Orioles sign Pete Alonso to a five-year deal! – REACTION & ANALYSIS

Orioles sign Pete Alonso to a five-year deal! – REACTION & ANALYSIS

A new era of Baltimore Orioles baseball begins today. An era of spending and an era of Pete Alonzo. We'll break down Mike Elias's biggest signing ever coming up on this episode of the Locked On or podcast. You are Locked [music] on Orioles, your daily Baltimore Orioles podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network. Your team every day. Hey there, Orioles fans. Today is Wednesday, December 10th, 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 tonight's live episode of the show, we are talking about the biggest signing that the Orioles have made in a long, long time and the second most money they have ever given to a free agent. As it broke the news on Wednesday, first reported by Jeff Passen of ESPN. The Orioles have signed first baseman Pete Alonzo to a five-year $155 million deal to get not just there, but we'll just say their first big acquisition, really big acquisition of the winter. I'll talk about, you know, is Pete worth that much money? How does he fit into this Orioles lineup? What kind of hitter has he been? We'll talk about potential downsides of this deal and what he doesn't do so well and then try to break down what this means for the rest of the off season, the rest of the roster, and specifically Kobe Mayo and Ryan Mount Castle. 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, they finally did it. They finally freaking did it. Thanks to everyone joining us live here on the Locked on Orioles YouTube channel. Make sure to like, comment, and subscribe while you are here. We are getting close to 10,000 subscribers here on the channel. The goal is to get to 10,000 by the end of the year. If we can get to 10,000 by the new year, I'm going to do a cool giveaway just for locked on oral subscribers. So, make sure you hit that button while you are here. I've been doing these live shows every night of the winter meeting so far and the last two nights we've just kind of had some rumors and moves made by other teams and Kyle Schwarber signing with the Phillies to talk about. Now we have the big Orioles move that felt like it was building to this not just at the winter meetings but all off season long. Pete Alonzo is the first Giant move. Trading Grayson Rodriguez for Taylor Ward a pretty big move. Signing Ryan Hells is a pretty important move, but it's not five years 155 million for Pete Alonzo. So, let's start with who's Pete Alonzo and what does he bring to the Orioles? So, this contract for 5 years 155. Britley of the Athletic reported minimal deferral. So, most of this money is going to come in the five years and that's an average annual value of $31 million per year for Alonzo, which is the most a first baseman has ever gotten in free agency. this deal would end after the 2030 season. Now, of course, it is the first deal that Mike Elias has given out since taking over the Orioles in November of 2018 that is of multiple years to a free agent and does not include an opt out. The only other multi-year deals he' given out was Tyler O'Neal for three years last year and Ryan Helley for two years earlier this off season, but both of those deals included player optouts after year one. Only Chris Davis has received a bigger deal from the Orioles all time when he got that seven-year $161 million contract. And I think Pete Alonzo's deal will probably age a little bit better than Davis's did. And the Orioles just took that offer to Kyle Schwarber, right? They reportedly offered Schwarber 5 years 150. He took that offer back to the Phillies. The Phillies matched it and he signed with the Phillies and they just gave almost that exact contract or at least offered it to Alonzo. and Alonzo accepted. Of course, coming from the New York Mets, the reporting is that the Mets wanted to bring back Alonzo, but they were unwilling to go past three years. Their offer did not hit up to the 155 million that the Orioles gave them or or gave Alonzo. The Mets clearly wanted Alonzo back, but not to the level that the Orioles wanted him. And that's why Pete Alonzo is going to be introduced as a Baltimore Orio coming up on Friday. Now, first of all, it is just huge to see the OOS's not only offer a deal like this, like we knew they did with Schwarber, even, you know, knowing they offered Corbin Burns four years and 180 million last off season, but to actually get an all-star player to sign a deal like this, this is a legitimate veteran power bat who plays every day and will be an impact hitter in the middle of your order. Now, the Orioles are still all in on paying a big pitcher or maybe even two this off seasonason. all the reporting that's come out since the Alonzo deal says the O's are still in on top four pitchers. But I I I frankly love this move by the Orioles. This was kind of the steadiest, healthiest, productive bat that was out there, especially once Schwarber signed. It was definitely the one because I think you worry about Kyle Tucker's health even a little bit about the, you know, the times he hit the IIL here in 2025. And it shows that the Orioles are here to play this off season. They truly wanted to upgrade a lineup where yes, they had a ton of young talent that had some great success for the previous two years, but this lineup was straight up bad in 2025. Not the only reason, but a big reason that the Orioles were bad in 2025. And they could have probably gotten away with rolling with Kobe Mayo and Ryan Mount Castle and parts of Samuel Bisayio at first base this year, especially if they had shelled out for pitching. They could have said, "Hey, we're spending on pitching. we believe our lineup's gonna bounce back. But instead of just waiting for these young guys to break through where these guys took a step back to move forward again, the Orioles said, "No, we're not waiting around for that. 2026 is too important after 2025 was such a disaster." So, not only do they go and get Taylor Ward in that trade earlier this off seasonason that kind of supplements the outfield and gives you a guy who plays every day and hits for power, they go even two to three steps further to make this Pete Alonzo deal and bring in someone who you know what you're going to get from him. Now, Pete Alonzo just turned 31 years old on Sunday. So, a nice happy birthday present to him. He will be 35 in the final year of this deal in 2030. So again, it's not like he's going to be pushing 40 by the time this deal ends. We'll talk about that in a little bit. But he's a former second round pick of the Mets in 2016 out of the University of Florida. Debuted in the majors in 2019 and was simply incredible. Played that whole season for the Mets and was awesome. Hit 53 homers, played 161 games out of 162 in his first season. Had a 144 WRC plus. He was an all-star. He was almost unanimous. got 29 out of 30 first place votes when he won NL Rookie of the Year that year. He set the rookie home run record. It was absurd watching Ponzo in that first year. And since then in a Mets uniform, he has set the Mets record for home runs. He has continued to stay healthy and produce really every single year. He has never missed more than 10 games in a single season. Only two IIL stints in his career. He had a minor hand sprain in 2021 that kept him out for 10 days. And he had a minor wrist sprain and bone bruise in 2023 that also kept him out for maybe 10 or 11 days at that point. Both pretty much minimum IIL stints. And that was it. That was the only time he has been on the injured list. And this is Alonzo coming to an Orioles team that saw every hitter but Jackson Holiday land on the injured list at some point in 2025. Not only was it, hey, these guys didn't, you know, play up to expectations, they also couldn't stay on the field. And the Orioles got Taylor Ward, who has only missed time for freak injuries, right? Like running into a wall or getting hit in the face by a pitch, and now they get Pete Alonzo, who hasn't even had the freak injuries. Like, he has just stayed on the field time and time again. It really does seem like I think we had a a comment in here somewhere saying, you know, the Orioles are really focusing on guys who are going to post, guys who are going to be on the field because they just they did not have that in 2025. And while I think they're also going for talented players like of course Pete Alonzo is, they've shown a want to get guys who are going to be on the field for him, who they can trust to not have these soft tissue injuries and things are going to come up. guys are going to get injured, especially as they get into their 30s. But Pete Lonzo has a track record of being healthy. And you can be more confident in a position player than with a pitcher who has a track record of being healthy, staying healthy moving forward. Now, in terms of, you know, what he's done lately, I mean, you look at his career, seven seasons, over a thousand games. He's a 253, 341, 516 hitter with a 132 career wrc plus, meaning over his entire career, he's been 32% better than a league average hitter. Solid walk rate, okay strikeout rate at 23%, but he's coming off one of his best seasons of his career in 2025. He was a free agent last year. He ressigned with the Mets with a deal that did give him an opt out after 2025. And he did take that opt out to hit free agency again because he was so good this season. Pete Alonzo in 2025, he was not quite the hitter he was in his rookie year in 2019, but was pretty close. He played all 162 games for the second straight season. He had a 141 WRC plus. He had 38 homers. He had a career-high 272 batting average to go with a 347 on base and a 524 slugging. He was fantastic at the plate this year. Those 38 home runs, remember the Orio leaders, Westber Holiday Gunner tied to lead the team with 17 home runs. Ponzo hit more than double that. Now, he did have his lowest career walk rate, but he also had his lowest strikeout rate since 2022. I mentioned the career-high average. And if you take a look at the baseball savant page, I mean, it's sexy under the hood for Pete Alonzo. If you're watching here on the Lockdown Orioles YouTube page, like here's a look at the baseball savant page for Pete Alonzo. You can see everything from the exit velocity to the barrel rate to the hard hit rate. Like, it is up near the top of the league. 19% barrel rate, that's sixth in baseball last year. 54% hard hit rate was 11th. His bat speed over 75 miles an hour was 22nd. His average exit velocity, almost 94 miles an hour, was seventh. He had the second most hard-h hit balls in all of Major League Baseball, trailing just Vlatty Jr. last season. And all of those underlying numbers pretty solidly were career highs for Pete Alonzo. So, it's not just, hey, he's still doing this good. He actually leveled up at age 30 in 2025. And that tells me probably not as likely he would fall off a cliff here soon. like maybe he's still getting better. That's certainly possible. He's crushing fast balls. Hit 307 with a 622 slugging against fast balls this year. And again, he posts and he bangs since the start of 2019 when he debuted. He leads the major leagues in games played. He's first in RBI's and he's third in home runs in that seven-year stretch. So, you know, he's been a pretty even splits guy in his career. is actually much better versus right-handed pitchers instead of lefties in 2025, but it was more even before that. So maybe he's not like the big- time lefty masher, but you're going to see more righties than lefties. So that helps you out. And he's an everyday player, so you don't have to worry about as much what his platoon splits have looked like. For Alonzo, you know, he's going to hit third or fourth every day. He's going to split his time probably between first base and DH for this Orioles team. We'll talk about how they're going to fit him in in those spots, but this is the guy. This is the hitter. I doubt the Orioles will acquire a better hitter than Pete Alonzo through the rest of this off season. I don't think they're done acquiring players. They're certainly going to acquire some more pitching, but this is the hitter to, however you want to say it, to protect Gunnar Henderson, to take the pressure off guys like Adley Rutman. Whatever it's going to do, it's going to give you a feared bopper in the middle of your order who hits bombs, who's feared by opposing pitchers and plays every single day. Again, back-to-back seasons playing in all 162 games for the Mets. He is a different type of player. And the projections, they look pretty good. the steamer projections right now on fan graphs for him have a 126 wrc plus and 36 home runs for him feels a little low but that would still be the Orioles best 2025 hitter if you put those stats into this season and you just look at first base for the Orioles like Mount Castle Mayo even O'Harn weren't really combining to cut it last year the Orioles first baseman combined for a 92 WRC plus in 2025 that was 22nd in baseball and their 369 slugging percentage was 27th in in the league. They were also 24th in overall DH production this year. They did not get a lot of hitting from the positions first base and DH where you're supposed to get a lot of hitting. Pete Alonzo is going to fix that. He fits in the ballpark. Statcast says that he would have had 45 home runs last season if he had played all of his games at Oriel Park, whether he would have just had 36 if he had played all of his games at City Field in New York. and he sprays his home runs around the ballpark, which is nice because even though the O's did move the wall back in some in left field, it's still easier to hit the ball out to right field in Camden Yards. Pete Alonzo has power to all fields of his 38 home runs he hit this year. 14 to left field, 14 to center field, and 10 to right field. There is not another I would be hardressed to find another power hitter in the game who spreads out his home runs across the diamond as much as Ponzo does. And if you put Alonzo in this projected Orioles lineup, again, if you're watching here on the Lockown Orioles YouTube page, just kind of throwing up my first projection. Again, it could move around. You could not want Gunnar to hit lead off, whatever it may be. But this is my first projection of what would be the general Orioles lineup if opening day was tomorrow. So Gunner at shortstop leading off. Westber at third. Pete Alonzo first base hitting third. Rutman hitting cleanup catching. Taylor Warden left field hitting fifth. Colton Cowser in center hitting sixth. Tyler O'Neal in right seventh. Samuel Basio your DH hitting eighth. And Jackson Holidayiday hitting ninth and playing second base. Like not only do you get more protection for Gunnar Henderson knowing Pete Lonzo is down there, you can move Rutman down a little bit. You can still have big power with Taylor Ward. You don't have to rely on Tyler O'Neal as much if he's on the team. you can confidently hit Samuel Bisayio eighth even if he's going to play most days and kind of ease him into the season and not put a ton of pressure on him to be this big power hitter immediately. And if you go over to fan graphs and you look at just the position player projections, the Orioles as a team are projected for the third highest position player war in 2026. Only the Dodgers and Yankees lineups project to produce more war than the Orioles now that they have included Pete Alonzo. That is not nothing. That tells you they have put together a really good group of hitters. Now, will this group change? I think it will still in this offseason. We'll get to that in a bit. But this is a move that unequivocally makes the Orioles a whole lot better in 2026. makes you feel a lot better about them getting back to the postseason. It makes you feel a lot better about what the Orioles are willing to do to improve this team up in that front office. But again, Pete Alonzo is not a perfect player. He doesn't have an MVP. He has some parts of his game that don't look as amazing as the stuff we just talked about. There is a chance that this deal, you know, either doesn't work out in total or maybe, you know, as you get in the years 3, four, and five doesn't look as hot. We'll talk about the reasons that that could be the case coming up next. But first, this episode of the Locked Orioles podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. NFL Sundays move fast. One big play and suddenly everything feels different. That's what makes live betting with FanDuel so exciting. You're not just watching the game, you're reacting to it in real time. With FanDuel, you can place bets as the action unfolds. every drive, every momentum swing, and every highlight moment. Live betting is best when the game starts to shift. A receiver gets hot, a defense tightens up, or the momentum flips after a turnover. And FanDal lets you jump into the moment with live spreads and money lines that adjust instantly, and player props update as guys heat up. So, if you want to be right in the middle of the action this season, visit FanDuel.com and place your NFL live bets all season long at FanDuel. The game moves fast and so can you. So, thank you all who are joining us here live on the Locked On Orioles YouTube page. We're talking about the big move of the day and the big move of the off season so far for Pete Alonzo as the Orioles have signed him to a five-year $155 million deal to get a big time bat in the middle of this Orioles order. So, I talked about kind of all the great things that Pete Alonzo has done in his seven-year big league career so far, but let's flip it to how this could go wrong. And you could take this from how this deal could become a complete disaster, or you know, maybe it's just all five years don't look great. How it could, you know, we get to years three, four, and five start to not look as great as it does right now. Let's start with the fact that this is a lot of money and a lot of years for a 31-year-old first baseman/DH right now. Him getting better with the production and the underlying stats in 2025 makes me feel confident that Allonzo is not going to fall off a cliff soon, but it could happen later in the deal as he gets into his mid30s. Like, you may not want to be paying a 34 year old or 35year-old first baseman $31 million per year at the end of this deal. Since 2022, we have only seen four seasons from a first baseman who's 34 or older have at least a 120 WRC plus. I think 120 WRC plus puts you in the echelon of like a really really good hitter. Paul Goldmid did it twice. Freddy Freeman did it twice and Jose Abrau did it once. That's it. And those at their times were special kind of hitters. But Pete Alonzo falls into that category of Gold Schmidt and Freeman and and the MVP level Jose Abrau of being special kind of hitters. So if anyone can do it into 34 and 35, I think you can beat Pete Alonzo. And honestly, with how poorly last season went right now, we're focused on the 2026 Orioles. And this version of Pete Alonzo, I am pretty confident is going to be very, very good in 2026. quite frankly, we'll probably be very, very good in 2027 as well, which means that's what we should be focused on. If Pete Alonzo's bad and the O's are paying him $31 million in 2030, that stinks. But if he helps the Orioles do some playoff runs and even a World Series title, I don't care what happens in 2030 by the end of this deal. Now, the other concerning part you've heard people talk about is the defense for Alonzo. Now, first base is not the most important defensive position on the diamond. It's not like you're signing a center fielder who's all of a sudden turned himself into a corner outfielder or a shortstop who, you know, has to move to third base or second base. But Alonzo used to be known as a pretty solid metrically and by the eye it test defensive first base when he was younger. That is not the case anymore. He was -9 outs above average at first base this year. That was the same number negative9 that he had in 2024. Only Michael Tolia of the Colorado Rockies, who was non-tendered, was worse defensively at first base in the majors this year than Pete Alonzo. He's really, really bad metrically moving to his right. He doesn't have much range anymore over at first base, but Jackson Holiday is really good moving to his left at second base, so maybe he can fill that hole from Alonzo. And Ponzo did lead Major League Baseball in Fan Graph's scoops counter with 29 scoops this year. Now, that is a counting stat, and it's basically counting the bad throws that you pick out of the dirt and turn an error into an out for your infield. Some of leading that could be that he played 162 games, so he gets more chances than anyone else. Some of it could be maybe his infield was making more bad throws than other infielders, so you can't equivocally say like Alonzo is the best scooping first baseman in baseball. But when you're leading the league, you're probably at least up there and you're trusted to do that. So if he can still do that, that's going to acrue most of the plays you get defensively at first base is catching a throw from your infielders rather than actually fielding ground balls. I think the biggest worry people have too is the throwing, right? It's not a good throwing arm. It's not an accurate throwing arm for, you know, relay throws or throwing the ball to home plate or even, you know, flipping the ball to your pitcher covering first when he fields grounders. He's had a little bit of trouble with that. There was an issue where people think he might have aided to one of Kodi Sena's injuries last year when he had the Achilles injury when Allonzo made a bad flip over to him covering first. So, that's something to monitor. And there's talk that, you know, he probably won't be playing first base for the entirety of this five-year deal. And there's going to be certainly some DH in there for Pete Alonzo. And it might hurt you a little bit defensively to have him out there, but if they can pick it, he's still fine to play over there. And maybe you're okay with him at first base, like maybe the first two years the deal, then after that he's more so at DH. And at that point, you figure out the roster down the line. At the end of the day though, he is here to mash. And if the O's can make him a little bit better than terrible defensively at first base, you can feel fine playing him over there most of the time. And yeah, if he's hitting like we know he can and like he did this year, I don't think you really mind some flub plays or two over at first base. The other part of it is base running that is not so great for Pete Alonzo. At the end of the day, he's never been fast. So, there was always going to be a ceiling for how good of a base runner he could be. He's got, you know, eighth percentile sprint speed. In terms of the like breaking it down on the running categories, he's been negative four base running each of the last two years. He's not good at taking extra bases. He gets thrown out sometimes. He's not the greatest base runner, which is coupled by having bad speed and basically having no speed at all. So that's, you know, he's he's not a guy who, hey, he's slow, but he's a good base runner. He's not really one of those guys. But again, that's not what he's here to do. He is here to mash. And so again, he might give you another out or two on the bases that might make you upset, but he'll turn around and hit a homer later in the game and everything will be fine. And then really the part of his offensive game I guess that you could be a little concerned about is probably the swing and miss in his game. Like it's nothing terrible. I flashed the baseball soant page once already. We'll throw it up there again. You can see the blue at the bottom of the page, right? The chase rate is around league average. The walk rate fell this year to only around league average. Strikeout rate and the swing and miss rate are a little below league average as well. It's not like it's terrible. It's not like it's crazy bad swing and miss, but it's not the greatest plate discipline in the world. It's not like Orio's player development level of plate discipline. Maybe that's something the O's, who have done a great job of recently, can help Pete Alonzo, maybe just get a little bit better with, but it's nothing concerning. I'm not scared of a guy with a 22.8% strikeout rate that he had this year, especially because he dropped it 2% from 2024, which is a nice sign for Alonzo as kind of all of his offense got better. Those things have been better some years, but they're fairly consistent with earlier in his career. He's just gotten a little worse across the board in plate discipline. You would worry if those numbers do continue to get worse. That's a way where this deal could start to look bad even on the offensive end as we get into years three, four, and five. But for now, with what he's doing in terms of making impact with the baseball, he's going to age okay. like the bat speed and the hard hit rates are so good that even as he starts to age into his mid30s and he loses a little bit of bat speed or loses a little bit of hard hit rate, he'll still be at a good level because he's starting at an elite level at age 30. That is a good sign for the aging process of Pete Alonzo. So Pete is here. What does it mean for the rest of the Orioles team roster building off season moves? Let's get to that to finish off the show coming up next. But first, this episode of the Lockdown Orioles podcast is also brought to you by Game Time. 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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 before we talk about how the rest of this Orioles roster will shake out, do got to tell you about the Everydayer Club. Thank you for making Locked on Orioles your first listen of the day. Thank you for being here on the YouTube channel here live talking about Pete Alonzo and thanks for making Locked on the number one sports podcast network. You already live your team every day. Now you can take it up a level and go ad free. Join the Everydayer Club today and get locked on Orioles with no interruptions. Get access to our membersonly Discord and more. All for just $5 per month or to save a little money, $50 per year. Just go to lockedonorios.supcast.com or check the link in the show notes to learn more. Again, that is locked on orioles.supcast.com to join the Everydayer Club. And did Locked on Orioles make your Spotify wrapped? If you prove it on social media, you can secure a free month of the Everydayer Club. Just tag our national locked on podcast network account on any social platform and we'll drop you a code. So be one of the first to join the everyday or club to get that adree access and exclusive access to the membersonly Discord channel for locked on Orioles. So let's talk about what this does to the Orioles off season plans and what this does to the Orioles roster. Now there's already reporting as I mentioned that the Orioles are not done. The Orioles are targeting pitching. Even Mike Elias said last week they have the money to get a big bat and a big arm in free agency. There were still reportedly in on all of Ranger Suarez, Robert Valdez, Michael King, and Tasuya II, the top four free agent starting pitchers. There were also reports from Ken Rosenthal in the Athletic on Tuesday night that the Orioles are talking with the Marlins about an Edward Cabrera trade. More on that on tomorrow's episode with how he would fit there. But the goal I think would be on the pitching side, two more starting pitchers and probably one more relief pitcher to add to the team. And after giving out 155 mil to Pete Alonzo, I think it shows the Orioles are willing to spend. But on the hitting side, what do they do at first base and DH now? Like that's that's quite a conversation that is happening here. I I think their goal would be that Pete Alonzo is either the first base or the DH in your lineup every single day. He's played 162 games in back-to-back seasons. his goal and I think the Orioles goal would be be for him to do that again in 2026. So at that point Samuel Bisayio is on your roster as the second catcher, but you want to play him more because of the bat than a regular second catcher would. So he's rotating between first base, DH and catcher, mostly against right-handed pitchers. Basio's probably sitting a good amount against lefties, especially early in the season, just to kind of ease him in. Again, like Bayio had cool moments, but he certainly wasn't dominant at the plate in his first 30 games or so in the big league. So, there's a chance he doesn't come out firing to begin the season. And you you don't want to maybe play him every single day as he's also trying to get better defensively as a catcher and come along as a big league hitter. Now, you're also going to want Adley to not just catch every time he's out there. You're probably going to want to DH him some. He's going to get some days off as well, Adley Rushman is because the goal has got to be keep Adley healthy in 2026. That's only going to make him a better hitter. And back to the version of Adley we know and love kind of pre All-Star break in 2024. Now that could fill all of your abs at catcher at first base and DH, but then you still have Ryan Mount Castle, Kobe Mayo, and Tyler O'Neal sitting on your roster. You simply cannot go into opening day with all three of those guys on the roster. Like theoretically, Kobe Mayo still has options. So, you could option him to AAA to begin the year and still roster Mount Castle and O'Neal and find a way to get them into the lineup, but that's not what Kobe Mayo wants. That's probably not what the Orioles want. I mean, Mount Castle could be like strictly a bench platoon player at first base and DH and a pinch hitter. That's possible, but I don't know if that's the be best fit for a roster spot if Mount Castle's not really playing that much. So, more importantly, Kobe Mayo really becomes a true trade piece for the Orioles. I don't think it's guaranteed that the O's will deal Mayo this off seasonason. I think it's possible they could go into the season with him. He could be a trip AAA. They could instead deal Mount Castle in a shorter deal and and Mayo could still be on the team. There are possibilities here, but Mayo would be a perfect fit in those Marlins Edward Cabrera talks, right? The Marlins are looking for a first baseman. Mayo would fit there perfectly. Is he the headliner for an ace at this point? Probably not. His value might be a little lower now than it was as a prospect after he's shown some struggles in the big leagues over the past two years with the Orioles, but teams still absolutely want Kobe Mayo. It's gigantic raw power. It's a hit tool that's been slowly improving and an approach that's been slowly improving. And we saw him have a really good September to finish the season, which is also good. But Mayo just really has no long-term future at this point with the Orioles. like he he could certainly be on the roster in 2026, especially if Mount Castle's not on it. You could find a way to fit him in there, but there's no path to regular playing time for him. It would just be as a part-time player, and at that point, you'd probably be looking to trade him again at the deadline or or next offseason. Like, the the long-term plan is not there. So, at some point, he's going to be dealt. Again, not guaranteeing it's going to be this offseason, but it would make sense as the Oz are in these talks for starting pitchers. The Mayo is going to be dealt because he's not a third baseman anymore. He just he can't play that position. He is a first baseman. Could he play the outfield? It's something that Eric Longhagen at Fangrass has talked about a lot. It's something I'd be interested in. He does have a cannon for an arm. He is fairly athletic. The O's like right-handed hitting outfielders. I is it too late to make that move? It might be. It's something you probably would have done in the minor leagues, but he'd be a lot better position to be on the team probably right now if he had some ability to play the outfield. But if you did trade Kobe Mayo, you could have this lineup I mentioned, again, let me throw it up on the screen here for people watching here on the Lock Royals YouTube page. You could have this lineup, Henderson, Westber, Alonzo, Rutman, Ward, Cowser, O'Neal, Bisio, and Holiday. And then you would probably put together a bench of Ryan Mount Castle, Dylan Beavers, Leodyveris, and either Jeremiah Jackson or I can see the Orioles bringing in another utility infielder type to kind of replace Ramon Aras. That would be your fourman bench. You could play Ryan Mount Castle against lefties like in this lineup right here. You'd probably sit Payo. You'd play Mount Castle at first and Alonzo with DH against a lefty. In terms of getting, you know, Dylan Beavers in there, you definitely want to sit Tyler O'Neal against some righties, not just to get the platoon advantage, but also to give O'Neal some rest so he stays off the injured list. So that I think would give a good chunk of playing time to Beavers in his first full season, and he would obviously be a little well maybe not maybe a little better defensively than O'Neal. It's actually not as big of a difference as you would think. Leota would purely be your defensive replacement outfielder. If you started an outfield of Taylor Ward, Colton Cowser, Tyler O'Neal, you would probably be using Taris late in games, probably every single game, he'd go to center. Ward or Cowzer would go to left and then you just find out who's better in right, Ward or O'Neal, and they would stay in the ball game. Or maybe even Jeremiah Jackson would come in and play right field. He got better and better out there at that position. He'd be your utility infielder who'd give guys off when they need it. And that is how you could play that lineup with Mayo gone, but Mount Castle still there. But I still think there's going to be some moves made like trying to dump Tyler O'Neal I think is possible. Could you eat the money, add in a prospect and trade him to the Royals for a pitcher, right? The Royals are looking for outfield help. They'd have O'Neal for two years. They wouldn't have to pay a lot of the money because they are a smaller budget team. that would free up that spot and allow you to, you know, play a little more Dylan Beavers, be a little more flexible with the DH position because if O'Neal's going to play, he's going to get some days off, but you probably want to DH him a little bit too to keep him healthy and not have him just be in right field. He really with Allonzo, O'Neal's an even weirder fit on this roster right now. So, I think they're going to try to see if there's any takers for Tyler O'Neal that they can try and get. you know, gives you more playing time for Beavers or gives you an ability to, if you traded Tyler O'Neal to bring in, you know, a better good defensive center fielder than Leotver is, like a a Brentton Doyle or a Jake Meyers type, and they could be your everyday center fielder. Cowser's in left every day and then Ward's in right every day and you're essentially just throwing Beavers in there when you can or even Beavers gets moved in a trade to get an ace starting pitcher and then that gives you a little more outfield opening and you can play around a little bit with a center fielder. I think Alonzo is going to be the best hitter the Orioles acquire this off season. And I do think they're going to acquire some more pitching, but I don't think they're done making moves with the hitters because this lineup right now is good, but also the roster construction is just a little off. There's too many guys with either some injury concerns or more so just not enough flexibility. There are two center fielders since they signed Tiveres, but are you banking on Tiveras even being good enough to be on the roster? Are you fine with Colton Cowser being your everyday center fielder? That's kind of how this lineup shakes up now. Are you cool playing both Taylor Ward and Tyler O'Neal in the outfield at the same time? That's a big question. How do you shuffle around Mayo and Mount Castle with Alonzo here? There are still some big question that I think with other moves, probably trading those guys away to help get pitching are going to be sorted out. And I'll tell you what, this was an awesome move for the Orioles, a big move that shows they're here to play, but they are not done. And whenever those next big moves coming, make sure to come right back here to the Lockdown Orioles podcast. We will have all of your coverage. Sorry that the live show was a little bit later than the move was actually made. As many of you know, I work a full-time 9 toive job. It's tough to do a live show in the middle of the day when I'm working my job. But hopefully 5:30 gave me enough time and gave you all enough time to if you had to get home from work. Tune in here live on YouTube. And of course, thank you to everyone who is watching after the fact, Spotify, Apple Podcasts. Leave a fivestar rating and a review if you can. Follow the show, subscribe to the show, tell your friends. We've got a really, really fun Orioles off season coming up and you're going to get all the coverage here right here on the Locked Orioles podcast. I will be back tomorrow. We're going to talk more Orioles rumors. We're going to just discuss the fact that the O's are talking with the Marlins about Edward Cabrera. What would he bring to the Orioles? We'll talk about the guys the O's lost in the rule five draft on Wednesday. One of my favorites, Carter Bumler, was selected by the Pirates, then traded to the Rangers. We'll talk about that and I'm sure we'll get some more interesting news happening around the Orioles in their pursuit of pitching. That's all coming up. It'll be another evening episode TBD if it's live or not, but it will come out around this time on Thursday. Thank you to everyone who tuned in live. Hopefully, we have some new fans here, new subscribers. Make sure you stick around for the rest of the offseason, including Thursday night. But until then, I'm Connor Nukem and this has been the Lockdown Orioles podcast, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day.

The Baltimore Orioles have made their first big move, signing Pete Alonso to a 5-year, $155 million deal. Host Connor Newcomb breaks down Alonso’s career, how he fits with the Orioles, and what this means for the rest of the roster.

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