The Orioles’ pitching staff was the reason they lasted as long as they did in 2026, even if “as long as they did” still wasn’t very long. For a stretch in the middle of the season, though, the rotation did enough to keep the team afloat, and that makes the 2027 picture worth sorting out now.
Once you start breaking the staff into buckets, the shape gets clearer. Some arms are locked in, some are likely back, and some are all but gone. And because this is the Orioles, the whole exercise has to be filtered through the reality of how Mike Elias has built the roster.
The clearest names in the “back” column are Baz, Kyle Bradish and Brandon Young. Baz and Bradish are signed long-term, while Young is young, cheap and controllable.
Around them, the Orioles will need to find better depth than they had with Chris Bassitt and Zach Eflin, at least until the next wave arrives. That next group is led by Anthony Eyanson, who came over in the Adley Rutschman deal, and Joseph Dzierwa, the second-round pick in 2025.
In the bullpen, Yennier Cano should be part of the mix again. The Orioles just extended him, and even if he’s cheap enough to move later, they’ve kept him around for a reason.
Rico Garcia also earned another look after rebounding from a midseason slump. Alex Hoppe showed enough right after arriving in the Taylor Ward salary dump that Elias will try hard to turn him into something next year, even with command issues that are likely to show up.
Anthony Nunez has stuff and has had his moments, and Cam Sanders has shown flashes too.
Then there’s the middle ground. Luis De Leon could begin back in Triple-A, but he remains one of the organization’s top pitching prospects.
Felix Bautista is in that group as well, though his case is about health as much as role. He has one more year of arbitration eligibility after battling through multiple surgeries, and the Orioles would love to see him back in regular action in some form.
What they should not do is assume he’s the closer.
Ryan Helsley, meanwhile, is not opting out. The Orioles overpaid for a broken closer, and he gave them 15 mostly rough innings. He’s staying put.
The Orioles are also expected to give Trevor Rogers a qualifying offer. If they weren’t planning to, they would have moved him at the deadline.
The message they sent in August was that they couldn’t get more than a compensatory pick’s value for him if he left in free agency. Rogers remains volatile, which could shrink his market, but the weak free-agent class might work in his favor.
There are also several arms who look much less certain. Cade Povich is back in Triple-A, so he is not the lefty answer for the 2026 rotation.
The Orioles need a left-handed starter to open that season, and they know it. On the relief side, Walker and Wolfram are journeymen trying to win jobs, but the club really needs better left-handed bullpen help than what Wolfram provides, especially with his reverse splits, as lefties hit .281 off him and reach 36% of the time.
The free-agent side of the staff looks even thinner. Kittredge is nearing 40, and using him in the ninth inning was a lot to ask.
Eflin’s hefty option is not getting picked up, and he may be finished after years of injury. Bassitt, who is 36, needed in-season surgery this year.
Akin was bad before he got hurt, and his deal is up too.
The bottom line is hard to miss: the Orioles need real lefties with swing-and-miss in the bullpen next year, and they need a lot better starting depth than they had this season.
In Other News...
Orioles Front Office Shake-Up Raises A Bigger Question About Team Direction
Matt Bloods departure from the Orioles removes one of the most familiar faces in a front office that helped shape the clubs recent rise. As vice president of player and staff development, Blood had been a key part of the organization since 2019, with responsibilities that stretched across player development, amateur scouting and the draft.
His exit comes at a time when Baltimore is already navigating new ownership and management changes, which makes the timing harder to ignore. For a team that has built much of its identity around a strong development pipeline, the bigger question now is how much the Orioles baseball operations are about to change, and who will be steering that next phase. [Read more 🡒]
Orioles MVO Debate Comes Down To One Tough Question
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Pete Alonso has emerged as the clear favorite after pacing the club in multiple offensive categories, but the ballot still has room for more than one line of thought. Rico Garcia, Blaze Alexander, Brandon Young, Trevor Rogers and Kyle Bradish have all remained in the mix, and next weeks finish should say plenty about how this group of voters weighed impact across a long season. [Read more 🡒]
Orioles Got The Win But This Felt Like The Same Old Problem
The Orioles grabbed a 7-4 win over the Blue Jays in the series opener, and the second inning did most of the heavy lifting. Baltimore hung five runs on Max Scherzer, a burst that gave the game its shape early and helped the club get enough separation to survive a few shaky moments later on. Chris Bassitt worked five innings for Toronto, allowing two runs on six hits and three walks, but the bigger story was Baltimores offense jumping on an established veteran before the night could settle into a more familiar, tense script.
Even with the lead, the game had the feel of something Orioles fans have seen before, with Toronto chipping away and forcing Baltimore to keep answering. The bullpen did enough to close it out, but not without giving the Blue Jays a late opening that brought the tying run to the plate and made the final stretch far more stressful than the first few innings suggested. [Read more 🡒]