Orioles News & Notes: Andrew Kittredge, Tyler O’Neill, Jorge Mateo, Dietrich Enns

Orioles News & Notes: Andrew Kittredge, Tyler O’Neill, Jorge Mateo, Dietrich Enns

The off season hasn’t even fully kicked off, but the hot stove already warming up for the Orioles. They’ve brought Andrew Kitrid’s back. We’ll tell you how they did it coming up on this episode of the Locked on Orioles podcast. [Music] You are Locked On or your daily Baltimore Orioles podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network. your team every day. Hey there, Orioles fans. Today is Wednesday, November 5th, 2025, and welcome back in to the Locked On Orioles podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. As always, I’m your host, Connor Nukem. And coming up on today’s episode, we’re going to talk about some of the roster news from the last couple of days for the Orioles. Starting with a trade they’ve already made. Remember when they traded away Andrew Kitridge? Well, they went and got him back from the Cubs. We’ll talk about that deal, plus option decisions that were made on Dietrich Ends, Jorge Mateo, and Tyler O’Neal. And that’s all coming up on this episode of the Locked Orioles podcast, which is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now, new customers can bet just $5. And if your bet wins, you’ll get $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. Download the FanDuel app today. Well, I figured today’s episode would be a lot about the Craig Albernaz introductory press conference. It happened at Oriel Park on kind of late Tuesday morning. Mike Elias, Albernaz, and Orioles owner David Rubenstein were all there to introduce the Orioles new manager. And yeah, there were some certain takeaways from that press conference that were important, right? David Rubenstein saying multiple times that there is no kind of financial limit for the team to spend this off seasonason. They’re just looking to get the best players. That’s always nice to hear. Uh we heard that, you know, Alberaz and Elias are kind of coming together on how the rest of this coaching staff will look. We’ll get to that on tomorrow’s episode. Uh you know, there was a little bit of talk about Elias getting promoted. At the end of the day, I feel like we didn’t learn a whole lot from this press conference. probably wasn’t going to give us a full episode, but I thought at the very least, hey, what one segment of the show is going to Albertaz. And then we got a ton more news since the last time I recorded on Sunday night that we got to talk about that is honestly more important than a new manager’s opening presser. So, let’s begin with the Orioles making a trade. This is one I did not see coming, but good for them. Andrew Kitridge is back in Baltimore. The Orioles announcing on Tuesday afternoon they had acquired the 35-year-old right-handed reliever back from the Chicago Cubs in exchange for cash considerations going to Chicago. Now, you might say, Connor, didn’t the Orioles just trade Kits away and now they’re getting him back? And the answer is yes, they did. Now, Mo free agency does not open until Thursday, so you can’t sign guys until tomorrow. But as soon as it’s the day after the World Series, which was Sunday, you can start making trades. And this is legitimately like the first real move by any team of the offseason, the Orioles trading for a legitimate big league player, you know, been multiple or at least one time all-star who’s going to be a big part of their bullpen next year. They’ve kind of kicked off the off season basically for everybody in making a move like that. Now, the Orioles technically still have to say that they will be picking up the $9 million team option for Kitridge in 2026. That has to be done by the end of the day today, but the fact that they went and traded for him means yeah, they’re picking that up and he’s going to be on this team next year. Now, for Kitridge, the Orioles signed him last off season, gave him a $10 million deal for one year with a team option for $9 million that they could tack on for 2026. and he was coming off an awesome 2024 season with the Cardinals that was off injury. He came back, looked healthy, and was honestly one of the best setup man in baseball. And so with the Orioles with some questions about their bullpen, they went and get Kitridge. He looked like a really good addition. And then he had some injury troubles in spring training. Had a bit of a knee issue. Had to have knee debriement surgery in spring. They took him out for almost two months. He did not step onto the big league mound until May 21st for the Orioles. Now, he had one kind of bad fourrun blowup outing for the O’s in June, but otherwise was pretty good overall. Had a 345 erra in 31 and a3 innings for the O’s. Strikeouts were a little down, walks were a little up from 2024 in St. Louis, but I think some of that was still coming off of that knee injury. And then the Orioles traded him, right? They were out of it at the deadline. They kind of purged the bullpen. They traded Brian Baker and Sir Dominguez and Gregory Stoodto and also Andrew Kits. And the Kitards one, you were wondering a little bit more because, you know, Dominguez and Sodto were both rental relievers. Those are guys who were easily going to be traded. And although Brian Baker did have multiple years of control, he had been bad for two years finally got good again. And I think the Orioles were just kind of capitalizing on his value at that point. I think the one that was I think all of them made sense, but the one that was the most confusing out of the four you could argue was trading Kitridge because he had a, you know, a fairly cheap $9 million team option for the next year. And the Orioles probably thought he could help the bullpen. But the flip side may have been, hey, he’s an older reliever. We’re getting a good offer for him. We’re not in it this year. We can find another Andrew Kitridge for $10 million next off season. Let’s just trade him. And it turns out they did find another Andrew Kitrich. the exact same player they brought back. Now, at that deal at the deadline, the Orioles got 17-year-old shortstop Wilfie de la Cruz from the Cubs system. Now, De La Cruz was the Cubs number one signing in their most recent international amateur signing class out of the Dominican Republic. He just turned 18 back in September and had a 142 WRC plus in the Dominican Summer League between the Cubs and the Orioles in his first professional baseball season this year. So, a pretty good start. Fanrass has him currently ranked as the 37th ranked prospect in the oral system. Although Fanrass is kind of lower on him. I think MLB pipeline and other places. Baseball America do have de la Cruz ranked higher currently in the oral system. So the O’s essentially loaned out Andrew Kitridge for two months and change to the Cubs. Gave up some cash in the deal this time and got a prospect back. They essentially bought Wilfrey de la Cruz from the Cubs to get him into their system and they just didn’t have Kitridge for the two months when the Orioles weren’t competing. Anyway, Michael is coming out pretty good on the end of this deal. Now, once Kitridge went to Chicago, he was on a better team, right? You know, the Orioles were flattering. The Cubs went to the postseason this year. And Kitridge was a big part of that Chicago bullpen. Down the stretch with the Cubs, he looked like his healthy and honestly elite self. He had a 3-32 erra in 21 and 2/3 regular season innings with Chicago. 32 strikeouts to just three walks in those 21 and two/3 innings was absurd. One of his first outings with the Cubs was pretty bad. He gave up four runs and only recorded one out on August 5th. After that outing, he was elite. 19 and third innings, 186 RA, 29 strikeouts, two walks. that was third among all big league relievers from that point on in the season in strikeout minus walk rate. He was incredible. His sinker VO went up kind of sitting 96. His slider had a 54% swing in miss rate in September with the Cubs. He looked like vintage kind of you know 2024 or even all-star level 2021 with the Rays Andrew Kitridge. And the Cubs had to be feeling good about that deal because they had some bullpen questions that they addressed with that trade. And it became an even bigger trade when Cubs fireball encloser Daniel Palencia had to go on the injured list for an extended amount of time. And Kitridge was kind of the guy who semi stepped into the closer role. They used Brad Keller some in that role as well. But Kitridge kind of became that main closer option down the stretch. He even converted five saves late in the year for the Cubs and was a super high leverage reliever who was somewhat used as a closer in the postseason for Chicago as well. had a couple of really big outings in the playoffs. He closed out the clinching game three of the wildard series against the Padres’s to advance the Cubs to the NLDS against Milwaukee. And Kitch wasn’t a big of a part there, but they did push the Brewers to five games before being eliminated. And and he kind of showed that, hey, you know, it’s something he’s done here and there in his career in the past, but he could be a guy who fills in at closer if you need it, just like he did for a playoff race team down the stretch this year for the Cubs. So, you hear all that and you hear that, hey, you know, he’s only due $9 million on a team option for next year. That’s pretty cheap for a really good reliever. Why are the Cubs, a team that got to the NLDS and theoretically is going to be competing for a World Series in 2026? Why are they trading away Andrew Kitridge and basically a salary dump for cash? Well, there could be a couple of reasons. I guess you could say they are doing it. Now, 9 million shouldn’t be too too much for a guy who’s been that good, but he does turn 36 years old in March and and he is getting over older and he had a a non-armm injury this year. You maybe worry about his body breaking down a little bit, but the Cubs seem to be shedding payroll anywhere they can. Like they declined the option on Show Imanaga, one of their better starting pitchers over the past couple of years. He’s becoming kind of a a surprise starting pitching free agent this off season. Now, some think they’re shredding payroll to to make the big-time splash, maybe bring back Kyle Tucker in free agency this offseason. Others think it’s because they’re trying to shed their payroll just in general. And again, they got something for him, right? They got some cash. They don’t have to pay any of his $9 million offer or his option, I should say. And it seems like the Cubs were just kind of planning to decline that option and make Kitards a free agent. Started to shop him around in these five days and found a taker to at least get a little bit of cash to not lose him for nothing. Now, from the Orioles side, you say, “Okay, if the O’s talked to the Cubs and figured, hey, they’re going to decline his option. He’s going to be a free agent.” Why did the Orioles not just wait for that and try and resign him? Well, there’s two reasons. One, if you trade for him, you don’t let any other team talk to him in free agency. You just get him. And two, if he goes to free agency with the strong end of the year he had, he’s probably looking at a deal, you know, more like 12 or 13 million. Now you get him for just $9 million next year. And again, with David Rubenstein, what he’s talking about, that shouldn’t be a huge thing. But saving three or four million could be the difference in getting another even better reliever when you go out there in free agency. So is this move on the margins? Not as much because it’s going to be a legitimate reliever for this team. But but well done, I think, by Mike Elias and the Orioles. Now, there is still plenty of work to do to this Orioles bullpen this off seasonason. It’s getting kind of a somewhat of a full makeover heading into 2026, but as I’ve talked about, the Orioles, I think, should go and get two starting pitchers, two to three relievers, and one hitter to add to the team this off seasonason. Checkbox on one of those relievers. Now, I figured one needs to be a true closer, one a true setup guy, and one who can just help them in some way. I think Kit checks off the true setup guy, one of those three guys on the wish list you should be after and it’s someone they know already and already liked enough last season last off season to give him this contract. Again, that’s only one reliever, but he can even be your closer at times if you need him. He’s a really good setup guy. I mean, he posted again for the second straight year the highest chase rate in Major League Baseball, up at 42% this season. Guys just they can’t lay off that awesome slider. And I think the best thing about Kitridge’s season is that the one big concern about Andrew Kitridge that I actually talked about last offseason when the Orioles signed him in free agency is that as good as he had been, he was killing righties, but he was especially even in St. Louis when he had the good year last year, he was really struggling against left-handed hitters. He was mostly fastball slider, didn’t really have that old change up he used to throw that which would neutralize lefties and lefties were kind of teeing off on him. He threw the splitter a little bit this year, but not much. But he completely changed that. Not only did he get a little better against lefties. He ended up being actually better overall against left-handed hitters than he was against righties this year. And that is huge because you’re always going to trust him against righties because of just how good that slider is. But if he shows he’s better against lefties, even if that evens out and he can be kind of an even splits guy next year, that is what you want out of your setup man. don’t want your main setup man to be a platoon guy who can only have face righties. If he can get both righties and lefties out, that puts the Orioles bullpen in a much better spot. I mean, now you look back to that trade with the Cubs at deadline, you’re like, giant win for the Orioles. They get Kitridge back. They get Da Cruz as an interesting young prospect who they could either develop or trade for somebody else. And it only cost them a little bit of cash, right? These again are the kind of things on the margins that I’ve been talking about, you know, with the deals for, you know, that they made with Rico Garcia and Luis Vasquez that I talked about earlier this week where yes, David Rubenstein taking over. They haven’t made the big financial splash since he’s done that. But these little things where you can freely spend on the margins like this as well just open up the Orioles to do some things that they weren’t able to do under John Angelos. That’s been one of the bigger financial changes is if it’s these little things on the margins where you could just kick in a little extra money, you can help yourself out that you don’t mind losing a couple more million dollars. Rubenstein’s been willing to do that over these two years and it hopefully will start to help this roster more and more. That was the biggest move from this week, the Kitard’s trade. But the Orioles also had some option decisions that had to be made by the deadline at the end of the day Wednesday. And it seems like those have all already been cleared up, at least according to the reporting. Let’s start with Dietrich Ends and his new deal with the Orioles. That is coming up next. But first, this episode of the Locked On Orioles podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. The NBA is back and there is no better place to get in on the action than FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. Now listen, for NBA fans, even if you miss the start of the game or want to ride the hot hand, FanDuel has live bets on everything from who will score next to fourth quarter comebacks. Plus, you can even combine your live bets into a same game parlay for a shot at a bigger payout. It keeps every game exciting, especially when your team is out there and making that late push. And right now, FanDuel is giving customers $300 in bonus bets when your first $5 bet wins. So head to fanduel.com to sign up and play your game with FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. So for the Orioles, there were some option decisions that had to be made this week. The deadline for those was by the end of the day on Wednesday, 5 days after the World Series. And we’ll learn Thursday officially who the free agents are across the league. But for the Orioles, the one kind of laying under the radar option decision was actually Dietrich Ends. Now, Ends had a $3 million club option for 2026 in his contract that the Orioles had to decide on. I initially thought that Ends because, you know, he hadn’t had a lot of big league time. He was coming over from, you know, some other leagues, came back to the Tigers, made it back to the big leagues. He seemed like a guy who would still be pre-arbitration, you know, would be a long time away from being a free agent. But with the way that his contract was when he signed with the Tigers last off season, it actually built him in to get to free agency a little bit faster where if he got to the big leagues with the Tigers because it was initially a minor league deal, he would have that team option on a major league deal for 2026. And that is what the Orioles took on when they acquired Ends at the deadline from Detroit this year. So the Orioles had to make a decision. either accept his option, bring him back for 3 million or decline it and make ends a free agent. But Dietri was really good for the Orioles. 28 and two/3s innings, 314 erra, 28% strikeout rate, 9% walk rate with the O’s, was a complete Swiss Army knife as a left-hander reliever. Did everything from closing to long relieving and pretty much everything in between. Like I think legitimately in less than 30 innings in basically two months, Dietrich ends pitched in every single role you possibly can out of a bullpen for the Orioles at some point. And he was really good in all of them. Like it’s it’s a great forseam fastball change up curveball combo leads to a lot of soft contact. He does probably need to add another pitch or refine another pitch that helps him against left-handed hitters this offseason. It’s not something you would think of because he’s a left-handed pitcher. They generally are good against lefty hitters, but he’s a big reverse splits guy. His entire mix is basically made to get righties out, but he struggled against some lefties, especially in the power and slugging department with the Orioles this year. So, I think I think a better slider. He has kind of a bad cutter right now. A better slider extending that cutter would probably make him better against the lefties. We’ll get more on Dietrich ends in kind of a full season review episode coming up in a couple of weeks. But the Orioles decided, hey, we’re not just going to pick up this $3 million option to bring him back. We’re going to extend him even further because he has been good. So the Orioles kind of reworked his deal. So Dietrich ends will be making $2.625 million in 2026 and remained with the Orioles. So a little bit less money than it would have made if the O picked up the option, but the Orioles extended his time for another year. They tacked on that same $3 million club option, but now it’s pushed down the road for the 2027 season. And so if NS pitches well on that contract this year, the Orioles could just pick up that option for a cheap 3 million for 27 to work out of the bullpen as well. It makes sense for Dietrich Ends and it makes sense for the team. Ends, who’s been a journeyman, who’s already 34 years old, gets more contractual stability and the Orioles save a little tiny bit of money for 2026 and give themselves another potential solid relief option to have back in 2027 for a bullpen that has a lot of questions in it moving forward. Now, speaking of the lefty relievers, they also agreed to a major league deal for 2026 with left-handed reliever Josh Walker on Tuesday. This is basically the same kind of deal, pay raise deal that the Orioles did with Rico Garcia and Luis Vasquez that I talked about back on Monday’s episode. Make sure to go back and check that one out. Josh Walker, lefty reliever, 30 years old, came over to the Orioles via waiverss late this season, was optioned to AAA and six and two-thirds innings, three hits, two runs, seven Ks, a walk and a homer. pretty good for the Tides, then got injured and missed a couple of weeks. Mostly a curveball for seaming fastball lefty who will toss in kind of a sinker and a change up at times. He loves his curveball is his best pitch as a number one most used pitch. Got great stuff numbers. He has some MLB experience for the last three seasons. He’s pitched some time with the Mets and the Blue Jays out of the bullpen in 27 big league innings. in that time. He has a 659 RA, but a .400 FIP with some solid strikeout numbers and some not so great walk numbers to go with it. Now, Walker for the first time this off season is now out of minor league options. And as I explained with Garcia and Vasquez back on Monday’s episode, Walker was still going to be under contract, right? He’s currently sitting on the Orioles 40man roster. He was going to be under contract for next year whether the O’s did this or not. But what they did, and we don’t know what the number is yet, is just like Garcia and Vasquez, they basically offered him a higher salary than what he would have made. He would have made around the big league minimum of about $780,000 for next year. So basically, they offered him a little more money for next season because he is a guy on the roster bubble who is out of options. Between now and opening day, Josh Walker is probably going to be DFA by the Orioles at some point. Actually, I would almost guarantee Josh Walker is DFA by the Orioles some point between now and opening day. If you guarantee him more money, he’s less likely to be claimed by another team on waiverss because he costs more. And if he does clear waiverss and has the opportunity to decline his outright assignment and become a free agent, he would forfeit that higher guaranteed salary that you offered him. So, it makes him think twice, maybe decide to just accept that AAA assignment to continue to make whatever that guaranteed higher number of money is. So, will Josh Walker play a factor for the Orioles next year? I don’t know. Right? They brought him in for a reason. He has big league experience, has some good stuff, but it’s never really worked out at the major leagues for him. But if he does, and he can be a factor for them, this just like it did for Garcia and for Vasquez and for Emanuel Rivera last year, helps the Orioles hold on to him or gives him a better chance to hold on to him as depth moving forward. Dietrich Ends though was not the only roster decision that had to be made. However, he was the one that was the most intriguing. I would think there was one on Tyler O’Neal and there was one on Jorge Matteo. And I think we all knew what was going to happen on both of those, but we’re still going to discuss them to finish off the show coming up next. But first, this episode of the Lockdown Orioles podcast is also brought to you by Prize Picks. You and I make decisions every day, but on Prize Picks, being right can get you paid. So don’t miss any of the excitement of this sports season. 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So to finish things off on a Wednesday episode, let’s talk about the two other option decisions that had to be made surrounding the Orioles by the end of the day on Wednesday. And that was Tyler O’Neal and Jorge Mateo. Now again with the World Series ending over the weekend, free agency kind of semiops. There’s a 5-day period after the World Series where teams and players have to decide on options and also teams get exclusive negotiating windows with their own free agent. So, for example, the Orioles right now can talk to Zack Efflin and Tommyuki Sugado and Gary Sanchez before anyone else can. Now, Efflin probably the only one of the three that they even might be seriously talking with and has a true shot of being back in Baltimore, but no one else can talk with those guys in free agency until Thursday. But, you got to make those option decisions because then the full free agents are set on Thursday. The first one was Tyler O’Neal. And as expected, Tyler O’Neal has reportedly opted in to the final two years of his contract. If he hadn’t done that, he would have become a free agent on Thursday. Instead, he will be under contract for two more seasons at a total of $33 million with the Orioles. That’s for 2026 and 2027. That’s about $16.5 million per year. Now, O’Neal honestly would have been kind of dumb to opt out, and that’s why everyone knew he was going to opt into these final two years. He would have needed to opt out. he would have needed to feel comfortable that he could have gotten significantly more than a 2-year $33 million contract from someone in free agency this year. And I don’t think that was going to happen, right? He was so injured, he played only 54 games. And even when he was healthy, he was a below average hitter, just a 91 WRC plus. It was even the injured Tyler O’Neal is usually better than that. This is not the Tyler O’Neal that teams have seen for a while. This was not the really good Tyler O’Neal we saw in Boston in 2024 that made the Orioles want to go out and sign him. So, it was pretty much a no-brainer for O’Neal. Yeah, he was not going to get more than two years, 33 million. Basically, he’d have to be like, I need to get at least three years 45 million in free agency and probably more like three years 50 million to consider opting out. That’s the deal he got from the Orioles last year. He was much worse this year. He’s not going to get that contract. So, again, smart move for him. For the Orioles with O’Neal, we know he can produce. We’ve seen it mostly with other teams, but we’ve seen it. He just needs to stay healthier and he’s never going to be a guy who’s healthy enough to play 150 games in a season. That’s the Orioles knew that when they signed him. He’s always had injury issues. But what you hope is you get 120 games from Tyler O’Neal. You get him healthy for the postseason. He’s mashing bombs. He hits you 30 homers. He plays solid defense and he helps your team bring some thump from the right side. We didn’t see that at all this year because he was so freaking injured. If he can get a little bit healthier, he’s still going to be a good value at 16.5 million per year. But the O’s are going to have him unless someone takes him via trade. Probably won’t happen. They’re going to have him for the next two seasons. The other option that seemed like a foregone conclusion, but I was a little more worried about is Jorge Mateo, who was due to be a free agent after this season, except for the fact that the Orioles added on a $5.5 million club option for 2026. So for Tyler O’Neal, it was a player option. For Matteo, it’s a club option, which means the Orioles, Michael in the front office, either decide to accept the option, which means they bring Jorge Matteo back next year for 5.5 million, or decline the option, which makes Matteo a free agent. And the Orioles, unsurprisingly, decided to decline that option, sending Jorge Matteo to free agency. And again, with as many times as Matteo has survived some sort of roster crunch over basically the last three years with the Orioles, I wouldn’t have been all that shocked if the Royals just said, “Yeah, we’ll pick it up for 5.5 million. We love Jorge Mateo.” But I am so thankful that they declined this option and sent him to free agency. Not that Matteo didn’t have some good moments and some good years with the Orioles, but man oh man did it get bad here lately with the elbow injury and all the time he’s missed over the past two years and then when he’s been on the field, how much worse his production has gotten. Like it’s been ugly. Now, they’re not necessarily done with Jorge Mateo yet. I’m not going to set the full like goodbye Jorge Matteo because I’m not really sure another team is going to want Matteo on a major league contract with how bad he’s been. I think this is a guy who’s gonna get a minor league contract this off seasonason. He’s going to be looking for the best chance to get major league playing time. And who likes him better than Mike Elias and the Baltimore Orioles? So, honestly, I would not be surprised and I would almost predict at this point that at some point this offseason the Orioles bring Matteo back on a minor league deal with an invite to big league spring training. Maybe he, you know, doesn’t make the team, spends some time in TripleA, and then somebody gets injured and we see Matteo in the big leagues with the O’s at some point next year. That’s my prediction. But for now, he has officially hit free agency because I mean, in the 43 games he did play in this year, he had a 33 WRC plus, that means he was 67% worse than a league average hitter. That’s just not a big league hitter. And since he came over to the Orioles, he hasn’t hit. He’s got a 77 WRC plus in 409 career games with the O’s since he came over on waiverss from the Padres’s back in August of 2021. Now, he’s also now 30 years old. He’s he’s still super fast, but he’s slowing down a little bit. This is just a move that had to be done. Like, this is how bad Matteo has been at the plate. I know he had some cool moments, right? I know in in April of 2023, he was like the best hitter in the world. I get it. Overall, this is not a good hitter and mostly not a good baseball player at this point, right? Like, he still plays a good defensive infield, but the Orioles try to put him out there defensively in center field and that’s a disaster, too. It’s like he’s not helping this team win. He’s not worth one million, let alone $5.5 million to be guaranteed a roster spot. Since Matteo joined the Orioles in August of 2021, only 17 big league hitters who’ve had a minimum of 1,000 plate appearances in that time, which means you’ve at least been an everyday player for some part of it and a solid player for most of it. Only 17 hitters have been worse than Jorge Matteo’s 77 WRC Plus. And like half of those hitters are backup catchers who nobody expects to hit anyway. Matteo’s legitimately been one of the worst hitters in Major League Baseball who plays regularly since he joined the Orioles. Now, again, I’ll probably dive deeper into Matteo if he does actually sign with another team this off season, but I’m still convinced he’s coming back to the O’s on a minor league deal. So, we’ll leave that kind of fuller because Jy Matteo does he he he deserves a full Matteo episode if he signs elsewhere. But just because he’s now a free agent, I don’t think quite guarantees that he’s not back with the Orioles in some capacity in 2026. But that’ll do it for today’s episode. Thank you so so much for tuning in. Make sure to like, comment, and subscribe to the Lock Orals YouTube channel. And if you’re a listener, love the listeners as well. The everydayers out there. Make sure you subscribe or follow the show wherever you listen. Leave a fivestar rating and a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify. It really, really helps us out. We will be back tomorrow with another episode. We’re going to talk about the coaching news that came down on Tuesday. Yeah, there was so much news Tuesday. I couldn’t even fit it all into one Wednesday episode, so we had to push some of it to Thursday. Not only are Sherman Johnson and Tommy Joseph, the two assistant hitting coaches gone, Cody Ashley, the Orioles hitting coach, has accepted a job with the Detroit Tigers. He will not be back. First base coach Anthony Sanders is also headed to the Tigers. We’ll talk about what that means for the Orioles coaching staff under Craig Albernaz and how the Orioles will replace him because it’ll be an entirely new hitting coaching staff in 2026. We’ll run through some names with the connections to Albertaz, some connections to Elias who could be in Baltimore this off seasonason. But that’s coming up on tomorrow’s episode. Until then, I’m Connor Nukem and this has been the Lockdown Orioles podcast, part of the Locked Podcast Network, your team every day.

The Baltimore Orioles have brought back Andrew Kittredge in a trade with the Chicago Cubs! Host Connor Newcomb discusses why the O’s made the move. Then, Connor breaks down the option decisions on Tyler O’Neill, Dietrich Enns, and Jorge Mateo.

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