With so many moving pieces, we know the Orioles are going to look different come August. But how different?
MLB’s trade deadline is looming, and that means that both buyers and sellers have some big decisions to make. We know the Orioles plan. They won’t be blowing up the roster. Instead, they want to trade away players on expiring contracts, as they did last week with Gregory Soto. But even that will be no small feat for GM Mike Elias, and it could leave the Orioles with a very different roster come August.
It is unlikely that the O’s end up trading every player attached to rumors and/or on an expiring contract. It’s too much to do, and would leave the club with a lot of innings/at-bats to cover in the season’s final two months. While accumulating prospects is helpful, over-exposing young players too soon isn’t. Elias will need to find that balance.
That could mean that at least one of the Charlie Morton/Zach Eflin/Tomoyuki Sugano trio stays put just to eat innings. It could also mean that they don’t deal both Ramón Laureano AND Cedric Mullins, which would safeguard against injuries and protect the minor league outfielders.
But in general, it will be a lot of moving parts, and the Orioles are going to have a different look once the dust settles. That’s the point. The 2025 team didn’t work. The goal from this point forward is not to make them work, but find the gaps at/near the major league level. Maybe the solution already exists internally, or maybe Elias has some work to do.
Bullpen flexibility
The bullpen is the area that will see the most opportunity and likely the most turnover next year. Soto and Bryan Baker have already been dealt. Seranthony Domínguez is likely to follow, and Andrew Kittredge could go as well. Add in what could be a long-term injury to Félix Bautista, and suddenly the relief crew looks nothing like it has for much of the season.
The move of Baker was a surprise. He had years of team control remaining and had been pitching well this season. He was also out of minor league options. That was true of so many arms in the Orioles bullpen this season, and it seems like something that Elias wants to get away from in 2026.
Options are helpful all over the roster, but particularly in the bullpen. It allows the team to send players down and bring players up as they need fresh arms. The Orioles couldn’t do that as much this season. That was brutal early on, when the starting rotation was a disaster. It made it difficult to juggle Bautista early in the season as he eased back into his closer role. It forced them to hold onto a struggling Cionel Pérez for far too long. It just wasn’t very flexible.
Elias is poised to have a lot more options in his ‘pen next year. That’s likely why the Orioles will be giving extended looks to Grant Wolfram, Kade Strowd, and Yaramil Hiraldo. They will all have two options going into 2026. Yennier Cano will retain his final option next year as well. They just signed José Espada, an interesting 28-year-old that has one game of MLB action and all three options remaining. And there are plenty of minor leaguers that could factor in next year, including Chayce McDermott or Keagan Gillies.
These are names we should be seeing plenty of in the season’s final two months. It won’t always be pretty, but it does teach the Orioles what they have in-house, and what sort of shopping Elias should do this winter.
Protect the stars
September call ups no longer have MLB dugouts looking like clown cars. Clubs cannot promote the entirety of their 40-man roster. Instead, the active roster expands from 26 to 28. That’s still helpful, and for a team like the Orioles it should allow them to take it easy on certain members of the club.
They will want to ensure that the organizational core is able to head into the offseason healthy and has a full offseason to get ready for 2026. That didn’t happen last year. Colton Cowser went into the winter with a broken hand. Jordan Westburg was dealing with lingering issues. Gunnar Henderson got hurt in the spring. And Adley Rutschman was allegedly fine, but seemed off for the entire second half. Let’s not repeat that, shall we?
The Orioles cannot add enough players to the roster so that these stars never play, but they can give them more days off. And they should. There is something to be said for game experience, especially for younger players. But there is a fine line between learning the game and burning yourself out.
That could make Ramón Urías into an everyday player for the next eight weeks. Start him at each position on the infield throughout the week, and give the regulars a rest. Once Dylan Beavers is up, get him some innings and protect Cowser. Maybe they hold onto three catchers, giving Samuel Basallo a few games a week and letting Alex Jackson (or Jacob Stallings) work in as well.
Again, it’s tough to do all of this at once, but the Orioles should consider at least some of it. The rest of this season has value to certain, less-experienced, members of the roster. For others, it’s a hurdle to another, more important season.
See what Bradish can do
Even though the Orioles have fallen out of contention, the excitement to see Kyle Bradish back on a major league mound has remained high throughout Birdland. Fortunately, our wait is nearly over. He tossed two innings for High-A Aberdeen on July 24. He will have another outing on July 29 for Double-A Chesapeake, putting him on pace for a return to Baltimore sometime in early August.
Just in case you forgot, Bradish is really, really good. He finished fourth in AL Cy Young voting in 2023 with a 2.83 ERA over 168.2 innings. Last year, despite dealing with elbow issues before the decision to get Tommy John, he was great once again, compiling a 2.75 ERA and striking out 53 over 39.1 innings.
The hope for 2025 was that Bradish would act as a trade acquisition, returning right around now to be the ace the staff needed and giving the rotation a boost. Instead, he will return to an environment with far less pressure.
That isn’t a bad thing for Bradish on an individual level. He’s a competitor, and if the Orioles were on pace to make the playoffs, he might want to go “all out” on the mound from pitch one. Given the current situation, he can ramp up slower. That might mean just four or five innings in most starts, and that’s OK. The Orioles don’t need length out of Bradish right now. They just need to feel confident that he is healthy and close to his 100% self.
The Orioles rotation is going to get a facelift going into 2026. Eflin, Morton, and Sugano will be gone. Grayson Rodriguez may be out for the entire season. The only two arms they can lean on right now are Dean Kremer and Trevor Rogers. A healthy, fully operational Bradish would transform things in a big way.