How the Orioles went from a youth movement to old news in 6 mistakes

It felt as if the Baltimore Orioles were on the doorstep of a dynasty. In 2022, Baltimore went from a 110-loss team to one that finished over .500 and barely missed out on the postseason. In 2023, the Orioles went from an 83-win team to a 101-win team. In 2024, they made their second straight postseason appearance, winning 91 regular-season games. Their roster was full of fun, young players, and they even had more reinforcements in the minors.

Well, since 2024, just about everything that could have gone wrong, has. Baltimore won just 75 games in 2025, and somehow, things look even more bleak this season. The O's just got swept in a key four-game series by the New York Yankees and were outscored 39-10 in those games. They are now 15-20, 9.0 games back of first-place New York in the AL East, and their -41 run differential is the second-worst mark in the sport. This is a bad team, no matter how you look at it. Here's how they got to this point.

Poor development

What made the Orioles such an exciting team was that they had a young team and a pipeline of young players seemingly on the verge of being ready to contribute. For the most part, those young players haven't done much of anything. The Orioles had five of the 32 best prospects in 2024, according to MLB Pipeline. Here's how they've done in the majors with Baltimore.

This list doesn't even include fringe top-100 prospects like Dylan Beavers and Cade Povich who haven't done much of anything of note in the majors either. Even Adley Rutschman who looked like a surefire superstar has not developed quite how Baltimore had hoped.

Now, it's too early to call any of these players official busts. Holliday and Basallo, in particular, are too talented to be complete whiffs. It's getting late early for Mayo and Kjerstad, and if the Orioles aren't going to have their former blue-chip prospects develop around the likes of Gunnar Henderson and Pete Alonso, how are they going to build a team capable of competing?

Holding prospects instead of trading them

This is the risk when it comes to holding onto your prospects. Sure, some of them will pan out. Henderson, when healthy, is a superstar, even with his slow start to this season in mind. In many cases, though, prospects will not pan out as well as you hope. In many cases, it makes more sense to trade prospects for proven stars when you have the chance. The Orioles, for the most part, opted against doing so.

They did trade prospects for Corbin Burnes, but that was for only one year of Burnes when his value wasn't as high as it otherwise would've been, and that was a rarity. That's the only major trade Mike Elias has made involving his prospects, and that's a shame, because the Burnes trade worked out. He had a great year, the O's won a division title, and the prospects they traded, Joey Ortiz and DL Hall, haven't done much in Milwaukee.

I don't necessarily blame them for holding onto Jackson Holliday, a former No. 1 overall pick and No. 1 prospect in the sport, but why couldn't they have traded any of their other several top-100 prospects for players who could've helped them win now? Had they done so, maybe they would've made noise in the postseason and/or not stagnated as they have now.

Having a farm system that consistently produces top prospects who perform in the majors is the dream, but it almost never works out that way. It's hard to develop talent. Elias' reluctance to move on from really any of his top prospects is a big reason why the O's are in this spot.

Undervaluing starting pitching

Starting pitching is incredibly valuable, but Mike Elias must not believe that. For whatever reason, he's refrained from spending big money or trading top prospects to acquire high-end starters, and to the surprise of nobody, it's been mostly bad on the starting pitching front in the past half-decade.

2024, of course, was the Orioles' year with Corbin Burnes, so it should come as no surprise that the O's fielded an elite rotation that year, ranking in the top five in the majors in ERA. Before and after Burnes, though, the Orioles have had mostly bad rotations. Even in 2023, when they had a decent rotation, a random Tyler Wells breakout aided that. Wells is now a reliever who was recently optioned to Triple-A.

This isn't to say Elias hasn't made moves to address starting pitching. He's traded for Shane Baz, Zach Eflin and Jack Flaherty over the years. He's signed Charlie Morton and Chris Bassitt. The problem is that none of these players were aces. Elias did not part with high-end prospects or money to acquire these pitchers.

Elias said acquiring an ace was a priority this past offseason, only for Baz and Bassitt, two non-aces, to be his rotation additions. This had nothing to do with available options. Both Ranger Suarez and Framber Valdez, pitchers Baltimore was linked to all winter, were lingering around in free agency for a while. The O's could've traded for a pitcher like Edward Cabrera or Freddy Peralta. Instead, they ended their offseason not trading any high-end prospects or spending high-end money, but got less value than they otherwise would've.

Sure, it's on the pitchers to perform better, but Elias' refusal to get an ace in town for more than a year has undoubtedly held Baltimore back. The rotation has been an issue each year he hasn't had an ace, and as you can see by their 5.04 rotation ERA this season, things only appear to be getting worse.

Abysmal 2023 trade deadline

The Orioles' best chance to win a World Series came in 2023, when they won 101 games, an 18-game improvement from their breakout 2022 campaign. Despite the fact that they were clearly an elite team, Elias did not go all-in that year.

The only major move the Orioles made that year was acquiring Jack Flaherty, a starter who had a 4.43 ERA in 20 starts with the St. Louis Cardinals and was set to hit free agency after the year. Sure, the O's didn't have to give up much, but they clearly weren't acquiring much either, as the right-hander posted a 6.75 ERA in nine appearances (seven starts) for Baltimore.

From Justin Verlander to Max Scherzer to Jordan Montgomery to Lucas Giolito, there was no shortage of starters to get moved at the deadline, yet the O's, despite a loaded farm system, settled on Flaherty. Going halfway almost never works in this league, and the Orioles paid the price.

Adding insult to injury, the Orioles had Eduard Bazardo and traded him for Logan Rinehart, a pitching minor leaguer who hasn't made an appearance since 2024, that same deadline. Bazardo is now a quality reliever that the Orioles could certainly use with the Mariners.

Tyler O'Neill signing

Mike Elias' tenure has been marred by his refusal to spend big money or assets on just about anybody, but Tyler O'Neill was an exception. The Orioles inked O'Neill to a three-year, $49.5 million deal in the 2024 offseason, adding a much-needed right-handed-hitting outfielder to the mix. This has not worked out at all.

O'Neill was limited to just 54 games played in 2025 and hit under the Mendoza Line with a sub-.700 OPS. This season, he's appeared in only 16 of Baltimore's 35 games and is slashing .205/.352/.273 with one home run and four RBI. O'Neill has been placed on the IL four separate times since signing with the O's, and hasn't been productive at all when he's been healthy enough to play.

I didn't hate the signing at the time it happened. The Orioles needed a big right-handed bat, and O'Neill was coming off a monster year with Boston. What I can say, though, is O'Neill had an extensive injury history prior to his Orioles tenure, and Elias was still comfortable with giving him a fairly hefty multi-year deal. Even in his breakout with Boston, he played in only 113 games. He had played over 100 games just twice in his career.

This was a pretty risky deal, and to say it hasn't panned out would be a major understatement. O'Neill is nothing more than a platoon outfielder now when he's healthy, and he hasn't even hit lefties well in Baltimore. It's bad.

Failing to extend Gunnar Henderson

There isn't much to love about this Orioles team other than Gunnar Henderson right now. Yes, he's only hitting .208 thus far, but he's leading Baltimore with nine home runs and he's displayed MVP-caliber upside. He finished in the top eight in the AL MVP balloting in both 2023 and 2024, and there's every reason to believe that as long as he's healthy, he can get back to that level sooner rather than later.

Unfortunately, it feels like Henderson's days in Baltimore are numbered. This is his first year of arbitration, and the Orioles only have him under control for two more years after this one. At this point, is an extension possible? Not only will Henderson command a fortune, but he's represented by Scott Boras, an agent known for pushing his clients to free agency.

The Boras factor makes it hard to blame Baltimore for not getting a deal done, but knowing that other young blue-chip players like Bobby Witt Jr., Roman Anthony and even Samuel Basallo have all signed extensions while Henderson is more likely than not going to leave Baltimore in the 2028 offseason, if he isn't traded before then, really stings and makes it harder to believe in this organization long-term.

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