The Orioles are squeezing another outfielder into the mix somehow.
The Orioles added another player to their offseason free agent haul on Monday afternoon, who like every other guy they have signed adds no particular excitement for the coming season. The team scooped everyone with its announcement that they have signed outfielder Dylan Carlson to a one-year contract for the 2025 season. MLB Network’s Jon Heyman reports that it’s a $975,000 guarantee on the signing.
Carlson is a 26-year-old switch-hitter who has a decent amount of MLB-level experience at all three outfield positions. The former late-first round pick by the Cardinals from 2016 eventually worked his way into having top-20 prospect stock prior to the 2021 season. Then 22, the outfielder batted .266/.343/.437 over 149 games in his rookie season, finishing third in NL Rookie of the Year voting for a 3.1 win campaign.
The problem for Carlson is that he never lived up to even that modest performance at the plate after that, following up with a slightly below league average batting in his sophomore season and getting worse each year. The Cardinals put him out in the figurative doghouse for a while, finally dumping him onto the Rays in the middle of last season in a small trade in which St. Louis took on former Orioles reliever Shawn Armstrong, who was likewise pretty bad in 2024.
There is nothing nice to say about the .515 OPS that Carlson had in 59 games with St. Louis last year. His .615 OPS in 37 games with the Rays would also make him unplayable even as a fourth outfielder and bench bat, which is presumably the role that the Orioles have in mind for him. It seems that Mike Elias and company feel that Carlson has enough of a chance to fit in that role to be worth the opportunity cost of the roster spot as well as the risk that they’ll play him for a while and he could continue to stink.
Across his big league batting, Carlson has been a substantially better batter when facing left-handed pitching. That clarifies the idea of a bench bat. He might pinch hit for Cedric Mullins or Colton Cowser in a crucial late-inning situation against a lefty reliever, and he could be trusted to stand in left or center field for an inning or two afterwards. If those two lefty batters are due for a day of rest, Carlson’s presence might allow them to receive it against a tougher lefty starting pitcher.
Or Carlson might just be depth for the minor leagues. The outfielder still has three minor league option years remaining. That means that he could begin the season at Triple-A Norfolk, there only in case of someone ahead of him getting hurt or Carlson re-discovering his 2021 form so much that the Orioles have to find a place for him on the MLB roster. Even after three straight winning seasons, the O’s have not moved past “try to reclaim a former top prospect” mode – just look at another fringe outfielder in the mix, Daz Cameron.
The Orioles had a full 40-man roster upon signing Carlson, so the move necessitated a corresponding roster action. The team designated infielder Jacob Amaya for assignment. If you read the name “Jacob Amaya” and thought “MLB player,” give yourself a cookie. If you read the name “Jacob Amaya” and remembered he’s on the Orioles 40-man roster, give yourself another cookie.