12 of the 13 arbitration-eligible Orioles received a contract for 2025. Jacob Webb did not.
Heading into Friday’s deadline for teams to decide whether or not to tender 2025 contracts to their arbitration-eligible players, the Orioles were one of the teams with the most decisions to make. The 13 Orioles in arbitration years is more than any other team out there at this point in the offseason. 12 of those 13 players were tendered for 2025. The one who wasn’t was Jacob Webb, who becomes a free agent now that he’s been non-tendered.
In an additional move connected to this process, the Orioles settled on a $1 million contract for 2025 with arbitration-eligible Emmanuel Rivera. I thought he was the most-likely candidate to be non-tendered, which is yet another reminder that I don’t know anything. Rivera did well at the plate in 27 games with the O’s after being waived by the Marlins, but I don’t know where the righty-batting corner infielder fits into the plans for 2025.
The full list of Orioles who were officially tendered today: Keegan Akin, Kyle Bradish, Dean Kremer, Jorge Mateo, Ryan Mountcastle, Cedric Mullins, Rivera, Trevor Rogers, Adley Rutschman, Gregory Soto, Ramón Urías, and Tyler Wells.
The decision not to tender a 2025 contract to Webb is the second peculiar bullpen decision made by the Orioles since the season ended. I think it’s in the same category as not picking up the contract option for Danny Coulombe. Webb, 31, had a solid season this year, very similar to how he pitched after arriving in Baltimore thanks to a 2023 waiver claim.
Over 60 games this season, Webb had a 3.02 ERA and 1.182 WHIP. The walk rate of 4.3 BB/9 was a little on the high side, but that’s a serviceable middle relief player let go for nothing when it wouldn’t have cost much beyond a roster spot ($1.7 million projected by MLB Trade Rumors) to keep him. It’s not automatic that whoever the Orioles use to replace Webb will be able to do as well as this. The same was even more true about Coulombe, who had a better than merely serviceable track record with the team.
One rationale might be that the Orioles are looking to create a roster spot in the bullpen that can go to a player who has minor league options remaining, allowing them to cycle through a number of different players over time depending on when there’s a need for a fresh arm. Webb has been out of minor league options since arriving with the team and if he and Coulombe were both locks for the 2025 bullpen, there might not have been any pitchers who could be freely optioned. That flexibility has been important to Mike Elias.
You could have sketched out a case for which any of Rivera, Ramón Urías, or Wells might have made sense as non-tender candidates. Maybe even Trevor Rogers, if Elias was willing to decide that trade was already a total bust, though that never seemed likely to me.
Urías is another righty infielder who doesn’t seem to offer much defensive versatility, though the 30-year-old is coming off his best season yet at the plate. With Wells not likely to pitch until at least July due to his elbow surgery and with no clear role waiting for him after that, the team could have chosen to free up a roster spot.
They’re sticking with all of the guys except for Webb – at least for now. These players can still be traded over the offseason, or released before the season, if the Orioles decide that they don’t need them after all. It is hard to imagine every currently-healthy arbitration-eligible player making the Opening Day 2025 roster. That is a problem for closer to March 27, 2025 than we are right now.
Elsewhere in MLB, a couple of other 2024 Orioles were let go by their new teams. Austin Hays was non-tendered by the Phillies ahead of Friday’s deadline. Another former Oriole, Dillon Tate, got the non-tender treatment from the Blue Jays, where he ended up after the O’s placed him on waivers.
Hays, who batted .256/.275/.397 in 80 plate appearances after being traded by the O’s, had been projected for a $6.4 million salary if he went through arbitration. That proved to be more than the Phillies were interested in paying for a player whose performance fell off the table in 2024. Elias moved on at the right time, though it remains to be seen how much of a positive it was to swap in Seranthony Domínguez in the same move.
Tate had a 4.66 ERA for the season overall, and his projected $1.9 million was not something the Jays wanted to have on the books for 2025.