It\u2019s become an annual ritual for the Orioles front office. Every offseason, when fans are clamoring for the O\u2019s to sign a top-tier ace pitcher, Mike Elias inevitably says \u201cno thanks\u201d and instead throws some money at an aging, back-of-the-rotation veteran. It\u2019s a tried-and-true formula that Elias continues despite the fact that it basically never works.<\/p>\n
Oh, sometimes the veteran will eat up innings and provide clubhouse leadership, like Kyle Gibson in 2023. But more often than not, the pitcher will show his age and get absolutely torched, like, well, Kyle Gibson in 2025. This past winter, after the O\u2019s again failed to land a frontline starting pitcher, Chris Bassitt became the latest grizzled vet to engage in the Orioles\u2019 yearly tradition. He signed a one-year, $18.5 million deal with the Orioles on Feb. 13, nine days before his 37th birthday.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t much consolation for Orioles fans who\u2019d had visions of the team landing a true #1 starter, but the signing of Bassitt made some sense. The former All-Star was an experienced AL East pitcher, spending the previous three seasons with the Toronto Blue Jays and posting an above-average 109 ERA+. And he said all the right things after joining the club, insisting that he signed with the O\u2019s because he thought they had the talent to win the World Series.<\/p>\n
Orioles fans, scarred by the team\u2019s previous forays into the old-guy starting pitcher market, asked one thing above all of Bassitt: don\u2019t be the next Charlie Morton. The O\u2019s had been burned a year earlier when they handed a $15 million deal to Morton to coax him away from retirement, only for the 41-year-old righty to implode with a 5.42 ERA before being jettisoned at the trade deadline. You wouldn\u2019t think it would be a high bar for Bassitt to clear. And yet, he crashed right into it.<\/p>\n
Bassitt made a lousy first impression on Orioles fans when he coughed up four runs in 4.1 innings in his team debut, then got blistered for six runs in two innings his next time out. He didn\u2019t even pitch five innings in an outing until his fourth start, a scoreless performance against the Guardians, but then went right back to stinking. After 10 starts in an O\u2019s uniform, Bassitt\u2019s ERA was 5.51 \u2014 even worse than the dreaded Morton mark. The Orioles, despite Bassitt\u2019s bold claims, were nowhere close to winning a World Series, and Bassitt himself was a big reason why.<\/p>\n
On June 3, Bassitt left his start at Fenway Park after three innings, and not just because he was struggling again. He exited the mound with low back discomfort, an ailment that landed him on the IL for more than two months. Ineffective and injured, Bassitt\u2019s tenure with the Orioles was shaping up to be one of the worst in recent team history.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, that wasn\u2019t the end of his story. Bassitt returned to the Birds in mid-August and showed significant improvement in his second act, going 5-1 with a 3.74 ERA. The Orioles won six of his eight starts. Those numbers aren\u2019t dominant, but they\u2019re much more in line with the pitcher the O\u2019s thought they were getting when they signed him. One wonders if the back injury was affecting Bassitt long before the Boston start. Whatever the case, the two months of rest served him quite well.<\/p>\n
Bassitt\u2019s overall season stats \u2014 a 9-5 record, 4.59 ERA, and 1.0 fWAR \u2014 weren\u2019t as dreadful as they were shaping up to be during his awful first half. Still, time comes for us all, and nearly all of Bassitt\u2019s numbers at age 37 were his worst in a decade, including his ERA+ (89), WHIP (1.549), H\/9 (10.6), and K\/9 (6.5). Bassitt wasn\u2019t fooling many batters, ranking in the eighth percentile in K% and just the fifth percentile in chase percentage.<\/p>\n
He wasn\u2019t Charlie Morton bad, and certainly not 2025 Kyle Gibson bad, but Bassitt wasn\u2019t worth $18.5 million. Based on FanGraphs\u2019 general principle that 1 WAR is worth about $8 million in free agency, Bassitt\u2019s performance merited less than half of the salary he got. The Orioles shouldn\u2019t and won\u2019t re-sign him, unless they\u2019re convinced that the second-half Bassitt is the version they\u2019ll get for a full season. We can only hope that\u2019s not something they\u2019ll talk themselves into.<\/p>\n