Of the two main ways that a team can improve their rotation trades are the most fun. With free agency you are limited to whoever happens to reach free agency in a given year but with trades technically every pitcher in the league is available.
Unfortunately the old adage “you can never have too much pitching” has never been more true so teams that have any aspiration to compete either for the World Series or just a playoff spot are not looking to trade away pitching.
Especially in the offseason. At the trade deadline teams are forced to face the reality of their situation but in the offseason almost every team in the league can convince themselves they have a shot at that 3rd Wild Card spot.
However there are still a select group of pitchers who would both be an upgrade for the Orioles rotation and could be available this offseason so that is the group that that we will be tiering today.
Tier 1 – Top of the Rotation Arms (Cheap)
The guys in this tier are talented arms who would be an immediate upgrade to the Orioles rotation. They also come with the benefit of still being in their arbitration years which means they are getting paid much less than what they’re worth. Solving the Orioles rotation issues by trading for someone on a cheap controllable deal would free up the front office to be able to spend more money on the bullpen and a veteran bat.
Joe Ryan
IP: 171 | ERA: 3.42 | FIP: 3.78 | WHIP: 1.035 | xERA: 3.46 | xFIP: 3.70 | K%: 28.2% | BB%: 5.7% | WAR: 3.1
FA: 2028
Joe Ryan was a hot name around last trade deadline in fact we got some overzealous reporting at the deadline that he was traded to the Red Sox
Yahoo Sports was one of a few large accounts that tweeted that Ryan had been traded
Alas this wasn’t true but it is an indicator that conversations were happening and at least one side felt strong enough that it was happening that it made its way out to the newsbreakers.
If Ryan is available the Orioles should be at the front of the line trying to make their pitch to the Twins. Over the past 4 seasons since he became a full time starter for the Twins he’s averaged 27 starts per season with a 3.78 ERA, a 3.84 WHIP and a 1.075 WHIP.
Those numbers are good but not necessarily awe inspiring. However if you look at his profile you can see the makings of an ace. This year he had a K% of 28.2 which is among the highest you’ll see for a starter but his walk rate is all the way down at 5.7% which is also great.
So he’s got the stuff necessary to strike guys out and he can control it. That by itself is enough to make you a good pitcher but I’d be interested to see how much better Ryan could be if he added a real offspeed weapon to his arsenal. Right now he gets very little chase so he has to live in the zone. His stuff is good enough that he can get away with it and that style does help him avoid walks and keep his WHIP low. The unfortunate part of having to live in the zone is that when guys get you they tend to really get you and what Ryan has struggled with through his career is his barrel and hard hit rates.
I’m sure Minnesota has been working on this with him so maybe it’s easier said than done and I don’t mean to say that the Orioles should only acquire him if they think they can change him. This is a guy who was an all star this year and will get Cy Young votes as is with no adjustments.
I just think the idea of bringing in someone who is talented and effective is even better when there’s a chance you could unlock an enhanced version of them. With Ryan there is a high floor of mid 3’s ERA production AND the potential to be even better.
I also like that he’s a character. I’m not a Twins fan so I don’t know all of the Joe Ryan lore that exists but I’ve seen videos of him sarcastically trying to throw up the stop sign on opposing base runners and dumping copious amounts of baby powder into his pants and he just seems kind of funny.
As far as what it would take to get Ryan, that’s an interesting conversation. Ryan is under team control for 2 more seasons. He’s estimated to get about 6 million in arb this year and if he gets a similar raise next year he’ll likely make 9-10 million in his final year of arbitration. So you’re looking at paying ~15 million for 2 years of an all star starting pitcher who’s been relatively durable and has been steadily improving over the last 4 years.
He’s a valuable player on a valuable contract.
I think a comparable trade from the last few seasons was the Dylan Cease trade that the Padres did just before the start of the 2024 season.
Cease had a 3.54 ERA over the previous 3 seasons with the White Sox and was under team control for 2 more seasons.
The return the White Sox got was RHP Drew Thorpe (Top 100 #84 and SD #5), OF Samuel Zavala (SD #7), RHP Jairo Iriarte (SD #8) and RHP Steven Wilson.
So three top 10 prospects, one being especially well regarded and a throw in. Seems reasonable to me.
If you were to just do the exact same prospect rankings for the Orioles via MLB pipeline you’d get Wehiwa Aloy, Esteban Mejia and Nate George. Mejia and George are actually top 100 guys according to some other ranking services so giving up both of them might be a bit steep and I also think the Orioles system is a bit deeper than the Padres was.
I might instead offer something like Ike Irish (Orioles #3), Caden Bodine (Orioles #10), Juaron Watts-Brown (Orioles #13) and the Twins can also have someone from the Povich, Young and McDermott trio.
The Orioles will likely be bidding against several motivated front offices also interested in a young cheap top of the rotation arm so they might have to get a little uncomfortable with who they’re putting on the table.
Mackenzie Gore
IP: 159.2 | ERA: 4.17 | FIP: 3.74 | WHIP: 1.353 | xERA: 4.28 | xFIP: 3.78 | K%: 27.2% | BB%: 9.4% | WAR: 2.9
FA: 2028
The Nationals are turning over a new leaf in their front office. When a new front office comes in they are much less attached to the players already on the roster. Under the previous regime Gore was an important piece from their big Soto trade. To the new guys Gore is just a good pitcher who will likely hit free agency before the Nationals are ready to contend for the NL East.
It’s not a sure thing that they trade Gore this offseason but he’s certainly much more available than he was a few months ago.
Gore is a former top pick and top prospect. In his time in San Diego and Washington he’s shown flashes of the talent that got him drafted 3rd overall but his overall numbers have been average.
Why do I have him in the top trade target tier?
Because he’s only 26 and I was very impressed by his first half numbers this season and it’s my belief that it is within him to replicate those numbers and be closer to that guy going forward.
Pre All Star break Gore pitched 110 innings with a 3.02 ERA, 2.96 FIP and a 30.5% K rate.
Post All Star break he pitched just 49 innings with a 6.75 ERA, a 5.49 FIP and a 20.7% K rate.
There could be a lot of reasons for this. A nagging injury, general fatigue or even just natural regression. I think there’s an element of a guy who was stuck pitching for one of the worst teams in the league and they throttle down his usage and he just performs worse.
What I would compare it to was Garrett Crochet’s season last year.
Crochet before the 2024 All Star Break: 107 innings, 3.02 ERA and 2.37 FIP
Crochet post 2024 All Star Break: 38 innings, 5.12 ERA and 3.58 FIP
I’m not saying Gore is as good as Crochet but I do believe that if Gore leaves Washington his next two seasons will be his best two seasons.
Tier 2 – Top of the Rotation Arms but Expensive
Everyone in this tier is a veteran pitcher who at the very least has a top 7 Cy Young finish. Even if some of these guys are a bit past their prime if the Orioles traded for them they would immediately become the leader of the rotation and you’d still feel good about them performing like a top of the rotation arm.
The major difference between these guys and the guys in tier 1 is that these guys have already been paid. The large contracts these guys are on have the potential to age poorly but it also means that the teams trading them will be a bit more motivated to move them and they will cost the teams acquiring them less than you’d think.
Pablo Lopez
IP: 75.2 | ERA: 2.74 | FIP: 3.19 | WHIP: 1.110 | xERA: 4.00 | xFIP: 3.87 | K%: 23.4% | BB%: 6.4% | WAR: 1.8
FA: 2028
Lopez’s 2025 season was hampered by injuries but none of them were major and before this year he was coming off 3 straight seasons of 180+ innings with a 3.83 ERA and a 3.56 FIP. Had he managed to stay healthy this year it could have been a career year as he was looking excellent though his first 11 starts before his shoulder injury and was even solid when he came back for a short stint before his forearm injury.
Lopez is a very well rounded pitcher. He can strike guys out but he doesn’t put up eye popping K numbers like other top of the rotation arms. He ‘s got good command and doesn’t walk many batters and he does a good job limiting barrels and hard contact. Year over year his HR/9 hovers just over 1.
This season Lopez outperformed his xERA and FIP but generally throughout his career that hasn’t been the case. Most years he’s actually underperformed based on the expected numbers. So you look at his resume, you see he’s been a consistent performer despite under performing the expected stats and it gives you confidence that he has a high floor and if things go his way like it looked like they were this season he could give you real ace production from a run prevention standpoint.
Lopez is under contract for the next 2 seasons at 21.75 million AAV. Those will be his ages 30 and 31 seasons and with his track record I think 22 million a year for Pablo Lopez is a bargain. If the Twins are mostly looking to dump the salary in this trade it might not even cost the Orioles as much as it should. If the Twins wanted to increase what they get back in the deal they could take on some of the money and suddenly the Orioles could be looking at acquiring Lopez on a 2 year 30 million dollar contract.
Luis Castillo
IP: 180.2 | ERA: 3.54 | FIP: 3.88 | WHIP: 1.185 | xERA: 4.09 | xFIP: 4.09 | K%: 21.7% | BB%: 6.2% | WAR: 2.6
FA: 2028/2029
Luis Castillo has been one of the most consistent pitchers in the league since he debuted in 2017. You look at his career and you think to yourself if the Orioles acquired Luis Castillo and he had a carbon copy of his worst season ever it would still be a big help to the Orioles rotation. That worst season was back in 2018. If you look at what he’s done over the last few years in Seattle since joining them he’s been a metronome.
2022: 150.1 IP, 2.99 ERA, 3.07 FIP, 10 K/9
2023: 197 IP, 3.34 ERA, 3.81 FIP, 10 K/9
2024: 175.1 IP, 3.64 ERA, 3.91 FIP, 9 K/9
2025: 180.2 IP, 3.54 ERA, 3.88 FIP, 8.1 K/9
You can see every year you’re getting lots of innings at a very respectable ERA and a FIP that he regularly outperforms. The one concerning trend is that K/9 number trending down over the years.
That’s not the only concerning trend, over the past few seasons his chase and whiff rates have declined, his hard hit and barrel rates have increased and the overall velo is down. Yet he’s still been as effective as ever.
So has he just gotten “craftier” over the years and learned to pitch around some of his declining tools or is he in a decline that is being hidden by the fact that his home ball park helps pitchers more than Coors Field helps hitters?
You look at his home/away stats and it doesn’t paint the prettiest picture.
Home: ERA: 2.70 | 3.69 FIP | 24.7 K% | .192 OPP AVG | WHIP 0.97 |
Away: ERA: 4.71 | 4.11 FIP | 18.4 K% | .302 OPP AVG | WHIP 1.46 |
So from those numbers it does look like Castillo is a T-Mobile Merchant but lots of guys have pretty drastic home and away splits even if they’re home ballpark doesn’t have a broken batters eye. In fact if you look at Castillo’s last full season in Cincinnati (a hitters ballpark) here’s what that looks like.
Home: ERA: 3.18 | 3.34 FIP | 26.2 K% | .249 OPP AVG | WHIP 1.34 |
Away: ERA: 4.87 | 3.96 FIP | 21.3 K% | .261 OPP AVG | WHIP 1.39 |
It’s not quite the same level of difference but it’s still a pretty drastic drop in effectiveness home and away even when Seattle isn’t part of the equation.
I’m not saying there’s no risk with acquiring Luis Castillo but I’m not worried that the Orioles would trade for him and he’d immediately be a 5 ERA guy without T-Mobile.
There’s also the question of is Castillo even available. The Mariners have a bunch of really good pitchers and of their starting staff Castillo is maybe the 4th best and by far the most expensive. With Gilbert, Kirby and Woo all coming into their own, do the Mariners really need to be spending 24 million on their 4th best pitcher? I suppose we saw this year it’s nice to have Luis Castillo when Kirby, Gilbert and Miller all miss chunks of time.
There were rumors last season that the Mariners and the Red Sox discussed a possible Luis Castillo/Tristan Casas swap. So based on that it would seem they’re at least willing to talk.
As far as what the Orioles could trade in exchange for Luis Castillo, a year ago it seemed that the Orioles had a surplus of offensive talent that could be traded for Mariner pitching but after disappointing seasons across the board I don’t know how interested they’d be in those options. Instead what I believe the Mariners would be most interested in is pitching and the Orioles have a group of “interesting” arms all hanging around the double A level.
Michael Forret
Juaron Watts-Brown
Nestor German
Braxton Bragg
Luis De Leon
Patrick Reilly
I feel like you could take a couple of these guys and combine them to make a pretty compelling package for Mariners.
Sandy Alcantara
IP: 174.2 | ERA: 5.36 | FIP: 4.28 | WHIP: 1.271 | xERA: 4.59 | xFIP: 4.19 | K%: 19.1% | BB%: 7.7% | WAR: 1.7
FA: 2027/2028
None of the pitchers we’ve mentioned so far have had the highs that Sandy Alcantara reached in his 2022 Cy Young season. That’s a big check in his favor when it comes to considering who the Orioles should be pursuing this offseason. You look at the season he had last year though, and it gives you pause.
There are explanations for his performance this year. Returning from Tommy John Surgery is not an exact science and it takes some guys longer to get back to their old selves. Through the first 2 months of the season Sandy had an ERA of 8.47. His walk rate in April was 14%.
Over the course of the season he improved and post all star break he looked much more like his old self.
Pre All Star: 7.22 ERA | 4.64 FIP | 1.48 WHIP | 17.3% K% | 9% BB% |
Post All Star: 3.33 ERA | 3.89 FIP | 1.04 WHIP | 21.3% K% | 6% BB% |
Those post all star break numbers look a lot like who Sandy Alcantara has been his entire career.
I don’t know if he had a stretch this year where it really felt like there was a lot of buzz that “Sandy’s back” but stylistically he’s a guy that forces a lot of ground balls and soft contract so you’re not going to see him have back to back games with 12 Ks and he plays for the Marlins so you’re just not going to get highlighted that much.
Once he didn’t get traded it seemed like baseball media mostly lost interest in his season but that’s right when he really got going.
In his 10 starts post deadline here’s how many innings he pitched in each start.
7,5,6,7,7,7,6,7,6.2,7
That’s the Sandy Alcantara that everyone was excited to get back. Not all the statlines are pretty and there wasn’t a single shutout performance but he got deep into all his starts and mostly held his opponents to 1 or 2 runs.
So I’d be all in on the Orioles trading for Sandy even if they had to pay a price that lines up more with his career numbers than what he did in 2025. It could look like an overpay at the time but if it works they get 2 years of ace like production at a reasonable price.
He makes 17.3 million next year in his age 39 season with a CLUB option for 21 million in his age 31 season. In today’s economy 17 million gets you Frankie Montas and 21 million gets you Walker Buehler so as long as Sandy can be better than those guys he’s worth it and if he’s anything like his old self it’s a steal.
One last note is that he is a right handed ground ball pitcher and that means a lot of balls hit to the right side of the infield. If Jackson Holliday doesn’t take a big step forward defensively this offseason I could see Sandy day also being Jordan Westburg at second day.
Sonny Gray
IP: 180.2 | ERA: 4.28 | FIP: 3.39 | WHIP: 1.234 | xERA: 3.89 | xFIP: 3.07 | K%: 26.7% | BB%: 7.0% | WAR: 3.6
FA: 2027/2028
After making it clear he did not want to leave St. Louis last offseason Gray admitted to reporters at the end of this season that he would consider greenlighting a trade this offseason. Gray has a full no trade clause so even if the Orioles were to come to terms with the Cardinals he would have final say.
In that same quote where he talked about the possibility of a trade Gray also called this the last year of his contract which is kind of true but he does have a 30 million dollar club option for 2027.
Gray has mentioned retirement before so it doesn’t seem like he’s going to go the Verlander route and pitch for 8 more years but it’s not like he’s falling apart at 36. He’s been both effective and durable over the past 3 seasons and even finished second in Cy Young voting as recently as 2023.
He’s a guy that gets a good amount of strikeouts by using a wide arsenal of pitches and effectively mixing them. Lefties get a fastball, curveball, changeup mix and righties get a sweeper, slider cutter mix. The Orioles young pitchers could learn a ton from him the same way the Twins young pitchers learned from him when he was there a couple years ago.
The Cardinals have floated it out there that they are now more willing to eat some of the money on these big contracts to maximize the return. I don’t think they’ll go full Steve Cohen and eat the whole thing but if they can eat 10-15 million of the contract it makes it very manageable.
Tier 3 – Excellent Number 3
The guys in this tier are good pitchers but whether it’s health or performance I don’t think a contending team would want to go into the season with either of them as their second best pitcher. That being said as soon as the expectation goes from top of the rotation to middle of the rotation you feel really good about putting these guys on the mound. Expectations are everything.
Drew Rasmussen
IP: 150 | ERA: 2.76 | FIP: 3.84 | WHIP: 1.020 | xERA: 3.45 | xFIP: 3.72 | K%: 21.7% | BB%: 6.3% | WAR: 2.5
FA: 2027/2028
There’s a lot of things to like about Drew Rasmussen. Since he joined the Rays he’s been one of the best pitchers by ERA in the league on a per innings basis. He just finished his second career season with 28+ starts and a sub 3 ERA. It’s a select few of guys who can say they’ve done that. The issue is that he’s really struggled to stay healthy. It’s not like his injuries are random small dings.
Rasmussen has had Tommy John Surgery twice and most recently had the internal brace procedure that is basically Tommy John in 2023. These are serious procedures and you don’t hear a lot of heart warming stories of guys coming back from a 4th Tommy John surgery. If he suffers another injury of this nature that could be the end of his career.
With that risk in mind the Orioles should still be interested in adding Rasmussen. I’ve mentioned the injuries as a negative so far but one thing to think about is that he’s been super effective his whole career while either playing through injuries or rehabbing from injuries. Those kinds of things impact your effectiveness as a pitcher just look at the seasons Spencer Strider and Sandy Alcantara had this year.
The Rays were really cautious with Rasmussen this season and he was able to get through the entire year without an injury and he’ll have a completely healthy offseason for the first time in years. What we see on the other side of that could be the best version of Rasmussen yet.
Also he pitched to Adley in college so it would be a cool reunion. We love the PAC-12 don’t we folks.
Drew Rassmussen pitching to Adley Rutschman at Oregon State
I look at The Rays roster and see a team not that close to contending and a group of their best players are close to hitting free agency. I think it makes a lot of sense for them to trade away those guys and rebuild around Junior Caminero and Carson Williams but it’s always hard to predict what they’re going to do.
If Rasmussen is available the Rays could get a pretty nice haul for him. He’s owed 5.75 million next year and has a club option for 8 million. So whoever gets Rasmussen has the potential to have a really good pitcher for at most 13.75 million for the next 2 years and if it’s a disaster you can choose not to pick up the option. It’s a nice situation.
If he can pass a physical I’d be comfortable with O’s being aggressive in pursuit of Rasmussen.
Bailey Ober
IP: 146.1 | ERA: 5.10 | FIP: 4.90 | WHIP: 1.298 | xERA: 4.46 | xFIP: 4.75 | K%: 19.2% | BB%: 5.0% | WAR: 1.2
FA: 2028
A couple of things I noticed as I looked up Bailey Ober’s stats.
#1 Bailey is his middle name. His name is John. What do we think of John Ober?
#2 What the heck happened this year?
Before this season Ober had a career 3.76 ERA, 3.90 FIP and a 9.2 K/9 over 88 starts. This year he looked like a completely different pitcher.
Ober had one IL stint this year. He missed about a month with a left hip impingement. Hip impingement seems like an injury that kind of gradually sets in and might bug you for several weeks before it gets bad enough that the player has to miss time. If you look at his game logs he has a 3.48 ERA and a 3.77 FIP which is pretty in line with who he’s been for his career and then in 5 consecutive starts before hitting the IL he gave up 5,7,4,7 and 7 runs and that cooked his season stats.
So when it comes to Ober I’m going to basically throw this season out as a hip injury riddled mess that doesn’t reflect on his actual ability.
When he’s healthy Ober is a really fun pitcher. He’s 6’9 which isn’t something you see everyday and he’s also a soft tosser averaging only 91 mph on his fastball. He’s got really good offspeed pitches that he can land in the zone for called strikes or throw outside the zone and get hitters to chase either resulting in swing and miss or harmless soft contact.
When he’s healthy his ability to get chase and in zone whiff is ace. If he threw 95 he might be considered among the best pitchers in the league. Pitching in Minnesota and not lighting up the radar gun will keep you underrated.
He’s a fly ball pitcher and that can bite you if you get unlucky with homers and the AL East has a lot of short porches in right field so that’s a concern and his season showed us a much lower floor than I would have thought but as long as the Orioles medical staff determines the hip isn’t something to be worried about I’d be all over trading for John Bailey Ober.
The Twins might not be looking to sell low on someone who is coming off a career worst season and that they’ll have under team control through 2027. So I don’t think the Orioles could get away with low balling them but he would cost less than Joe Ryan if the Orioles get outbid.
Nick Lodolo
IP: 156.2 | ERA: 3.33 | FIP: 3.81 | WHIP: 1.079 | xERA: 3.50 | xFIP: 3.66 | K%: 24.3% | BB%: 4.8% | WAR: 2.8
FA: 2028
I see a pitcher with a sub 5% walk rate and I start rubbing my hands together. Not walking people is just part of what makes Nick Lodolo a good pitcher though. He’s a lefty who throws from a unique sidearm angle and gets a ton of chase. Throughout his career he’s been tough on lefties and at least this year he was also tough on righties.
Lodolo is someone that the Reds have been excited about for a long time and this year he validated that excitement putting up career best marks in innings, ERA and WHIP. After struggling the past few seasons in part due to injury it was good to see him put it all together.
When it comes to Lodolo the injuries are difficult to parse. You look at his IL history in the last few seasons he’s hit the IL with injuries to his back, shin, groin, calf and multiple strains and blisters to different fingers.
You might notice that there’s not elbow or shoulder there which is great and leads me to believe that if he could figure out some sort of stretching routine to so that he stops getting lower body tissue injuries he could be much more durable going forward and a few years from now we could all be looking back at the beginning of his career and saying “remember when we thought Nick Lodolo was injury prone?”
I generally lean optimistic but it’s also possible he’s made of glass.
The Reds were a playoff team this year and will want to build on that next year so why would they trade a good starting pitcher?
The Reds have a surplus of very talented pitchers and an offense that leaves a lot to be desired. By wRC+ their offense ranked 24th and specifically they ranked 21st in homers despite playing half their games in an incredibly homer friendly environment.
It would make sense for them to deal from a position of strength to fill their obvious weakness.
Greene and Abbott are their top 2 guys and Chase Burns and Rhett Lowder are the exciting new guys so that puts Lodolo (and Brady Singer who we’ll get to later) in the deal zone.
The problem is if the Reds want to get someone who can help them next year I don’t know who the Orioles have that they would want.
Tier 4 – Unsure Thing
The guys in this tier are guys that I like. They have had at least one season or partial season where they have had very good results and I have watched them pitch and I have said to myself “that is a good pitcher.”
Admittedly if you look at their most recent season and in some cases their entire career body of work the overall numbers aren’t great and if the Orioles traded for any of these guys and the results were underwhelming I don’t think you could be shocked.
Bryce Miller
IP: 90.1 | ERA: 5.68 | FIP: 5.17 | WHIP: 1.406 | xERA: 5.32 | xFIP: 4.60 | K%: 18.9% | BB%: 8.7% | WAR: 0.0
FA: 2030
Based on this season’s numbers Bryce Miller would not be someone that anyone would be interested in trading for but similar to Bailey Ober injuries severely hampered his performance. Anytime a pitcher has a season where he’s got multiple IL stints where he’s getting cortisone shots and PRP injections it’s fair to assume the numbers aren’t going to look great.
His injury was described as elbow inflammation and a bone spur. That same kind of injury is what made Grayson Rodriguez miss the entire 2025 season. The updates the team gave along the way was that his elbow “structurally looked really great” and they did trust him enough to give him an important postseason start so that indicates that at least internally they think he’s fine, but there’s no doubt the injury impacted him all year.
So when I’m evaluating Bryce Miller I’m throwing this season out.
In 2024 Miller pitched 180 innings at a sub 3 ERA. That is ace like production but he flew under the radar a bit because the Mariners have so many dominant arms. There was an element of him taking advantage of the home ballpark and overperforming his expected stats. There was over a 2 run difference between his home and away ERA. As we mentioned when we talked about Castillo, lots of pitchers pitch better at home than they do on the road and Miller’s road ERA was still 4.07 so it’s not like he turned into a pumpkin when he had to pitch outside of Seattle.
Even if I’m willing to say that he’s not a total T-Mobile product it would probably be a touch overly optimistic to expect him to bring a sub 3 ERA to Baltimore in a trade. That’s just not quite how he profiles. Even when he’s been healthy he doesn’t strike enough guys out and he gives up too much contact in the air for sub 3 to be the expectation.
I do think that an ERA in the mid to high 3s is totally feasible for a healthy Bryce Miller and he’s also still relatively young so we could see him take a step forward at some point in the next few seasons.
Besides the debate of did he get lucky or not he did prove that he can pitch a full starters workload. 180 innings is a big boy number and it would be more than anyone currently on the Orioles has ever done.
Miller still has 4 seasons under control in arbitration so even though he’s the Mariner 5th best starter and he’s coming off a disastrous season they would still expect to get a good haul in return. If the Orioles check out his elbow and feel like it’s not a risk to be an issue going forward I’d be willing to roll the dice that Miller could be a very solid middle of the rotation arm for the O’s.
He was also high school teammates with Jordan Westburg and as I mentioned with Drew Rasmussen I just think that’s fun.
Edward Cabrera
IP: 137.2 | ERA: 3.53 | FIP: 3.83 | WHIP: 1.228 | xERA: 4.00 | xFIP: 3.62 | K%: 25.8% | BB%: 8.3% | WAR: 2.0
FA: 2029
Cabrera had something of a breakout season. Before this year he had been a frustrating pitcher. In part because of how often he was injured but mostly because he clearly had the stuff to be a dominant pitcher but struggled to command it and as a result he wasn’t as effective as you felt he could be.
This season we saw that if he can get to a below league average walk rate instead of a bottom percentile walk rate the overall results improve dramatically. Interestingly enough it seems like he improved his walked rate by throwing his fastball less. In previous seasons where he was walking the world his fastball usage was around 27% (still pretty low compared to most pitchers) and this year it dropped all the way to 13%, which in the many pitcher arsenals I’ve looked at while completing this list is by far the lowest.
His changeup is 94 mph though so that’s basically a fastball anyway.
I wouldn’t say that in 2025 he put it ALL together because I still think he can be even better.
In general I don’t love pitchers with command issues and I’d be a little concerned he’s never pitched a full starters workload so I don’t think it would be responsible to trade for Edward Cabrera and think that fixes the rotation but he’s got a lot of talent and he’s under team control for 3 more years so there’s a long runway for him to become an even better pitcher.
Shane Baz
IP: 166.1 | ERA: 4.87 | FIP: 4.37 | WHIP: 1.335 | xERA: 3.81 | xFIP: 3.88 | K%: 24.8% | BB%: 9.0% | WAR: 2.0
FA: 2029
Shane Baz has struggled with injuries for years so the fact that he was able to get through an entire season was a victory and something that the Rays had been looking forward to for a long time. The results on the mound were a little disappointing. There is an explanation though.
He specifically struggled at the Rays temporary home stadium. At home his ERA was almost 6, opponents slugged almost .500 and his HR/9 was almost 2. All of those numbers are bad.
On the road (where it’s normal for pitchers to be a little worse) in normal stadiums his numbers looked much more like what you would expect based on his talent and what he’s done in the past. ERA in the mid 3s, FIP in the mid 3s and WHIP around 1.2. I think if Baz pitched in the Trop this year it would have been a much different story.
Once you get around the home stadium struggles there’s a lot to like about Baz as a trade target. He’s young and he’s under team control for 3 more seasons. Surprisingly most of the trade targets I’ve discussed so far and ranked above Baz have mostly been relatively low velo guys, succeeding at lower velocities is great but Baz’s 97mph fastball would be a welcome change in pace to an Orioles rotation that at least this year lived in the low nineties.
The Rays have invested a lot of years trying to get Baz healthy and it would be underwhelming for them to dump him after his first full season especially if his current trade value is relatively low. They will return to the Trop next year and likely would expect some positive regression from Baz.
That being said they’re a very analytical organization and not that close to being competitive so if the Orioles made them an offer that they felt leaned in their favor I believe they would accept. Kind of like how the Orioles weren’t looking to trade Bryan Baker but the Rays came over the top and offered a first round pick for him and the O’s felt they had to take the deal.
Tier 5 – Middle of the Rotation Vets
Everyone in this tier is a veteran starting pitcher with a track record of moderate success. They are the kind of arms where they could probably be a top 5 arm on most rotations in the league but most good teams would want to upgrade if they were their number 3.
I’m not sure the Orioles need an arm like this but if they’re available for the right price they could at least help the O’s get through the regular season without having to have multiple Brandon Young or Chayce Mcdermott starts.
Mitch Keller
IP: 176.1 | ERA: 4.19 | FIP: 4.02 | WHIP: 1.259 | xERA: 4.39 | xFIP: 4.17 | K%: 20% | BB%: 6.8% | WAR: 2.5
FA 2029
If you could combine first half Mitch Keller with second half Dean Kremer you’d have a really nice pitcher on your hands. Technology has not evolved that far so unfortunately first half Mitch Keller comes with second half Mitch Keller.
His first half and second half splits are pretty incredible. In his last 3 seasons he’s had a mid 3s ERA in the first half of the season and a mid 5s ERA in the second half of the season. It’s like clockwork.
Every year he gives you a multi month stretch of looking like he’s taken a step forward and that he’s a real impact arm. So you know he CAN do it for an extended stretch. When you watch a guy be a good pitcher for 3 months it feels like you should be able to expect him to continue to be a good pitcher but that just hasn’t been the case with Keller.
How do you evaluate something like that? Is it something that can be fixed? Does he need to have his innings managed? Does he need to improve his conditioning? Has he just gotten hurt every year and played through it?
When you think about trading for Keller you can lock in on his first half numbers every year and convince yourself there is a really good pitcher there but if you signed him and he did it again and ended the year with a mid 4s ERA it would feel like “duh that’s what you traded for.”
Maybe what makes Keller an interesting trade target is how easy it would be to acquire him. The Pirates have a bunch of really good young pitchers and the owners would be thrilled to have a full rotation of pre arb guys and ditch the guy they’re stuck paying over 50 million to over the next 3 years.
It likely wouldn’t cost very much and even if he keeps doing this first half second half nonsense he provides a high floor at the back of the rotation. He’s also under contract for 3 more seasons so trading for Keller would help make it so the Orioles don’t have to sign a 15 million dollar innings eater every year.
Brady Singer
IP: 169.2 | ERA: 4.03 | FIP: 3.98 | WHIP: 1.238 | xERA: 4.30 | xFIP: 4.25 | K%: 22.8% | BB%: 8.4% | WAR: 2.9
FA: 2027
It’s pretty impressive that Brady Singer was able to go from Kauffman to Great American Ballpark and have a better season. Over the past 4 seasons he’s been durable and results have been solid. Which is honestly a little bit confusing to me.
He doesn’t strike a lot of guys out, he walks a lot of people, he gets hit hard and hit hard in the air and he doesn’t throw hard. There’s definitely an element of “How are you doing this?” because all signs point to Brady Singer being a pretty mediocre pitcher.
But over the last 4 seasons he’s averaged 29 starts per season at a 4.12 ERA and 3.95 FIP which is very respectable.
At a certain point you just have to respect it and accept that this guy can get it done. I wouldn’t want to be on the hook for signing him to a multi year contract but he’s got one year left on his deal and would provide some back of the rotation stability for 2026.
Yusei Kikuchi
IP: 178.1 | ERA: 3.99 | FIP: 4.23 | WHIP: 1.424 | xERA: 4.52 | xFIP: 4.03 | K%: 22.5% | BB%: 9.6% | WAR: 2.5
FA: 2028
Over the past 3 seasons Kikuchi has been solid. Between Toronto, Houston and LA he’s averaged over 32 starts per year at a 3.97 ERA and 3.93 FIP. He’s a durable and consistent above average starting pitcher.
This year he got off to a hot start with the Angels and made the all star team and then post all star he was quite bad. In both halves of the season it was concerning to me that his strikeout rate dipped and his walk rate jumped, that’s not something you want to see.
His whole career he’s had high WHIPs because he gets hit a lot but this year with the increase in walks he had a 1.42 WHIP which is not sustainable and reminds me of his nightmare first season in Toronto.
There’s a good chance the Angels don’t know they’re tanking so they might not even be thinking of trading Kikuchi. If he is available I’d want the Angels to pay down some of that contract to offset the risk that he might be washed.
Luis Severino
IP: 162.2 | ERA: 4.54 | FIP: 4.11 | WHIP: 1.303 | xERA: 4.61 | xFIP: 4.63 | K%: 17.6% | BB%: 7.1% | WAR: 2.5
FA: 2027/2028
I love that Luis Severino had the courage to tell the Athletics that what they’re doing sucks. The fact that they were working on trying to get out of Oakland for years and they knew that something like this would be necessary and they couldn’t be bothered to try to make it so that their players could have something resembling a professional work environment is incredibly embarrassing. Coming from the Mets and the Yankees where they do things right must have been shocking.
As far as Severino’s performance the numbers look like he took a step back after it seemed like he course corrected in New York but if you look at his home and away splits when he wasn’t playing in a minor league park that he hated he looked like the good version of Luis Severino.
Away stats: 80.1 IP | 3.02 ERA | 3.87 FIP | 1.07 WHIP |
That’s a good pitch right there. Everything about his arsenal still looks like it did in 2024 and he was still effective at avoiding hard contact which is his best skill when he’s really rolling.
Severino was a big signing for the A’s, they needed to sign multiple deals to make sure they didn’t get a grievance filed against them and Severino was their big fish. Obviously he was unhappy there and didn’t perform but if they trade him who else is going to sign with them?
If he is available he’d be my favorite of this tier.
Tier 6 – Not available… unless
I don’t want to spend a ton of time on this tier because I don’t think any of these guys are readily available and most of them don’t fit the Orioles need for a proven arm but if these teams were willing to entertain trading these guys it would be interesting.
Eury Perez
FA: 2030
Perez is 22, 6’8, throws gas and has 6 pitches in his arsenal. Adding him to the Orioles would change the franchise outlook for the next half decade.
Perez is young enough the Marlins front office likely believes he’ll be an important part of their next playoff contender in a couple years. So I wouldn’t expect him to be available but if they wanted to finish the teardown they started last year Perez would maybe get them their biggest return out of everything they’ve traded yet.
He’d probably cost the Orioles multiple pieces that they don’t want to trade. If he’s available the Orioles should be willing to trade away multiple pieces they don’t want to trade.
Logan Henderson
Prospect
This guy was awesome when the Brewers gave him a shot this year and they have so many other young pitching options they didn’t even need him to get the 1 seed. The Brewers are always in deal making mode and if they feel like they have more pitching then they need and some holes on the offense that could be the makings of a deal.
Pirates guys
Thomas Harrington – Hunter Barco – Jared Jones
I’m going to group these guys together. The idea behind having all these guys in a tier is because the Pirates have Skenes, and Bubba Chandler who should be the top of their rotation going forward. I’ve mentioned Keller as a trade target but if the Pirates decide it’s important to have a veteran then that’s three rotation spots full.
It’s not so much that there’s no room for Harrington, Barco and Jones to fill out the rest of the rotation but supposedly the Pirates want to start winning with Skenes and having a rotation made up entirely of prospects is not a smart way to go about that. They also have an inept offense and these kinds of pitchers could get you a hitter in return to help remedy that.
The idea of the Pirates trading one of these guys hinges on them actually trying to improve their team so that’s probably a bit far fetched.
Tier 7 – Distressed Assets
These are all guys who either because of injury or underperformance are not as highly valued as they once were. Teams don’t usually like to sell low on guys but it can reach a point where they can’t afford to keep waiting for a guy to figure it out and get healthy.
I think it would be irresponsible to trade for one of these guys and feel like “boom rotation fixed!” but if these teams are looking to give these guys away the Orioles might as well give them a call.
Shane McClanahan
McClanahan is an awesome pitcher and it’s been really frustrating for him and the Rays and fans of good pitching that injuries have kept him since August of 2023. At the start of next season it will have been more than 2 years since we last saw McClanahan pitch in a major league game.
It’s been multiple different injuries over the past couple years. In 2023 it was Tommy John and the timing made it so he missed the entire 2024 season then in spring training this year he had a nerve injury that Tampa is calling a “freak” injury.
He had surgery this August to clean it up and from what Tampa has shared they’re optimistic that this issue is behind him and they expect him to be good to go in 2026. McClanahan has 2 years left of arbitration and his value couldn’t be much lower so it doesn’t make a ton of sense for the Rays to trade him now.
The Rays are very analytical though, so if an offer came in that they felt like helped their team and relieved them of the McClanahan injury risk I could see them cashing out.
Reid Detmers
Detmers has flashed a lot of talent at different points in his career and the Angels seem to have made it their mission to make it as hard for him to develop as possible. This year they converted him to a reliever, he was solid in the role and maybe his ultimate destiny is to be a reliever. I’d love to see him get a change of scenery and another chance at starting.
Kyle Freeland
When you look at who has been the worst high volume starter in the league over the last half decade it’s a race between Kyle Freeland and Patrick Corbin.
At a certain point you are you are but I’d be interested to see what Freeland would look like away from Colorado. The altitude is an obvious thing to point to as a reason for Freeland’s struggles but what I think is even more relevant is that in the time Freeland has been a Rockie, pitching analytics have taken big time steps forward and he’s on the only team in the league that isn’t interested. That’s a major disadvantage.
What would Kyle Freeland look like if one computer nerd sat down with him and explained what everyone else is doing.
The Dishwasher 
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