Baltimore Orioles Offseason Grade Impacted Greatly by Loss of All-Star Talent

The Baltimore Orioles have some big shoes to fill with their free agency departures.

Mar 3, 2025; Salt River Pima-Maricopa, Arizona, USA; Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Corbin Burnes (39) throws against the Chicago Cubs in the first inning at Salt River Fields at Talking Stick. / Rick Scuteri-Imagn Images

This offseason was a busy one for the Baltimore Orioles, who saw one of the largest jumps, percentage wise, in payroll from 2024 to 2025.

It was certainly encouraging to see the team spend money.

It isn’t easy keeping pace with the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox in their own division, let alone the other contenders around the league.

However, spending money doesn’t automatically mean that a team had a great offseason.

That is the case with the Orioles, as Jim Bowden of The Athletic gave them a solid, but unspectacular “B” grade for the work done over the winter.

The biggest reason for that is the loss of their incredible talent.

“The Orioles lost their ace (Corbin Burnes) and their team leader in home runs (Anthony Santander) in free agency and failed to land any stars to replace them,” the former MLB executive wrote.

Their largest commitment this offseason went to outfielder Tyler O’Neill, who agreed to a three-year, $49.5 million deal.

His addition essentially brought an end to Anthony Santander’s tenure with the franchise.

There are some risks in making such a swap given O’Neill’s injury history. But the team is going to receive better all-around production if he can stay healthy.

A two-time Gold Glove winner, he is a massive upgrade over Santander in the field. And at the plate, he offers plenty of power with two campaigns of at least 31 home runs under his belt and better on-base skills.

It will come down to health if that swaps proves to be a good one.

On the mound, the team has taken a quantity over quality approach.

That isn’t a knock against the pitchers who are on the team, just that the front office put an emphasis on acquiring depth over a prototypical ace to step into the role Burnes vacated.

$15 million was spent on MLB veteran Charlie Morton, and $13 million was spent in international star Tomoyuki Sugano.

They are going to assume much larger roles than anticipated with the team’s top pitcher, Grayson Rodriguez, dealing with another injury.

Zach Eflin, Morton, Sugano, Dean Kremer and Cade Povich look like they will be the starting rotation on Opening Day.

That is far from ideal given how many top-end pitching staffs there are in the American League.

Making a trade for Michael King or Dylan Cease of the San Diego Padres, or Luis Castillo of the Seattle Mariners, would quell a lot of the worries Baltimore has on the mound.

Will they pull the trigger, by parting ways with top hitting prospects to get the job done?

It isn’t something they have shown a willingness to do to this point, but their tune should change with Rodriguez sidelined.

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