Tyler O’Neill’s second season in Baltimore never got enough traction to change the story around him.
The Orioles asked less of him in 2026 than they did during his first year with the club, but the lighter workload still didn’t keep him on the field. O’Neill appeared in 85 games, made 61 starts and played defense in 67 of them.
For a player making $16.5 million per year, that was already a limited role. Even so, the injuries kept coming.
His year started with a concussion after an illness led to dehydration, causing him to faint and hit his head. That sent him to the injured list from April 9 through April 23.
He came back in late April and remained part of the outfield mix for most of the season, but another setback arrived in late August when he suffered a rotator cuff strain. He later received PRP injections in September, and that ended his season.
His final game came on August 22.
The bat was quiet for a long stretch before he finally gave the Orioles a burst in July. By the end of June, O’Neill was sitting on a .182/.282/.270 line with two home runs, six doubles, 17 walks and 43 strikeouts.
There were some hints buried in the data, but nothing close to a real payoff. Then from July 1 through August 17, he posted a .289/.359/.602 line with eight home runs, two doubles, nine walks and 26 strikeouts in 30 games.
That run pushed his season numbers to .223/.310/.395, which looked better, though still far from what Baltimore had hoped for.
The late surge never had a chance to become the foundation for something bigger. O’Neill closed the season 0-for-11 over his final four games before the shoulder issue shut him down. That left the Orioles with another year where his production came in short bursts and his availability was a problem throughout.
There is a case to be made that the concussion and the uneven role made it hard for him to find a rhythm early on. Maybe July was the start of something.
Maybe the injuries just kept interrupting the version of him the Orioles were trying to see. But his track record makes that case hard to trust.
O’Neill has never been a sure thing when it comes to staying healthy. His high-water mark for games in an MLB season is 138, set in 2021 with the Cardinals.
He played 113 games for the Red Sox in 2024, the season before he signed his three-year deal with Baltimore. Even when he’s useful, there usually seems to be at least one long trip to the IL baked into the year.
That reality has to shape how the Orioles think about 2027. They can’t count on him to man a corner spot for 140 games, because he has never done that. His shoulder injury and September PRP injections add another layer of concern, even if reports say he should be ready for spring training.
There is some flexibility built into the situation, though. O’Neill is entering the final season of his contract in 2027, which means the Orioles can adjust if he struggles, if the team falls out of the race, or if the injuries pile up again.
Since much of the money is already spent, the club wouldn’t be boxed in forever. If they need a 26-man roster spot later in the summer, cutting him would at least be on the table.
For now, though, the Orioles may not have a better answer. Outside of Colton Cowser’s glove, their outfield is mostly unsettled.
O’Neill, flawed as he is, may still be the closest thing they have to a known offensive commodity among the outfielders on the 40-man roster. There’s no real savings in moving on from him right now, so the team has little reason to rush the decision before it knows what else it can do.
That puts the offseason focus squarely on the outfield. The free-agent class is thin, and names like Randy Arozarena, Ian Happ and Seiya Suzuki are already older than O’Neill is now, which makes that path feel unlikely.
A trade could be the better route. Another possibility is shifting some infielders to the corners, with Coby Mayo and Blaze Alexander emerging as the most obvious candidates if everyone else is healthy by spring.
After two years, the Tyler O’Neill experiment has not delivered. And unless the Orioles find a better answer elsewhere, he may end up serving as an expensive backup plan rather than an everyday fix. Going into 2027 with him penciled in as a full-time corner outfielder would be asking for another letdown.
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