{"id":241653,"date":"2025-10-21T18:50:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T18:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/241653\/"},"modified":"2025-10-21T18:50:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T18:50:09","slug":"jon-meoli-what-can-the-orioles-count-on-from-returning-starters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/241653\/","title":{"rendered":"Jon Meoli: What can the Orioles count on from returning starters?"},"content":{"rendered":"

When building their depth over the course of an offseason, be it major league depth or further down the ladder with minor league free agents, the Orioles always try to be honest about the opportunity they\u2019re presenting to a player. <\/p>\n

They\u2019re deliberate in setting an appropriate expectation with players and agents so everyone is on the same page as spring training arrives.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s going to be quite a headache to accomplish on the starting pitching front this offseason, and amid parallel hiring cycles for a manager<\/a> and a significant front office role<\/a>, a top priority for the Orioles\u2019 current brass has to be figuring out exactly what shape those opportunities in the rotation might take. <\/p>\n

Dean Kremer led the team with 171 2\/3 innings last year, and with Tomoyuki Sugano set to be a free agent, Kremer is the only season-long starter set to return. Trevor Rogers pitched 109 2\/3 sparkling innings<\/a> in the majors and an additional 32 2\/3 in the minors, so expecting him to take a full season\u2019s workload feels fair.<\/p>\n

Beyond that, you can feel pretty good about getting consistent quality from Kyle Bradish, Tyler Wells and Grayson Rodriguez when they\u2019re available. Bradish gave the Orioles 32 innings<\/a> with a 2.53 ERA after returning from Tommy John elbow reconstruction surgery<\/a>, and Wells returned from his own elbow injury<\/a> to pitch 21 2\/3 innings with a 2.91 ERA down the stretch. <\/p>\n

\"Baltimore<\/p>\n

Orioles pitcher Tyler Wells throws against the Tampa Bay Rays in the first inning on Sept. 24. (Gail Burton\/AP)<\/p>\n

Bradish tossed an additional 22 innings on rehab assignment, while Wells added 25 1\/3 innings with affiliates; it\u2019s unclear whether either pitched in simulated games in Sarasota that would add to that total. Rodriguez, meanwhile, didn\u2019t throw a pitch<\/a> in a game this year due to elbow and lat injuries. <\/p>\n

As the season wound down, Bradish said he expected to have a relatively normal offseason and wasn\u2019t sure what the plan would be for next season\u2019s workload. He and the team opted against setting any kind of goals for his 2025 innings count to avoid undue pressure \u2014 but he has high hopes for 2026. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor myself, I would like to make 30 starts,\u201d Bradish said. \u201cObviously, it\u2019s not probably going to be six innings each outing, because that would be 180 innings and that would not be very smart. But I think there\u2019s ways around it, and there\u2019s other ways to cut innings out somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

While some pitchers have made significant innings jumps after long layoffs and seen no adverse effects, AL Cy Young contender Garrett Crochet missed all of 2022 after having Tommy John, pitched 25 innings between the majors and minors in 2023 before going down with a shoulder injury, then came back to make 32 starts and pitch 146 innings in his breakout 2024 season with the White Sox. This year, he pitched 205 1\/3 innings for Boston. <\/p>\n

More often, caution is taken in such cases and pitchers scale deliberately. There\u2019s not much by way of accepted math \u2014 and the Orioles\u2019 assessment will be made on an individual basis. President of baseball operations Mike Elias said \u201cthere\u2019s a way and a possibility\u201d Bradish can pitch all year next year \u201cin a responsible way,\u201d and he said the team still views Wells as a starter. What\u2019s best for Bradish and Wells may not apply to Rodriguez, who hasn\u2019t pitched since July 2024, though Elias said he was \u201cbullish\u201d about the situation.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s undeniable is that those five names \u2014 Rogers, Bradish, Wells, Rodriguez and Kremer \u2014 make for an imposing rotation on paper. It\u2019s just not a group the Orioles can bank on running out there come late March \u2014 or for the ensuing six months \u2014 with any consistency.<\/p>\n

Combine the uncertainty there with the elbow and shoulder injuries<\/a> that limited swingman Albert Su\u00e1rez all season and the general inconsistency of young starters Cade Povich and Brandon Young, and the Orioles simply have a lot to consider about their internal rotation candidates before they go out and add.<\/p>\n

This is something the Orioles have done with varying success the last couple of years. Whatever their process was that led them to decide they needed Corbin Burnes<\/a> before the 2024 season, it was a good one. Baltimore\u2019s pursuit of short-term depth ahead of the 2025 season was far less successful, with Sugano<\/a> and Charlie Morton<\/a> not enough to cover the myriad issues the rotation faced. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Orioles pitcher Grayson Rodriguez warms up ahead of a bullpen session at spring training. He did not appear in a game in 2025. (Ulysses Mu\u00f1oz\/The Baltimore Banner)<\/p>\n

Those include the expected absences of Bradish and Wells and the unexpected ones of Rodriguez, Su\u00e1rez and, eventually, Zach Eflin. Elias said it would have \u201ctaken a lot of overkill to plan for losing all that depth, but we need to put together a better just overall pitching staff going into next season to guard against stuff like that, but also to raise the ceiling of the team, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

That last qualifier is meaningful to me. Before the 2024 team stumbled, the high-quality depth of the rotation made it one of the league\u2019s best. That\u2019s the kind of upside the Orioles have the opportunity to add, and that means they have real opportunity to sell in free agency, both at the top of the rotation and in depth spots. <\/p>\n

The names already on their roster may not make it seem that way at first blush. But if the Orioles tell an agent or free agent there\u2019s a chance to pitch in this rotation, they\u2019re going to be telling the truth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When building their depth over the course of an offseason, be it major league depth or further down…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241654,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[371,363,99,63077],"class_list":["post-241653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-baltimore-orioles","tag-mlb","tag-sports","tag-spring-training"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}