The trade of Garrett Crochet takes another name who might have improved the Orioles off the board.
Hello, friends.
There are now three months and 15 days remaining until Orioles Opening Day 2025, and probably around two months and two days until pitchers and catchers report for the start of spring training. They still haven’t announced that officially, but it’ll be some time right around there because the first spring training game is announced for February 22 and you’ve got to get everyone in camp and a few days of workouts before that.
The last few days have been tough for those of us who thought that the main Orioles need this offseason was to make a serious improvement on the starting rotation. What’s been tough about that was mostly the number of players who looked like good options who’ve come off the board to other teams. Already reeling from Max Fried and Nathan Eovaldi reaching agreements on Tuesday, yesterday saw the Red Sox seal a deal to get Garrett Crochet from the White Sox.
The price was fairly steep for Boston to get its hands on Crochet, as they surrendered four prospects, including their two players who are on the most recent Baseball America top 100 prospect list. Those are the Red Sox first rounders in the last two drafts, catcher Kyle Teel and outfielder Braden Montgomery. Also included in the deal were an infielder, Chase Meidroth, who’s reached Triple-A, and a pitcher, Wikelman Gonzalez, who’s gotten to Double-A. These guys were in the 10-15 range in Boston’s system.
Would you have wanted the Orioles to match that price? It’s hard to do an exact 1-1 match there, since the O’s system generally is either made up of better guys than Teel and Montgomery or worse ones. Crochet had a four-win season as he posted a 3.58 ERA in 32 starts, but he averaged fewer than five innings per start and who knows what might happen as he presumably is asked to shoulder more of a workload when before 2024 he’d only ever been a reliever. The Red Sox get him for two more seasons that won’t cost too much in salary, with Crochet’s 2025 arbitration number estimated around $3 million.
Corbin Burnes is still out there. So are a couple of the qualifying offer-attached pitchers who didn’t start with the Orioles, Nick Pivetta and Sean Manaea. Non-QO pitchers like Jack Flaherty and Walker Buehler remain as well. Maybe one or more of these names would still excite you if the Orioles reeled them in. It only takes one signing to change the narrative that the O’s won’t spend for the pitching they seem to need.
Trades could come along too. Crochet was the biggest, constantly shopped name. Others are being mentioned. One rumor, that I’ve mostly discounted since it comes from Jon “Shohei Ohtani is on a flight to Toronto” Morosi, suggests the Orioles are interested in Padres pitcher Dylan Cease. That would be another one-season rental akin to what Burnes was this season. I’d rather see the Orioles spend money than prospects at this point. It’s easier for a baseball team to get more money than it is for a team to get more prospects.
The Rule 5 draft happened yesterday. The Orioles lost one player in the major league portion and six players in the minor league portion. It’s a large number for the minor league phase but unlikely that any of them individually or the group of them will be missed.
Around the blogO’sphere
Scott Boras says Orioles have been more aggressive under David Rubenstein (The Baltimore Sun)
Here’s what it comes down to: It doesn’t matter how much more aggressive they are if they don’t sign difference-making guys.
Orioles hope to continue to be aggressive shoppers in the future (Orioles.com)
Like, come on. Signing Tyler O’Neill and Gary Sánchez is not being aggressive.
A look at how the Orioles will try to get Adley Rutschman hitting again (Steve Melewski)
Brandon Hyde’s comments about Rutschman are to try to get him back to what he was doing successfully previously – specifically identifying that Rutschman was getting too aggressive on the second pitch.
Colton Cowser has ‘no doubt’ Coby Mayo, Jackson Holliday will take a leap (The Baltimore Banner)
As much as the starting pitching being addressed, these two young hitters becoming what we hoped they would be is going to be an important part of the 2025 team’s success.
Birthdays and Orioles anniversaries
Today in 1993, the Orioles officially signed free agent first baseman Rafael Palmeiro to a contract. Over the next five seasons with the O’s, he batted .292/.371/.545 (134 OPS+) and added 182 home runs to his career total.
In 2007, the Orioles went into another round of rebuilding when they traded Miguel Tejada to the Astros for five players. Four of these players eventually appeared in games for the team but none were still around by the time the team was good again.
There is one lone former Oriole with a birthday today: 2010 first baseman Garrett Atkins. He is turning 45.
Is today your birthday? Happy birthday to you! Your birthday buddies for today include: novelist Gustave Flaubert (1821), singer Frank Sinatra (1915), game show host Bob Barker (1923), Allman Brothers Band guitarist Dickey Betts (1943), and actress Regina Hall (1970).
On this day in history…
In 1866, an explosion at the Oaks Colliery in Yorkshire, England led to the deaths of 361 people, with miners and rescuers perishing over the next three days.
In 1901, radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi claimed to have received the first transatlantic radio signal, sent from a location in Wales to Newfoundland, where he heard the transmission (S – or three dots in Morse code). Modern scientists doubt the claim, though Marconi did go on to further advances in the field.
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And that’s the way it is in Birdland on December 12. Have a safe Thursday.