Baltimore Orioles Rotation Still Projected As Weakness Despite Offseason Additions

The Baltimore Orioles have made additions to their starting rotation this winter, but it is still projected to be their major weakness in the coming season.

Oct 2, 2024; Baltimore, Maryland, USA; Baltimore Orioles pitcher Zach Eflin (24) throws against the Kansas City Royals in the first inning in game two of the Wild Card round for the 2024 MLB Playoffs at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Mandatory Credit: Tommy Gilligan-Imagn Images / Tommy Gilligan-Imagn Images

The Baltimore Orioles entered the offseason with their ace from the 2024 campaign entering free agency, and a longshot to re-sign him.

Despite reports that the new owners of the club have no propensity to spend in order to win, the belief that Corbin Burnes would sign elsewhere came to fruition when the ace signed a six-year, $210 million deal with the Arizona Diamondbacks.

While the Orioles may have lost their ace, they have added two other pitchers to the mix in Tomoyuki Sugano and Charlie Morton, but recent projections from Fangraphs show those might not be enough.

The rotation is projected to be ordered as followed by Fangraphs:

1. Zach Eflin
2. Grayson Rodriguez
3. Charlie Morton
4. Dean Kremer
5. Tomoyuki Sugano

It is a group projected to accrue only 2.0 fWAR, the lowest mark for any playoff contender.

"The Orioles have done some work on their rotation, true," writes Eno Sarris in a recent article for The Athletic. "They’ve signed Tomoyuki Sugano and Charlie Morton to short deals. Very risk averse, very demure. Their reward is showing up as the 25th-best rotation in baseball according to FanGraphs. Now, that’s not quite fair, since Sugano’s projection is not included and he’ll bring non-zero value. But Sugano’s approach of low velocity, large arsenal and great command may not work in MLB — just as an example, he showed around the same strikeout percentage in Japan as JP Sears and Patrick Corbin showed in America last year — so he’s probably not going to move this rotation by itself. They’re still rumored as interested in [Jack] Flaherty, and Nick Pivetta certainly has interesting stuff that could benefit from a more neutral park, but maybe they should pick up that call from Seattle?"

No one knows what to expect from Sugano in his first campaign in MLB, but with comparisons to JP Sears and Patrick Corbin, it can not be good.

Morton is on the wrong side of 40, and while he is still far from the worst pitcher in the sport, the years of him being able to thrive in the top half of a rotation are long gone, and he will be better served as an innings eater now, the likes of Jordan Lyles or Zack Greinke in their swan songs.

Adding Luis Castillo to the fold, who the club has been reported to be in talks with the Seattle Mariners to acquire, would instantly make the rotation that much better, with someone more suited to be an ace at the front of the rotation, thus pushing everyone else back one spot and lightening their loads.

As things currently stand, Baltimore is a team that will need their offense to score a plethora of runs in the coming year, and even that may not be built to oblige.