The Orioles intend to build Roansy Contreras back up as a starting pitcher this spring, manager Brandon Hyde told reporters (including Matt Weyrich of The Baltimore Sun). The 25-year-old righty worked in a multi-inning relief role between the Pirates and Angels last year.
It’s not clear how long this will last. Contreras is certainly not a lock to stick on Baltimore’s roster through the end of camp. He has changed teams via waivers five times this offseason alone. The O’s have claimed him twice, most recently grabbing him from the Yankees in early February. Contreras is out of options, so teams cannot send him to the minors without running him through waivers. No one has successfully snuck him through the wire unclaimed.
There’s no real path for Contreras to begin the season in Baltimore’s rotation. Hyde confirmed this morning (link via Andy Kostka of The Baltimore Banner) that he’d have a mostly settled starting five if everyone gets through camp healthy: Zach Eflin, Grayson Rodriguez, Charlie Morton, Tomoyuki Sugano and Dean Kremer. Hyde added that righty Albert Suárez and southpaw Cade Povich project as his top two depth arms, in that order.
Even with Trevor Rogers and Chayce McDermott delayed by injuries (knee and lat, respectively), Contreras would be no higher than eighth on the rotation depth chart. He could settle into a long relief role, but even that’d probably require at least one injury to Baltimore’s top eight relievers.
Andrew Kittredge, Seranthony Domínguez, Gregory Soto, Cionel Pérez and Suárez (who’d start the season as a long reliever) cannot be sent down — either because of their service time or out-of-options status. Félix Bautista, Yennier Cano and Keegan Akin are locks. That’s a full bullpen already and would exclude both Contreras and Bryan Baker, neither of whom can be optioned. There’s a decent chance the O’s waive Contreras closer to Opening Day. If he goes unclaimed, they could have him work from the rotation at Triple-A Norfolk.
A former highly-regarded prospect, Contreras pitched 68 1/3 innings of 4.35 ERA ball a year ago. He recorded a modest 18.8% strikeout rate while walking 10.4% of batters faced. He’d mostly worked as a starter over two prior seasons in Pittsburgh. He combined for an ERA just south of 5.00 in 163 1/3 frames between 2022-23. He throws six distinct pitches, per Statcast, so it’s a relatively deep arsenal. His command has been problematic, though, and none of his top four offerings (four-seam, slider, changeup, sinker) were huge weapons last season. The slider was the only of those pitches to miss bats at an above-average rate.
The Orioles don’t seem to understand the whole Reliever Conversion thing.
You take a guy who is a flawed starter and turn him into a good reliever by junking his worst pitch and having him lean on his best one, for example.
You don’t take a reliever who does nothing well and whose FIP is over 5.00 and think to yourself, “Yeah!! What we REALLY need to do is give this guy MORE exposure to MLB hitters!!”
HR prone, hit prone, doesn’t K anybody, walks a lot of guys… THAT’s who you want to see more of, Baltimore?
Maybe by turning him into a starter, it’ll scare other teams away from claiming him on waivers and they can sneak him through to AAA.
This is genius. Genius!
(It might genuinely work.)
Might sneak by no matter what his role is. No one is willing to trade anything for him. Falls deep down the waiver line.
Pirates got his fastball and spin rates looking great. Then just gone. No team has any confidence in finding it. He needs to walk less or k more. If you can’t get him doing that he’s worthless as reliever or starter. His size and talent he was always much more likely to be a reliever.
This sounds like something the Pirates would do. Oh wait! They already did this bit with Contreras, it didn’t work, and they traded him to the Angels who threw in the towel on him after the season.
Yeah, but the difference is the Pirates acquired him as a starting pitcher prospect, developed him as a SP, promoted him with the expectation he would be a starter, and pitchd well in his rookie year, mostly working out of the rotation. He hasn’t consistently shown he can be a SP since like April 2023 however.
Hmm. He actually started 3 games for the Angels last year so I’m not quite sure I understand the whole stretching him out.. He was neither great nor completely terrible at it.
Former top 100 pedigree looked solid rookie year as a starter they are just trying to see if any potential is left in the tank
The Mike Ellias special. Bargin bin hunting when your team has some of the best young talent in the league. I’m sure a rotation headlined by Kyle Bradish, Dean Kremer and Charlie Morton will “win a world series”. Fans will wonder what could of been if this overated diva wasn’t in charge. Took advantage of the Orioles tanking for years to build up his deck. Now that he has all the cards, hes sitting back with a tooth pick in his mouth, doing absolutly nothing
If Bradish returns to form he is a legit headliner. Might be asking a lot to expect that this year, but he was a headliner before Tommy John. And your other 2 headliners are GRod and Eflin, who very well may be legit playoff rotation headliners.
And while I’m 100% on the “let’s get an ace” bandwagon, it doesn’t matter who your top 3 are if the team doesn’t hit in the playoffs. Prime Smoltz, Maddux, and Glavine wouldn’t have helped the past 2 years
Heavy, heavy Latin America presence in that bullpen. By design? I say yes. A group of men having similar cultural backgrounds with the intent of melding it in to a cohesive unit including this Roansy cat. Well played Elias.