The Orioles Must Land One Of These 3 Left-Handed Starters This Offseason

Urgency is never on the mind of Mike Elias.

Maximizing the here-and-now and favoring your odds of winning in the moment, versus the opportunity cost of what that might do to a season three years into an uncertain future, has never been his thing. He’s more concerned with tweaking the values in his algorithm to try to prove eight years of baseball failure right, eventually. But he’s also never had to fire middle managers before and call him buddies around MLB asking if he is, in fact, a total failure (you are, bro, it's you and not BS about injuries) and he’s never been this contemptable before to even the lay fan and he’s never been in this much heat before.

So perhaps, if out of nothing but his constant beacon and guiding light – self preservation and salary retainment – he will act like 2027 actually is more important than 2030. The rational side of my brain knew this upcoming season was cooked from the moment David Rubenstein talked up this loser in July, and especially when the loser himself crowed about bringing his goofy skipper back before this lost 2026 season had even ended. But can we at least play the “what if” game, and give this feeble-minded and unsure failure a blueprint to save him from himself?

We already laid out a way to alter his failure lineup selection and construction in a massive way – addressing the lead-off and one everyday OF need (but not the CF one) by trading for Steven Kwan, yes, even as a potential one-year rental. And we have a plan for them to help at catcher we will get to later this week, and we see viable options to boost a rotation that is loading with mid-rotation guys under contract but needs something more.

Something better. And something from the left-side, ideally, since Elias butchered the ballpark twice and has nothing to show for it except it helping the opposition more than the O’s. The list of needs is plenty, but this is a big one.

Here are three win-now moves he must strongly consider for the rotation, ranked in order (this is a bad free agent class and guys like Shota Imanaga give up too many HRs already and Robbie Ray is old and can’t throw strikes).

Trade For Shane McClanahan

Public Service Announcement: I am aware this would require the Baseball Failure to do business yet again with the Rays, who fleece him mercilessly (Caden Bodine being that’s starting catcher next Opening Day would be the chef’s kiss on top of the existing damage). But this is a unique player, who is from Baltimore, who dominates the AL East, who thrives in Elias’s butchered bandbox and has a Cy Young arm.

Oh, I know the injury risk, I also know the incredibly bind Elias already put this franchise in and being super-risk adverse ain’t going to cut it. McClanahan could do for one year what Corbin Burnes did for one year. And, you know, since two billionaires own the team and McClanahan, 29, has dealt with injuries, maybe you actually keep him for more than a year. I know, crazy, right?

The Rays are always open for business and they are always developing pitchers and trading for pitchers, so this will be on the table. He’s back from two missed seasons with a 3.36 ERA in 118 innings and he has a career ERA of 3.10 and he isn’t just a function of that quirky dome in Tampa (3.36 career ERA on the road) and you could tell me it’s just six starts but he has a 1.73 ERA at Camden Yards and Elias says he builds super lineups but they have a .590 OPS and .326 SLG off McClanahan at OPCY.

Again, long-term, this will probably sting like crazy … But 1983 is a long time ago,

Trade For Eduardo Rodriquez

Whatever got in to the former O’s farm-hand, dealt for star reliever Andrew Miller (back when the Orioles actually won and actually got better at the trade deadline), during the World Baseball Classic carried over. The Diamondbacks are a mess, like the O’s, Rodriguez had a sound track record pitching in the AL East most of his career for Boston and while his production certainly is prone to extremes, and the strikeout numbers give me pause, dude posted a 2.89 ERA in the NL, which was loaded.

Rodriguez, 33, has routinely posted 150 IP or more, and even went over 200 one season in Boston. He cut way down on the amount of hits allowed last season despite the K rate not being ideal and he knows how to pitch to his defense (of course in Baltimore, where they play no defense and love to lead the league in unearned runs, it is what it is.

He’s signed for $19M next season, all the more reason for Arizona to keep him, yes, but this should be a target given the limitations of the market (Rodriguez has a mutual option for 2028 that he will void is he stays healthy at $17M). He’s made 13 career starts at Camden Yards with a 2.80 ERA and 1.11 WHIP. And while it’s been a minute, he has four career playoff starts and a 3.61 carer FIP in 11 playoff appearances.

Sign Trevor Rogers

The fact this hasn’t happened yet, when Shane Baz got extended before even really having to pitch here and Kyle Bradish got $90M coming off Tommy John might be a sign it’s not going to happen here. Elias gets his comp pick for making the qualifying offer and away he goes.

I would have concerns about Rogers in October and he is truly prone to erratic results and the fact they didn’t deal him at the deadline when he was hot (who knows whether that value will be better than the player they eventually select with the comp pick) will never make sense to me. But he is a solid lefty who is comfortable at OPCY and Elias dealt the best outfielder he ever drafted for him (Kyle Stowers, and damn does this guy love drafting outfielders at the very top of the draft, and so he will likely make some push to retain him.

The industry allegedly was lukewarm on Rogers at the deadline and we’ll see what free agency holds for him. Among the lefty options on that market, he makes as much sense as anyone.

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