{"id":418614,"date":"2026-01-17T07:27:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T07:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/418614\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T07:27:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T07:27:07","slug":"orioles-interested-in-justin-verlander","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/418614\/","title":{"rendered":"Orioles Interested In Justin Verlander"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Orioles have shown interest in\u00a0Justin Verlander<\/a>, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic<\/a>. While the O\u2019s are the first club publicly tied to the future Hall of Famer beyond the incumbent Giants, Rosenthal unsurprisingly writes that Verlander has received interest from multiple teams.<\/p>\n

Baltimore has made a pair of rotation additions this offseason. They sent four prospects and a draft pick to the Rays for Shane Baz<\/a>, whom they control for three years. Baltimore also brought Zach Eflin<\/a> back on a one-year, $10MM deal after an injury-riddled season. They\u2019re in decent shape from a depth perspective. It still feels a little light at the top end. They\u2019re banking on Kyle Bradish<\/a> in his first full season back from Tommy John surgery. Trevor Rogers<\/a> was fantastic over 18 starts but was in Triple-A as recently as last May. Baz has shown upper mid-rotation talent but very little consistency on a start to start basis.<\/p>\n

Framber Valdez<\/a>, arguably this offseason\u2019s best free agent pitcher, remains unsigned. The Orioles have shown interest throughout the winter. They have enough controllable position player talent to make a move on the trade front if someone like Freddy Peralta<\/a> or\u00a0MacKenzie Gore<\/a> becomes available. Rosenthal suggests that the Orioles could view Verlander more as a fallback option if they don\u2019t come away with a higher-ceiling arm.<\/p>\n

At age 43, Verlander no longer has that kind of upside. He showed last season that he still has plenty left in the tank, though. He made 29 starts for the Giants and pitched 152 innings of 3.85 ERA ball. Verlander recorded a 20.7% strikeout rate while walking around 8% of batters faced. His 11% swinging strike rate was his highest since he won his third career Cy Young with the Astros in 2022. Verlander has maintained a 94 MPH average fastball and pitched well after an early-season pec strain cost him a month. He turned in a 3.60 ERA behind a 22% strikeout percentage over his final 19 starts.<\/p>\n

Like Valdez, Verlander has ties to Baltimore president of baseball operations Mike Elias. The O\u2019s front office leader was an assistant general manager in Houston during the pitcher\u2019s first season and a half with the Astros. Verlander would also align with Baltimore\u2019s history of free agent spending under Elias. His front office has yet to sign a free agent starter to a multi-year deal, and they\u2019ve frequently targeted older starters (e.g.\u00a0Kyle Gibson<\/a>,\u00a0Tomoyuki Sugano<\/a>,\u00a0Charlie Morton<\/a>) to secure shorter commitments. Verlander figures to sign one-year contracts for the remainder of his career.<\/p>\n

Last winter\u2019s rotation moves backfired. None of Morton, Sugano or Gibson met expectations and the rotation\u2019s disastrous performance early in the season dug a hole from which the Orioles couldn\u2019t recover. The O\u2019s made a four-year offer to Corbin Burnes<\/a> and took on a year and a half of Eflin\u2019s contract via trade in 2024, so they\u2019re not firmly committed to one-year commitments. Still, it\u2019s true that signing Verlander would be more in line with their previous activity than a five- or six-year deal for Valdez would be.<\/p>\n

The Orioles have opened the checkbook a few times this offseason, most notably on their $155MM\u00a0Pete Alonso<\/a> signing. RosterResource<\/a> projects their 2026 payroll at $149MM, about $10MM below where they began the \u201925 season. Alonso,\u00a0Tyler O\u2019Neill<\/a> and\u00a0Samuel Basallo<\/a> are their only players signed beyond this season. O\u2019Neill\u2019s deal is up after 2027, while Basallo doesn\u2019t make a salary north of $4MM until 2030 (the final year of Alonso\u2019s contract).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Orioles have shown interest in\u00a0Justin Verlander, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. While the O\u2019s are the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418615,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,19620,591,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-418614","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-justin-verlander","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}