MLB Insider Hints at Baltimore Orioles Blockbuster Trade For All-Star Pitcher

The Baltimore Orioles could be destined to make a big trade by the time the offseason ends, according to this insider.

Tommy Gilligan-Imagn Images

The Baltimore Orioles headed into the offseason pretty much knowing they were going to need help in the starting rotation, but that need only intensified once Corbin Burnes hit the exit door.

While the Orioles have made a couple of nice acquisitions in Tomoyuki Sugano and Charlie Morton, both are on one-year deals and likely will not be around longer, not to mention the fact Sugano is 35 and Morton is 41, making it far from a guarantee either of them make it through a full season without spending some time on the injured list.

Relying on a 35-year-old who's never pitched in Major League Baseball and a 41-year-old coming off an unremarkable season is not a recipe for the playoff success Baltimore is looking for.

The top names on the free agent market are gone, but the Orioles could still make a blockbuster trade to shore up their rotation and potentially even add a new ace.

In his Tuesday morning column this week, Bob Nightengale of USA Today named Baltimore as a team who still has work to do and named Seattle Mariners right-handed pitcher Luis Castillo as someone they have the assets to go trade for.

"The Orioles have the deepest and youngest offensive talent in the game, but they need pitching," Nightengale wrote. "They just lost Burnes, after aggressively trying to bring him back, and replaced him with the 41-year-old Morton. They need more help. At some point, acquiring Castillo from the Mariners for some of their young hitters only makes sense."

Castillo has been reliably solid throughout his career. Over the last four years with the Mariners and the Cincinnati Reds prior to that, he has made 121 starts and posted an ERA of 3.51 over 710.1 innings pitched with 753 strikeouts.

His numbers in 2024 over 30 starts were right around that same mark and he hasn't shown any steep signs of decline, but he's a steep financial commitment. Owed $22.75 million in each of the next three season, the Orioles would be locking themselves into a hefty contract.

Though he doesn't come cheap, the argument could be made that making a trade for someone like Castillo with three years of team control is a better bet than doing what they did last year when they acquired Burnes in his walk year. San Diego Padres right-handed ace Dylan Cease - who has also been linked to Baltimore - is three years younger than Castillo and already better, but similar to Burnes last year will be a free agent next winter.

Unless the Orioles are absolutely certain they would both be able to afford and be willing to extend Cease, someone like Castillo could make more sense.

Regardless, Nightengale is correct in saying Baltimore still has work to do in order to take the next step as a team and start finding some playoff success in the near future.