There are few things as fun in baseball as when a player comes essentially out of nowhere to end up on your favorite team and makes a great first impression by lighting the world on fire for weeks or months on end. In 2024, Emmanuel Rivera joined this list of players, with Mike Elias plucking Rivera from anonymous failure with the Marlins and being rewarded with an incredible month-plus of hitting that those Orioles really needed. He even had a fun nickname – El Pulpo, “The Octopus.” Of such things are short-term
legends made.
The magic is seldom repeated. Steve Pearce’s 2014 campaign was followed up by a 0.0 WAR year in 2015. Delmon Young’s season following the Double ended with his being released in July. In this case, the Orioles knew they wouldn’t be getting more magic from Rivera in 2025. As good as Rivera was in 27 games a year ago, they did not even keep him on the 40-man roster through the whole offseason. He was designated for assignment. No other team wanted the then-28-year-old essentially for free on waivers, so he stayed with the Orioles organization.
This turned out to be the first of four times that the Orioles DFA’d Rivera over the course of 2025. Nobody claimed him any of those other times either. The Orioles did not want to need Rivera, but injuries kept happening and so his transaction log looks like this:
- April 28 – Orioles selected the contract of Emmanuel Rivera from Norfolk
- June 10 – Rivera designated for assignment (outrighted to Norfolk June 12)
- June 28 – Orioles selected Rivera’s contract from Norfolk
- July 1 – Rivera designated for assignment (outrighted July 4)
- August 27 – Orioles selected Rivera’s contract from Norfolk
- September 16 – Rivera designated for assignment (outrighted September 19)
That’s a frantic list of 40-man roster-related activity. You might see a guy get optioned and recalled so often, but the constant DFA merry-go-round is not as common. No wonder no other team wanted him: Rivera was no good this year, in line with a career that, largely outside of last year’s one magic month in Baltimore, has been no good. When all was said and done across these stints in 2025, Rivera batted .250/.291/.283 across 42 games. He did not hit any home runs. He did allow a home run when pressed into emergency duty as a pitcher in a blowout.
The times where Rivera was on the Orioles largely coincided with the times that Jordan Westburg was on the injured list. Two times, the day that Westburg came back was the day Rivera was DFA’d. They would have rather had Westburg be healthy. We would have preferred that outcome as well. This is not the largest reason that the 2025 Orioles season failed, but it is a reason.
With all of the roster maneuvering, Rivera didn’t end the major league season with the Orioles. He will be a minor league free agent this offseason. I figure he’ll end up signing with a different team, though if he likes the organization and he’s comfortable as the up-and-down guy who’s only in MLB if Westburg gets hurt, maybe he’d re-sign here. I won’t lose any sleep over his choice. He won’t be blocking a prospect from getting playing time if he’s Norfolk’s third baseman (or first baseman) in 2026.
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Luis Vázquez is another infielder who would never have been here if some other things had not gone wrong. The Orioles acquired him in a cash considerations transaction over the offseason and dumped him from the 40-man roster before the season began. He waited with Triple-A Norfolk for a chance, which arrived when Jorge Mateo, the Plan A backup infielder, was injured. Vázquez had a second stretch with the big league club begin on August 1, the day after so many guys were traded and there were many openings.
In comparison to Rivera, Vázquez was at least marginally more interesting to have around in the organization. The 25-year-old had a full complement of minor league option years entering the 2025 season, meaning that there was little cost to the Orioles having him around at Norfolk to see if he developed into something, even if that something is nothing more than a utility infielder. As far as any of us – including Elias – knew back in February, Vázquez just as easily could have turned into what Jeremiah Jackson became this season.
Vázquez did not turn into what Jeremiah Jackson became. He hit decently in his time with Norfolk, batting .271/.343/.413 across 43 games. That’s decent enough where you can squint and say, okay, maybe this guy can get by in a utility role for a short time. That’s not how it worked out. Over 32 games, Vázquez posted just a .448 OPS in the majors. It doesn’t matter how good you field if that’s how you hit. (Mateo, it turned out, was not much better in his 42 games this year. That’s the subject of another article.)
The most memorable contribution for Vázquez to the 2025 Orioles might well be the number of times he was pressed into duty as an emergency pitcher. The O’s were blown out so many times this year that there were five different position players who recorded a total of eight outings as pitchers this year. Vázquez is unique among the five for two reasons: He pitched more than once (four times, in fact) and he didn’t allow any runs. I won’t say it’s impressive, because it’s just a weird fluke that would absolutely not be repeated next year, but it is a fun and curious fluke.
Consider the others who pitched: Alex Jackson, three runs in one inning. Gary Sánchez, four runs in one inning. Jorge Mateo, five runs in one inning. Rivera, eight runs in one inning. Take these outings away from the Orioles season tally and their team ERA drops by 0.12 runs. And then there was Vázquez, not exactly balancing it out, but plugging away and putting up zeroes.
The only cost to keeping Vázquez around into 2026 is a 40-man roster spot. He can be freely optioned for two more years. The thing about that is there would need to be some kind of demonstration that, even as an “in case of emergency, break glass” infielder, that he can at least hit well enough to be worth keeping around for that. He hasn’t done this yet. He’s hit well enough at Triple-A to suggest possibly he might, if he’s given a chance.
We’ll see how Elias values the roster space. I won’t be surprised to see Vázquez trimmed off the list over the winter. If I have to think about him in the course of the 2026 season, that probably means something else bad has happened for the Orioles.
Tomorrow: Tyler Wells
