The O’s rotation, in need of help, just added a flamethrower. 

Today, Baltimore acquired right-hander Shane Baz in exchange for prospects Slater de Brun, Caden Bodine, Michael Forret and Austin Overn, as well as a Competitive Balance Round A selection. According to MLB Pipeline, Forret slots in as the Rays’ No. 5 prospect with de Brun right behind him. Bodine checks in at No. 11 and Overn at No. 20. 

That’s a steep price, but one that the O’s were willing to pay for a young, controllable arm that could help the club in both the short- and long-term. 

You may remember Baz, the 12th overall pick in the 2017 draft, as one of the key pieces that Tampa Bay acquired from the Pittsburgh Pirates in the now-infamous Chris Archer trade. The righty has long been considered to be one of the most intriguing young arms in the game, being ranked as high as the 12th-best prospect in baseball entering the 2022 season. 

That No. 12 ranking, ironically, was the second-highest for a pitching prospect that season behind only Grayson Rodriguez. 

There were a few glaring needs for the Orioles entering this pivotal offseason. Others weren’t so obvious. 

Due to Félix Bautista’s injury, Baltimore was left without a reliever with extensive closing experience. More injury concerns and free agent departures created holes in the starting rotation, and a busy trade deadline saw bullpen arms shipped away for prospects. 

On the position player side, similar injury concerns, combined with underperformance, created questions about the lineup’s feasibility heading into 2026. 

The additions of Pete Alonso, Taylor Ward, Ryan Helsley and Andrew Kittredge, among others, have addressed many, but not all of those concerns. With shakeups to the roster, Annie Klaff and I took inventory of where Baltimore currently stands and what is left to be done on this week’s edition of “The Bird’s Nest,” which you can watch here. 

What will the Orioles do at first base? 

Trevor Rogers’ 2025 season wasn’t really a “breakout.” It was more like a return to form with better returns. 

The league saw flashes of what Rogers could be during the 2021 season. In that campaign, his rookie season in Miami, the big lefty was an All-Star, posting a 2.64 ERA and striking out 10.6 batters per nine innings.  

From there, though, things took a turn for the worse. 

The following season, Rogers’ ERA skyrocketed to a 5.47 as almost all of his underlying metrics got significantly worse. He appeared in just four games in 2023 before a disastrous 2024 season that showcased diminished velocity and an extended stay in Triple-A. 

You know the drill from there. 

As first reported by ESPN’s Jeff Passan and confirmed by Roch Kubatko and others, there’s a Polar Bear coming to Baltimore. 

What exactly does Pete Alonso bring to the table?

Most evidently, pop. Alonso is one of the best power bats that the game has to offer. Since entering the league in 2019, a season in which he led all of baseball with 53 longballs, Alonso has the third-most home runs of any player, trailing only Aaron Judge and Kyle Schwarber, and the most runs driven in with 712. 

He’s not just a power hitter, either. Last season, his .272 batting average was 16th-best in the National League, and his .347 on-base percentage was 21st. While he did strike out 162 times, his 22.8 percent strikeout rate was only slightly below league average.

While that batting average was 20 points higher than his career average, his underlying metrics would suggest that it was no fluke. 

The Orioles know how to draft. 

The 2019 class, the first in the Mike Elias era, produced a Rookie of the Year Award winner and a runner-up with a combined 36.5 bWAR in their careers, plus some key trade pieces. In 2020, they found another All-Star. The 2021 draft brought another Rookie of the Year runner-up and 2022 produced the highest-ranked prospect in baseball. You get the point. 

A down 2025 at the big league level was, of course, disappointing, but it did bring some benefits. At the trade deadline, Baltimore was able to reload a farm system that had been running thinner than usual due to promotions and trades. Tonight, the O’s reaped another reward: a high draft pick. 

Entering the evening, Baltimore had the fourth-best odds at landing the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 MLB Draft. All non-playoff teams are eligible for the Draft Lottery, and three teams with a worse winning percentage than the Orioles were ineligible based on past drafts. The O’s benefited. 

So, at pick No. 7, Baltimore has another golden opportunity to add to their impressive draft record. Here’s a quick rundown of some of the (very early) top players in next year’s draft class.

It’s easy for offseason waiver claims to slip through the cracks. 

Thaddeus Ward and René Pinto, claimed on the same day last November, didn’t end up seeing any major league playing time in 2025. Sam Hilliard, a claim in 2024, didn’t make an impact, either. 

Once in a while, though, an offseason waiver claim ends up contributing. 

Cole Sulser, claimed back in 2019, became part of a deal that netted the O’s a high draft pick and a couple of prospects. The same can be said for Bryan Baker, whose 3.73 ERA in Baltimore enticed the Rays to part with a high pick of their own. And, of course, how about the claim of Ramón Urías in 2020? The do-it-all infielder accumulated over 10.0 bWAR in his Orioles career. 

Baltimore is hoping that Drew Romo, recently claimed off waivers from the Rockies, falls into the latter category. 

There isn’t a Grayson Rodriguez or a DL Hall in the Orioles’ minor league system. That’s now true for the major leagues, too. 

For years, Rodriguez and Hall were touted as the future of Baltimore’s rotation. Both were among the 100 best prospects in baseball, according to MLB Pipeline, with Rodriguez even entering the 2022 season as the highest-ranked pitching prospect in the game. 

What the Orioles lacked behind them, though, was depth. Dating back to 2019, when Mike Elias and company took the reins, all the way to 2023, Rodriguez and Hall were No. 1 and No. 2 in the org’s pitching prospect rankings. 

The names behind them in ‘19 included Dean Kremer, now a fixture in the O’s rotation, and Keegan Akin, a solid reliever. In December of 2019, Baltimore added Kyle Bradish, who became their No. 21 prospect. At the time, Pipeline noted his “middle-of-the-rotation ceiling.” Fair to say Bradish expanded on that. 

Along the way, there were plenty of arms that profiled as potential back-end starters. Bradish and Kremer, of course, panned out and exceeded expectations. But there were other names that didn’t, like Zac Lowther, Blaine Knight, Mike Baumann, Drew Rom, Cody Sedlock, Kevin Smith and others. 

Not all seasons are created equally.

Rookie years are for making mistakes and learning from them. Final seasons are for curtain calls and flowers. Contract years are for playing your best baseball in hopes of a big payday.

2025 was Ryan Helsley’s contract year, and it didn’t go exactly as he’d hoped.

Entering the season, the flamethrowing right-hander looked like one of the best relievers in the game. His previous three seasons in St. Louis included two All-Star appearances, thanks to a 1.83 ERA, more than a dozen strikeouts per nine innings, a WHIP under 1.000 and 82 saves.

In fact, in 2024, Helsley led all of baseball in saves with 49, one of just two pitchers to even reach 40.

“I live in a small town, and to avoid dealing with ex girlfriend’s moms, they go ‘oh do you still play for the Angels,’” Taylor Ward said with a laugh. “And I say ‘yeah, sure, yeah.’ So now, it’s one of those ‘oh hey, you just got traded to Baltimore!’” 

He had, of course, not been traded to the Orioles. That would be quite a career shift for Ward, who has been covering the Angels for Baseball America since 2013. 

Instead, it was a player that he had covered for a long time in Anaheim, Joseph Taylor Ward, who goes by Taylor, that had been sent to Baltimore in exchange for Grayson Rodriguez. 

“We actually played baseball against each other a long time ago, high school days,” Baseball America’s Ward said of the new O’s outfielder. “His introduction after getting drafted, the PR Director was introducing him in the Angels’ media room and said ‘we’re going to start our questions with Taylor Ward.’ And I said ‘hey Taylor,’ and he looked at me and it was one of those connections of like ‘we’ve met before but where have we met.’ And I said ‘I’m Taylor Ward,’ and he said ‘I’m Taylor Ward,’ and it was an old connection that kind of came to fruition.” 

The duo, a reporter and a player sharing the same name, were the center of plenty of jokes in the clubhouse and on social media. So, on the day when the outfielder was traded, you can imagine what the day was like for the reporter. 

The Orioles had a question mark in the outfield, a query resolved with the acquisition of the slugging Taylor Ward. 

The manner in which they acquired Ward left many with new questions. 

Baltimore sent Grayson Rodriguez, the former top pitching prospect in the game, to Los Angeles in a one-for-one swap for Ward. Rodriguez, the 11th overall pick in the 2018 draft, hasn’t appeared in the big leagues since 2024 after missing all of last season with a laundry list of injuries. 

Something about opening some doors and closing others. 

Let’s start on the Ward side of things, where the O’s have shored up their outfield group for 2026. The 31-year-old, with just one year of team control remaining, has quietly put together a rock-solid stretch of seasons in Los Angeles, averaging over 136 games played with a .783 OPS, .251 batting average, 24.5 home runs, 24.3 doubles and 72.5 runs driven in per year since 2022. 

A .652 OPS isn’t the most impressive on the back of a baseball card. 

In 2025, major leaguers averaged a .719 OPS, aided by a slugging percentage over .400. Power numbers go a long way in putting runs on the board, but are only half of the equation for the most commonly used metric in hitting evaluation.

A .341 on-base percentage, on the other hand, is on par with some of the best in the game. 

In 2025, just 53 qualified players reached that mark. High-quality hitters like Brent Rooker, Manny Machado and Cody Bellinger fell short. 

That’s all to say that when you’re evaluating Enrique Bradfield Jr.’s Arizona Fall League, or just his game in general, you can’t just look at his .652 OPS. Instead, look towards where Bradfield excels: a .341 OBP paired with 17 stolen bases in just 20 games, plus a .974 fielding percentage with 37 putouts.

When the clock strikes 5 p.m., free agency will officially be underway in Major League Baseball. 

The 2026 class doesn’t feature a headliner like Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani or Juan Soto, but there is plenty of talent to be had. Spotrac estimates a dozen players to earn at least $20 million annually, a list that includes six starting pitchers. 

Throughout the offseason, we’ll take a deep dive into some potential fits in Baltimore. 

Player: Framber Valdez, LHP, 31 years old  

2025 Stats: 13-11, 192.0 IP, 3.66 ERA, 1.245 WHIP, 8.8 K/9, 3.2 BB/9

The Dodgers aren’t the easiest team to replicate. 

Now back-to-back World Series champions, Los Angeles is reaping the benefits of the highest payroll in the game highlighted by, arguably, the best to ever do it. Multiple MVPs fill the top of the lineup while Cy Young winners take the mound. 

The Blue Jays, though, were right there. 

Hardly a small-market team themselves, Toronto was a play or two away from their first title since 1993. Their star first baseman put together one of the best postseasons of all time, an unheralded utility man was mere feet away from immortality, and a few grizzled veterans nearly pushed them over the top. 

The Orioles are hoping to join them at the summit. 

Craig Albernaz is officially the 21st manager in Orioles history.

Like his predecessors Brandon Hyde and Tony Mansolino, Albernaz does not have any big league managerial experience. He most recently sat as the associate manager for the Guardians, a role that he was promoted to after serving as Cleveland’s bench coach in 2024.

So without a track record as a manager to lean on and with about a week until we hear from Albernaz at his introductory press conference, we’re left with gathering bits and pieces of information where we can.

Let’s start with Albernaz’s previous coaching experience, which isn’t terribly expansive, given the fact that he was playing in the minor leagues as recently as 2014. 

His coaching career began just one year later with the Rays, the organization that he spent a majority of his minor league career with. After starting as a hitting coach, Albernaz got his first experience as a skipper in 2017, managing the Yankees’ High-A affiliate Hudson Valley Renegades and leading them to a Penn League championship. 

The start of Dylan Beavers’ major league career couldn’t have gone much better. 

In his first three games, the outfielder had already collected four hits. After making his debut on the road, the 24-year-old put on a show in his first homestand, hitting .368 with a 1.162 OPS in seven games against the Astros and Red Sox. And by game 24, he had already walked 20 times, improving his on-base percentage to a staggering .460. 

But after hitting the ground running, Beavers’ pace was slowed. 

In the final 10 games of the season, the Cal product hit just .143 with 12 strikeouts and a .268 OBP. 

All in all, Beavers’ first 35 games had their fair share of ups and downs, as is to be expected with any rookie, especially in a small sample size. A .375 OBP is impressive, a .227 batting average less so, and a .775 OPS is just fine.

The top end of the Orioles’ farm system is filled with talent. 

Four of the top 10 prospects in the system, according to MLB Pipeline, were selected in this year’s MLB Draft. Two, Esteban Mejia and Nate George, were unranked entering 2025, but burst onto the scene with incredibly impressive seasons. Boston Bateman, the team’s No. 9 prospect, was acquired from the Padres at the trade deadline. 

While those seven players have plenty of upside, none are expected to see a big league field until at least 2028. 

The opposite is the case for the top two prospects down on the farm, Samuel Basallo and Dylan Beavers, who should break camp with Baltimore and graduate from their prospect status within just a few weeks of the season’s start. 

So, rounding things out, two prospects are in the big leagues already, and seven are a long way away from it. That accounts for nine of the top 10. 

Among the 16 minor leaguers that the Orioles acquired at this year’s trade deadline, five of them can be found among Baltimore’s top 30 prospects, according to MLB Pipeline. Slater de Brun, selected with the draft pick acquired by sending Bryan Baker to the Rays, makes six. 

de Brun and Boston Bateman, the headliner of the trade that sent Ryan O’Hearn and Ramón Laureano to the Padres, are both ranked in the top 10. Juaron Watts-Brown joins a group of excellent starting pitching prospects in Double-A. 

But it’s three unranked deadline acquisitions, Anthony Nunez, Tyson Neighbors and Cameron Foster, that could make the biggest impacts in Baltimore next season. 

Why, then, are the three pitching prospects relatively unheralded?

Typically, in prospect rankings, more stock is put into arms with a starter’s upside than those that are already coming out of the bullpen in the minor leagues. If the starter fails to reach his potential, the “fallback” is in the bullpen. 

The rear view mirror is the best place for the Orioles’ 2025 season to be. 

With a 75-87 record, Baltimore found itself in the cellar of the American League East. Forty-one different O’s threw a pitch, and 35 took a swing. 

Trevor Rogers, the Most Valuable Oriole, was the team’s best player. Gunnar Henderson’s “down” season still resulted in 5.4 bWAR, according to Baseball Reference, but too many core position players followed that troubling, slumping trend. Just two regulars finished the season with an OPS of .700 or better, and nobody cracked 20 home runs. 

Those results are, now, in the past. The road that lies ahead is what’s important. 

That’s what we discussed on this week’s edition of “The Bird’s Nest,” which you can watch and listen to here. 

“I thought that tied it!”

My grandfather, with a chuckle, quickly realized from the reactions around him that Dylan Beavers had just won the game for the Orioles in the bottom of the ninth, and had not, in fact, just tied things up. 

Baltimore came roaring back in the eighth, highlighted by Coby Mayo’s two-run home run, but complimented by the less highlight-worthy Ryan Mountcastle run scored on a wild pitch. With things knotted in the ninth, Beavers only needed one pitch to send Orioles fans home happy. 

That feeling of elation, shared by my Pop and O’s fans that had come to Camden Yards to put a bow on the 2025 season, was one that they hadn’t felt as often as they would’ve liked at their favorite ballpark. The victory improved Baltimore’s home record to 39-42, even if some walkoffs felt as if they should count as an extra crooked number in the win column. 

But among the 81, No. 81 itself carries a different weight. 

The 2025 season hasn’t gone the way that anyone had hoped. 

At 73-81, the Orioles are likely on their way to a losing season, playing spoiler rather than contender. Just two active members of Baltimore’s roster have played more than 85 games, and only two pitchers have started more than 20 contests. 

Yet, despite disappointing results, there have been no shortage of positive stories. This week on “The Bird’s Nest,” we broke down some of our favorites. 

If you missed this week’s show, you can watch the full episode here: https://masn.me/v3mmyrwe. 

Trevor Rogers