The Orioles bought another veteran arm this past winter, and for a while it looked like they had made the same familiar mistake all over again.
Chris Bassitt signed a one-year, $18.5 million deal with Baltimore on Feb. 13, nine days before his 37th birthday, joining the long line of aging starters the Orioles front office has preferred over a true top-of-the-rotation ace. The appeal was easy enough to see.
Bassitt had spent the previous three seasons with the Blue Jays, was a former All-Star, and posted an above-average 109 ERA+ in Toronto. He also said the right things after arriving, saying he came to Baltimore because he believed the club had the talent to win the World Series.
But Orioles fans had heard versions of this story before, and they had one simple request: don’t become the next Charlie Morton. Morton’s one-year, $15 million deal in 2024 had blown up in spectacular fashion, with the 41-year-old right-hander putting up a 5.42 ERA before being dumped at the trade deadline.
Bassitt didn’t have to be great to avoid that fate. He just had to be competent.
Instead, his first month was a mess. He gave up four runs in 4.1 innings in his debut, then was tagged for six runs in two innings in his next start.
It took until his fourth outing for him to reach five innings, and even that game - a scoreless start against the Guardians - didn’t change the overall picture for long. After 10 starts, Bassitt’s ERA sat at 5.51, worse than Morton’s.
The Orioles were nowhere near a World Series run, and Bassitt was part of the reason.
Then came the injury. On June 3 at Fenway Park, Bassitt left after three innings with low back discomfort and wound up on the injured list for more than two months. At that point, his first season in Baltimore looked like a disaster in every sense: ineffective, unavailable, and trending toward one of the worst recent veteran-pitcher signings the club has made.
The second half, though, told a different story. Bassitt came back in mid-August and was much better, going 5-1 with a 3.74 ERA while the Orioles won six of his eight starts.
That wasn’t ace-level production, but it was a lot closer to the pitcher Baltimore thought it was getting. It also raised the possibility that the back issue had been bothering him well before he finally exited that June start in Boston.
Even with the improved finish, Bassitt’s final line wasn’t pretty: 9-5, a 4.59 ERA, and 1.0 fWAR. For a 37-year-old, many of the numbers were the worst he’d posted in a decade, including his ERA+ (89), WHIP (1.549), H/9 (10.6), and K/9 (6.5).
He wasn’t fooling hitters either, ranking in the eighth percentile in K% and the fifth percentile in chase percentage. The season was better than it looked in late June, but not nearly good enough to justify $18.5 million.
By the usual FanGraphs estimate that one win above replacement is worth about $8 million on the open market, Bassitt’s year fell well short of his salary. Baltimore shouldn’t re-sign him, and likely won’t, unless the club believes the second-half version is the real one over a full season.
What Bassitt did provide, though, was something the Orioles badly needed: a veteran voice that didn’t dodge the hard truths. In The Baltimore Banner’s 2026 Orioles postmortem, he talked about the need for real organizational change and a renewed emphasis on fundamentals.
“I think the most impactful and important changes for this organization going forward is the people like Shane Baz, [Kyle] Bradish, Pete Alonso, Gunnar Henderson to walk into a room next year with the entire minor league system, especially coming from Gunnar, who’s been through this minor league system, and say, ‘Hey, I know what we’ve done in the past. But what we’ve done in the past is not good enough. And we are about to make some small changes, some major changes, some things that are non-negotiables, some things that are not going to be tolerated anymore.’”
He also stressed the importance of the basics.
Bassitt emphasized that the Orioles need to focus on “all the little things. Rules off the field, rules on the field.
Baserunning rules, hitting rules, your work, your game preparation, your lifts. Whatever it may be.
Pick the subject, there’s rules for it.” Bassitt added, “I think players in this room have got to grab the reins and responsibility of what it takes to be a big leaguer who really wants to win.”
That kind of candor may have been Bassitt’s most valuable contribution in Baltimore. As for the pitching, the Orioles got too little, too late.
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