Good morning, Camden Chatters.
It’s salary arbitration season, everyone. Try to contain your excitement. Yesterday the Orioles agreed to terms on 2026 salaries for nine of their 11 arbitration-eligible players. The pay bumps for the players ranged from the modest (Tyler Wells’s $375,000 raise) to the dramatic (a nearly $8 million raise for Gunnar Henderson). For the full details, check out Mark Brown’s roundup of the 2026 contract settlements.
All of the agreements are straight one-year deals, with
the exception of Ryan Mountcastle, who agreed to a one-year deal with a 2027 team option. Mountcastle was slated to be eligible for free agency after this season. It’s curious that the O’s gave an option to Mountcastle of all people, considering he doesn’t seem to be a particularly good fit on the Orioles’ roster right now. But, as Mark wrote, perhaps the 2027 option could make Mountcastle a slightly more intriguing trade chip. If another team is convinced they can rejuvenate his career, they might like having the opportunity to lock him in for 2027 if he has a strong 2026 campaign.
Only two players, Keegan Akin and Kyle Bradish, didn’t reach an agreement with the Orioles yesterday. That could mean the O’s intend to go to arbitration hearings with each of them. The Birds are just $400,000 short on Akin’s requested salary (Akin filed at $3.375 million, the O’s at $2.975 million) and are about $700,000 apart with Bradish (who filed at $3.55 million to the Orioles’ $2.875). With that fiddly amount of money, I feel like it wouldn’t break the bank for the O’s to reach an agreement with the duo, but I’m not an accountant.
With the arbitration business (mostly) taken care of, the Orioles have a bit more clarity on their 2026 payroll as they continue to pursue some roster additions. Do the Birds have one more big-money contract left in them this offseason for the likes of Framber Valdez or Ranger Suárez? We can only continue to wait and see.
Links
Will the 2026 Orioles be good enough defensively? – BaltimoreBaseball.com
I swear I didn’t see this post before I shared my own worries about the Orioles’ defense yesterday. Steve Cockey is similarly unimpressed about the Birds’ defensive capabilities.
Kyle Bradish made a strong return last year, but what about the innings? – Steve Melewski
Bradish may well be on an innings count this year after his abbreviated 2025 stint. All the more reason to sign Valdez or Suárez, I’d say.
Top-200 Hitters 2026 Fantasy Rankings – FanGraphs
I don’t care about fantasy baseball, but since this article uses a Gunnar Henderson photo, it caught my attention. Gunnar is listed as one of the 13 “Five-Category Studs” who have “no flaws in their game.” Not too shabby!
Where do O’s stand on pursuit of starting arms? – MLB.com
The answer: who knows?
Orioles birthdays and history
Is today your birthday? Happy birthday! Not a single player in Orioles history was born on Jan. 9. Maybe you’ll be the first! Keep practicing and anything is possible.
On this date in 2006, the Orioles acquired speedy center fielder Corey Patterson from the Cubs. Patterson spent the next two years living up to his reputation as a good base stealer but subpar hitter, stealing 103 bases in 125 attempts while posting a 90 OPS+. He later came back for a second stint with the Birds in 2010.
And on this day in 2015, the O’s re-signed Delmon Young, who had cemented his place in Orioles history the previous October with this legendary hit. His second season with the Birds, though, didn’t go so well. Young OPS’d just .628, with two homers in 52 games, before the O’s released him in July.
