. They aren’t some juggernaut, but to their credit, they are hitting and winning some higher-scoring games. That should have been the O’s formula, and they’re obviously capable, but it’s just not happening yet.
Give this time some time. Elias will make pitching acquisitions in season. Let things play out more before jumping off a bridge.
Small sample sizes can make things look better or way worse than what reality is over the course of a long season.
