Will the Orioles actually sign a difference-making starting pitcher this offseason? I’ll believe this is going to happen when I see it happen. They do at least seem to be staying active in checking around on many of the remaining names seen as being near the top end of the market this winter. The Baltimore Banner’s Andy Kostka reported on Monday morning that the O’s have shown “particular interest” in a trio of starting pitchers: Ranger Suárez, Michael King, and Tatsuya Imai.
Ordinarily, I don’t put
much stock in rumors that are just about showing interest. When those are put out there by national media figures, they’re often agent-driven things that are partially aimed at goosing the market. People who are really involved in Orioles decisionmaking aren’t telling reporters, local or national, about it.
Although Kostka’s article doesn’t say who the sources are for the team showing interest, it does go on to quote or summarize the thoughts of four different unnamed agents on what’s gone on with the O’s over the past year. These agents could be directly involved with one of the players, or not. This particular rumor does have added plausibility since we all know that the Orioles need to get a top-of-the-rotation guy and these pitchers are ones who might fit that bill, or something close to it, for at least a few seasons more.
There is also the fact that showing interest doesn’t mean much if you don’t end up signing any of the players. If Mike Elias checks in with an agent to get a sense of the early asking price, that’s showing interest. He made contact. But if he’s not interested in even that kind of “get in the door for the bidding” price, what good is it? It’s not any good. Nor does it improve the roster if you show such serious interest to have the runner-up bid as a player signs elsewhere.
Where the “particular” interest fits in here is something we can only guess. That sounds to me like it’s something in the realm of, made it known that they’ll offer enough money to have more serious conversations later. Which, again, doesn’t do anything if they don’t make the top bid for one of these guys later. There are always going to be a bunch of teams in need of starting pitching.
Suárez, 30, has the most MLB experience of this trio of pitchers. The lefty has pitched to a 3.38 ERA with the Phillies over the past eight seasons, missing a handful of starts in each of the past two years while combining for a 3.33 ERA, right around his career number. The folks at MLB Trade Rumors projected a five-year, $115 million deal for Suárez. That’s $23 million per year.
King, also 30, has fewer than 500 innings under his belt. Orioles starter Dean Kremer has King beat by about a full season’s worth of innings, and Kremer still has two more seasons before becoming a free agent. King, a righty, mostly pitched out of the Yankees bullpen before being traded to San Diego ahead of the 2024 season. In two years as a starter with the Padres, King posted a 3.10 ERA, though he only started 15 games in the most recent season due to separate injured list stints for a pinched nerve in his shoulder and inflammation in his left knee. He’s projected for four years and $80 million.
Imai, who will turn 28 early next season, is coming over to MLB from Japanese baseball. That means that, unlike Suárez and King, he will not cost the Orioles a draft pick if he is signed. It also means that he doesn’t have any kind of substantial track record in facing MLB-caliber hitters. Will he be able to adjust his arsenal to be the kind of top-of-the-rotation starter that his expected contract suggests? Imai is projected for six years and $150 million, which would also involve paying a posting fee to his Japanese team, the Seibu Lions, of about $25 million on top of that amount.
Every one of these guys is going to come with risk, and that’s true as well if you expand to add the last of the high-end names, Framber Valdez, too. The Orioles are going to know that as well as anyone, after last offseason saw them reportedly make an offer to Corbin Burnes that, if Burnes maximizing his career earnings was the primary motivation, he arguably ought to have taken instead of the deal he inked with Arizona.
Burnes suffered UCL damage in June and needed Tommy John surgery that could wipe him out until the 2027 season. That would have been crippling for the Orioles, if they had really spent $45 million per season on him for four years only to see him taken out for all but two months of the first two seasons of the contract. The Orioles ended up shouldering a different risk: That their assembly of rotation options for 2025 would be enough to get them through the season. We know how that turned out. They cannot afford taking a similar risk for 2026, so they’re going to have to get somebody good.
We return to the original question: Will the Orioles actually do it? I’m still skeptical. For now, at least, it seems like the team knows that they need to do this, so we’ll find out if that gets them to go where no O’s front office has gone before.
