What the Pete Alonso signing means for Coby Mayo’s future with the Orioles

What the Pete Alonso signing means for Coby Mayo’s future with the Orioles

Pete Alonzo is an oral and that is awesome. But what does it mean for Kobe Mayo? That’s coming up on this episode of the Locked on Orioles podcast. 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 Monday, December 15th, 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 continue our Orioles season review series for the O’s from 2025. And on today’s episode, we’re going to talk about Kobe Mayo because, well, he’s been in the conversation for a while now since he debuted in 2024. And there’s continued to be questions on where does he really fit long-term into this Orioles team. Well, those questions doubled, tripled, and quadrupled when the Orioles signed Pete Alonzo last week. So, what in the world now do they do with Mayo? We’ll talk about what we saw from his 2025 season, the ups, the downs, and what his future may hold. But that’s all coming up on this episode of the Locked Orioles podcast, which is brought to you by FanDuel. If you want to be right in the middle of the action this season, visit fanuel.com and place your NFL live bets all season long. So, let’s talk Kobe Mayo. his season with the Orioles as he actually just turned 24, which was funny enough considering uh it was on the day that the news broke that the Orioles were signing Pete Alonzo was Kobe Mayo’s 24th birthday last week. So, we wish him a happy birthday. But in his age 23 season with the Orioles, his second chance at the big leagues after he debuted briefly in 2024, Kobe was better. He was better. I I think it’s inarguable that he was better. Was he good? I think most people would say no. At least in his and it really wasn’t a full season in the big leagues because he still spent a good chunk of time in AAA and even when he was in the majors, he wasn’t really playing every day until later in the season. But all in all, Mayo played 85 games at the big league level this year after only playing 17 last year. And in 294 plate appearances, he did hit 11 homers, but it came with a 217 average, a 299 on base, and a 388 slugging. That was good for a 95 WRC plus. So he was he was pretty close to league average. He was about 5% worse than league average. A 9% walk rate you like to see. A 29% strikeout rate is not so hot, but it was cut down from the year before. And overall, he was worth 0.2 Fan Graphs. Now, this player review series that I’ve continued took a little hiatus during the winter meetings, but have continued to do during this off seasonason breaking down the seasons of kind of every somewhat important at least player for the Orioles who is still on the 40man roster. I’ve been going descending order by fan graphs war, but we are taking a little bit of a detour here this week to make sure we can talk about Kobe Mayo today and then also Ryan Mount Castle tomorrow because they were not the next two up on the list in terms of war they acrewed. But these are guys who are very much in the conversation now after the Orioles signed Pete Alonzo last week. So let’s talk about Kobe Mayo and talk about first what went right in his 2025 season. And I think what went right is he got his first real runway to get big league playing time. There were more injuries to Jordan Westber, more injuries to Ryan Mount Castle. Then Ramona Aras gets traded at the deadline and you know Ryan O’Harn was traded at the deadline as well and the abs were kind of right there for Mayo as I mentioned 85 games and 294 played appearances. Now he began the year in AAA and he didn’t love that and he made that known but that’s understandable for a player who thinks he deserves to be on the big league roster. He was called up in late May. He played a little bit in June. He played more in July, but wasn’t an everyday player. And then with Aras and Lauriano and O’Harn and Mullins dealt away at the deadline and Ryan Mount Castle still dealing with some stuff, it was time for Kobe Maya to really play after the trade deadline. And after the deadline in those final two months was when we saw at least a league average hitter. 49 games, 180 played appearances, and a 94 WRC plus down the stretch. Only Gunnar Henderson, Jackson Holiday, and Jeremiah Jackson had more played appearances for the Orioles after the trade deadline than Kobe Mayo did. And only Gunnar Henderson played in more games than Mayo did down the stretch. So, he truly got his first real chance. It was it was the closest he’s been to an everyday chance since getting to the big leagues. And I will say the next thing that went right was he did take advantage of that chance in the month of September. He was he was not good in August. The Orioles kind of made it known, hey, we’ve made these trades. We’re going to play Kobe Mayo every day for the final two months. That began in August. And he was awful. He hit 136. He had a 38% strikeout rate. He had just a 32 WRC plus in the month of August. He was 68% worse than a league average hitter. He was literally the second worst qualified hitter in all of Major League Baseball in August. Only Pete Crow Armstrong of the Cubs was worth in that was worse, I should say, in that calendar month. But the calendar turned to September and Mayo continued to get those chances because the Orioles were out of it despite his struggles. And September looked different. He got 84 played appearances in that month. He slashed 301, 393, 548, much closer to a Kobe Mayo minor league stat line. Still a 29% strikeout rate, but he upped his walk rate to 11% and posted a 165 WRC plus, basically flipping his season in that final month. He was the 16th best qualified hitter in all of Major League Baseball in September this year and the best on the Orioles. So the question really is okay what changed for Mayo in that month of September that made him so good. Well the first thing was he started to hit breaking balls. It is something he had not done at all throughout his major league career and he had always been better hitting fast balls than breaking balls while in the minors but he just couldn’t see a breaker at all for his first, you know, 300 some plate appearances I would say. But in September, he hit .296 with a 481 slugging percentage against breaking balls and even 273 against curve balls and sliders from righties, which had really given him trouble. I mean, when you look at his career up through the end of August of 2025 in the majors, Mayo had hit just 102. Yes, 102 against breaking balls in the big leagues, and he turned around and hit .296 in September. The chase rate was down on all pitches, including the breaking balls. also be showing a little bit better plate discipline in September, which was always good. And he started to jump on the fastball more. So pitchers started to realize, okay, we can’t just throw a slider every time to Mayo and get him out. He’s starting to adjust. Let’s go back to the fast ball. And he was still ready for the fast ball. He had a better approach. He had a 21% barrel rate on fast balls. That is elite. He chased fast balls out of the zone only 20% of the time. That’s a career low. So we saw an improvement again there in the plate discipline. And I would say there were also some changes to the swing itself. His swing tilt was down to about 34 degrees. It began the year at 38 degrees. His attack angle was up at 14 degrees, which is a career high. It was at 8° back in July. He moved himself a little bit back further in the box. He opened up his stance a little bit from the right side. And these changes are tough to fully break down here kind of in the public sphere. And it’s something more that the Orioles front office is going to be working with Kobe Mayo on exactly what those changes mean. But they are legitimate alterations that you can see from month to month. And in some ways Mayo who’s always had a big scoopy swing is, you know, trying to hit the ball out of the ballpark all the time, which is what he’s good at. He flattened his swing out a little bit. Not a lot, not in a way that would have looked crazy jarring when you watched it on the screen, but I I don’t think it was just random. I think there were some actual changes that Kobe Mayo in the front office wanted him to make that he did with his swing that allowed him to stay on breaking balls better in the month of September, which again feels like a swing that was made on purpose. And for Mayo, something I talked about even when he was hitting better in September on this podcast is that I really felt like the Orioles were probably having internal discussions in the front office of do we want to overhaul Mayo’s swing this off season? Because even though he was swinging it a little bit better, it’s an approach and a swing and it’s a little herkyjerky and it never looked like the cookie cutter perfect swing. Even for a power hitter, even while he was dominating and and rising up the minor leagues with the Orioles, there was always something a little off about that swing and you felt like he was so talented that it would be fine in the big leagues. For some guys, it is. For some guys, it isn’t. And so far for Mayo, it hadn’t even been the sample size of one full big league season, but it was really, really not working. He was getting exposed by not just the good major league pitchers, but pretty much all major league pitchers that he was facing up until the month of September. And I thought maybe the changes we saw in September were the beginning of a bit of an overhaul. But the real question is, I think, is what we saw for 84 played appearances in the final month of the season, is that sustainable? And that’s what we’re going to get to coming up next when we talk about what went wrong. Because unfortunately, at least from my perspective, in some ways it could be, but in other ways we see it might have been a little more good luck than anything else for Mayo in September. And we’ll talk about that coming up next. But first, this episode of the Lockdown Orioles podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. NFL Sundays move fast. One big play and suddenly everything feels different. 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So, we’ll get to the flip side of Kobe Mayo’s 2025 season in just a moment, but I just did want to thank you for making Locked on Orioles your first listen of the day. And thank you for making Lockdown Podcast Network the number one sports podcast network. And we know you already live your team every day. Now, it’s time to take it up a level and go ad free. Join the everyday or club today and get Locked on Orioles with no interruptions. Membersonly Discord access and more all for just $5 per month or to save a little money $50 per year. So go to locked on orals.supcast.com or check the link in the show notes to learn more about joining the everydayer club. Kobe Mayo, it’s an interesting discussion right now. The Orioles signed Pete Alonzo to a 5-year 155 million contract last week. He is a right-handed hitting power first baseman. Kobe Mayo is a right-handed hitting power first baseman. Pete Alonzo will be a free agent after five years. Kobe Mayo will be a free agent after the next six years. Those are two things that don’t line up very well for Kobe Mayo. There’s not really a track to playing time on where he fits at least at this moment on the Orioles roster. He could have done I think a little bit more to prove that he belongs. And while he did have a good September, the question we left you with was that good September actually sustainable. So let’s talk about what went wrong for Kobe Mayo in 2025. And the first thing is the September month, even with a 165 WRC plus, even with the batting average over 300, it doesn’t look as good under the hood. The better production was certainly great. And at the end of the day, Mayo had struggled so much that no matter how he got to that month statistically, it is a overall giant net positive that he had that really strong month to finish out the season. There is no arguing that. However, when you analyze the game and you think about where he fits or maybe does not fit with this Orioles organization moving forward, you got to dive a little bit deeper because it is a small sample size of just one month. And while that production was great, it came with a 386 bup. That’s batting average on balls in play. League average is around 280, so more than 100 points lower. If you’re over a 100 points over the average, that generally means you’re getting a lot of good luck where balls are falling in for hits when they generally wouldn’t. And that is by far the highest Babbit Kobe Mayo has really ever had at any given time. And even though he was producing much better against breaking balls and seemingly made a slight swing change to attack breaking balls better, that swing change also came with a price. He was still swinging and missing 43% of the time against breaking balls in September and his hard hit rate against those pitches was only 24%. And overall it was only 27% in the month of September. I mean this is a guy in Kobe Mayo who ran a 45% hard hit rate in AAA this year which is really good. And in his breakout AAA time in 2023, he was at a 53% hard hit rate, which is like not quite Aaron Judge level, but pretty close to the most elite hitters in Major League Baseball in terms of how often they are making strong contact on the baseball. And that’s what made Kobe Mayo so good. You knew you could get him to swing and miss every once in a while, but when he made contact, he was going to make the most of it. And that’s not really what we saw from Mayo this year. Like it wasn’t just in September. It was a 36% hard hit rate overall this season, which is well below the league average in the majors. That’s not what you projected from the kind of prospect that Kobe Mayo was. And maybe the swing change allowed him to make more contact and put more breaking balls in play. But it also, if he did really make a real change, which it seemed like he at least made an adjustment, that adjustment made it also seem like he was making less hard contact. he was less able, especially on breaking balls, to impact the baseball when he did make that more contact that he was doing. So, at the end of the day, is that a net positive or a net negative? In the in the surface level stats, it was obviously a great month and it looked like a net positive, but if you add more than just a month of sample size, the stats show out that he would probably come back down to earth a little bit. So that concerns you and gives you the question of, okay, let’s say the Orioles, which we’ll get to, they find a way to have Kobe Mayo, even with Pete Alonzo, back on this Orioles roster in 2026. Now, you’re not going to be relying on him, but he’s going to be a part of your team in some way. Do you continue with some sort of swing change with him this off season? Is it worth it to sacrifice some impact and some power to get him to make more major league level contact and put the ball in play a little bit more? Did it work in September? Yes. But that’s not really the kind of player that that Kobe Mayo is. And that is what concerns me a little bit because the kind of prospect and player Mayo was when he was drafted out of high school in 2020 when he was surging his way up through the Orioles minor league system is that yeah, this guy’s going to swing and miss at times. And yes, there’s questions, will he stick at third base defensively? But what we know is that swing produces power that you don’t see from a lot of other hitters at his age. And that continued to be the case every single year up through the minors. If he’s sacrificing some of that power his best tool by far, yes, it could make the other tools a little better, but it’s kind of a philosophical conversation for the Orioles front office. Do we make him a little bit better at the other things he struggles with, or do we just continue to fully buy in on the thing he’s already great at and continue to let him just lean on that tool and say, “Yeah, that might not make him a perennial all-star type player. But if he can lean on that tool, it can make him a 3540 home run guy in the major leagues even with a low batting average. And that can still really impact our team as he’s hitting some of the longest home runs you’ve ever seen.” That is the conversation you have to have and it’s an interesting conversation because overall I mean there were still struggles this year like the September was good but before September this season Mayo in 210 big league played appearances slashed 184 262 326 with a 67 WRC plus he was once again not good until the month of September. So you know maybe the changes that he seemingly made are sustainable, maybe they’re not. I I worry they’re not, but only time will tell. It’s just I worry that a different Kobe Mayo approach that doesn’t sell out for his special power. I don’t think that gives you the same kind of upside that we’re used to seeing from Mayo coming up through the minors and allows you to not dream as big on the kind of hitter that Kobe Mayo could become. And that’s one of the big questions, right? What can you dream on now with Kobe Mayo? And can you even dream on it in an Orioles uniform? We’ll talk about the biggest questions and storylines for Mayo heading not just into next year but every day pretty much this off season after the Alonzo signing. That’s coming up next. But first, this episode of the Locked Orioles podcast is also brought to you by Game Time. The World Cup is coming back to North America for the first time since 1994. And with 48 teams for the first time ever, it’s going to be massive. But let’s be honest, getting tickets is usually the hardest part. That’s why the Game Time app is clutch. Finally giving fans a real advantage when it comes to snagging seats. With Game Time, you can track price drops in real time, get alerts when great seats open, and buy tickets the moment they hit the app. It puts the power back in your hands. It makes going to the World Cup realistic instead of impossible. And the best part about Game Time is the prices include the fees upfront, which I love. There are no last second surprises when you get to check out. So, take the guesswork out of buying World Cup tickets and every match, concert, or event with Game Time. Download the Game Time app, create an account, and use code locked on MLB for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, download the app, make an account, and use code locked on MLB for $20 off. Swipe, tap, ticket, go. Game time. So, let’s talk about it. This is one of the biggest conversations in Birdland right now for the Orioles in Pete Alonzo to a 5-year contract last week. What in the world are the Orioles going to do with Kobe Mayo? As we finish this off with his biggest storylines in the offseason and heading into next year. Obviously, one of the biggest ones we just talked about, you know, is this September a sign of him beginning to find his footing or is it just a little smoke and mirrors? But the bigger question is, will Kobe Mayo be a Baltimore Orio when we even get to spring training in 2026? With the Allonzo deal, with Ryan Mount Castle still here, plus guys like Sam Bisayio and Tyler O’Neal on the roster, something has to give. It really does feel like one of Mount Castle or Mayo is going to move in some capacity and be off this roster at some point this off season. Now, Kobe Mayo does have one more option year left. I don’t think the Orioles want to do this and Kobe Mayo certainly doesn’t want this to happen. But at the end of the day, if you really couldn’t find the right trade partner for Kobe Mayo and you really wanted to hang on to Ryan Mount Castle, you could keep Mount Castle on the roster as a bench bat and you could option Mayo back down to Triple A to begin the 2026 season. Now, he already was unhappy when that happened to begin 2025. He’s even further along in his career at this point. I don’t think that would go over well with team and player. And if you did that, I think it would only be to buy time to trade him. Cuz I’m going to be honest, if they option Mayo, if they keep Mayo and send him to Norfol to begin 2026, I just think that’s going to end up being not a good relationship between Mayo and the Orioles and you’re going to basically be forced to try and trade him throughout that entire season. Now, if it’s the best thing for the Orioles, it’s it’s a scenario they have to consider. I think both sides would rather not have that be what actually happens to Kobe. So, the thing to understand really, and I’ve gotten some push back, you know, since the Allonzo signing talking about how either Mayo or Mount Castle could still fit into this Orioles roster, because again, they all are right-handed hitting first baseman. There’s not going to be a team carrying three right-handed hitting first baseman at one time. We know Alonzo is going to be here, so one of May or Mount Castle at least is not going to be on this opening day roster. That seems pretty clear to me, and I think everyone out there watching and listening. I’m getting some push back though on, oh Connor, you know, why do you hate Kobe Mayo? You talk about they’re going to trade Mayo. Why are you not saying trade Mount Castle and keep Mayo and develop him? Let me put this very, very clearly and it’s going to become even clearer if you listen to tomorrow’s episode about Ryan Mount Castle. I think Kobe Mayo, even right now, is a better player than Ryan Mount Castle. And that’s when you don’t even add in the fact that Mount Castle is older, more expensive, and way closer. I mean, way closer to hitting free agency and is already into his prime where Mayo you can dream on him getting even better. All of those things I just said, if you just took all the context out and said keep one player, Kobe Mayo or Ryan Mount Castle, the easy answer is obviously keep Kobe Mayo and get rid of Ryan Mount Castle. But that gets rid of all the context of the situation. The context of the situation is the Orioles after signing Pete Alonzo for a fiveyear remember this isn’t a one-year deal or a two-year deal to Alonzo where Kobe Mayo who still has six years of team control could kind of wait out the Alonzo thing as a bench player and then beyond the Alonzo contract kind of slip back in there as the Orioles everyday first baseman. That’s not the case. Alonzo got a five-year deal. That tells me there is no future for Kobe Mayo to be the Orioles anything close to everyday first baseman. And at this point, we’ve kind of given up on him playing third base. It did not look good over there defensively. So, unless they teach him another position, he is a first baseman and he also hits right-handed. So, there’s no kind of platoon that would happen. Not that you would platoon a player as good as Pete Alonzo anyway. So, we’re here at this point to say something has to give between Mayo and Mount Castle. There’s just no future for Mayo. And again, Mount Castle’s a free agent after 2026 anyway. Even if he sticks with the O’s, I doubt they’re going to try to resign him beyond next season. I just think and I don’t think I know the conversation is that Mayo has a lot more trade value and if you are the Orioles especially when they had the chance earlier this offseason to just non-tender Ryan Mount Castle before they had signed Alonzo I get it but just non-tender him and just either sign a big bat or give the position over to Mayo. They decided to keep Mount Castle even though he’s projected to make around $8 million next year in his final year before free agency. they kept him on the roster as well. You would like to get something of value out of one of these two guys because again, one of the two is not going to be on this roster. I think they’d rather not just send Mayo to Triple A if you’re looking to get value. And again, as we’ve seen from this offseason, the Orioles are very, very focused, especially from the Grayson Rodriguez Taylor Ward trade of making this team better and getting back to the postseason in 2026 specifically to turn this thing around after a disaster 2025. The more trade value a player has, the better return he’s going to get you in a trade. So if you’re thinking, okay, Connor, they got to trade one of Mayo or Mount Castle. Now with Alonzo here, I would agree. The reason why I keep bringing up Mayo is that he has oodles and oodles of more trade value than Ryan Mount Castle does. Could Mount Castle get you something? Maybe if a team buys in on the bat speed or the hard hit rates and thinks, “Hey, we need a one-year placeholder. You know, 8 million is not super expensive for a first baseman. He’s a good defender over there as well. We’ll send the Orioles like a a potential interesting optionable relief arm and and we’ll stick Ryan Mount Castle in there at first base for 120 games for us. That’s possible. But for Kobe Mayo, you get a guy who was very recently a top 10 prospect in baseball. You can dream on all the power in the world and who just turned 24 and has six years of team control left. Those are in different stratospheres in terms of trade value when you compare Mount Castle to Mayo. And at the end of the day, while Mayo was better this year, and you could easily project Mayo to again be better than Mount Castle next year, I don’t think if you’re just thinking about Mount Castle and Mayo’s 2026 production to the Orioles, that’s what we’re focused on, 2026, especially because Mounty is a free agent after that year anyway. I don’t think you can make a strong argument to say, “Oh, yeah, Kobe Mayo is going to be worlds better in the big leagues than Mount Castle next year.” You could argue Mayo would be better. He was better this year, but from what we’ve seen from both players, you could also convince me that, hey, Ryan Mount Castle has a better 2026 than Kobe Mayo. It’s not like they’re that far apart in potential production for next year specifically. We are focused on making the Orioles better next year. Kobe Mayo has so much more trade value than Ryan Mount Castle does. So, if the O’s are going to trade one of these guys and try to get presumably a starting pitcher back in a deal, Ryan Elcastle would be a throwin in that kind of deal. Kobe Mayo could be a centerpiece. It would depend on the right team. Back on Thursday’s episode, I talked about some of the teams who need first baseman and have pitching to trade away. So, make sure to go listen to that one to figure out some of the best teams out there. Teams like the Brewers and the Marlins and others. But Mayo just has so much more value where you could. It wouldn’t just be Mayo one for one for a good starting pitcher, but you could build a prospect package around Kobe Mayo and have that get you a good starter that helps the team. You just you can’t do that with Ryan Mount Castle. It’s not a slight to Kobe Mayo. It would work out better for Mayo. Instead of sitting on the bench here, he could go be an everyday first baseman for someone and hopefully blossom his career. Like, it would be a win-win for both sides, the Orioles and Mayo, if they’re going to deal him. So, so do you have to trade him? It kind of feels like yes. You could make the argument they could move him to right field. It’s something Eric Logenhagen, who you know covers prospects over at Fan Graphs, has been saying for a while, for like years now in his writeups about Kobe Mayo that he projected him as a right fielder long term. He always had concerns about his third base defense, which obviously came true because the Orioles have already basically moved him off of third and put him as a first baseman exclusively. But Long and Hagen felt and I feel and others think well Mayo’s got a cannon for an arm and he has the athleticism to play the outfield. Now he’s never going to be a center fielder but to play the corner outfield I think he could do it if he worked on it like the Orioles used to put Trey Mancini and Mark Trumbo and these other guys out in the outfield who had no business playing out there. I know a lot of that was a different regime, but Kobe Mayo is so much more athletic and gifted than those guys are when if you put him in the outfield. He could do it. I’m not going to say he’s going to be a gold glover out there, but he could do it. If you moved Mayo to right field, think about how much more value he could have being on this team. You could find a way to get rid of Tyler O’Neal and Mayo could slot into that. You know, maybe he’s in like an outfield platoon with Dylan Beavers out there in right field. it gives him a lot more played appearances and a chance to stay on this roster. So, that’s that’s a way where I say he he doesn’t have to be traded. But, if the O’s were going to do that, it feels like they would do it by this point, right? And and and he’s only 24, so it’s still possible, but it feels like we’re getting to the point where we’re past that at least with the Orioles. He’s not playable at third. You have Jordan Westber there anyway. Now, you have Allonzo at first base. There’s just no future here. He still, even with the struggles at the big leagues, he still has trade value. It just feels like a deal like that kind of has to happen. Is it unfair to Mayo? Maybe, right? Like I don’t know if you can say, “Oh, he had his chance and he lost it.” Like, he’s only had 340 big league played appearances over the past two years. For an everyday player, that’s basically half a big league season. That is not enough to determine whether or not a guy can be an impact bat in the major leagues. But, and again, he had a good month of September, even though, as I mentioned, under the hood, maybe a little bit of good luck there. So, he did a little bit there, but he could have done more with his chance. And I just feel like even with the good September, we never saw a good version of Mayo that looked like the good version of Mayo we saw in the minor leagues, right? We saw a good Mayo in September, but that was a different kind of hitter as I talked about, not the big masher power hitter that we saw in Norfol and below. And it’s unfortunate that in 300 plus played appearances, we still really haven’t seen that guy pop up in an Orioles uniform. So, at this point, it’s better for the Orioles. It’s better for Kobe Mayo for them to trade him. They could hopefully get a package around him that gets a starting pitcher back and he could go somewhere where he can play first base almost every day in 2026 and really start to feel out, you know, where he fits in in a big league lineup versus if he stays here sitting behind Pete Alonzo or trying to play right field or whatever it may be. It’s just it seems better for both sides to make that deal and it’ll help both sides I think in the future. It seems like a foregone conclusion. Again, you know, teams know that the O’s would want to trade Mayos. That might make it a little harder to put him in a deal at this point, but when you have a chance to get Pete Alonzo, you get Pete Alonzo and you don’t really factor in Kobe Mayo into it. That’s just the reality of the situation. The O is trying to turn this thing around and be much more aggressive this off seasonason. So, we’ll have it all covered. whatever happens here with Mayo. But I just wanted to clear that up. Like it’s not because I hate Kobe Mayo or think he’s terrible. It’s purely about trade value. And Mayo has so much more than Mount Castle and could so much easier get you pitching back. That is why I think the more likely scenario is Mayo’s traded for pitching and then, you know, maybe Mount Castle’s gone or maybe he stays as a bench bat for at least one more year. But we will see. It’s a interesting time. I can’t imagine what’s going through the head of Kobe Mayo at this point. 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 Lockdown Orioles YouTube channel. We’re very close to 10,000 subscribers. Trying to get to 10,000 by the end of the calendar year. If we do, going to do a fun giveaway here on the show for subscribers. And make sure to like and comment and follow the show and subscribe wherever you listen. Apple Podcast or Spotify. Five star rating and a review would really help out the show. And if you want to leave some feedback, if you want to talk some Orioles, ask a question, you can always email me locked on oralsgmail.com. And if locked on orals made your Spotify wrapped, you can prove it on social media to secure a free month of that brand new Everydayer Club I was talking about. Just tag our national locked on podcast network account on any social platform and we’ll drop you a code to be one of the first to join the everyday club and get your favorite show ad free and that exclusive access to the membersonly locked on Orioles Discord channel. I’ll be back tomorrow to do the Ryan Mount Castle 2025 season review and talk about what the heck the O’s are going to do with him this off season as well. But until then, I’m Connor Nukem and this has been the Locked Orioles podcast, part of the Locked on Podcast Network. Your team every day.

After the Baltimore Orioles signed Pete Alonso to a long-term deal, one thing became clear — there is not much of a future for Coby Mayo in Baltimore. Host Connor Newcomb breaks down Mayo’s 2025 season, dives into his strong September, and discusses how likely it is that the Orioles will trade him for pitching this offseason.

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