There’s a theory that rebuilding teams need to pick the right moment to go for it, the exact right time to jump into the metaphorical deep end and add big important pieces to create their next World Series contender. If that’s so, then when is that moment for the Orioles? Almost certainly not right now. The team is young, the organization’s most important pieces are very likely still in the minor leagues, and the roster, while enticing, has more holes than can be filled with big pieces on a reasonable payroll. In short, the O’s are still a few years away. Even so though… at least by last season’s record the Orioles aren’t that far off. What if the Orioles’ goal was to compete for a playoff spot in 2021? Could they do that? And how?
The Orioles finished last season with a .417 winning percentage. That equates to a record over a full, 162 game season of 68-94. The worst AL playoff team last season was the Blue Jays who finished with a .533 winning percentage, or an 86-76 record over a full season. That means, if you accept those records as accurate depictions of where those organizations were at the end of last season, the Orioles are about 20 games behind the last Wild Card spot. That’s a lot of ground to make up, but let’s see what we can do about that.
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The first five starters for Baltimore last season were Tommy Milone, Alex Cobb, Wade LeBlanc, Asher Wojciechowski, and John Means. Three fifths of that rotation won’t be suiting up for Baltimore in 2021 and that’s a good thing. After the holdovers, Cobb and Means, the Orioles have three open spots. At least to start the season, it’s likely two of those spots will go to Dean Kremer and Keegan Akin. Both impressed to varying degrees during call-ups at the end of the 2020 season, and there’s reason to believe both can perform better than the 6.19 ERA put up by the three departed starters (I’m not sure I’m totally buying in Akin’s case, but we’ll leave that alone for now). The fact that the Orioles have Michael Baumann and Zac Lowther in Triple-A likely waiting and available to step in in case of injury or bad performance, and top prospects DL Hall and Grayson Rodriguez likely in Double-A bodes well for improved depth and strength in the rotation. That said, those four minor leaguers might not be ready yet, and likely aren’t ready to start the season in Baltimore, let alone put up good numbers in the major leagues, so that leaves a hole in the rotation. If you want to compete in 2021, this is a prime spot to add wins. That means bringing in either a big free agent or a good starter in trade. So that’s need number one.
Moving on, the Orioles bullpen was pretty good in 2020 and the good news there is that other than Mychal Givens, the rest of the pen will be back in 2021. Bullpens are like waves in that they go up and down, but this is a pretty young group and there’s no real reason to expect huge struggles. Adding a good reliever wouldn’t hurt however, especially one who could nail down the back end of the pen, if not a closer than a 7th/8th inning lock-down specialist. That said, adding one reliever is not a high priority item, and really, that’s the kind of thing that can be done in-season. It wouldn’t hurt, but better to put resources to use elsewhere.
In contrast to the pen, the lineup figures to look different in 2021. Hanser Alberto, Jose Iglesias, and presumably Chris Davis (any team trying to win won’t be starting Davis) will be gone from the opening day lineup. In their place will be a newly healthy Trey Mancini, a full season of Ryan Mountcastle, and a hole at shortstop. Chris Stoner, Bob Harkins, and I discussed this on the most recent episode of The Warehouse podcast, but the hole at short is particularly well timed for the Orioles as a number of star-level shortstops figure to become available in trade over the next season, including Javier Baez, Carlos Correa, Francisco Lindor, Corey Seager, and Trevor Story. All of those players will be free agents after the season and will be under 30 years old in 2022. Indeed we’re already hearing rumors about some of those players being available this off-season.
So, putting all of that together, if the Orioles were going to attempt to make up the 20 game difference in the standings and put themselves in actual honest-to-goodness playoff contention, they’d need to make at least two big additions: one atop the rotation and one elsewhere, preferably at shortstop. As for names, adding Correa and Noah Syndergaard, two players with one year left on their deals before free agency, for example, would add about 10 wins to the club. Then the plan would be to make up the remaining difference through better performance from existing, younger players, like Mountcastle, Kremer, Austin Hayes, and Akins. A plan like that could bear fruit in 2021, but of course adding two big-named players like Correa and Syndergaard in trade would be very expensive in terms of prospect capital and would set back the Orioles organization’s rebuilding efforts accordingly. Adding similar players through free agency wouldn’t hurt the team’s prospect stockpiles, but would use up a lot of available money. Also, the current free agent market is relatively limited in terms of the top end talent the Orioles could require. Adding, for example, Trevor Bauer and D.J. LeMahieu and then acquiring a starting shortstop in some other fashion could be effective.
Alternatively, adding Bauer and then trading for Lindor (and extending his contract so he doesn’t leave via free agency after the season) might be the most prudent course of these available options. That’s taking on a lot of money, but for a top starter and a star shortstop, it’s probably not unreasonable money. The cost in prospects to acquire just Lindor would be something the Orioles could (and I will argue should) do.
There are likely other targeted additions that would be necessary, such as a good bullpen piece, another infielder (LeMahieu makes sense if we’re going crazy here), if they are really trying to build a winner right now. In the end, fun exercise though it may be, we all know how this is going to go. The organization is going to continue their build through the draft. They’re going to keep the payroll low and not make any major free agent signings until at least next season. Just because the Orioles are a few years away though doesn’t mean they couldn’t push on the gas pedal a little bit. They could! I just wouldn’t expect it.
Orioles Analyst
Matthew Kory is a Orioles / MLB Analyst for BSL. He has covered baseball professionally for The Athletic, Vice Sports, Sports On Earth, FanGraphs, and Baseball Prospectus. He lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife, two boys, and his cats, Mini Squeaks and The President. Co-Host of The Warehouse.