Three reasons why the Baltimore Orioles WILL turn things around in 2026

Three reasons why the Baltimore Orioles WILL turn things around in 2026

Things went very poorly for the Baltimore Orioles in 2025, but on today’s episode, I’m going to tell you why they’re going to be back on the upswing in 2026. You are Locked On Orioles, your daily Baltimore Orioles podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. Hey there, Orioles fans. Today is Tuesday, October 7th, 2025, and welcome back into the Locked On Orioles podcast, part of the Locked On Network, your team every day. As always, I’m your host, Connor Nukem. And coming up on today’s episode, I’m going to give you the three reasons why the Orioles will turn things around and get back to playing good baseball, get back to the postseason in 2026. This is an episode where you’re going to hear the positives, the things the O’s can turn around. We’ll talk about how they just can’t simply be as injured as they were this year. We’ll chat about how the base level of the rotation, even before additions, looks a lot better than it did last season. And finally, we’ll talk about how yes, the O’s have to build a bullpen, but probably the easiest part of your roster to build in one off season. But that’s all coming up on this episode of the Locked On Orioles podcast, which is brought to you by Game Time. Download the Game Time app. Create an account and use code locked on MLB for $20 off your first purchase. So, I’ve got three reasons why I think the Orioles will turn this thing around in 2026. Let’s start with reason number one. The first reason is they simply just can’t get this injured again. Now, the Orioles were pretty injured down the stretch in 2024. One of the maze reasons why they kind of limped into the playoffs that year. They were even more injured in 2025. Dan Zimorski, notably an Orioles fan, did a piece on fan graphs. Now, this was back on September 16th. There was still about two weeks remaining in the regular season, so these numbers aren’t fully complete. But he did a piece trying to quantify how much fan graphs wore each team had lost due to injuries this season. He did it by looking at projections for the players who were out and also weighing how long they were out. So obviously if a player missed two weeks, it weighed differently on a team than a player who missed two months and also how good that player was, not necessarily when they were on the field, but what their projections were coming in. So, for example, player like Colton Cowser had pretty solid projections coming into the season. He clearly, even when he was on the field, was playing pretty hurt. We learned about the broken ribs that he had when he was on the field. He was not good this year. Now, when he was on the field, he wasn’t good. That wouldn’t be what his projections are though for the rest of the season. So, it gives the Ors a little more leeway and like, yeah, if Cowser had been fully actually healthy even when he was in the field, he probably would have been better. In Dan Saborski’s rankings using the Zip’s projections that he runs at Fan Graphs, the Orioles finished second on this list with the most fan graphs were lost to injury this year at 17.0. The Astros were number one at 17.7. And the Astros seemingly were running a AAA team out there by the end of the season. They also didn’t sell at the deadline, so there was more kind of good players to get hurt and add to these numbers as well. Now, this does not equate to you saying the Orioles lost 17 team wins via injury and that if they were fully healthy, they should have won 92 instead of 75 games this season. That is not exactly how the war works, but the 17 F4 is a ton of production to lose in one season. For example, Gunnar Henderson was the Orioles number one player this year by F4. He was at 4.8. Let’s just say he was at five. The Orioles essentially lost more than three Gunnar Henderson 2025 seasons off this team. That is a ton of production that they lost via injury. It shows you that A, the Orioles were very injured, just base level. No matter how good the injured players were, they were one of the most injured teams in baseball. and B, a lot of the players who were injured were projected to be some of the Orioles best players. Those two things combine to put you number two on this list and a pretty easy number, too. They were well above the teams that were like third, fourth, and fifth on this list at Fan Graphs. The Orioles, of course, had 26 players on their opening day roster. 16 of the 26 players on the opening day roster spent time on the injured list. And that does not include Grayson Rodriguez, who was expected to be on the roster, didn’t make it because he was injured, ended up missing the entire year. That also doesn’t include Tyler Wales and Kyle Bradish, who we knew would be out for most of the year, but are still important pitchers for this team that they did not have because of elbow surgery they got back in 2024. The position players, though, were hit the hardest. And that’s why by the end of the season, you had a lot of people saying, “Hey, Connor, I’m like more worried surprisingly about this offense than I am about this pitching as we get to the end of this year.” And that was a fair sentiment, but the hitters, even though it seemed like a million pitcher injuries, the hitters were actually hit harder by injury. 11 of the 13 position players who made the opening day roster spent time on the injury list. The only players who didn’t were Jackson Holiday and Ryan O’Harn. O’Harn was traded at the deadline. And Holiday, we found out at the end of the year, was dealing with a knee thing from time to time and even missed a couple of games at the end of the season. This is the Orioles opening day lineup. remember a lineup that went into Toronto, the team that ended up winning the AL East and scored 12 runs just obliterated them 12-2 on opening day and that was probably the most positive point of this season when they were 1 and0 with a 12-2 opening day win over a division rival. But that offense looked great on opening day. This is how it lined up. Colton Cowser leading off coming off a year where he finished second but should have won AL rookie of the year. Fourth game of the year dives head first into first base. misses two and a half months with a broken thumb, comes back, gets a concussion, misses more time, has a rib injury he’s trying to play through when he comes back from slamming into the wall. Just a lost season. Adley Rutman hitting second, homerred twice on opening day. Missed over two months with two separate oblique injuries, one to his left side, one to his right side. Jordan Westber, we learned, got banged up in that initial series in Toronto. didn’t go on the injured list until like May with a hamstring issue, but he admitted in April he was playing hurt and then he had an ankle injury late in the year. Missed two and a half months in total with those injuries. Ryan O’Harn was healthy. He hit fourth in the opening day lineup, but he was traded at the deadline. Tyler O’Neal hit fifth, homerred on opening day for the sixth consecutive year, the Orioles big hitter addition to this lineup. Now, he’s had his injury passed. He’s been on the injury list basically more than anyone. You know, you’re not getting Tyler O’Neal to play 140 plus games. You’re hoping for 120 that he’s out there and he can be productive when he is out there, which is what he gave to the Red Sox in 2024. Tyler O’Neal played only 54 games. It’s a third of the season. Missed over three months with multiple injuries. He was supposed to be their big power bat. Ryan Mount Castle hit sixth in the opening day lineup. Missed over two months with a hamstring injury. Cedric Mullins hit seventh. missed a couple of weeks with a hamstring injury and was traded at the deadline. Ramona Aras, batting eighth, missed a couple of weeks with a hamstring injury, also traded at the deadline. And then hitting ninth was Jackson Holiday, who was mostly healthy the whole year, but had that knee injury pop up at the end of the season. And that’s not even counting also Gunnar Henderson, who was not on the Orioles opening day roster and was not even in this lineup, their best hitter and best player that scored 12 runs on opening day because he had an oblique issue in spring training that caused him to miss the first couple of months of the season on the IIL. And when he came back, he basically didn’t play in spring training. So that whole month of April was essentially Gunner spring training ramping back up and then he finally got grooving in the month of May. They missed him for a while. So you have all those hitter injuries. It feels it’s not impossible because guys could get injured again, but it feels impossible for the Orioles to suffer this many injuries or at least have this level of injury to be ranked second in that Fangraph’s ranking of injuries for a second consecutive year after they ranked fairly high up there at least in the second half in 2024. They just statist statistically speaking, I know that’s not how it works with human bodies, but they’ve got to be healthier next year. And again, this is without mentioning any of the pitcher injuries that the Orioles sustained. Of course, Tyler Wells and Kyle Bradish, we knew they were out. You thought you’d have Grayson Rodriguez. Instead, you did not get one single pitch thrown by Grayson Rodriguez, who could have been the ace of this staff this year. That’s not great. How about Zack Efflin? Your opening day starter. Makes three starts, goes on the injured list, is basically never the same for the rest of the season, misses, you know, fourish months of the year. Albert Suarez seems to be, you know, a reliever and your top rotation depth. Makes one appearance in the second game of the year. Has a shoulder injury. Doesn’t come back until midepptember. Basically misses five months. Felix Bautista, you finally have him back from injury. He missed all of 2024 after Tommy John. He looks a little shaky, then settles in. Then July shoulder injury. Done for the year. Done for probably all of next year. Trevor Rogers. This one we didn’t know at the time because coming off an awful 2024 and you didn’t expect much from him, but sustained a knee injury in the offseason. Missed all of spring training. Really didn’t come back for rehab starts until what was it the end of April, beginning of May when he got his season started and didn’t debut for the Orioles till the end of May. They basically missed two months of Trevor Rogers. And then we saw he ended up being one of the best starting pitchers in Major League Baseball for those final four months. What happens if you had him for two months? You didn’t because of an injury. And then there’s even other guys, right? Andrew Kitridge is signed to be kind of your main setup guy from free agency. He gets a knee injury in spring training. He misses the first two plus months of the year. Even guys like Brandon Young, you know, he they called on him early in the year because they had no starting pitching. Then he went down with a shoulder injury. Then he came back, then he had the leg injury that caused him to miss, you know, the last couple weeks of the season as well. All these pitching injuries of guys being out and you had others, you know, relievers like Keegan Akin and others hit the injured list from time to time this season. It was an injury disaster. And oh yeah, I only mentioned Adley Rutman. The Orioles used seven catchers this year. Seven catchers because Adley missed big time with multiple injuries. Gary Sanchez, who they signed to be the backup, missed a lot of time with multiple injuries. So you bring in Jacob Stallings and Chadwick Trump and Maverick Handley. Maverick Handley suffers a serious concussion. Chadwick Trump suffers a serious injury. So then you have to go and trade for Alex Jackson. You had to bring David Bonos on the roster for a couple of days. And the Jackson thing ended up working out. He might be on this roster next year. That was a good find. But you bring in Trump and Hanley and they get hurt. And even though Stallings didn’t get hurt, he was terrible. He eventually gets DFAD. You don’t expect to have to use seven catchers in one season. They could be injured again next year. They’re already going in with injuries. We know Felix is going to be out. You know, status is obviously going to be up in the air for someone like Grayson Rodriguez. However, there’s no way they’re going to be this injured. You have to at least believe that. And I think there’s a good amount of you that can feel good about believing that. Like, you can’t be this injured again. That was a crazy amount of injury that the Orioles sustained. They they got to be healthier. Now, how productive are those guys when they’re healthy? We’ll see. But health is going to make this team just better heading into 2026. And as I mentioned, although a lot of it was the position players, the the rotation took its lumps as well in terms of health, but the state of the rotation right now honestly looks better than it did at this point last year. And while the O still need to add, it’s a much better starting point for them. We’ll talk about that for the second reason the Osworth turned around coming up next. But first, this episode of the Locked on Orioles podcast is brought to you by Monarch Money. 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Effin Suarez, Rodriguez, Wells, and Bradish is a solid fiveman rotation. If the Orioles went into a season with those five as their rotation, you’d feel pretty good. And all those five were essentially out for the entire year. That’s not great. The Orioles ended up 24th in rotation RA in Major League Baseball at 4.65 this season. Now, they had a 605 rotation erra in April, which basically destroyed the season. Charlie Morton and Dean Kramer were awful in April. They had to go to Kyle Gibson at some point there in April, and he was even worse bringing things down. They began the year with Zack Efflin, Dean Kramer, Charlie Morton, Tommy Yuki Sugano, and Kate Povich as their rotation. If the Orioles do not make a single addition to their starting rotation this off seasonason and they went into opening day 2026 with the best they had to offer inside the organization and you assume solid health, this is what the rotation would look like. Kyle Bradish, Trevor Rogers, Dean Kramer, Tyler Wells, and then Grayson Rodriguez with a giant question mark next to his name. even with the question mark next to Grayson about his injuries and obviously that assumes health for all these guys which is it’s not smart to go into a season assuming health for your pitchers as we know from the Orioles and just the general state of Major League Baseball and elbows and shoulders right now. The only non Kramer pitcher because Dean Kramer would be in both of these rotations 2025 and 2026. The only guy in 2025 that is an upgrade over anyone in 2026 is probably what Zack Efflin was at the beginning of this year versus the current state of Tyler Wells. Now, Zack Efflin now after the back surgery and stuff, I’d probably take Tyler Wells over him, but at the beginning of this season, I I think I absolutely would have taken Zack Efflin over Tyler Wells. That is the only upgrade in that rotation. So, you got one tie, Kramer and Kramer. one upgrade Ein over Wells and the other three you give the advantage to the 2026 projected rotation. I mean, you got Kyle Bradish, who came back, gave you five starts after Tommy John, a 253 RA, 37% strikeout rate, 8% walk rate. Stuff looks great. Fastball, curveball, velocity. Grayson Rodriguez going to start throwing here in October to hopefully be ready for next season. Dean Kramer, after a terrible April, had a 3.57 erra from May 1st on this year. Tyler Wells came back for four starts after elbow surgery. Had a 291 erra in those four starts. And then Trevor Rogers obviously was unreal in the 18 starts that he made. I mean that projected five without any additions is just simply better than the five they began 2025 with. And again there could always be injuries that are suffered in the offseason or in spring training. It always happens. It’s probably going to happen to next year’s Orioles. But they are starting at a better spot because even at this point last year, we knew there was no Bradish, no Wells. And you were even in a similarish spot from with Grayson Rodriguez because he missed the final two months of 2024. And you know, you didn’t have Morton or Sugano who were signed later in the season. You were basically looking at Efflin Kramer and a bunch of question marks. I mean, you were probably thinking K Povich because he did have a great September of 2024, but it was a lot of more question marks than we feel right now for next year’s rotation. They’re just in a better base level spot. And obviously the Orioles know and we know the O’s still need to add starting pitching even though they are in a better base level rotation spot because you know you’re looking at that group right now. Even if you don’t have Grayson Rodriguez, Kay Povich, Brandon Young, Trey Gibson right there to take that number five spot is is still solid certainly to have and they become your depth if Rodriguez is okay. But if you actually go add like I want the Orioles to do, I want them to go and get a topline starter and a middle of the rotation guy, whether it’s trades, free agency, whatever, those are the two kind of starters I want. Even if it is maybe a, you know, let’s say a Dylan CE and a Mel Kelly are your two additions that for me would push Grayson Rodriguez because of innings questions and Tyler Wells just as he’s done it before to the bullpen starting next season. And this is just with those two additions. Now again, especially Dylan CE among CE and Kelly are going to cost some money this offseason. They were going to have to actually spend. They haven’t shown a willingness yet to do that. especially with pitching to get out a multi-year deal to any free agent starting pitcher. So, we’ll see. But if you got CE and someone like Mel Kelly, you would have a rotation of Kyle Bradish, Dylan CE, Trevor Rogers, Mel Kelly, Dean Kramer going into the year with your rotational depth as Tyler Wells, Grayson Rodriguez, Kovich, Brandon Young, Trey Gibson. That’s a good five behind them. And and Grayson’s really your wild card. Like he could just be healthy enough to jump into that rotation. Even if you didn’t get Dylan Case, if you just got a middle rotation guy like a Melro Kelly, you’re in a wildly better spot to begin the year. Now, you have to expect injuries to happen. Absolutely, they’re going to happen. You’re going to get some of these guys knocked down. Hopefully, maybe not to the level we’ve seen over the last two years from the Orioles, but it’s pitching. You just have to expect pitchers to get injured at this point in Major League Baseball. But the base level looks so much better. And if they make the additions they need to, again, this hinges on the Orioles adding to the team, but when you go 75 and 87, you need to add to the team the next off seasonason if you’re going to get back to the postseason. So, if they do what they need to do, this rotation could look really, really good. And for a good chunk of this year, it was the thing that buried them. If they can start the year with a much much better starting five, you get off to a better start. You feel better. The clubhouse feels better. And then you can get back to playing the level of Orioles baseball we came to expect before this season with a rotation that looks a whole lot different heading into next year. So, those are the two reasons. Third reasons about the bullpen. It’s probably the biggest question going into next year. But here’s why it’s really not super worrisome and why it’s my third reason that a turnaround is coming in 2026. 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Again, that’s code L O C K E D O N MLB for $20 off. Swipe, tap, ticket, go. Download Game Time today. So, on to my third and final reason why the Orioles will turn things around in 2026 and get back to the postseason. Number one reason on the list was that they just they can’t get this injured again next year. Number two was even without any additions, the rotation looks so much better than it did at this point last year. And number three is a bullpen, if you’re smart, like the Orioles are, is the easiest part of a roster to build. Because the Orioles bullpen, it came into 2025 looking pretty strong. Like I talked about on yesterday’s episode, they had a bunch of veterans, but then four of them were traded away. So Anthony Dominguez, Gregory Sto, Brian Baker, and Andrew Kitridge all were used in high leverage and then were all dealt away at the deadline. To be fair though, Brian Baker was the only one out of those four who was guaranteed to be under contract on this team in 2026. Now, the bigger loss is Felix Bautista, who has not traded, but got shoulder surgery. And he’s going to be out for most and potentially all of the 2026 season. And when he’s been healthy the past couple of years, he has been sometimes the best and at worst a top five closer in Major League Baseball. That is another if the Orioles just went 2024 without him, went to Craig Kimbell, they’re going to be without him for they should plan for all of next year. So, the bullpen clearly goes into next season, even with the struggles on the hitting, the struggles on the pitching, the bullpen has the most question marks just because of lack of talented players on the roster in those spots at this point heading into 2026. Even the two healthy holdovers, Keegan Aken and Yen Cano, they have questions. Aken had a 506 FIP, highest of his career, saw his walk rate double this season. Canó had a 512 RA and even spent some time in AAA this year. I don’t think you can guarantee that either of them will be in the bullpen. I think that it’s a good chance they both are and can hopefully have bounceback seasons, but there’s no guarantee there’s those are guys that you can count on. And all this it sounds concerning because bullpens are more important than they’ve ever been in Major League Baseball. However, the bullpen, as we’ve seen from Mike Elias himself and the Orioles over the past few years, the bullpen really is the easiest part of a team to build. The Orioles in 2023 when they won the AL East 101 games, they were second in bullpen war and fifth in bullpen erra. Here are the main contributors to that bullpen. I think I listed how many did I list here? I listed 12 pitchers, right? Usually a eightman bullpen. You got guys going in and out. These are the 12 kind of main contributors to the Orioles bullpen that year and how they acquired those guys. Felix Baltista, best closer in baseball, minor league signing who they developed and kind of finally popped and found his command. Yenir Canó was a throwin in the Jorge Lopez trade the year prior. At best, you could see Canó as the number two piece behind Kate Povich. At worst, he was 28 with bad numbers in the big leagues. You could see him further down that list. They turned him into an all-star relief. Danny Koul got him off waiverss in a trade for cash a day before opening day and he was one of the best leftyear relievers in baseball. CNO Perez, a waiver claim from the year prior. Awesome. Brian Baker, a waiver claim from the year prior. Had great moments. DL Hall, the top pitching prospect, converted starter, started to pitch really well out of the bullpen. Jacob Webb, they claimed him off waiverss in August of that year and he immediately was like awesome and had like 10 straight scoreless appearances to begin his Orioles career. Keegan Aken, another, you know, former good prospect, converted starter into a good reliever. Tyler Wells at that point in 2023, he was a starter for a while, but when he came back later in the season, converted starter to a reliever, he was the closer at the end of the year with Felix out. Mike Bowman did kind of struggle at the end of the year and go back down to TripleA, but was one of the best Orioles relievers in the first half. Good starting prospect for the Orioles, converted to a reliever. Jorge Lopez, they brought him back. He was twice a waiver claim by the Orioles and was in this bullpen. And Nick Vesby, just kind of a converted pitcher who was a reliever in the minor leagues and then they got him to the big leagues to help out. If you notice, none of those 12 pitchers were signed to a free agent contract or the main target in a a buyer type trade for this team. The only guy that I didn’t mention that I would throw onto that list is Shinturo Fujnami. He would I guess you could put the list of 13 even though he wasn’t on the playoff roster. He pitched enough innings for the team down the stretch. I would put Fuji in there. Yes, he was acquired a couple weeks before the trade deadline. They traded, you know, one minor league pitcher to get him. And he wasn’t even on the playoff roster to this team. That was the only I feel like true like investment they had in any of these 13 relievers was Fuji. And still none of them free agents. put together the second best bullpen in baseball by spending zero free agent money on it. Now, that doesn’t mean the Orioles shouldn’t spend free agent money on the bullpen this off season. They should because at the very least, without Felix and the current state of the pen, you at the very least need to bring in a true legitimate better than Craig Kimbro closer for this team in 2026. And that is going to cost money. Those guys are out there. Devin Williams, Riceella Glacius, Ryan Hley, some bigger names as well. are going to be on the board this off seasonason. And what’s nice for the Orioles is they’ve shown they are willing to offer that kind of money to the best relievers. They had an agreement with Jeff Hoffman, one of the best relievers in baseball. He hadn’t been a full-time closer, but was a kind of a closer, kind of the best setup man in the league. They had an agreement with him for a three-year, $40 million contract last offseason. Now, they saw something they didn’t like in his medicals. They reduced the offer. He didn’t take it and ended up taking a deal with the Blue Jays. But I like that under Rubenstein and Elias last offseason they were willing to give out multiple years and spend you know 40 plus million dollars on a relief pitcher because that’s what’s it’s going to take you know three four plus years 50 $60 million maybe to get one of these true closers but if you can get one of these guys my my target for them is Devin Williams he’s number you kind of sneak peek for my wish list he’s number one on my list right now if you can get one of them and you’re willing to spend on one of them the rest of the bullpen shouldn’t be too difficult to fall into place you probably sign one more like middle relief setup option, you know, a Tyler Rogers, Luke Weaver, Shawn Nukem type pitcher to add to the bullpen. And then you find some of the waiver claim guys from this year that stick, you know, a group coming from the Cade Strad, Dietrich Ends, Rico Garcia, Grant Wolf, you know, Yarm Heraldo group. Some of those guys are going to stick in the bullpen. Some of them are going to be really good depth to have in AAA who will be part of that, you know, 12 or 13 guys who you really need to use. And then you’ll bring in, you know, a few waiver claims this offseason. They were always claiming guys on waiverss throughout the end of the year when they had those open spots in the bullpen. I’m sure they’re going to claim a few more guys or add a few more guys on minor league contracts with big league spring training invite to try and find another Yarm Heraldo to pop for this team. Like that’s certainly going to happen to add more of that depth. And then you have the starters who presumably are going to be moved to the bullpen. Tyler Wells, Grayson Rodriguez, Kay Povich, like all have a chance to be moved into the pen and be productive relievers for the O’s next year because they get better in the rotation. And then there’s much better AAA depth than there’s been. Anthony Nunees, Tyson Neighbors, Cameron Foster were all guys they acquired at this year’s deadline who are AAA type players who could be added to the 40man and could be legitimate pieces for this bullpen. You know, you have guys like Levi Wells and Carter Balmler coming through the the system who could be interesting as relievers next year. One thing Mike Elias has shown he can easily do is build a good bullpen without giving many resources to it. They’re going to need to give it more resources because again, they’re going to need to pay for a closer, but Elias has paid for a reliever every year. I’m not worried about them getting like a setup type guy on a one-year deal. That’s absolutely going to happen. And I’m not as worried because he was willing to offer that contract to Jeff Hoffman last year that he will give out what it takes to get a Devin Williams type guy as your ninth inning. It’s not super hard for the pieces to fall into place. Sometimes it can backfire, right? Sometimes all these guys just don’t work out as well as they have in the past. But Elias has been able to do it time and time again to build these good bullpens like this that if he has a couple of big money guys in there, the rest are going to fall into place. And I’m not super worried about this bullpen. That’s the biggest question mark. You get the bullpen together, the rotation’s in a better spot, you add a little bit there, and you just, you don’t, you’re going to get some bounce back from these hitters just from being healthy. They’re going to be healthier. There is still the core, the skeleton, the meat, too of a postseason team in 2026. And those, for me, are the three reasons why the O’s are going to get back there next season. That’ll do it for today’s episode. Thank you so so much for tuning in. We’ll be back tomorrow. Until then, make sure to like, comment, and subscribe to the Locked Onorals YouTube channel. Leave us a fivestar rating and a review. Follow, subscribe to the show wherever you listen. And you can always reach out locked on [email protected]. I did the positive version of this episode today. Tomorrow though, it’s not a guarantee that they’re going to be back to the playoffs. Tomorrow is the negative version. Tomorrow is three reasons why this Orioles season might have been a precursor to things continuing to go poorly in 2026. We’ll talk about what those reasons are coming up on tomorrow’s episode. But until then, I’m Connor Nukem and this has been the Locked On Orioles podcast, part of the Locked On Network, your team every day.

It was not a good year for the Baltimore Orioles, but there is still hope for next season. Host Connor Newcomb gives you the three reasons why the Orioles will turn it around in 2026, including better health, a better rotation, and the ease of building a bullpen.

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