Replacing Félix Bautista is no easy feat. The Orioles’ mountainous All-Star closer — who is likely to miss the entire 2026 season, just as he missed all of 2024 — has gigantic shoes that are hard to fill. Just ask Craig Kimbrel, whose 2024 experience in Baltimore turned into a boondoggle. Or Keegan Akin, who underwhelmed as the Orioles’ fill-in closer after Bautista’s season-ending injury this season.

It’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it. And Pete Fairbanks, a hard-throwing right-hander who’s spent the past few years as an Orioles rival, could be just the person to take up the mantle.

The 31-year-old Fairbanks is the classic Rays pitching development success story, another example of the Tampa Bay organization acquiring an unheralded hurler and molding him into a valuable contributor. The former ninth-round pick had just eight games of MLB experience, with a 9.35 ERA, when the Rays acquired him from Texas in 2019. He’d already had quite the arduous baseball journey, having undergone two Tommy John procedures, one as a junior in high school, and another as a High-A pitcher in 2017. Still, the surgeries didn’t sap his intriguing repertoire of a high-90s heater and sharp-breaking slider.

With the Rays’ help, Fairbanks honed his slider further, adding more inches of vertical break to the pitch every year. By 2024, his slider averaged 45.5 inches of vertical drop, five more than in his first full season in 2020. Hitters couldn’t touch it. For the last four seasons, opposing batters have hit .173 against Fairbanks’ slider. That pitch, combined with a fastball that ranks in the 90th percentile in velocity, turned Fairbanks into a bullpen weapon.

From 2019 through 2022 he posted a 2.98 ERA and 12.44 K/9 for the Rays, gradually taking on higher-leverage roles. The Rays signed him to a three-year extension in January 2023 and installed him as their full-time closer. He has racked up 75 saves in 88 opportunities since then, a conversion rate of 85 percent.

Injuries have continued to plague Fairbanks throughout his career, though none nearly as serious as his two elbow reconstructions. The 2025 season was the first in which Fairbanks avoided the IL all year. In previous seasons he’s missed time with a rotator cuff strain, a torn lat, and inflammation of the shoulder, hip, and forearm. That injury history might have played a role in the Rays’ decision to decline his $7 million option for 2026.

Still, when Fairbanks has been on the field, he’s been effective. He remains one of the hardest throwers in baseball, and hitters continue to have a tough time squaring him up. This season he posted a 2.83 ERA in a career-high 61 games, averaging just about one baserunner per inning (1.044 WHIP). Fairbanks changed his pitch mix somewhat in 2025 — throwing his changeup more often than ever before, and adding a new cutter on which hitters went 0-for-13 — but still mainly relies on the fastball and slider as his go-to offerings.

Fairbanks, who turns 32 next month, won’t command a particularly hefty contract. MLBTradeRumors projects him for a two-year, $18 million deal, a price point that should be more than reasonable for a team like the Orioles. Fairbanks is an established closer with AL East familiarity who’d be a good fit for an O’s team that currently has a gaping hole in the ninth inning.

Oh, and there’s one other thing. A case can be made that Fairbanks is one of the dorkiest players in the majors, and I mean that in the most respectful way possible. (Game recognizes game.) For starters, he is — like several current Orioles, including Gunnar Henderson and Colton Cowser — a big LEGO aficionado. It’s why this past September, when Fairbanks was caught blowing a kiss in the direction of the O’s dugout after finishing the game for the Rays, he made sure to clarify that the gesture was directed at a heckling fan, not at the Orioles players. “I don’t think that I’d be chirping a group of LEGO-loving people like that,” Fairbanks told the media after the game. “I have nothing but respect for the guys over there that are playing hard, competing.”

But Fairbanks’ off-the-field interests go beyond LEGO. He’s a crossword puzzle expert. He boasts an impressive collection of Pokémon cards. He’s a voracious reader who binges everything from Superman comics to biographies about German ambassadors, and who names Swedish novelist Fredrik Backman as his favorite author “by far.” I haven’t been in an MLB clubhouse in a while, but I’m guessing it’s not particularly common to see an athlete curled up at his locker with a nice Fredrik Backman book.

In a sport where we don’t often hear from players aside from some clichéd post-game quotes, I tend to like players who show some personality. And I especially like if that personality is one of a huge nerd.

Could Fairbanks be a risky pickup? Yes. He’s not exactly the picture of health, and there are signs that he’s not the dominant pitcher he used to be, with a K/9 rate that has plummeted to 8.7 and 8.8 the past two seasons after marks of 14.3 and 13.5 the previous two years.

But considering his track record and his experience in the division, Fairbanks makes a lot of sense as an Orioles target this offseason. Just don’t ask him to be Félix Bautista.