Kyle Bradish Contract Extension Could Impact Orioles Approach To Second Half

The Orioles entered this season with no pitcher tethered to the organization beyond his arbitration years, and most of those arms were starting to run out team control.

Baseball czar Mike Elias has now extended two starters in the span of this season, first locking up Shane Baz long-term after mortgaging a fair amount of prospects to acquire him. And, on Saturday the team announced a new five-year pact with Kyle Bradish. They are significant departures from the first seven years of this endless rebuild and desperately needed, and the latest signing could certainly have an impact on how the front office operates in the coming weeks with the trade deadline looming Aug. 3.

This contract could play into how pitchers are deployed this season - and we don't mean Bradish having his next start pushed back from Sunday (ostencibly to celebrate the $95M pact). Much more potentially sweeping than that.

Outside of one year of Corbin Burnes, Bradish is by far the best starting pitcher to work the mound for the Orioles since Elias took over in 2019, and his acquisition from the Angels as part of a package for Dylan Bundy was the best single transaction this front office ever pulled off outside of drafting Gunnar Henderson in the second round.

The Orioles have produced no arms through their own system of note – Brandon Young is having a nice season and he’s the best of the bunch nearly eight years is. And the industry knows Elias has an aversion to signing big-money contracts with pitchers or using top draft capital on them; so getting Bradish signed is a massive move for an organization hamstrung for ways to get frontline starters.

“Keeping players of Kyle’s caliber in an Orioles unform is an important part of our long-term vision,” owner David Rubenstein said in a statement.

Bradish (making $3.55M this season) had two more years of arbitration control remaining. He earned Cy Young votes in 2023, pitched through considerable pain into May the following season before getting Tommy John surgery and has returned to form this season after some natural ebbs and flows given how much time he has missed. He’s the closest thing they’ve ever had to a control-able ace, and it remains as such now (he will enter his age 30 season in 2027).

Short-Term Ramifications

With his future secured here for the bulk of his prime, perhaps the Orioles will be particularly careful with how much he pitches down the stretch, particularly if they are sellers at the trade deadline and remain near the bottom of the American League. Bradish has already thrown 107 innings this season and has never thrown 169 before and failed to throw even 40 innings in either of the previous two years.

That’s potentially problematic and backing off him always seemed to make sense and going to a six-man rotation to limit his workload might be the way to go.

And, with them now having Baz and Bradish secured, and with one more year of control on Dean Kremer, it would make it even more imperative to find out what Opening Day starter Trevor Rogers, incredibly erratic but currently in tremendous form, could fetch at the trade deadline with him a pending free agent.

(People will want Rogers extended, but that time has passed with him so close to UFA status and a weak free-agent marketing beckoning; Bradish is in a very different situation).

Having these two arms secured, plus being high on some internal options like Trey Gibson and Nestor German and with hulking lefty Joseph Dzierwa (a 2025 selection) already in AA, they might feel good enough about their options to also determine how much value Kremer has to a true contender.

Even with this signing, the need for a two No. 1 starter may loom large for this franchise for years to come, no matter who is in charge. They still have a rotation without any playoff pedigree (and almost an entire bullpen without any as well), and Elias has over-estimated how much of a real contender he could construct solely with his farm system.

With how many young arms have fallen short or broken down in Baltimore going back decades, finding certainty with Bradish is more meaningful than likely anything Elias can or will accomplish at this upcoming trade deadline and frankly all the rest of them combined. It's some of his better work. It eight years to get here.

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