Objectively, the Baltimore Orioles are one of the best teams in baseball. They won 101 games in 2023 and 91 games in 2024, and their 192 combined wins from 2023-24 are third most in baseball behind the Dodgers (198) and Braves (193). FanGraphs projections peg the O's as a top five team in baseball, essentially on par with Steve Cohen's big-spending Mets.
So why then do they feel so underwhelming?
Early Saturday morning, the Orioles lost ace Corbin Burnes to free agency. To the Diamondbacks, specifically. Arizona gave Burnes a six-year, $210 million contract with an opt out after Year 2. The O's were said to have interest in retaining Burnes, who threw 194 1/3 innings with a 2.92 ERA and finished fifth in the Cy Young voting in his lone season in Baltimore, but obviously it did not happen.
With Burnes now a D-back, Baltimore's rotation depth chart currently looks like this:
- RHP Zach Eflin
- RHP Grayson Rodriguez
RHP Kyle Bradish(will miss most or all of 2025 with Tommy John surgery)- RHP Dean Kremer
- RHP Tomoyuki Sugano
- LHP Trevor Rogers
- RHP Albert Suárez
Again, underwhelming. I would even take it a step further and say you have to do better than that if your goal is winning the World Series. GM Mike Elias needs to do better by building a rotation capable of supporting a lineup loaded with young talent. New owner David Rubenstein needs to do better investing in his team. Baltimore's estimated 2025 payroll ranks 18th in baseball. Why so low?
Earlier this month, Pitcher List's Ben Palmer reported Rubenstein gave Elias to green light to spend, but Elias doesn't want to. My read on that is the GM is falling on the sword for an owner who doesn't really want to spend. The alternative is Rubenstein is feckless, and unwilling to take charge of the team he owns. The owner wants to spend but the big bad GM won't let him 😕.
To be fair to the Orioles, they did not make the Burnes trade until Feb. 1 last offseason, so there is plenty of time between now and spring training to do something that really moves the needle. This is a very passive approach to team building, though. The O's went through the ugly rebuild and came out the other side with a boatload of young position players but are timid on the pitching market.
I get it: pitchers break, and modern pitch design and analytics allow teams to find quality arms almost anywhere. On waivers, in minor league free agency, in the late rounds of the draft, etc. Why sink $210 million dollars into Burnes' age 30-35 seasons and assume all that risk when you can dig up a Suárez or trade for a lower-salaried Eflin and coach them up?
The reason is good players win games and championships, not good value. Also, there is a social contract here. Fans stick with the team through the rebuild because the promise is the team will try its hardest to win a championship down the road. Are Elias, Rubenstein, and O's going all-out to win a title? They aren't with an 18th-ranked payroll and that rotation.
The Orioles have been one of the best teams in baseball the last two years and I expect them to again be one of the best teams in baseball next year. But as good as they could be? No, probably not, barring a surprise rotation addition. I mean, forget Burnes. Why weren't the O's in on Juan Soto? He fits their contention window perfectly, yet there wasn't a shred of interest, reportedly.
At some point, the Orioles need to put their foot on the gas. The AL is the leanest it's been in a long time -- Burnes is merely the latest high-end player to leave the AL for the NL -- and that should be an invitation to go for it, not hold back and bank on things going your way. The O's are very good, but an underwhelming winter to date leaves them not as good as they could be.
