The Orioles and free agent reliever Andrew Kittredge are in agreement on a one-year, $10MM guarantee, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. The Paragon Sports International client receives a $9MM salary for the upcoming season and is guaranteed a $1MM buyout on a $9MM club option for 2026. Baltimore has a full 40-man roster and will need to make a move when the contract is finalized.
Kittredge will step into a setup role in front of star closer Félix Bautista, who is making his return from Tommy John surgery. The veteran joins Seranthony Domínguez, Yennier Cano and Keegan Akin as potential high-leverage pieces in Brandon Hyde’s bullpen. Kittredge has plenty of seventh and eighth inning experience. He led the National League and finished second in MLB (behind Houston’s Bryan Abreu) with 37 holds for the Cardinals last season.
The righty earned the trust of St. Louis manager Oli Marmol as the top setup arm in front of star closer Ryan Helsley. He worked 70 2/3 innings with a 2.80 earned run average. Kittredge punched out a league average 23.3% of batters faced while limiting walks to a modest 7% clip. He missed bats on an above-average 13.7% of his pitches while doing a reasonable job keeping the ball on the ground.
Kittredge, who turns 35 shortly before Opening Day, isn’t a flamethrower. He worked in the 94-95 MPH range with both his sinker and four-seam fastball. That’s solid velocity but by no means exceptional for a modern late-inning reliever. Kittredge’s specialty is beating hitters with a plus slider. He turned to the breaking ball around half the time.
Opponents hit .177 against the pitch while swinging through it more than 40% of the time that they offered at it. He particularly excelled at getting hitters to go out of the zone. Opponents swung at nearly 42% of the pitches that Kittredge threw outside the strike zone. Among pitchers with 50+ innings, only Arizona left-hander Joe Mantiply got chases at a higher rate.
The one knock against Kittredge last season was a problematic platoon split. Pitchers who lean on a slider-sinker mix often struggle with opposite-handed hitters. That was certainly the case for Kittredge. He stifled right-handed batters to a .188/.247/.291 line in 183 plate appearances. Lefties teed off at a .296/.337/.571 clip with six homers in 104 trips. His career platoon splits aren’t as drastic, but lefties have managed a solid .244/.320/.455 slash in more than 400 plate appearances against him. Baltimore has a trio of southpaws who are locks for bullpen spots if healthy: Akin, Gregory Soto and Cionel Pérez. That gives Hyde some options if he wants to shield Kittredge from opposing lineups’ best lefty bats.
Despite the vulnerability to southpaws, Kittredge has a strong multi-year track record. He debuted with the Rays in 2017 and spent parts of seven seasons in Kevin Cash’s bullpen. Kittredge worked in middle relief for the first few years but had a breakout showing in ’21. He fired a career-best 71 2/3 innings of 1.88 ERA ball to earn an All-Star selection. Kittredge injured his elbow early the following year and required Tommy John surgery. The timing of that procedure limited him to 31 appearances between 2022-23.
Tampa Bay flipped him to St. Louis last winter for outfielder Richie Palacios. Kittredge picked up where he’d left off pre-surgery during his only season with the Cardinals. He owns a 2.48 ERA across 162 appearances going back to the start of the ’21 season. That made him one of the better relievers in this year’s free agent class, though his age limited the contractual upside.
MLBTR ranked Kittredge the offseason’s #40 free agent. We predicted a two-year, $14MM pact covering his age 35-36 seasons. He falls short of the multi-year deal and that overall guarantee but secures a solid salary for the upcoming campaign. Kittredge is the third pitcher and the fourth free agent whom the O’s have signed to a one-year deal this winter. Baltimore has added Charlie Morton ($15MM), Tomoyuki Sugano ($13MM), and Gary Sánchez ($8.5MM) alongside their biggest acquisition — outfielder Tyler O’Neill on a three-year, $49.5MM contract that allows him to opt out after the first season.
The five free agent expenditures have added $63MM (including Kittredge’s option buyout) to next year’s payroll. Baltimore has certainly been a bigger player under first-year owner David Rubenstein than they were in recent years under John Angelos. The O’s have shied away from any significant long-term commitments, instead adding shorter-term veteran pieces around their prized position player core. RosterResource calculates their ’25 player payroll around $156MM, which would be their highest figure since 2017. O’Neill is their only player on a guaranteed contract that stretches beyond this year.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
That’s a nice payday!
was hoping my dbacks got him. Nice move.
O’s bullpen just got even better
Let’s hope his performance doesn’t decline at 35.
Danny Coulombe replacement for more than double the price? I’ll be first in line for the David Rubenstein bobblehead giveaway
Orioles are done with injured pitchers!
Seems steep but we’ll see. He’s old AF.
That’s a damn good signing, O’s!
There is the bullpen move that had been rumored and it’s a pretty good one, and the club option is a nice bonus. Good stuff.
Good job, nice get!
Roster spot will open when Mountcastle and Kremer go to Seattle.
Ugh, Mariners could use a little bit more oomph in the batting dept. than just Mountcastle.
The idea in trading Castillo for two is that they get a fifth starter and at least a platoon upgrade/dh option to bolster the lineup while creating $15 mil. They could take that and a couple more bucks and get bregman.
Couple more bucks? Bregman is looking for seven years at $30 miillion per.
Good deal for team and player
Oh brother… I guess Kimbrel wasn’t available, so Elias had to find someone else to waste money on.
Lotta money for a 7th/8th inning guy. These are the spots where a good pitching lab should be able to rehabilitate 2 or 3 reclamation projects per season for pennies on the dollar.
The orioles have done a very good job of that in recent years but this was a way to add a nice upgrade without spending the big bucks on an sp upgrade or top end rp.
He’s gonna be their closer bro
I changed my mind. He’s old, but not bad. Makes me wonder, though, why Mike Elias is so fascinated by older guys.
Maybe he’s into “dad bods” who knows
Great deal for team and player. He basically got paid market value for one year and possibly two years, no more, though, because he’s on the older side, but he gets that sweet sweet eight figure guarantee that most guys dream of when they get drafted and called up.
As a Cardinal fan hate to lose him. Pretty reliable. Not great but good. Will have a few bad innings but overall pretty reliable. He did well getting paid as much as he did .
Very solid when healthy the last few years. If the Orioles can get to the later innings with the lead it looks better (atones for losing Coulombe). I’m a bit surprised at the $ given its the Orioles, but I guess they know him well seeing him in Tampa all that time.
Great, the Cardinals pay him $2.63 million last year and we give him $9 million. It must be nice to be a very average relief pitcher.
Andrew Kittredge is one of the few (and perhaps the only) players in major league history traded twice during their career and each time for a different Richie.
You will definitely want to keep this in mind when you make the playoffs in the Professional Immaculate Grid League.
I really like Kittredge, but that price seems steep to me. That’s either $10 million for one year or $19 million for two years. His ERA was great, but he had a large gap between ERA and FIP. The FIP was pretty pedestrian.
Gut reaction was that I didn’t like it.
Thought about it and I’m ok with it. He has a high spin slider that he pairs with a sinker. Different look from the right handed flame throwers we have down there. It’s fine.
Setting up to have a huge roster turnover year over year. Potentially 4 relievers are free agents next year.
Well 6 major league pitchers could be free agents next offseason. That’s a significant amount.
None of these moves will hurt for long. I wonder if this is it for now. Can’t imagine another arm is coming in without a trade to clear out a projected major leaguer. (Kremer or Suarez would be my guess)
Guessing Baker is the guy who gets pushed off the 40 man now since he’s out of options and now has absolutely no chance of making the pen.
About time. Baker is one of those guys who’s irritating to watch pitch regardless of what his stats and peripherals say, and it inspires no confidence to see him coming out of the pen in any situation.