Right before the season, the Orioles signed Shane Baz to a contract extension before ever throwing a pitch with the team. Just in the last week, they signed Kyle Bradish, a much more familiar face to Orioles fans, to a contract extension as well. Now that Mike Elias is starting to actually spend money on starting pitchers who he’s already familiar with, could another move be coming?
In this week’s survey, I asked Orioles fans whether the team should make Trevor Rogers the next guy to get a contract
extension. I expected a majority in favor, but even so I was blown away by the margin here. This was the result:
91%! You can’t get 91% of many groups of people to agree about anything. After what Rogers did last year and what he’s been doing since the start of June, Orioles fans are ready to see more of him, and they’re ready to spend some of David Rubenstein’s money to make it happen.
Whether the Orioles brain trust themselves have this same appetite is less certain. One complicating factor is that Rogers is now just two months away from hitting free agency, so if they’re going to make an offer, it’s going to have to be big enough to keep Rogers from rolling the dice the rest of the way and finding out what he can get on the open market. Baz and Bradish had much more time remaining, making the appeal of guaranteed money more interesting for them.
Another complicating factor about that coming free agency is that if the Orioles fall out of the picture over their next eight games before the trade deadline, Rogers might have more value if he is traded to a real contender. Or perhaps the team would choose to just keep him to season’s end and extend him a qualifying offer, expecting him to decline. This would net them a draft pick in 2027.
Rogers is a tough guy to value, since his track record is one without much durability and without consistent quality. His season high in major league innings is 133, and he hit that one five years ago. He has never had two good seasons in a row. That includes last year into this year; Rogers has a 4.17 ERA after last night. It’s mostly fine, but not “sign that guy for all the years and all of the dollars” exciting. There is a lot riding on whether he can keep this current hot streak going until season’s end.
This week’s survey is sponsored by FanDuel.
