This post was supposed to be about who the Orioles could trade for to bolster the current rotation but I rambled on for too long about the current rotation so instead this is more a mid season report card for the starting pitchers.
At the start of the season many experts underestimated the Orioles because of the rotation which did not have an “ace” to lead them into the season. Opening day starter Kyle Gibson just doesn’t have the same ring to it as opening day starter Gerrit Cole or Sandy Alcantara. However, the Orioles rotation has been solid this year, the starters are among the league leaders in innings pitched and quality starts. Here is a quick look at the rotation as it stands right now:
Kyle Gibson
ERA: 4.60 | WHIP: 1.313 | ERA+: 91 | FIP: 3.94 | K/9: 7.3 | QS: 9 | Record 9-6
Gibson has been almost exactly what Orioles fans should have expected his 2023 stats mirror almost exactly his career stats. That being said the numbers don’t do Gibson justice as he has a positive effect in the rotation and been a definite upgrade in the Jordan Lyles position of veteran innings eater.
The Good:
As mentioned above Gibson has been very important in saving a struggling and at times overworked bullpen. He has gone 5+ innings in 16 of his 19 starts and in many of these starts he’s done more than just eat innings for the sake of eating them he has turned in 9 quality starts this year almost all of which have converted in wins. He has battled through a lot of tough first innings and turned what looked like disaster outings into gutsy performances that give the team a chance to win. He also is a good veteran to have around especially when the rest of the rotation is mostly made up of young starters who are still learning what it’s like to turn in a whole season of work. When Grayson Rodriguez got sent down Gibson was someone who reached out and made himself available as a mentor. He also was part of developing the team’s fun celebrations like the homer hose and the double sprinkler. At his best he is a veteran who can be relied on to take the mound and hand the ball to the back of the bullpen with a chance to win the game.
The Bad:
When Kyle Gibson doesn’t have it he doesn’t make you wait long to find out. The first inning has been his worst enemy this year. I gave him credit for gutting through some bad first innings but even when he has bounced back and pitched better later into the game sometimes it is too much. To add to the concerns most of his worst starts have happened in the last few weeks: 5 ER in 3 innings vs the Mariners, 6 ER in 4.2 against the Red and 4 ER in 6 innings vs the Yankees all losses. He did have probably his best start of the year going into the all star break going 7 innings 2 ER to get his ninth win of the year. If no changes are made to the rotation come game one of the playoffs the Orioles will have to decide between starting one of their young pitchers with no experience or Gibson and if you’re the Orioles this is probably the number one reason to look for an upgrade at the trade deadline.
Final Thoughts:
If no trades are made and the Orioles do opt to have Gibson be their game one starter I wouldn’t be surprised at all if he turns in 7 innings with 3 ER and gives us a chance to win the game so we could certainly do worse I think his leadership will be important in the second half of the season going into the playoffs.
Dean Kremer
ERA: 4.78 | WHIP: 1.367 | ERA+: 87 | FIP: 4.94 | K/9: 8.4 | QS: 8 | Record 9-4
Dean Kremer is doing a pretty good Kyle Gibson impersonation this season. After a great finish to the 2022 season I had high hopes of Kremer solidifying himself as a part of the Orioles rotation of the future. Kremer got off to a rough start to the season, at the end of April his ERA sat at 6.67 and he had given up 4 or more runs in 5 of his 6 starts. Between May 5th and June 24th he held his opponents to under 3 ER in 9 of his 10 starts. Since then he’s had his worst start of the year against Minnesota followed by his best start of the year against New York. So which version of Dean Kremer will show up in the second half of the year?
. The Good:
Everytime Dean takes the mound either Jim Palmer or Ben Mcdonald call attention to his pitch mix. He has 6 pitches he uses pretty interchangeably depending on what is working. What you hear about Dean is that he has a very intellectual approach to pitching so when he struggles you can count on him to get in the lab and try to get things turned around. Also important to note that last year he struggled to start the year after a disastrous 2021 campaign and a lot of people wrote him off only for him to come back and put together the best stretch of his career in the back half of the season, some guys are simply better in the second half (Take a look at Blake Snell’s second half splits) and Dean might be one of those guys. Another thing that has been trend this year, and I’m not the only person who has noticed this, is that when Dean pitches well Kyle Bradish who follows him in the rotation tends to pitch well the next day. This is probably a correlation vs causation thing like when you see those graphs about ice cream sales and drowning deaths are related but I still count it as a pro for Dean.
The Bad:
The peripheral stats on Dean Kremer’s pitches have not been good this year. As unspectacular as his numbers according to his advanced stats he is probably lucky they’re not worse. His stuff gets barrelled up more than almost any other pitcher in the big leagues, gets hit hard and he gets hit often. One of the biggest differences between this year and last year is the chase rate for whatever reason he just isn’t fooling batters this year. (Not to cheat and be positive in the cons section but his these advanced numbers that are bad this year are the same ones that were bad in 2021 and he turned in 2022 so there’s hope he does it again, anyway back to the negativity) Another thing to worry about with Dean is that he is rapidly approaching his career high in innings for a season, so an arm that’s getting hit as hard as it ever has will soon be uncharted territory as far as innings which seems like a reason to be concerned. (Cheating again with some positivity in parenthesis but I’m sure the Orioles pitching coaches have been building him up to this workload for years and like I mentioned earlier last year he got better as the season went on)
Final Thoughts:
One final note on Dean is that despite what the advanced stats say so far this season I like him as a part of the rotation, when he takes the mound I feel confident he’s going to perform (unless it’s against the Red Sox) and I would trust him in that 4th spot in the rotation in the postseason making starts as needed throughout the playoffs.
Kyle Bradish
ERA: 3.32 | WHIP: 1.179 | ERA+: 125 | FIP: 3.6 | K/9: 8.5 | QS: 8 | Record 5-4
With his performance this year Kyle Bradish has solidified himself as a part of the Orioles rotation of the future. He was injured in his first start of the year by a line drive hit off his foot. After two weeks on the IL he came back and had a great start against the Nationals followed by 3 shaky starts where he struggled to get dep into the game and gave up some runs but since his May 12th start against the pirates he has held his opponents to TWO runs or less in 8 of 11 starts and seems to be getting stronger as the season goes on.
The Good:
The version of Bradish we have seen since May 12th is good enough to be the 2nd or 3rd best pitcher on a world series team. His offspeed stuff is very good and has a lot of variety so he’s able to keep batters guessing on his 2nd and 3rd times through the lineup which should help him get deeper into games and hand the ball off to the back of the bullpen. Last year he got better as the year went on and this year he has gotten better as the season goes on. I’d be happy if he keeps pitching the way he has for the past 3 months but it is possible he will get even better.
The Bad:
Bradish has been great this year so my complaints are more nit picking than actual concerns but similar to Kremer, Bradish can get into trouble with hard contact. He is in the bottom half percentile when it comes to barrel %, xBA, xSLG. Most of these hard contact problems have to do with his fastball. Mercifully he has been throwing it less and less as the year goes on. It will be interesting if he continues to throw it less and less until he’s barely throwing it at all or if he tries to rework it a little and it makes a comeback in his pitch mix. One thing that Bradish has struggled with in a few of his starts is getting too caught up in trying to strike guys out and letting his pitch count get too high and stopping him from getting deep into games when he is pitching well. I’d like to see him pitch to contact in some situations and get deeper into games. Another concern is that Bradish is close to surpassing his career high in major league innings and if he is healthy though the entire second half of the year he will enter the postseason at almost double his career high in innings.
Final Thoughts:
The con paragraph I wrote looks really long but I view this season for Bradish as an absolute win and I hope he is a part of the rotation for years to come. I trust him as the 2nd or 3rd starter in the playoffs this year.
Tyler Wells:
ERA: 3.18 | WHIP: .93 | ERA+: 131 | FIP: 4.64 | K/9: 8.9 | QS: 8 | Record 7-4
Tyler Wells is the biggest surprise of the year for the Orioles rotation. Many fans including myself were disappointed when he beat out Grayson Rodriguez for the last rotation spot (this had more to do with excitement to have Grayson on the roster than not liking Tyler Wells) but he has been by far the Orioles best pitcher this year and was probably an all star snub. I was all in attendance for the game in Texas when Kyle Bradish got hurt and Tyler Wells volunteered to come in on short notice and pitched a gem in relief. I was as impressed by his performance as I was his willingness to jump off the bench and pitch on a day when he had been sure he wasn’t going to play.
The Good:
I don’t think it can be overstated how impressive it is that Wells leads the Major Leagues in WHIP. This year it has been very difficult for teams to string together hits against Tyler Wells which has led to him being one of the most effective starters in the league. Going into the all star break he has had 8 straight starts of 5+ innings pitch with less than 2 ER. This isn’t some fluke either, his stuff has genuinely been very good, he’s got the high spin fastball that everyone is crazy about and his command has been super consistent. It has been great to watch this Rule 5 pick who was brought up as a relief pitcher originally work his way into the rotation and now turn in a dominant first half to the season. I believe he is probably the most underrated pitcher in baseball and he’s been the clear ace of the rotation this year.
The Bad:
It’s the home runs. It’s one of the strangest things to have a pitcher who by so many metrics is absolutely dominant but his flaw is he gets absolutely hammered at least once if not twice a game. They have mostly been solo shots (that’s the benefit of leading the league in WHIP) but it is concerning. All it takes is a little misfortune, a broken bat single, an error or a missed strike 3 call and suddenly those solo shots can turn into 2 or 3 run blasts. I imagine this is something that him and the pitching coaches are desperately trying to fix. Hyde pointed out to the media after his last start that there were no home runs in his last start so let’s hope he’s turning a corner. I could probably copy and paste the concern I have for Bradish and Kremer about the number of innings Wells has pitched this year compared to the rest of his career and on top of that he has some injury history that he has to worry about. This last con is not really his fault and it is a little contradictory on my part after I said he was the most underrated pitcher in the league and that he’s been the Ace this year but asking Wells to be the Ace of your playoff rotation is probably too much too soon for a young pitcher in his first year of starting.
Final Thoughts:
If the playoffs started today Tyler Wells is who I want on the mound for game one. In a perfect world by the time the postseason starts the Orioles will have acquired an established Ace to lead the rotation into the playoffs and Wells gets to be the 2nd starter. I think Wells has the mentality and the stuff to pitch in October and if the Orioles go on a run this I think he will be a big part of it.
Cole Irvin
ERA: 5.50 | WHIP: 1.487 | ERA+: 76 | FIP: 4.50 | K/9: 7.6 | QS: 1 | Record 1-3
Cole Irvin was brought over from Oakland to be an innings eater who could turn in the occasional gem. I’m sure the Orioles envisioned him having a season similar to what Kyle Gibson the results have been disappointing but it is not too late for him to turn it around but it will be interesting to see if the Orioles give him the chance when he the obvious choice to be replaced by either Grayson Rodriguez or whatever starter the Orioles trade for. I was initially excited for the Cole Irvin trade, I thought he had more upside than Gibson and was young enough that if he popped he could be a part of the rotation for awhile. I think part of his appeal for the front office was that in a season where we were planning on using a lot of young pitchers he was a good insurance policy in case one of them suffered an injury or regressed significantly which fortunately hasn’t happened.
The Good:
In his last 6 appearances (this includes some appearances in relief) Irvin has been solid, especially his last 2 starts, both of them against the Twins. So that is a good sign if it turns out he needs to fill in longer in the rotation. If calling up Grayson or trading for a starter displaces him I still like him in the long relief role more than Bruce Zimmerman, Keegan Akin and Austin Voth so I think he has a definite spot on the 26 man roster. Besides that, I also like how he fits in with the team. He seems like a good guy to have around the clubhouse.
The Bad:
Cole Irvin’s stuff is just not that good. He doesn’t have a great fastball, his breaking ball doesn’t make people miss and he doesn’t spin the ball in a way that makes you think he just needs to make a tweak and he’ll start dominating. What made him a decent starting pitcher in Oakland was that he was a strike thrower with great command and he almost never walked people. This year his command has not been great which hurts him a lot because this year’s pitches that are supposed to be on the edges of the strike zone are being left in the middle of the plate where they are getting absolutely crushed or are missing the plate and he is walking more people than ever. Like I said earlier I was excited about this trade and the fact that the Orioles traded a prospect for a major league player and I hope that the fact that it has largely not worked out does not discourage the front office from doing it again.
Finals Thoughts:
With how baseball works I wouldn’t be too surprised if Irvin has a chance to redeem himself either with a surprisingly strong second half as a starter or maybe he starts turning in very solid long relief outings and spares the Baltimore bullpen that has really been struggling. It will be interesting to see what the Front Office decides to do but I hope that come playoff time he is not someone that we are relying on to start games.
Grayson Rodriguez
ERA: 7.35 | WHIP: 1.743 | ERA+: 57 | FIP: 5.93 | K/9: 11.1 | QS: 0 | Record 2-2
I already did a whole post about Grayson so I won’t dive too deep here.
Grayson Rodriguez is the best Orioles pitching prospect in a long time but in his short stint in the big leagues it was clear that he still had some things to work on. Since being sent down he has been very good and he is once again knocking on the door of being called up. As a fan who suffers from chronic fan-brain it is hard for me not to feel like Grayson Rodriguez coming back and being good could be the difference between a fun season that ends early in the playoffs and a deep playoff run which is probably not fair but that’s what it feels like to me.
The Good:
Grayson Rodriguez has a major league fastball and when he is locating his off speed stuff he becomes the elite #1 pitching prospect that he was billed as. He is one the best Oriole starters in getting swing and misses as well as strikeout rate. It is easy to see the potential to become a big time starter when he is dealing. I also really like his mentality on the mound. When he pitches out a jam with a big strike out you’ll see him scream and slap his glove and I feel like on a team where most of the starters seem to be somewhat reserved guys it’s good to have someone a little more aggressive. In my other post I wrote about his performances in the minor leagues and I think it is very encouraging going into the second half of the season.
The Bad:
The problem at the major league level has been the command. He has especially struggled to locate his off speed stuff in the zone and this has been especially problematic in 2 strike counts where his challenges throwing off speed pitches for strikes allows hitters to lay off what would be devastating changeups and sit on his fastball. The result has been a lot of walks and a lot of hard hit balls. You could tell it was really frustrating for him to not be able to put batters away with the same ease he probably has his whole life and that is why he was sent back to the minors to work on that command. He has been better in the minors and hopefully it translates to the big leagues this time or it might start getting late early for Grayson’s career as a starter.
Final Thoughts:
The situation with Grayson Rodriguez is interesting because there is a possibility that he comes back and is very good and becomes a reliable starter and at the same time it is very possible he comes back up and has the same problems as before and the Orioles are forced to send him back down and rely heavily on Cole Irvin. The reality will probably be something in between those where there will be good starts and bad starts because progress is not linear in baseball.
The Dishwasher 
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