Baltimore was sitting at 45-22 on June 12, on pace for 109 wins, but as the trade deadline approached, the O’s had been going through an extended down period, and there were obvious needs – starting pitching, bullpen depth, another bat or two.
GM Mike Elias, as he did at the trade deadline last year, played it conservatively, with an eye to the future.
He did get Zach Elfin (5-2, 2.00 ERA in nine appearances, seven starts in Baltimore) from Tampa Bay without having to give up much, but he gave up a lot – two of his top prospects, Connor Norby and Kyle Stowers – to get Trevor Rogers from Miami.
Rogers was 0-2 with a 7.11 ERA in four starts before getting sent down to the minors.
Yeah, yikes.
Video: Looking ahead to the 2025 Baltimore Orioles
The bullpen issues never did get resolved. Elias picked up Seranthony Dominguez (0-2, 3.97 ERA, 10 saves, one blown save in 25 appearances) and Gregory Soto (1-1, 5.09 ERA, 1 blown save in 23 appearances) from Philadelphia, giving up Austin Hays (who hit .256/.275/.397, two homers, six RBIs in 80 PAs in Philly) and two prospects.
Craig Kimbrel, the offseason pickup to serve as the team’s closer, ended up being released after blowing six saves and pitching to a 5.33 ERA this season.
Elias landed two bats, if you can call them that, at the deadline – Eloy Jimenez (.232/.270/.316, one homer, seven RBIs in 100 Pas with the O’s) and Austin Slater (.246/.342/.333, one homer, six RBIs in 79 PAs with the O’s).
The goal for Elias, it seemed, was more to keep his stocked farm system as intact as possible than to use pieces from the system to retool his team to be in the best position to win in 2024.
Again, with an eye to the future.
The trade deadline came and went on July 31 with the Orioles sitting at 65-44, a half-game up on the New York Yankees in the AL East, but 20-22 since that high-water mark back on June 12.
They’d go 26-27 the rest of the way, finishing three games behind the Yankees in the East, relegated to the wild-card round, after winning 101 games and the East Division title in 2023.
Another early exit
Baltimore was the feel-good story of 2023, winning 101 games and the division just two seasons after going 52-110.
The Kansas City Royals are the feel-good story of 2024.
A year after losing 106 games, the Royals won 86 games in 2024, secured a wild-card berth, and then eliminated the O’s in a two-game sweep, winning 1-0 on Tuesday in Game 1, closing things out with a 2-1 win in Game 2.
“Yeah, we’re very disappointed. Pretty frustrating after those couple games,” Orioles manager Brandon Hyde said, after Baltimore’s second straight playoff exit via the route of the series sweep.
The O’s scored just once in 18 innings, on a solo homer from Cedric Mullins leading off the bottom of the fifth.
Baltimore loaded the bases with no outs after the Mullins solo shot, but Anthony Santander was retired on an infield pop-up, Jordan Westburg struck out on a ball that actually hit him, and then Adley Rutschman grounded out.
The Orioles were only able to get two more baserunners the rest of the game – on a two-out walk to Westburg in the seventh, and a two-out single by Slater in the eighth.
The fizzle-out was the continuation of a concerning trend for Baltimore, which was 17th in MLB in OPS (.683) and 21st in runs per game (3.6) in the month of September.
Most concerning was the free-fall experienced by Rutschman, who hit .207/.282/.303 with three homers and 20 RBIs in 208 plate appearances after the All-Star break.
Rutschman finished up going 1-for-8 with two strikeouts in the postseason.
“I think that it’s a young player that just was dealing with some adversity, giving everything he had on a daily basis, trying to get out of it, maybe trying too hard at times,” Hyde said.
“I thought he swung the bat well today, and I was hopeful we could keep going, because I wanted him to build off his swings today. Hit the ball right on the nose to the shortstop right-handed, hit the ball on the nose left-handed. I think he’s going to come back next year, and I think he’s going to be a different player,” Hyde said.
Where things stand going forward
You have to wonder if Rutschman, at 26, three years into his MLB career, is already experiencing the decline that you see from catchers, whose careers can tend to flame out earlier than other position players because of the demands of the position.
It helps that Samuel Basallo (.278/.341/.449, 19 HRs, 65 RBIs in the minors in 2024), the #9 overall prospect in MiLB, is waiting in the wings at Triple-A.
Basallo was one of Elias’s untouchables at the trade deadline, probably, with what we’re seeing from Rutschman, for good reason.
The Rutschman struggles might also explain the decision to draft UVA catcher Ethan Anderson in the second round of the 2024 MLB Draft, as an additional insurance policy.
Anderson, in two months in the minors, has already risen through the ranks to become the #13 prospect in the O’s system, according to MLB.com.
Former UVA teammate Griff O’Ferrall, a shortstop taken in the first round of the 2024 draft, is the O’s #7 prospect.
With the second straight early playoff exit fresh in our minds, I think we can still say the Orioles are in the midst of the Elias rebuild, which started in the fall of 2018, after the O’s had lost 115 games, went through two more 100-loss seasons, sandwiched around the shortened 2020 COVID season.
The O’s have developed talents like Rutschman, the #1 overall pick in 2019, Gunnar Henderson, a second-round pick in 2019 and 2023 AL Rookie of the Year, Westburg, a 2024 All-Star in his second MLB season, Colton Cowser, a top contender in the 2024 AL Rookie of the Year race, and Jackson Holliday, the 2022 #1 overall pick, who struggled in his first MLB season, but projects as a future All-Star.
The area lacking in the rebuild is, the Elias era hasn’t seen the same success in drafting and developing pitchers.
Elias inherited Grayson Rodriguez, a first-rounder in 2018, from the previous regime, and Rodriguez, in his second MLB season, was a 2024 All-Star, with a 13-4 mark and 3.86 ERA, before going down to a right lat injury in early August.
And that’s it, really, in terms of pitching development.
Elias traded two top prospects – shortstop Joey Ortiz (.239/.329/.398, 11 HRs, 60 RBIs in 2024) and left-handed pitcher DL Hall (1-2, 5.02 ERA in 2024) to Milwaukee for a one-year rental of former Cy Young Award winner Corbin Burnes (15-9, 2.92 ERA in 2024).
Burnes was as advertised, but he’s a free agent, and is expected to be a $200 million-plus man, and highly sought after.
“We’ll see what happens,” Burnes said in the locker room after Wednesday’s Game 2 loss. “I haven’t thought much about what’s going on next. It’s going to be a crazy offseason, but still just trying to digest what happened. It was an early exit to what we thought was going to be a long run.”
Also headed to free agency is Santander (.235/.308/.506, 44 HRs, 102 RBIs in 2024)
“Obviously, we don’t know what’s going to happen,” Santander said through team interpreter Brandon Quinones.
“Just really happy and proud, and I thank this fan base for supporting me and this team for giving me the opportunity to play here all these years,” Santander said.
Heston Kjerstad, a first-round pick in 2020, slots in as the guy out in right field if Santander bolts as expected.
And Coby Mayo, a corner infielder in the minors and the organization’s top prospect, would seem to be a fit in left.
Mayo hit .293/.372/.592 with 25 HRs and 73 RBIs in the minors in 2024.
The 2025 O’s should have back first baseman Ryan Mountcastle (.271/.308/.425, 13 HRs, 63 RBIs in 2024), who is still under team control, with Holliday at second, Henderson (.281/.364/.529, 37 HRs, 92 RBIs in 2024) at short, Westburg (.264/.312/.481, 18 HRs, 63 RBIs in 2024) at third, and Cowser (.242/.321/.447, 24 HRs, 69 RBIs in 2024) in center.
The big questions: starting pitching, with Rodriguez as the ace, and not much behind him in the rotation, and the bullpen, where the goal is to have closer Felix Bautista (8-2, 33 saves, 1.48 ERA in 2023) back from Tommy John surgery.
The 2025 season will be an important one for the Elias rebuild, if only because, a team coming off back-to-back playoff appearances, and early exits, with the level of talent that Elias has at the MLB level and in the minors, can’t be rebuilding forever.
At some point, you’re not a young team on the rise anymore; you’re just a team.
Where things stand right this second, everybody being disappointed about the early exit, is the last time it’s appropriate to feel this way and think that it’s OK, because they’re all still kids.
“Yeah, we’re very disappointed. It’s definitely not ending,” Hyde said. “I think, especially when you lose like this, there’s frustration, there’s anger, there’s disappointment, because you felt like there was opportunities there in those couple games to change the score, and it didn’t happen.
“I’m proud of our team. I thought we had a really good first half. Things were going well. Second half we had a lot of bumps in the road,” Hyde said. “I thought we battled as well as we possibly could. We persevered. We got into the postseason. We hosted a wild card. We just had a tough time offensively these two games against a really good pitching staff and a scrappy team.”