ESPN Report: MLB Trade Has Being Suspend
The 2023-24 MLB offseason has begun, and we have you covered with grades and analysis for every major signing and trade this winter.
Whether it’s a nine-figure free agent deal that changes the course of your team’s future or a blockbuster trade that has all of baseball buzzing, we’ll weigh in with what it all means, for next season and beyond.
Follow along as our experts evaluate each move. This article will continue to be updated, so check back in for the freshest analysis from the beginning of the hot stove season through the start of spring training.
Key links: MLB free agency tracker
Hey, Orioles fans, how do you like your new owners so far?
At the outset of the offseason, when everyone analyzed what teams might do and made their predictions, all the experts agreed: Burnes to the Orioles made perfect sense. Burnes had just one year left until free agency and there was little chance he was going to sign an extension to stay in Milwaukee. The Orioles needed a top-of-the-rotation starter and, even after graduating Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson the past two seasons, had a farm system still loaded with talent (ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel just named Jackson Holliday the No. 1 prospect in baseball).
Then … crickets. The Orioles signed Craig Kimbrel and went silent. The Brewers dumped a couple salaries on the Mets (Adrian Houser and Tyrone Taylor), but when they signed Rhys Hoskins, it appeared to signify they would just keep Burnes and make a run of it in 2024. Then comes this early February blockbuster, just two days after news broke that the Angelos family would be selling the Orioles to a group led by billionaire investor – and Baltimore native — David Rubenstein.
The initial response to this trade: Shock. This is all the Orioles gave up in acquiring one of the game’s best starting pitchers?
Among pitchers with at least 100 innings pitched in 2023, Burnes ranked eighth in lowest OBP allowed and third in lowest OPS allowed. He did that while throwing 193 innings, 10th-most in the majors and 26 more than he threw in his Cy Young season in 2021. Run the data over the past three seasons, and Burnes is even more impressive. In looking at 2024 projections, Burnes is comfortably in the top 10 among pitchers, right up there with Gerrit Cole, Zack Wheeler and Spencer Strider for best-in-the-game status.
The Orioles will now roll out a top three of Burnes, Kyle Bradish and Grayson Rodriguez, the highly touted rookie last season who struggled early on before posting a 2.26 ERA over his final 12 starts. Bradish came out of nowhere to finish fourth in Cy Young voting, and while some might chalk up his season as a fluke, his pitch metrics are strong and suggest we can expect more of the same. I’d rank those three right up there with any trio in the majors — maybe the Dodgers are better, depending on the health of Tyler Glasnow and Walker Buehler to go with Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and the Mariners are pretty good as well – but these three are going to win a lot of games with Baltimore’s offense and defense supporting them.
To be fair here, Burnes hasn’t been quite as dominant as he was in that 2021 season. His strikeout-to-walk ratio has dipped from 6.88 to 4.76 to 3.03. After allowing just seven home runs in 2021, he allowed 22 in 2023. His sinker (he doesn’t throw a four-seamer) has become more hittable as its velocity has dropped from 96.9 mph to 95.3. My first thought, with the new owners taking over and a low payroll, maybe the Orioles immediately attempt to sign Burnes to a mega-extension, but with some of the above numbers in mind, maybe they wait and see what they get in 2024. And I’m not sure giving a pitcher a huge deal is in Mike Elias’ game plan either. Still, for 2024, the Orioles are getting one of the top starters in baseball.
For the Brewers, they didn’t come away empty-handed, but the return feels a little light for a pitcher of Burnes’ stature. It tells you that even an ace with just one year of team control isn’t going to net a massive return. All that undersells Ortiz and Hall a bit as both could end up being really nice players.
Ortiz is a major league-ready shortstop who reached the majors for a few games in 2023 after hitting .321/.378/.507 with nine home runs in 88 games in Triple-A. He’s No. 91 on the top 100 list, with Kiley writing, “Projections have him as a .260s hitter with 10-12 homers, a few stolen bases and real defensive value, which is also about what I have, but it could be a tick better if he was a little more selective.” He’s also 25 years old, so there isn’t much projection left in his game. The Brewers could conceivably play him at second base, but it could also lead to a follow-up trade of shortstop Willy Adames, who is also eligible for free agency after 2024.
Hall has the potential to make this deal a big positive for the Brewers — if he can make it as a starter, but that has become less and less likely. He’s 25, has never thrown 100 innings in a season as a professional and has walked 32 batters in 52 innings in the minors in 2023. The Orioles did call him up and used him as a reliever, where he had better control and fanned 23 batters in 19.1 innings. The Brewers certainly should give him a chance to start, but unless the command takes a big step forward, he looks like a reliever, although at least one who has the stuff to pitch in high-leverage situations. The Brewers obviously prioritized proximity to the majors over upside here. There will no doubt be a debate whether that was the right call.
Throw in the draft pick, and maybe the Brewers “win” this trade over the long haul. But it’s also a discouraging trade from this view: The NL Central is a winnable division. Maybe the Brewers still find a way to win it although those odds drop sharply without Burnes, so where is the value in winning NOW? With Burnes and Freddy Peralta, you could at least dream on a playoff run, similar to Arizona making one last postseason with just Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly as proven starters. At some point, I’d love to see a team like the Brewers throw in all their chips for a change.
Bottom line: The Orioles have seemingly done everything right in making this massive improvement the past two seasons – from drafting to player development and now to this trade and to new owners with perhaps a little more cash flow on hand to boost the payroll. With Holliday, Coby Mayo (No. 19 prospect), Samuel Basallo (No. 27) and Heston Kjerstad (No. 48) all on the horizon, the present is bright and the future unlimited. It’s a good time to be an Orioles fan. — David Schoenfield
