The Orioles roster has shuffled yet again, bringing a familiar face back along with the arrival of a completely-unknown one. This latest juggling of the roster was precipitated by injures to two different outfielders. Colton Cowser is on the 7-day concussion injured list, while Tyler O’Neill lands on the 10-day injured list due to right wrist inflammation.
As corresponding moves, the Orioles activated Ryan Mountcastle from the injured list. He’s the designated hitter on Friday night, with Coby Mayo as the first baseman, which, yes. That’s what should be happening. Also active, and in Friday’s lineup, is outfielder Greg Allen. Who? The O’s signed this guy to a contract for the remainder of the 2025 season earlier on Friday and he’s their center fielder tonight.
Allen, 32, has played in seven major league seasons, combining for a .231/.300/.340 batting line. He has not appeared in a major league game since the 2023 season, having spent the earlier parts of this season on the Triple-A affiliate of the Cubs.
With Allen in center field on Friday night, the Orioles have Dylan Carlson in left field and Ryan Noda in right field. Perhaps you are wondering, is Ryan Noda even an outfielder? In the sense that he has played a total of 32 career major league innings in the outfield, yes, he is. That’s good enough for the 2025 Orioles, as we had seen already with the frequency with which another Ryan, O’Hearn, played out there.
They could easily avoid the problem of “we have a left-handed hitting first baseman playing in right field” by calling up prospect Dylan Beavers, which would instead give them a lefty-batting corner outfielder in the corner outfield. Beavers arriving could also solve the problem of “a guy named Dylan is playing left field and he can’t hit a lick.” Carlson is OPSing .539 for the Orioles and has generated -1.0 bWAR in 54 games.
Instead, the 23-year-old Beavers will just keep playing for Triple-A Norfolk, where he’s batting .309/.423/.538 in 87 games this season. One ostensible positive of the 2025 season going haywire is that the Orioles have opportunities to play their young players like Beavers when the games don’t matter, so they can get their feet wet before the start of the 2026 season with less pressure than there will hopefully be next year. GM Mike Elias has gone far out of his way to not seize opportunities to provide Beavers with that opportunity. It’s far past ridiculous.
About the injured Orioles, best of luck in their recoveries. Cowser slammed into the outfield wall in Philadelphia and looked to be trying to shake cobwebs out of his head in the immediate aftermath. In retrospect, given that he’s now on the concussion injured list, the fact that the training staff did not go out and check on him right then does not look great. O’Neill also got hurt in Philly, jamming his wrist into the wall. He’s hit five homers in the last two weeks, so that hot bat will be missed.