Birds Watcher

After an injury-riddled 2025 season, O'Neill picked up his option and locked himself in with the Baltimore Orioles for two more seasons. The Orioles signed O'Neill originally to help balance out their extremely left-handed-heavy lineup. Instead, he's been one of the worst hitters against lefties in baseball. That being the case, the Orioles would have loved to have moved him in the offseason, but with how much he is being paid for this season and the next, he was basically unmovable.

Last season, the Baltimore Orioles’ dreams of contention were snuffed out almost immediately. After just 50 games, the team was a staggering 18 games under .500. At that point, manager Brandon Hyde had already been fired, and most of the Orioles fan base had already mentally checked out on the season.

A look at what the Orioles have done with their most valuable draft picks Credit: James A. Pittman-Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect The Baltimore Orioles built their current team through the draft. They purposely made their team as bad as possible for multiple years with the goal of getting high draft picks that they could turn into the core of a team that could sustain winning.

How many MLB players grew up as Orioles fans besides Bruce Zimmermann? Credit: Brent Skeen-USA TODAY Sports | USA TODAY Sports The Baltimore Orioles burned through a lot of pitchers during their embarrassing tank seasons. With the constant churn of arms, it was sometimes hard for fans to grow attached to anyone on the mound.

The MLB draft is this weekend, and for the first time since 2022, the Baltimore Orioles have a top-10 pick. This year's draft will be completed across two days. The first four rounds of the draft will be on Saturday, with the first 10 picks being broadcast on Peacock and NBC; picks 11-40 will be shown on MLB Network as well as MLB TV and MLB.com, and then picks 41-135 will be available on just MLB TV and MLB.com.

The recent loss of Keegan Akin has sent the Baltimore Orioles into a scramble to find a left-handed relief pitcher to fill his absence. Since Akin went down, the Orioles have already called up Josh Walker and optioned him, and today they called up Nick Raquet, who has been called up and optioned three times already this year. It feels like only a matter of time before Raquet is optioned once more and Dietrich Enns or some other waiver wire lefty takes his place.

The Baltimore Orioles have been bad at hitting left-handed pitching for years. As their struggles have gotten worse and worse, the Orioles have leaned even heavier into platoons. When a lefty starter is on the bump, the Orioles now roll out a lineup of almost exclusively right-handed hitters that they have acquired over the last few years to try to fix this problem. It's not working. This year, against left-handed pitching, the Orioles offense combines to put up a wRC+ of 88, which ranks 24th.

The MLB trade deadline is just a handful of weeks away, and almost every day there are new rumors about what each team might do at the upcoming deadline. On Sunday, Bob Nightengale included a bullet point at the end of his regular article, sharing that sources had told him that the Orioles were talking to teams around the league about moving multiple prospects at this deadline to get the starting pitching that the team needs.

Taylor Ward's first month as a member of the Baltimore Orioles went better than anyone could have expected. Through April 30th, Ward slashed .304/.438/.441 and was among the league leaders in walks and doubles. The bold trade the Orioles made that sent Grayson Rodriguez to the Angels for one year of Ward looked like an absolute win.

Bryan Baker had one career inning pitched in the Major Leagues when the Baltimore Orioles claimed him off waivers after he was designated for assignment by the Toronto Blue Jays. He spent the next four seasons with the Orioles as a regular member of their bullpen. He experienced highs and lows with the Orioles. At some points, he looked like one of their best arms in the pen; other times he struggled so much he had to be optioned to the minors.