Orioles set sights on 3rd straight postseason, and a better ending

SARASOTA–Most of the players on the 2025 Orioles are familiar to fans. Thursday’s first workout at the Ed Smith Stadium complex will feature pitchers and catchers, who reported on Wednesday. Though infielders and outfielders don’t have to be here until next Monday, many have already arrived.

Six weeks from now, the Orioles will open their season, out of the country for the first time, when they play the Toronto Blue Jays on March 27^th.

Most of the 26 players the Orioles take with them were on the team’s roster last season when they won 91 games but scored just one run in their two-game loss to the Kansas City Royals in the Wild Card Series.

After 192 regular-season wins and two straight sweeps to end their postseason hastily, the Orioles want more — much more in 2025.

Executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias has constructed a roster that doesn’t include the team’s best starter in a generation, Corbin Burnes, or their most fearsome slugger, Anthony Santander. Both left in free agency. Elias is replacing them with multiple players.

Burnes leaves, and the Orioles sign two starters — Charlie Morton and Tomoyuki Sugano. The 41-year-old Morton has pitched for two teams that won the World Series (2017 Astros, 2021 Braves), and the 35-year-old Sugano has big-time experience in the World Baseball Classic. Sugano’s 2024 stats for the Yomiuri Giants, just 16 walks and six home runs allowed in 156 2/3 innings, are impressive, though he’s not likely to come close to matching them in the American League East.

After a season in which seven of their 13 starting pitchers were on an injured list, and three had season-ending elbow surgery in June, Elias and manager Brandon Hyde have five likely starters for the rotation: Morton, Sugano, Zach Eflin, Dean Kremer and Grayson Rodriguez. They also have Chayce McDermott, Cade Povich, Trevor Rogers, Albert Suárez and rookie Brandon Young.

Félix Bautista is back after the Tommy John surgery that truncated his 2023 season—one of the best years by a reliever. Along with Bautista are Keegan Akin, Yennier Cano, Seranthony Domínguez, Cionel Pérez and  Gregory Soto, all of whom pitched in relief for the Orioles last season. They may be joined by Suárez, if he’s not in the rotation.

There’s also an accomplished reliever in Andrew Kittredge, who had an excellent season for the St. Louis Cardinals last year setting up All-Star Ryan Helsley. The Orioles have seen plenty of Kittredge, who pitched for the Tampa Bay Rays for seven seasons.

Other than Santander and backup catcher James McCann, who inexplicably hasn’t found a team for 2025, the position players from last year have all returned.

Adley Rutschman will seek to recapture the stroke that earned him a start at catcher for the American League in the All-Star Game. His forgettable second half epitomized the team’s offensive struggles.

First baseman Ryan Mountcastle had a rough second half, too, but the Orioles are betting he’ll be energized by the closer left-field wall at Camden Yards.

Jordan Westburg is determined to play an entire season, mostly at third base, and forget about the pitch that broke his right hand and cost him nearly all the second half.

Gunnar Henderson and Ryan O’Hearn are back, too. So is Jackson Holliday, who’ll try to build on the improvements he made late in the regular season after an awful start to his career.

With Mountcastle, Holliday, Henderson and Westburg in the infield, the Orioles have O’Hearn and Ramón Urías to back them up.

They’re also hoping to utilize Jorge Mateo, whom Elias said was an overlooked absence. He also missed most of the second half after Tommy John surgery and might not be ready to start the season.

In place of McCann, who’ll be 36 in June, they signed 32-year-old Gary Sánchez as Rutschman’s backup. He was an All-Star for the New York Yankees in 2017 and 2019 when he hit 67 home runs, The Orioles will be Sánchez’s sixth team since 2021, and he caught only 27 games for Milwaukee in 2024. He could give way to top prospect Samuel Basallo later in the season.

With Santander no longer in the outfield, the Orioles kept Colton Cowser and Cedric Mullins. They hope this is the year that Heston Kjerstad will earn regular playing time and show off the power that made him the overall No. 2 selection in the 2020 draft.

The Orioles signed three new outfielders — Tyler O’Neill, Ramón Laureano and Dylan Carlson. O’Neill, who has a lengthy injury history, and Laureano, who was signed just last week, have excellent numbers against left-handers.

Carlson doesn’t figure to make the club, but he has minor league options and had enough talent to finish third in the 2021 National League Rookie of the Year voting.

Last year, O’Hearn and Rutschman were the designated hitter in 93 games. They might be joined by Kjerstad and Sánchez this year.

Unless Coby Mayo, who had a rough initiation to the major leagues late last season, makes the roster, the Orioles are likely to begin the season without a rookie.

Last year’s team was one of the youngest in the majors, averaging 26.9 years. This one will be older. Half the players on the 40-man roster will be over 30 before the All-Star break, including Akin, Bautista and O’Neill.

In 2023, the Orioles’ joyride of a season was brought to an abrupt end by the Texas Rangers. Last year, it was the unknown Kansas City Royals who swept them.

For 2025, their success will be measured not by a possible third straight postseason, but by how well they perform in the postseason.

Call for questions: I answer Orioles questions most weekdays. Please send yours to: Rich@BaltimoreBaseball.com.