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 

TORONTO – The O’s bullpen doesn’t have set roles. 

More often than not, you’ll see arms like Keegan Akin, Yennier Cano and Rico Garcia in the later innings. Unproven names like Grant Wolfram and Kade Strowd are working to gain trust, but aren’t quite established yet. 

It leaves Baltimore, and interim manager Tony Mansolino, playing the matchup game more often than not, trying to win with finesse and tactics.

That chess match becomes far more interesting in a bullpen game. 

This afternoon, the O’s bullpen didn’t come out on top in the game of chess, and Baltimore fell 11-2. 

TORONTO – On a given day in 2024, you never knew what you would see from Albert Suárez. 

On May 22 of last year, he tossed two-thirds of an inning against the Cardinals in high-leverage bullpen work. Three days later, he started against the White Sox, tossing four scoreless. 

It was the same story later that season. To kick off August, the right-hander came out of the bullpen for an inning and two-thirds only to follow it up with five shutout innings with six strikeouts against the Toronto Blue Jays. 

That’s exactly what the O’s are hoping for out of Suárez this afternoon, who starts in Toronto after appearing in the 10th inning in his last outing. 

“If you get him up to five, I think you’re probably doing a pretty good job right there,” interim manager Tony Mansolino said of Suárez’s upcoming outing. “I think he got up to five in one of his rehab starts. That’s a while ago. He hasn’t built up that high. I think here with us, probably, three innings is what he’s got. Albert has a tendency to be efficient at times and he can get some outs quick. If all goes well and he gets to the fifth, that would be great. If something went crazy and somehow he got into the sixth, it would be incredible.” 

TORONTO – For the last few weeks, the Orioles had been the ones doing the walkoffs. 

In fact, Baltimore had won four consecutive games in that fashion back at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. 

This afternoon in Toronto, though, Baltimore was on the other side of things in a 5-4 loss. 

The Gatorade was far less cold.

Alejandro Kirk was the hero for the Blue Jays with a walk-off sacrifice fly in the bottom of the ninth as Toronto stormed back with four runs in the final two innings of play. 

TORONTO – The legacy of three active pitchers in Major League Baseball towers above the rest. 

Between them, they have combined for nine Cy Young awards and two Most Valuable Player awards, the last pitchers not named Shohei Ohtani to win that honor since Dennis Eckersley in 1992. 

They’re the only active pitchers in the game with over 200 career wins. They’re also the only trio to each accumulate over 3,000 strikeouts over their Hall of Fame careers. 

Justin Verlander, Clayton Kershaw and Max Scherzer have another thing in common, too: They’re the last three starters to oppose Tomoyuki Sugano. 

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Sugano is set to become the second pitcher in O’s history to face a 200-game winner in three consecutive outings, joining Dave Schmidt in 1987, who faced Bert Blyleven twice and Joe Niekro. So, Sugano will actually become the first Oriole to face three different 200-game winners consecutively. 

TORONTO – Trevor Rogers’ early exit from tonight’s game due to left toe discomfort, and the subsequent questions that followed in the brief absence of that injury update, perfectly summed up his recent stretch of dominance. 

The lefty wasn’t his sharpest tonight in Toronto. He walked four batters, contributing to more traffic on the basepaths than we’re accustomed to seeing, and had to work through lengthy innings. 

He didn’t allow an earned run in five innings of work. 

And yet, given Rogers’ standards and the level to which he’s raised the bar, many were left pondering what went wrong. 

That’s the luxurious viewpoint that we’re able to have on Rogers, whose mastery on the mound has made elite outings commonplace and merely good outings surprising. 

TORONTO – On Aug. 1, the Orioles’ outfield no longer included Cedric Mullins, a mainstay in center field since his breakout 2021 campaign. The next day, right-fielder Tyler O’Neill was a late scratch from the lineup due to illness. And a few days later, after a collision with the wall, O’Neill hit the injured list with wrist inflammation. 

On Aug, 1, Jeremiah Jackson was called up to the big leagues after hitting a staggering .377 in 40 games with the Triple-A Norfolk Tides. Most anticipated that Jackson, who played 35 of those 40 games in the infield, would fill the role vacated by Ramón Urías. 

Instead, through 35 games with the Orioles, Jackson has spent 27 days in the depleted outfield and has mostly been patrolling right field, a position that he had played on just seven occasions as a minor leaguer. 

Today, Baltimore’s primary right fielder, O’Neill, returns from a rehab assignment. But don’t expect Jackson and his .829 OPS to just hit the bench. 

“We’ll see kind of where it goes,” Tony Mansolino said of his lineup upon O’Neill’s return. “It’ll be very day-to-day, and we’ll do the best we can with the lineup and get people in the right spots.”

Each year, in preparation for the MLB Draft, MLB Pipeline ranks their 250 best draft-eligible prospects. From the college ranks to the high school prep class, this list is filled with names that could change the outlook of an organization’s future. 

In 2024, that list included the O’s first-round pick Vance Honeycutt, ranked No. 22 among the 250. Griff O’Ferrall came in at No. 38, and his college roommate Ethan Anderson was 40 spots below. The speedy Austin Overn, in Double-A Chesapeake with O’Ferrall and Anderson, checked in at No. 131, and Baltimore’s fifth-round-pick, Ryan Stafford, was ranked 175th. 

More often than not, there’s little conversation to be had about the prospects ranked outside of this list. 

Baseball America takes things a step further, though, ranking 500 prospects before draft season. Coming in at No. 272 was an “under-the-radar prep prospect” hailing from Illinois with a commitment to Northwest Florida: Nate George. 

The center fielder and his raw skillset fell to the 16th round of the 2024 Draft, and that’s where the Orioles selected him, swaying him away from his college commitment. 

From hot dogs’ validity as a sandwich to drawing up the best starting 11 if the Orioles were fielding a soccer team, all bases were covered in Episode 100 of “The Bird’s Nest.” We talked about some baseball, too. 

If you didn’t get the chance to tune in, you can watch the full episode here: https://masn.me/tc1q2qs8 

As we did on the show, let’s start with the fun ones. 

If you both were stranded on an island and could listen to only one album, which one would it be? And is lasagna a casserole?

I have no idea how to pronounce the name of the person that asked this question. Roch? Strange spelling. 

Three minutes into episode 229 of the “MASN Orioles Podcast,” Paul Mancano and I reveled in the Baltimore Orioles’ 15-7 start to the 2023 campaign. 

The Birds had come a long way from the start of the podcast, with shows like Episode 12, titled “What can the O’s get for Manny,” and Episode 66 named “Fill in LeBlanc.” 

Gone were the days of Episode 123, highlighted by Adam Plutko’s addition to the roster, or Episode 157, discussing how Baltimore had claimed Lucius Fox and left Robert Neustrom III unprotected from the Rule 5 draft. 

Instead, the main topics of discussion for episode 226 included Yennier Cano’s outstanding start to the 2023 season, and Jackson Holliday’s promotion to High-A Aberdeen after hitting close to .400 for the Delmarva Shorebirds. 

40 minutes and 35 seconds in, Paul said his goodbyes. 

The American League Cy Young race is one of the two-man variety, coming down to the wire between Detroit’s Tarik Skubal and Boston’s Garrett Crochet. 

The latter has been dominant in a Red Sox uniform, posting a 2.38 ERA and over 11 strikeouts per nine innings entering this afternoon’s contest against the Orioles. 

The O’s were lucky to avoid Crochet for a two-game series up in Fenway. They didn’t get so lucky in this afternoon’s series finale in OPACY. 

In a game that Crochet starts, you’re fortunate to not be trailing when he leaves. That’s where the Orioles found themselves entering the seventh inning, all knotted at two. 

But it was the Red Sox bullpen that got the best of the Orioles, blanking the birds' bats in the final three innings. The Sox were able to push one run across in the eighth, and that was all they needed. The O's fell 3-2 and were swept in this four-game series. 

“Steal bases I guess, I don’t know,” first-round pick Ike Irish answered with a laugh. 

“Steal bases, the first thing out of the catcher’s mouth, huh?” I replied with a chuckle. I had asked Irish, the No. 19 pick in the 2025 MLB Draft, if he had any goals for the remainder of his first professional season. 

“Hit the ball hard and steal bases,” he doubled down. “And outside of that, have fun.” 

That element won’t be missing for MLB Pipeline’s second-best Orioles prospect. The catcher/outfielder/first-baseman hybrid is keeping things light after being drafted just a few months ago. 

It’s the message the organization has sent him, too.