Ever since the 2022 season the Orioles Bullpen has been one of the team’s biggest strengths. In 2022 Jorge Lopez was an All Star, Felix Bautista broke out, and Cionel Perez had a 1.40 ERA. In 2023 Felix Bautista was a legit Cy Young Candidate, Yennier Cano was an All Star and last second addition Danny Coulombe had a career year.
Now in 2024 so far it has been a bit of a bumpier ride for the Orioles Bullpen, new addition Criag Kimbrel has blown a bunch of saves, Cano hasn’t looked as sharp as last year and they already had to DFA Mike Baumann who had a 10 win season last year. Last year the Orioles top 3 relievers had an ERA+ of 277, 194 and 146, this year our “top 3” guys have ERA+s of 132, 118 and 113 there isn’t anybody that comes out of the pen that feels like a “lockdown guy”. If the Orioles want to be serious contenders for the AL East title in the regular season and the World Series title in the postseason they are going to need to reinvent this bullpen on the fly.
I will say that complaining about the Bullpen is some of the lower hanging fruit when it comes to baseball fandom. Almost every fanbase is frustrated with their bullpen and especially their closer. Being a reliever is kind of like being a defensive back or an offensive lineman in the NFL where unless you are one of the best in the league most of the recognition you are going to get is going to be criticism and people calling for you to be booted from the team.
And with the Orioles sitting at 6th in Bullpen ERA in baseball it probably seems like spoiled fan problems and to a degree it is a spoiled fan problem but in this case I would call it a contender problem because the Orioles won 101 games last year, they have one of the best farm systems in baseball, they have a low payroll compared to the other contending teams and they knew going into the offseason that they were going to be without the #1 closer in baseball AND they traded away their one young relief pitcher you felt could probably improve in DL Hall in the Corbin Burnes trade.
So there is a justifiable feeling that with a low payroll, a lot of prospects to leverage and the knowledge the bullpen needed to be addressed I would have hoped that the answer would have been more than signing 35 year old Criag Kimbrel and hoping that Keegan Akin and Dillon Tate save us. With how volatile relief pitchers are year to year it would have been wise to assume that both Yennier Cano and Danny Coulombe would not repeat the greatest years of either of their careers.
Now relief pitcher volatility is a reason why it is smart not to spend big money or trade top prospects for relief pitchers and Elias has done a great job making moves on the margins to get really good bullpen guys like Cano and Coulombe so to some extent he deserves the benefit of the doubt if his strategy going into the year was see what guys who didn’t pitch much like Akin and Tate could give the pen and then move some prospects at the deadline to bolster the team.
Anyway it doesn’t really matter if the front office didn’t fix the bullpen in the offseason and we had to watch Jonathan Heasley pitch 5.1 of the worst innings I’ve ever seen what matters is how they are going fix this bullpen before it costs us any games that matter.
Who can stay
There are a few guys that I think should be locks to stay in the bullpen, obviously it would take an absurd amount of trades to replace all 8 bullpen guys and it would take absurd trade packages to trade for relievers that are definitely better than our best relievers. So here are the guys that should 100% be on the roster going into the postseason.
Yennier Cano
I know that I said that Cano has regressed a little bit from last year and that is true his numbers aren’t nearly what they were last year and his expected numbers indicate that he lucky that his numbers aren’t even worse. But he is still elite at inducing groundballs and getting hitters to chase outside the zone which are great tools to be elite at and I believe in his ability to work with the Orioles pitching coaches and get back near where he was last year
Danny Coulombe
Coulombe has been the star of the bullpen this year, he’s been our best high leverage reliever he has the best WHIP out of anyone on the team and the best K/BB ratio out of anyone on the team. Right now I wouldn’t be opposed to him taking over the closer role except i like that Hyde uses him as a guy to come in at any point in the game when there is trouble and the O’s need a stopper.
Albert Suarez
Suarez is another great Elias pick up. Returning to Major League Baseball after pitching in the KBO and a few other foreign leagues I myself was not excited to see him penciled in as the emergency starter after a few guys went down with injuries but he was excellent in his first few starts and then transitioned well to the bullpen and then filled in once again as an emergency starter. I do really like the idea of a guy who can both be a long relief guy, a 1 inning guy and an emergency starter and I think Suarez is as good a fit in that role as you’d be able to find on the trade market so I say he stays.
Who Could Stay
These are some guys that have really good stuff and I in general believe in them and think that they could be a part of a really good bullpen but they’ve either been shaky or injured so it feels unwise to assume that they will both be locks to be significant contributors.
Dillon Tate
Tate had a really good 2022 season and then missed the entire 2023 season and so far in 2024 has been pretty good. If he can stay healthy I really like him as a regular 6th or 7th inning guy and someone that can fill in higher leverage spots when the normal high leverage guys need rest. Anytime someone misses an entire season because of a slightly mysterious nagging injury I do worry about their availability going forward, maybe I’ll be wrong and he’ll be perfectly durable going forward but I don’t think should be assumed.
Cionel Perez
Perez is tricky because he was one of the bes relievers in the league in 2022 got off to a really bad start in 2023 but then towards the end of the season pitched really well and was good in the O’s short postseason run so even though he is off to a less than stellar start to the season I think his 2023 late season resurgence is reason to believe that he should be able to get in the lab and turn his season around. At the end of the day the stuff is the stuff and throughout his career in good seasons or bad he’s been able to miss barrels and induce ground balls. That being said he only has the 1 season of being a great relief pitcher and it’s only getting further away.
Tyler Wells
I wanted to include Tyler Wells in this part because I think he is a good pitcher and I think being a reliever is probably his ultimate destiny despite his good run as a starter last year before his arm fatigue. I don’t know if he can be depended on to be healthy after he’s had to go on the IL every year of his career so if I were the front office I would operate under the assumption that he’ll have some sort of health problem but if the postseason comes around and Wells is in the pen I think that’s cool.
Need to upgrade
Craig Kimbrel
The arm dangling thing is fun but this guy has had to be benched by multiple playoff teams because he is a risk to become a total headcase at any moment and completely lose it. He’s already gone off the rails for us once this year. He walks a lot of people and when he gets hit the ball gets absolutely crushed which is just a terrible recipe. Now when he is on it looks great but I think we would be better off with someone else closing games for us.
Jacob Webb
This one is controversial because he does actually have decent numbers as far as ERA but I feel that his current 2.53 ERA is inflated by the fact that he mostly pitches in lower leverage spots and even then I feel like his ERA is going to float up closer to 4 over the course of the season. Webb is a decent pitcher and if he is the worst guy in your pen you probably live with that but the stuff is just simply not elite he doesn’t get enough whiffs, he doesn’t induce enough ground balls and you can tell Hyde doesn’t want to use him in high leverage situations. He’s good but this is an easy upgrade spot.
Keegan Akin
Keegan Akin got off to a really good start and he honestly deserves a lot of credit for why the Bullpen’s numbers look as good as they do but since the calendar turned to May he has been far less effective and has looked more and more like the guy that ended up spending a lot of time in the minors last year. I think he’s about a 4 ERA relief pitcher and that’s an easy upgrade spot if I’m Mike Elias.
So If I had my way when the O’s hit the postseason this year the Bullpen would look like this:
Closer: Trade Deadline Acquisition (Craig Kimbrel Upgrade)
Setup Man Groundball guy: Yennier Cano
High Leverage Lefty: Danny Coulombe
High Leverage Righty: Trade Deadline Acquisition (Keegan Akin Upgrade)
Low Leverage Lefty: Cionel Perez
Low Leverage Righty: Dillon Tate
A specialist of some kind: Trade Deadline Acquisition (Jacob Webb Upgrade or maybe just Jacob Webb if he’s the worst guy in the pen it’s a pretty good pen or maybe Tyler Wells if he is healthy)
Long Relief: Albert Suarez
But the question is then who are these relievers that the front office can target to make these upgrades?
I wanted to start with the team that has already thrown up the white flag on the 2024 season in the Miami Marlins.
I’ve talked a lot about trading for a Marlins starter like Jesus Luzardo so maybe in my dream scenario the Orioles send over a big trade package to get Luzardo and get a familiar face in Tanner Scott as part of the deal.
Tanner Scott
ERA: 1.64 | WHIP: 1.364 | ERA+: 263 | FIP: 4.08 | K/9: 9.4
Tanner Scott first flashed an elite skill set as a reliever in the shortened 2022 season but the following year regressed to the 5 ERA reliever who walked to many guys but in 2023 Scott found it again and put together a career year. Now in 2024 he seems to have carried that momentum over.
When Scott is at his best he can simultaneously strike a lot of dudes out and create a lot of soft contact which is a great combination to have a pitcher the tradeoff is that he will walk a lot of guys so even though I’m listing him first on my bullpen wishlist I’m sure I’d be pulling my hair out cursing his name watching him walk Anthony Volpe to bring up Juan Soto in an important game in September. This year he has surrendered 18 walks which is almost as many as he allowed in all of last season.
I’d like to think that the O’s good defense and large left field could help Scott feel more confident throwing the ball over the plate.
Staying in the NL East the Washington Nationals have a couple of guys in their Bullpen and are still far enough away from contending that it would make sense for them to move those guys for some Orioles prospects.
Kyle Finnegan
ERA: 1.80 | WHIP: .900 | ERA+: 221 | FIP: 4.63 | K/9: 8.1
Finnegan has been a good reliever for his entire 5 year career as a National but this year he’s been one of the best relievers in the league so far. I like that he has a track record of good pitching before this breakout campaign instead of what you frequently see where guys are bad and then ok and then bad and then suddenly great. With Finnegan if you bring him in you feel like there is a high floor for what he can do for you and this year he has shown a high ceiling as well.
Hunter Harvey
ERA: 2.32 | WHIP: .962 | ERA+: 164 | FIP: 2.32 | K/9: 10
Another Familiar face as Harvey was a part of the Orioles super tank era granted it was a small part with him pitching less than 30 innings over 3 different seasons. Similar to Scott during his stint with the O’s he flashed a lot of potential but obviously never put it together enough to get extended run in the big leagues.
Since going to the Nats he has turned in 2 very good seasons and is currently working on a third. He’s got an elite fastball, he induces a ton of ground balls and he doesn’t walk a ton. I know he’s the third name I’ve listed here but I think he is my number 1 pick for the Orioles to target at the trade deadline. A great pitcher plus you get to reunite him with his best friend Ryan Mountcastle the vibes would be excellent.
I’d be interested to see if the Nats would be willing to send over both Finnegan and Harvey in exchange for a better prospect haul from the O’s.
Moving on to a bullpen that we just saw a lot of in the St Louis Cardinals. The Cards have an older team and have been disappointing so far although nobody in the NL Central is running away with the division and the Cards have been hot recently so maybe they’ll be buyers and not sellers but should they continue to be a distant 3rd in the Central and far far back in the wild card I could easily see them selling high on a few of their better relievers.
Ryan Helsley
ERA: 2.25 | WHIP: 1.083 | ERA+: 182 | FIP: 2.63 | K/9: 9.4
Helsley would be a dream pickup to replace Kimbrel as the closer. As a former all star working on his 3rd straight elite closing season he probably would command the biggest price but with a track record as good as Helsley you feel good about if you pay that price you are going to get what you paid for. Helsley has one of the best fastballs in the league to go along with great command.
Also these front offices have worked together just last trade deadline so we know for sure Mile Elias has their number.
JoJo Romero
ERA: 1.30 | WHIP: .831 | ERA+: 314 | FIP: 2.37 | K/9: 8.5
JoJo is famous to me for crushing a can on his arm before heading out to pitch and if you look at his career he’s never pitched more than 37 innings in a season so he’s far from a sure thing but so far this year he has been very very good. I think he’d be a great low cast addition to the pen as a lefty who says no to walks and no to home runs.
He is just 27 and not a free agent till 2027 so the Cardinals might feel motivated to hold onto him.
Coming over to the American League there’s a name that has been hot in the trade rumpus because he has been truly awesome and he plays for a franchise that loves to torture it’s own fans and is determined to put a disgusting product on the field so it feels inevitable that he will be traded and that is Mason Miller.
Mason Miller
ERA: 1.96 | WHIP: .739 | ERA+: 199 | FIP: -0.01 ??? | K/9: 17.6
I know I just said that Ryan Helsley would be the dream trade acquisition to be the new closer but I lied and what I really meant was Helsley is the dream guy if the A’s announce that they will not be answering the phone on Mason Miller calls.
Miller is 25, under team control for forever, has THE best fastball in the league and I know that just looking at baseball savant bars is kind of simplistic way of deciding who is good at pitching but just take a look at this
I mean c’mon.
Anyway if you listen to the Baseball is Dead podcast with Dallas Braden he’d have you believe that Miller would cost the O’s Jackson Holiday and more which is crazy BUT I do think the O’s shouldn’t be afraid to throw a top prospect like Samuel Basallo or Coby Mayo for Mason Miller.
If the A’s are down to do business the O’s shouldn’t let anyone outbid them.
I don’t really want to talk about anyone else after looking at Mason Miller but there are more guys out there. The thing about relievers is that there are tons of them and there are hidden gems everywhere and the O’s should have a whole team of advanced scouts looking to see who they could bring in.
I just want to see the front office bet on this year’s O’s team and bring in at least 1 if not 2 high end relievers to sure up this pen so that we don’t have to deal with the Thyga Viera’s of the world.
The Dishwasher 
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