The Orioles also have questions to address in the outfield and at catcher.
For the second straight season, an exhilarating Baltimore Orioles offense fell on its face in October. Outlasted in the AL East by the New York Yankees, the 2024 Orioles scored just one run across two losses to Kansas City in the wild-card round.
This is still a healthy organization loaded with talent, but the future has arrived at Camden Yards. No longer can the O’s gesture toward a hopeful future. It’s time for the Baby Birds to grow up.
Here are five questions that will define Baltimore’s offseason.
From 1993-2023, the Orioles were owned by the Angelos family, whose frugality drew ire from many Baltimore ballfans. So after private equity billionaire and native Baltimorean David Rubenstein purchased the team in March 2024, optimism reigned.
During his first year in charge, Rubenstein oversaw a notable bump in payroll — from $66 million at the end of 2023 to $103 million at the end of 2024.
Heading into his first winter at the helm, Rubenstein’s appetite to spend remains a mystery. The organization has not doled out a multi-year free-agent contract since 2018, when they signed starter Alex Cobb to a four-year, $57 million deal. We can almost guarantee that cold stretch will end this winter, but for whom and by how much?
Orioles general manager Mike Elias has proven himself capable of building a division winner on a shoestring budget, but having spending power would obviously make his job easier. Is Rubenstein willing to push payroll past $150 million and into the league’s top half? That question, more than any other, will dictate how the Orioles seek to craft their roster for 2025.
Last season, there was no debate. That’s because the Orioles had just traded for Corbin Burnes, an ace of the no-doubt variety. The 2021 NL Cy Young winner took the rock on Opening Day and 31 more times in 2024, posting a 2.92 ERA along the way, the lowest mark by an O’s starter since Mike Mussina in 1992. Burnes capped his year in Charm City with a phenomenal, eight-frame losing effort in Game 1 of the wild-card round. It was everything the O’s paid for when they sent two highly touted prospects to Milwaukee for Burnes.
Now the 30-year-old right-hander is a free agent, one whose track record will command a massive contract somewhere around $200 million. Reports have indicated that the Orioles are serious about trying to retain Burnes, but there’s a strong chance that the Birds will be outbid.
If that’s the case, somebody else will have to lead the line in Baltimore come March. Zach Eflin, whom the O’s acquired from Tampa Bay at the 2024 deadline, is the in-house front-runner, with young flamethrower Grayson Rodriguez right behind him. Or the Orioles could go shopping for a non-Burnes free-agent frontline arm such as Max Fried or Blake Snell. ESPN’s Jeff Passan mentioned on the Baseball Bar-B-Cast that he expects Baltimore to end up with an established hurler such as Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, Walker Buehler or Shane Bieber on a short-term deal.
Nearly 19% of the Orioles’ long balls in 2024 were slugged by the Venezuelan right fielder, who is now a free agent. Santander is not a complete player — he doesn’t hit for average, he chases at a high rate and he plays a below-average outfield — but 44 taters don’t grow on trees, not even in Idaho.
The Orioles couldbring Santander back, but a reunion feels extremely unlikely. It’s outside Elias’ MO to drop fat stacks on a one-dimensional, 30-year-old corner outfielder when the club has a handful of enticing internal options. Heston Kjerstad, the No. 2 overall draft selection in 2020, appears to be the likeliest pick. The 25-year-old was limited by injuries and an overcrowded outfield in ’24, but he showed well in 114 plate appearances. He has a history of upper-minors performance and should be the right fielder in Baltimore on Opening Day.
Behind him, there’s top prospect Coby Mayo. The 22-year-old was ruthlessly overmatched in a 46-PA big-league taste in 2024, but his light-tower power gives him a supersonic ceiling. Mayo has played exclusively corner infield in his minor-league career, but he isn’t stellar there and could start to spend some time in the grass.
Those two alone are unlikely to be a like-for-like stand-in for Santander’s production. The O’s will also be counting on a breakout from second baseman Jackson Holliday, further improvements from left fielder Colton Cowser and a bounce-back from catcher Adley Rutschman to make up the difference.
Baltimore’s 2024 season came to a crashing end with a listless, embarrassing offensive showing at home against Kansas City. The Birds managed just one run across 18 innings. It was the second consecutive year that Baltimore’s lineup looked unsettled and uncomfortable in a playoff atmosphere.
The team’s co-hitting coaches from the past few seasons, Matt Borgschulte and Ryan Fuller, both departed last month — Borgschulte to the Twins and Fuller to the White Sox. Former big-league third baseman Cody Asche, who has been on the staff since 2023, is set to be the new hitting coach. He’ll be joined by two new voices, former MLBer Tommy Joseph and former O’s minor-league hitting coordinator Sherman Johnson.
Will that be enough? Or will the O’s be active in shuffling the personnel? It’s unlikely, given that Elias doesn’t seem the type to overreact to five poor playoff performances. Baltimore has the league’s fourth-best offense since the start of 2023, a fact that should lead to continuity over change.
Rutschman, hailed as the face of Baltimore’s recent resurgence, was downright horrendous over the second half of 2024, with a .555 OPS after July 2. It’s also notable that his offensive numbers were significantly better when he was DHing instead of catching. That Rutschman, the much-ballyhooed franchise catcher, started at DH for the club’s first playoff game feels … important.
James McCann, who served as Baltimore’s No. 2 catcher the past two seasons, is a free agent. If the O’s bring him back, it’s fair to expect a similar timeshare. But if the Orioles opt to sign or trade for a more established secondary option, that could mean Rutschman sees even more time at DH. On the flip side, if the Orioles move forward with the current backup on their roster, René Pinto, it could portend optimism about Rutschman’s ability to handle a heavier load. Baltimore’s current top prospect, Samuel Basallo, is also a catcher, albeit one whose bat far exceeds his glove.
Getting Rutschman right is arguably more important to Baltimore’s future than any other move the team could make this winter, a process that’s happening behind the scenes. But which catcher joins — or doesn’t join — the organization to back up Rutschman could provide clues as to how the Orioles will handle him moving forward.
