Baltimore has made a few rotation additions this season. They sent four prospects and a draft pick to the Rays Shane Bazwhich they monitor for three years. Baltimore also brought along Zach Eflin back on a one-year, $10 million deal after an injury-riddled season. From a depth perspective, they are in decent shape. It still feels a little light at the top. They count on it Kyle Bradish in his first full season back from Tommy John surgery. Trevor Rogers was fantastic over 18 starts, but wasn’t in Triple-A until last May. Baz has shown talent in the upper mid rotation, but very little consistency from start to start.
Framber Valdezperhaps this season’s best free agent pitcher remains unsigned. The Orioles have shown interest all winter. They have enough player talent at controllable positions to make a move on the trade front if someone wants to Freddy Peralta or MacKenzie Gore becomes available. Rosenthal suggests the Orioles could view Verlander as more of a fallback option if they can’t get away with an arm with a higher ceiling.
At 43, Verlander no longer has those kinds of advantages. However, last season he showed that he still has plenty left in the tank. He made 29 starts for the Giants, pitching 152 innings of 3.85 ERA ball. Verlander posted a 20.7% strikeout rate while walking about 8% of batters he faced. His swinging strike rate of 11% was his highest since winning his third career Cy Young with the Astros in 2022. Verlander has maintained an average fastball of 94 MPH and pitched well after an early-season muscle soreness cost him a month. He posted a 3.60 ERA behind a 22% strikeout rate over his last 19 starts.
Like Valdez, Verlander has ties to Mike Elias, the president of baseball operations in Baltimore. The O’s front office leader was an assistant general manager in Houston during the pitcher’s first season and a half with the Astros. Verlander would also join Baltimore’s history of free-agent spending under Elias. His front office has yet to sign a free agent starter to a multi-year deal, and they have often focused on older starters (e.g. Kyle Gibson, Tomoyuki Sugano, Charlie Morton) to secure shorter commitments. Verlander wants to sign a one-year contract for the rest of his career.
Last winter’s rotational movements had the opposite effect. None of Morton, Sugano or Gibson lived up to expectations and the rotation’s disastrous performance early in the season dug a hole from which the Orioles could not recover. The O’s made a four-year offer Corbin Burnes and acquired a year and a half of Eflin’s contract via trade in 2024, so they are not committed to making one-year commitments. Still, it’s true that signing Verlander would be more in line with their previous activities than a five- or six-year deal for Valdez.
The Orioles have opened the checkbook a few times this season, most notably with their $155 million Pete Alonso signature. Grid source projects their 2026 payroll at $149 million, about $10 million less than where they entered the ’25 season. Alonso, Tyler O’Neill And Samuel Basallo are the only players signed after this season. O’Neill’s contract expires after 2027, while Basallo won’t earn a salary above $4 million until 2030 (the final year of Alonso’s contract).
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