There are now 56 days remaining until Orioles Opening Day, which is to say, real baseball will be back exactly eight weeks from today. That\u2019s fun! Or will it be fun? I guess that\u2019s up to the team that disappointed us last year. Only eleven days remain before WBC-participating pitchers and catchers are in camp.<\/p>\n
We are close enough to the start of spring training that it\u2019s getting increasingly weird that the top remaining free agent starting pitcher, Framber Valdez, has not signed. We can only guess what the holdup is. My suspicion is teams are refusing to budge beyond four-year offers, perhaps even three-year offers, and he\u2019s hoping somebody will blink before camps open up.<\/p>\n
Teams are probably waiting for him to blink as well. Lately, these sorts of situations have had a tendency to resolve with the player getting a shorter, high-AAV contract that allows for an opt-out by the player after only a year, or maybe two years. That doesn\u2019t mean that\u2019s what will happen with Valdez, but that\u2019s the pattern. Something like a three-year, $100 million contract where he can dip out after this season and look for another guaranteed year or two, now removed from having a qualifying offer attached to signing him and perhaps, in his mind, having proven he\u2019s still a high-end pitcher even though he\u2019s headed for his mid-30s.<\/p>\n
Other starting pitchers remain out there as well. Zac Gallen is another free agent who will cost a draft pick to sign. That might be a big problem for a guy who had a 4.86 ERA in 2025. If I was Gallen, I might have taken the QO offered by Arizona in a year and tried again for 2027. Guys like Chris Bassitt and Lucas Giolito are also still out there. You can never have enough starting pitching, and yet all of these people haven\u2019t found teams yet. There are various questions around each player that probably answer why they haven\u2019t gotten the money or years they hoped to get yet.<\/p>\n
Unless there\u2019s some injury to an Orioles starting pitcher that we don\u2019t know about – which isn\u2019t impossible – I don\u2019t really think it makes much sense to commit an eight-figure annual salary like Gallen, Bassitt, or Giolito will command in order to shore up the back end of the rotation. Maybe Zach Eflin is going to be a month delayed or something. That\u2019s fine. I\u2019ll take my chances with Tyler Wells for that long and then with Dean Kremer as the #5. Pay the money for Valdez at the top or don\u2019t bother. We got enough of those bad mid-tier signings in the Dan Duquette era.<\/p>\n
Orioles stuff you might have missed<\/p>\n
With new outlook, Henderson eager for new season with new faces<\/a> (Orioles.com)
Gunnar Henderson getting himself back into 7+ win territory is as much a part of the 2026 Orioles formula for success as anything else. He\u2019s feeling good for now, which probably doesn\u2019t mean anything but at least is nice to hear.<\/p>\n