There are 22 games remaining for the 2025 Orioles. Short of winning all 22 of those games, or nearly all of them, there’s not much that can be done to have me feeling good about the way things have ended up for this team. Still, it would be nice to see the contours of a more successful 2026 season emerge from the existing roster. This is my vibe check for the players who are in the mix right now.
Players currently on either the 40-man roster or 60-day injured list are sorted into the following categories:
Probably back (exciting), probably back (complicated), probably back (dread), maybe back (neutral), maybe back (negative), probably not back, I’m sad about Félix Bautista’s shoulder, and pending free agent. I’m not going for anything stronger than “probably” because the mind of Mike Elias is unknowable.
Probably back (exciting)
- Kyle Bradish
- Trevor Rogers
- Samuel Basallo
- Gunnar Henderson
- Dylan Beavers
One thing that tells us a lot about how the 2025 season is gone is that there are only five players on this list, of whom three did not appear in a game for the team before the middle of August. Only Henderson has been around with the team all year, and even he’s had a disappointing season compared to his past two seasons. So there’s basically no one who has been on the team all season who has lived up to reasonable hopes for their performance this season.
Are Basallo and Beavers even going to be high-performing key players next year? Right now, with little else to cling to, we’d all like to believe that. The pattern of pretty much every other young player who’s been around here lately is a reminder that it’s not a guarantee that even top prospects are able to come up and contribute right away, or even consistently after a short adjustment period.
Probably back (complicated)
- Keegan Akin
- Dean Kremer
- Chayce McDermott
- Grayson Rodriguez
- Albert Suárez
- Tyler Wells
- Adley Rutschman
- Jackson Holliday
- Jeremiah Jackson
- Coby Mayo
- Jordan Westburg
- Colton Cowser
There are almost as many reasons why it’s complicated as there are players on this list. For someone like Kremer, what makes it complicated is that he should be a back of the rotation starter yet the Orioles keep assembling rosters that end up with him at #3 or higher. For the grouping of Rodriguez, Suárez, and Wells, it’s more about not knowing what guys who’ve missed nearly if not the entire 2025 season due to being injured will be able to contribute next year.
In Wells’s case, he might be better suited for the bullpen, yet the team is spending September with him as the sixth man in a six-man rotation. McDermott also seems suited for the bullpen, which the Orioles seem to have finally given in and accepted within the last month or so, as that’s where McDermott has been pitching lately. I’d like to see him in Baltimore this month. The Orioles have guys like Shawn Dubin hanging around instead.
Rutschman is complicated because he’s done worse every season since arriving, with multiple IL trips for his oblique this year. Westburg being complicated is also because of so many games missed – he’s only played in 73 games. Cowser is hitting much worse than he did a year ago. Holliday is hitting better, but still not good enough to be really exciting, and he’s also got baserunning and defense dragging him down. Mayo has a .612 OPS. It’s early to give up on him. It’s also hard to stay excited.
Jeremiah Jackson goes on this list because two months ago, pretty much no one in Birdland had ever thought much about him, perhaps not even Mike Elias. At age 25, he’s young enough where it’s believable that things finally clicked for a former second round pick. But also: What are the Orioles going to do with him next year? He seems destined for a Ramón Urías-like reserve role, but what positions can he capably back up? Given his absurd batted ball luck (.395 BABIP), what will his batting look like when that inevitably course corrects?
Probably back (dread)
- Cade Povich
- Brandon Young
- Tyler O’Neill
The Orioles gave a three-year, $49.5 million contract to O’Neill, with the possibility for him to opt out after just one year. O’Neill has played in just 43 games and batted .210/.293/.434. Perhaps in year 2, he’ll do more to validate Elias’s belief in him, but until that happens, I dread that he’ll be taking up a roster spot and playing time.
Povich and Young being listed here isn’t really so much dread about what I think they’ll do next year – well, okay, it is. You’ve seen them pitch this season. They’ve combined for -0.9 WAR. The Orioles need to carry out their offseason in such a way that there’s no chance of Povich or Young being one of their top five options, unless they’re bitten by the injury bug in spring training to the same degree that they were this season.
Maybe back (neutral)
- Dietrich Enns
- Rico Garcia
- Maverick Handley
- Alex Jackson
- Heston Kjerstad
Alex Jackson has now played in 29 games for the Orioles. They’ve been very good games overall, as long as you ignore his .299 OBP. What’s been good is the preponderance of extra-base hits. He’s 29 and he plays a position where the Orioles are seemingly set with Rutschman and Basallo, so will they try to bring him back? If so, how will they manage the playing time? Can Jackson possibly repeat something close to what he’s done in the last month-plus? The answer to that second question is almost certainly no.
Not being able to put Heston Kjerstad in a more positive position here makes me sad. His big league performance this year, and Triple-A performance after he earned the demotion, is no good at all. Now he is not even playing at Norfolk, with vague reasons offered, barely even a diagnosis of anything. I wonder whether last year’s concussion effects are either still lingering or recurring, but there’s no way to know, and unless he looks entirely past it in spring training next year, no way to project him for any kind of role for anything.
Maybe back (negative)
- Yennier Cano
- Kade Strowd
- Ryan Mountcastle
It has now been about four years since I wrote on this website about Mountcastle that the Orioles are surely going to need to do better at first base than him by the time they’re good, aren’t they? Since writing that, up until this year, Mountcastle has done just well enough to keep his spot while never really seeming like he’s got an iron grip. If Mayo is the first baseman of the future, and if Basallo perhaps also will be playing some first base, it seems even tougher to fit him in. Since he’s sunk down to a .686 OPS this season, the choice should be easy. He’s also been hot lately, and if he ends the season on a heater, that number could look different.
Cano has fallen on such hard times this year that I don’t understand why the Orioles would go into another season with him being guaranteed a role. He’ll be 32 next season and he’s got an ERA over 5 in 56 games. This is brutal, yet optimism seemingly persists within the organization, generating articles like this one in The Baltimore Banner just this week about a new changeup grip.
Probably not back
- Scott Blewett
- Shawn Dubin
- Jose Espada
- Yaramil Hiraldo
- Carson Ragsdale
- Colin Selby
- Josh Walker
- Grant Wolfram
- Jorge Mateo (apologies to my wife)
- Ryan Noda
- Emmanuel Rivera
- Luis Vázquez
- Dylan Carlson
Many of the names on this list were not in the Orioles organization when the season began, and the fact that they are on the list of 40-man roster players now is one more reflection of how far off-piste the O’s have had to go in scrambling to keep a roster together throughout the season. Some of these were forced into chances by injuries, others by the number of players who were traded away ahead of the July trade deadline. Those who have minor league options in 2026 maybe are worth keeping around as depth. Those who don’t are probably not.
I’m sad about Félix Bautista’s shoulder
At a minimum, we know that Bautista will be out for 12 calendar months from the late-August shoulder surgery to repair both a torn rotator cuff. There is no way to meaningfully consider him in plans for 2026, even for the stretch run or possible postseason. This still sucks. He will linger on the 40-man through the offseason and perhaps even the next offseason after that as well. I don’t think we’ll ever see him save a game for the team again.
Pending free agent
- Zach Eflin
- Tomoyuki Sugano
- Gary Sánchez
I don’t want to see any of these guys return. If the offseason plays out in a disappointing way and it ends up that retaining Eflin is the biggest pitching move that is made, I’ll try to talk myself into it, but I don’t think I’ll ever feel too good about it.
