The Orioles have struck at the starting pitching market. ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported on Friday afternoon that the Orioles are acquiring pitcher Shane Baz from the Tampa Bay Rays. Going back to Tampa in the trade is a package of four prospects: outfielder Slater de Brun, catcher Caden Bodine, outfielder Austin Overn, and right-handed pitcher Michael Forret. In addition, the Rays will receive the Competitive Balance Round A pick from the Orioles for the 2026 draft.
First thought: That’s a lot.
Baz, who
will be pitching his age 27 season next year, has three years remaining before hitting free agency. The 2026 season will be his first year of arbitration, where he’s projected to make around $3 million.
This past season was the first of Baz’s career where he started more than a half-season worth of games. Baz pitched a full season, making 31 starts. They weren’t good starts. His full-season results ended up at a 4.87 ERA, so in essence the Orioles have surrendered this bevy of prospects for a guy who was marginally better than Cade Povich, except also with no long-term track record of durability whatsoever. That sucks. Obviously, the Orioles think that they can get something better out of Baz. It is easier to join them in this belief after watching what happened to Trevor Rogers in the 2025 season.
Baz was originally drafted out of high school by the Pirates in 2017. He was a player to be named later in a deal that also shipped Tyler Glasnow and Austin Meadows from Pittsburgh to Tampa. Baz was one of the game’s top pitching prospects basically every year from when he was drafted until when he finally broke into the majors for good in 2022.
That 2022 season didn’t last long for Baz. He had three separate procedures on his elbow in 2022, culminating with a late-season Tommy John surgery that wiped him out for the entirety of 2023 as well. The Rays kept Baz in the minors until July 2024 as he worked his way back from the surgery. Baz pitched well over 14 starts from then to season’s end, finishing with a 3.06 ERA and 1.059 WHIP. Pretty good numbers! He did overachieve peripheral stats like FIP, so perhaps his inflated ERA in 2025 isn’t too surprising.
All told, Baz has started just 54 games at the major league level since debuting late in the 2021 season. His 2025 campaign, the only healthy one of his career, saw an increase in strikeouts compared to the prior year, with a 9.5 K/9 rate. This wasn’t a case of bad BABIP luck for the righty, either, as his .303 number there is about where you’d expect. Again, this is betting a lot on a guy whose results in 2025 were notably worse than Dean Kremer’s.
If you want to feel better about Baz, here’s a little bit of cope for you. Baz was horrible at home in the 2025 season, with an .827 OPS allowed and a 5.90 ERA in 16 games. Why does that matter? The Rays were rather famously playing at the Yankees minor league stadium in Tampa due to Tropicana Field lacking a roof in 2025. Baz had a .686 OPS allowed and 3.86 ERA in 14 road games. It’s not totally crazy to focus more on that number. Whatever happens to Baz in 2026 as an Oriole, he won’t be pitching half of his games at Steinbrenner Field.
Two of the prospects the Orioles traded here, de Brun and Bodine, were part of their haul at the front of the 2025 draft class. de Brun, in particular, was selected with the draft pick that the Orioles acquired from the Rays for Bryan Baker. So now the Rays have Baker and they also have the player from that pick.
Forret, 21, was a 14th round pick in 2023 who made his way up to Double-A this year. He combined for a 1.58 ERA and 0.824 WHIP between Aberdeen and Chesapeake.
Overn was a third round selection in 2024. He was basically the only high 2024 Orioles draft pick to escape the Aberdeen curse this year. For his trouble, he’s traded to Tampa. We’ll see how much this comes around to haunt the Orioles.
The draft pick the Orioles are sending to the Rays is currently #33 in the draft. This may shift depending on a couple of qualifying offer free agent signings. One possible wrinkle of this trade is that if the Orioles sign a QO-attached player themselves, they’d lose their third round pick instead of their second round pick.
On the most recent MLB Pipeline Orioles prospect ranking, this deal sees the Orioles giving up their 6 (de Brun), 10 (Bodine), 11 (Forret), and 30 (Overn) prospects.
There is a certain dark comedic aspect to the Orioles cashing out Grayson Rodriguez for very little and then giving up a lot for Baz. A lot is riding on believing in those 2025 road numbers being the real Baz, and also on Baz being healthy for at least two of the three seasons the Orioles have acquired. Tentatively, I don’t care for it, but I’ll be happy to be wrong. That home/road ERA split really is something, and again, the home ERA was in a stadium that is literally not a major league park any more.
This is also a case where if the Orioles add a high-end free agent pitcher signing on top of this, that will be a lot more exciting than if Baz ends up being the best pitcher they sign or acquire. Give this again to Mike Elias this offseason: Whatever happens, he didn’t just sit on his hands and on his pile of prospects while not trying to improve the major league roster.
