The well-traveled 33-year-old, in his second go-round in the organization, was a surprising but intriguing addition to the Orioles’ 40-man roster this winter.
Luis González is a story in perseverance.
The 33-year-old left-hander has toiled in pro baseball for 15 seasons without so much as a cup of coffee in the majors. He’s pitched for teams in five different countries and three different continents. He could have called it quits any number of times over the years, but he kept plugging away. And as of four months ago, he’s now a full-fledged member of the Orioles’ 40-man roster, just a phone call away from making his long-awaited debut.
Just goes to show you, kids: never give up on your dreams.
González’s professional career began a full decade and a half ago when he signed with the Phillies out of the Dominican Republic at age 18. The Phils cut him loose in 2012 after he failed to impress in short-season ball, and the Orioles, led by Dan Duquette at the time, signed González to a minor league deal.
If you don’t remember González’s previous stint in the Orioles’ organization — all seven years of it — you can be forgiven. The lefty seemed destined for a life as a roster-filler non-prospect, as evidenced by the fact that he spent three consecutive seasons pitching at then-High-A Frederick until he was 25 years old.
During that time, the O’s pulled the plug on González as a starting pitcher, where he’d been largely ineffective, and converted him to relief. He had at least a modest bit of success in his new role, eking onto MLB Pipeline’s 2018 Orioles prospects list at #28 in a threadbare O’s farm system. Even then, Pipeline’s profile of González cautioned about his “fringy command” and fluctuating velocity.
González survived the transition to a new O’s front office, as the Mike Elias regime kept him in the organization after replacing Duquette, but a disastrous 2019 season — a combined 7.45 ERA between Double-A Bowie and Triple-A Norfolk — spelled the end of his initial Orioles era. At that point there was no reason to think that González would still be playing professional baseball six years later, much less earning a spot on an MLB roster.
Still, González never gave up on chasing his dream, no matter where it took him. And goodness, it took him all over the place. He pitched in Japan during the 2020 pandemic. He returned to the States in 2021 for an unsuccessful stint in the Giants’ system, then jetted to Europe in 2022 to play for Unipolsai Fortitudo Bologna of Italian Serie A, a league I had no idea even existed. (That was a fun little Baseball Reference rabbit hole to go down.) González served as the closer for a Bologna team that went 40-4.
In 2023, González added the Mexican League to his extensive foreign résumé, posting a 1.69 ERA in 39 games for the Sultanes de Monterrey. That was the fifth country in which he’s pitched professionally, including his six seasons of winter ball in the Dominican.
The Orioles never lost track of their world-traveling former farmhand, and his overseas success convinced them to bring González back to the organization last year. They stashed him at Norfolk all season and he worked a career-high 44 games. While his 4.50 ERA didn’t wow anyone, he continued a career-long trend by striking out a lot of guys — 10.7 K/9 — and made great strides in his control. He slashed his walk rate to just 1.8 BB/9, a huge improvement from his career minor league mark of 3.9.
González’s frequent Triple-A battery mate, Maverick Handley, raved about the southpaw’s stuff. “[He has] a hoppy four-seam with some oomph on it,” Handley said. “He’s got a little gyro slider … and then he picked up a splitter halfway through the year and started throwing it, and it was awesome.”
González opened enough eyes for the Orioles to take the unusual step of adding a 33-year-old with no MLB experience to their 40-man roster last November, bringing him to the doorstep of achieving his lifelong goal. If González finally makes it to the bigs this season, he would join a very short list of O’s pitchers to make their MLB debut at age 33 or older, joining only knuckleballer Mickey Jannis in 2021 and two longtime Nippon Professional Baseball hurlers, Koji Uehara in 2009 and (presumably) Tomoyuki Sugano this year.
“I know that there’s many at this age who have had big league careers, but I think also it says a lot that at this age you still can play and you can contribute,” González told MASN’s Roch Kubatko. “It feels different and it feels that I’m a lot closer this time.” González has made two appearances so far in Grapefruit League action, giving up a run and walking three in two innings.
He’s not a prospect anymore. He never really was. But there’s a chance that González, after 15 years of roaming the baseball wilderness and experiencing all the ups and downs that the sport has to offer, could at long last become a major leaguer this year. And that’s pretty darn cool.