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.
The OP doesn’t seem to understand that there are no absolutes in baseball. As you mentioned, he was drafted and developed as a starter initially. Perhaps the Orioles see something that they believe could help him become more effective and want to see what happens. They have shown a very strong increase in their ability to improve pitchers since Elias regime started.
Developing arms isn’t an abstraction you conduct on a fantasy league sheet. They supposedly see some things in his windup that might make his load and arm slot more consistent. It’s worth a flyer. Consider that nearly every other team who can, does try to give it a go. There is raw unharnessed talent there.
Odds are it doesn’t pan out, but it’s not going to cost anything. If Elias is clever enough, he can maybe sneak him into the AAA team if he puts him on waivers at the right time when rosters are locked for the season, and relative lack of arm injuries from other teams who need some depth.
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
Contreras is just a depth guy, bro. Stop sperging out over nothing lol.
Also, you conveniently omitted Grayson Rodriguez, who easily has the highest ceiling on the staff.
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.
Don’t let Trump & Stephen Miller know about them.
Role flexibility isn’t new, but the way teams optimize it is evolving. The difference now is the data-driven refinement of usage patterns, pitch design, and workload management. The goal isn’t just flexibility—it’s maximizing variance within a controlled system. Modern teams don’t just let pitchers ‘figure it out’ in hybrid roles; they actively engineer developmental paths based on analytics and biomechanics. Contreras’ case isn’t just a return to swingman usage—it’s a step toward strategic modular pitching deployment, where a player’s role isn’t static but an adaptable asset within a team’s broader efficiency model.
Hey Old York. Hope all is well.
I agree with you to an extent. But I put more value on the mental make up of each player regardless of what the analytics say. IE. in a critical moment of the big game, who is gonna show up and who is gonna crap the bed. Look no further then the 5th inning, game 5, 2024 WS.
Yogi Berra: “this game is 90% mental, the other half physical”. Indeed Yogi.
Contreras’ journey is an early glimpse into a bigger shift in MLB, where the boundaries of traditional roles are increasingly blurred, and teams focus on asset manipulation, fluid depth, and high-variance pitchers who can evolve in real time to provide value. This is the future of MLB roster building.
There is nothing new under the sun Old York.
@Ignorant Son-of-a-b
Darn it, I replied to the wrong post.
We’ll… Since I haven’t been a jerk in a while here’s my troll post. Mariners are trash!
They could easily trade for a TOR ish starter; but they’re reluctant to trade from their deep farm. Prospect hoarding has a price. They’re certainly paying it.
I’m not sure what you mean by paying for it. The Os are actually studded with talent at almost every position.
I understand that the media narrative and convention has been that they MUST trade for an arm, or else they’re unserious. But that isn’t a given. And diverging from the conventional playbook doesn’t mean that they’re hoarding? It’s just the plan they’re following. They’re allowed to do it their way, and maybe they’re making mistakes. Or maybe they’re writing a new playbook. None of this is set in stone and as inevitable as the media makes it seem.
Roansy is horrible. He couldnt stick with the Pirates or Angels, but the playoff-bound O’s want to waste their time with this bum? It boggles the mind
and those 2 organizations are the ones that have shown they are great at player dev. the experiment will prob fail, but the cost and risk are next to nothing. let it go. we’ll see how it goes, they see something… but maybe it’s nothing too. not a big deal either way.
No one said they were putting him on the opening day starting 5. He’s a boom or bust lottery ticket. They’re rolling the dice they can pass him through waivers and then sending him AAA. If you can actually find the magic key to unlock his potential, fantastic. If not, who cares.
But there’s plenty of examples of pitchers with great stuff that figure it out later than their first team or two wish they had. Heck, Charlie Morton is one of them. That’s not who is he anymore, but he’s definitely a great stuff but took a while to put it all together guy
Suarez, Perez, Baker, Webb and Bautista = Pitchers Orioles acquired that other Organizations let go.
This is the way. The Oriole way.
I gotta think they’re gearing up to extend Gunnar and Rutch because if not why not re-sign Burnes?
Because Burnes didn’t want to be an Orioles…he wanted to be in AZ…a relocating the Orioles to AZ just for Corbin Burnes seems excessive.
You mean the Orioles weren’t willing to pony up. Money is 100% the reason he’s with AZ don’t fool/cope yourself into thinking he was just dying to be a Diamondback by any means necessary. Pitching is a weakness for the Os and the guy was right there.
You don’t have to take my word, you have Corbin Burnes who said he called the Diamondbacks when he had 3 deals on the table. He took less money then some of the offers. Burnes knew where he wanted to play, and asked to do so.
If you wanna say Os pitching is a weakness, say that. But saying the Orioles could retain Burnes is just make-believe.
If you don’t think that money is the end all be in this business you’re even more ignorant and naive than what you’re accusing me of. The Orioles didn’t cough up the money plain and simple. Either retain the ace of your staff or extend the cornerstones of your franchise end of story. They did neither and have the worst pitching in the AL East instead of taking advantage of one of the most exciting young group of hitters in the league. Cry and cope harder Orioles fans.