Thursday’s news about Kyle Bradish and John Means was a big shakeup to the expected picture
When the Orioles acquired Corbin Burnes from the Brewers earlier this month, visions of an amazing starting rotation going from Burnes at the top all the way down to Dean Kremer at the bottom danced through the heads of most everyone in Birdland. The visions lasted about 24 hours after pitchers and catchers reported to Sarasota, until Mike Elias told reporters yesterday about Kyle Bradish and John Means being out of the Opening Day roster picture.
The result is that things are a lot less settled than they seemed earlier this week. For Bradish, the injury was announced as a UCL sprain that he suffered while in his offseason throwing program a month ago. He has already received a PRP injection and is supposed to restart throwing today.
In the case of Means, it’s not so much of a surprise injury as management of what we already knew about his condition. Elias said that the elbow soreness that kept Means from pitching in the ALDS also led to his getting extra rest through the offseason, so he is a month behind his ramp-up for the coming season compared to other pitchers. This makes him unlikely to pitch in April. At the Birdland Caravan, Means had said he should be ready to go. That seems to have been an optimistic remark.
Just like that, the rotation that we were imagining as pitchers and catchers reported has become a less settled and more chaotic picture. Everyone should have been able to feel good about running from Burnes to Bradish to Grayson Rodriguez, Means, and Dean Kremer. Now, it’s Burnes, Rodriguez, Kremer, and two question marks to be settled as spring training moves along. A rotation where Kremer is the third-best guy is a lot less exciting than one where he’s the fifth-best.
What matters now is the obvious question: What are the Orioles going to do about this?
How the Orioles should respond probably depends on what they believe is the severity of each of these situations. If you’re like me and prone to assuming that any given injury to a player will end up with a worst-case scenario, then you’re already steeling yourself for the idea that Bradish might not pitch at all for the O’s this year.
Elias is definitely not there yet. He said, “The early returns are very encouraging and everything is in a really good spot right now,” and added later, “We’re prepping him for a lot of action in 2024 and we’re getting him ready for that as expeditiously and responsibly as possible.” Those are positive-sounding things, though Elias also declined to set any kind of timetable for a potential MLB appearance this season.
If either or both of these absences is limited to 4-6 weeks, it’s easier to make the case for the Orioles just letting it roll with their internal options. Tyler Wells was a good starting pitcher through about three months last season. We could convince ourselves that he’d be fine until he starts getting tired, which seemed to be what happened to him last year. This is enough that it’s maybe not an automatic disaster for the rotation, though if you were counting on Wells as a good reliever, that weakens the bullpen mix.
Another pitcher who spent time in the rotation last year and seems to be a likely candidate to fill in here is Cole Irvin. The 30-year-old lefty started in the rotation last year and it didn’t go well. By season’s end, including relief work, Irvin ended up being just about exactly the same pitcher (when adjusting for park effects) as he was in Oakland – a below-league average ERA with potential to at least chew up innings.
Had either of these injuries happened later in the season, pitching prospects like Cade Povich and Chayce McDermott might seem like more likely candidates. It’s hard to imagine those guys pushing their way into a spot right now unless they really, really impress over the course of camp. These prospects did not come out of 2023 with results that excited me about seeing them in the short-term. Elias also mentioned Seth Johnson, who is five starts removed from his own Tommy John surgery. These guys might be prepared for extended big league action in August in a way that they aren’t right now.
Non-prospects Bruce Zimmermann and Jonathan Heasley might also be in the “in case of emergency, break glass” tier of rotation option. This should not be enough of an emergency to break that glass. I don’t want to think about anyone with a career ERA over 5 showing up in the 2024 Orioles rotation. Right now, I shouldn’t have to.
The longer either of these absences goes on, the more that it could be a better idea for the Orioles to make a free agent signing to try to plug the gap. Were David Rubenstein’s group already officially at the helm of the franchise, maybe I could convince myself that this would get the O’s to make a move to commit some dollars to Jordan Montgomery. This would mean that the Orioles could have a lefty in the rotation who isn’t Irvin.
I am enthused about the idea of Montgomery because he has a three-year consistently solid track record – 3.48 ERA, 3.62 FIP, a 121 ERA+ – and he doesn’t cost a draft pick. He’s 31 already and is likely to require a commitment into years where he’s a less exciting pitcher. At least for the next few years, it’s not a bad play. As long as we’re imagining things, a contract with fewer years but a higher average annual value would be fun. The Orioles can commit bigger dollars now and next year before Adley Rutschman and Henderson start having big arbitration salaries at the same time.
It certainly wouldn’t hurt the Orioles to sketch Montgomery into the 2025 rotation picture either, since Burnes is becoming a free agent after this season, and so is Means regardless of his health status. This is clearly just a fantasy with how things are at present, and so is the idea of signing Blake Snell, if you’d rather talk yourself into someone mercurial, with a higher ceiling and a lower floor.
A much lower-end signing would be someone like Michael Lorenzen, a 32-year-old righty who is coming off of a season where he was pretty good with Detroit and then pretty bad after being traded to Philadelphia. That “pretty bad” came with a great early impression, with Lorenzen throwing a no-hitter in his second start for the Phillies. He pitched in eleven games, one of those games was a no-hitter, and he still had a 5.51 ERA as a Phillie. Pretty bad. Lorenzen finished with a 4.18 ERA for the season between both teams.
Last month, when assorted prognosticators suggested that a Lorenzen signing might make sense for the Orioles, I could only sigh. The idea of the Orioles having their only rotation move of the offseason be to sign Lorenzen was not exciting. He is a much more palatable addition following after Burnes jumping to the top of the O’s rotation. Now, the O’s really could use some fortification at the back of the rotation, and Lorenzen isn’t an awful bet to make for that purpose.
The Orioles don’t really have the luxury of waiting to see how Bradish and Means return to good health because by the time they either do or don’t, it will be too late to sign a free agent and have that pitcher ready to go for the start of the season. If that’s the move, it should probably be in the next week or so. I won’t be expecting this, but you never know. Still-unsigned pitchers might start to get nervous and that could create opportunity for Elias to make an addition at a price he is willing to pay.
With a signing unlikely and the idea of an internal candidate pushing up into the top five in time for the Opening Day roster striking me as just as unlikely, that leaves us with what seems like this “by default” rotation:
- Corbin Burnes
- Grayson Rodriguez
- Dean Kremer
- Tyler Wells
- Cole Irvin
You can talk yourself into that being an acceptable or possibly even good starting rotation. It’ll take more talking than the version of the rotation that was dancing through our heads 48 hours ago, but it’s there. Burnes needs to keep doing his thing, Rodriguez and Kremer need to carry on their second half from 2023, Wells needs to duplicate his first half, and Irvin just needs to not pitch so bad that he gets banished to Triple-A Norfolk after only making three starts.
Is that really so much to ask? Probably. Things aren’t guaranteed to go right just because Orioles fans would really like them to. Faced with no other choice, there are worse things to hang your hopes on than this, as long as either Bradish or Means is back by May. Let’s hope for no more bad news from spring training.