Archive for Orioles

Ike Irish is among the more intriguing prospects currently playing in the Arizona Fall League — and not just because of a promising bat that produced a .286/.388/.528 slash line with 15 home runs and a 135 wRC+ over 343 plate appearances with High-A Frederick. Ranked seventh in the Baltimore Orioles system with a 45 FV, the 23-year-old outfielder/first baseman got a new lease on life when he moved out from behind the dish.

The story behind Irish’s positional change isn’t as simple as his not possessing the requisite skills to one day catch at the highest level. He had already begun transitioning by the time the Orioles drafted him 19th overall in 2025 out of Auburn University, and one of the reasons was an issue that is clinically defined as a psycho-neuromuscular impediment affecting the execution of fine motor skills during sport performance.

More on that in moment.

“It was always in the back of my head,” said Irish, who is in the AFL partly to make up at-bats lost due to a torn meniscus suffered in late July. “In college, we had conversations after my sophomore year: Is catching what we really want to do? At the end of the day, I believe in my bat, and I didn’t really believe in my defense. I want my bat to perform, so I think the decision for me was a no-brainer. I play this game because I love to hit.”

It reached the point where he hated to catch. Struggling to master mechanical intricacies played a part, but as he went on to explain, it wasn’t the main reason. Read the rest of this entry »

When is an injury so bad that it requires time off? That depends on all sorts factors. How badly does it hurt? How badly does the team need that player’s production, and how much would playing through it inhibit that production? Would playing through it keep it from healing, exacerbate it, or lead to other injuries? How big is the drop-off between the injured player and whoever would be taking their place?

When is the right time to return from an injury? At any given time in the spring, summer, and fall, we can point to a dozen players whose performance is suffering as they return from an IL stint. Should they have spent more time on the shelf? Nobody knows this for sure, least of all those of us who are watching from the outside. Players see their performance drop off when they return from injuries all the time. Sometimes they returned too early, but sometimes no amount of rest or recuperation would have allowed them to avoid it. Maybe it’s just the unavoidable cost of catching back up to game speed.

Late on the evening of September 25, after the Orioles’ disappointing 2026 season had come to its abrupt, merciful end, Gunnar Henderson revealed to reporters that he’d spent half of it playing through a right wrist injury. “He declined to share the exact details,” wrote The Baltimore Banner’s Andy Kostka, “but said he will not require any surgery.” Even without details, we can draw some obvious inferences. The injury was severe enough to linger for at least three months. That Henderson mentioned it at all indicates that the injury was significant enough to impair his performance, a notion supported by the fact that manager Craig Albernaz “said there were daily check-ins to assess his availability.” Read the rest of this entry »

On Tuesday night at Citi Field, the 2026 Mets season reached either a rather humiliating new low or a moment of catharsis, depending upon your point of view. With one out in the top of the ninth inning and the Mets clinging to a 3-2 lead over the Orioles, closer Kodai Senga left an 82.5-mph forkball over the plate, and Pete Alonso absolutely hit the fork out of it for a game-tying solo shot, the 300th home run of his career. The 31-year-old slugger punctuated the shot with an emphatic bat toss as the ball caromed off the face of the second deck in left-center field. While most opponent homers in such situations would elicit groans and boos, Alonso — who made his long-awaited return to Queens this week after signing a five-year, $155 million deal with the Orioles last December — instead received a standing ovation and made a curtain call.

Though unorthodox, the response from the crowd was understandable. Alonso hit 264 home runs during his seven seasons with the Mets, the most homers in franchise history, making five All-Star teams and two trips to the postseason while earning a spot in the hearts of fans as their beloved Polar Bear. Tuesday night’s game was just his second at Citi Field as a visitor, and as they’d done the night before, Mets fans brought their homemade cardboard signs displaying sentiments such as: “Thank You Pete — Forever a Met,” “Mets Fans Still Love Pete,” and “Should’ve Paid Pete.” The last of those also featured a Mets logo in front of the phrase “Fans Rooting For” before an Orioles logo.

Prior to Monday night’s first pitch, the Mets presented a tribute video, and shortstop Francisco Lindor joined the crowd of 35,880 in an ovation before Alonso’s first plate appearance. Alonso went 0-for-3 with a walk in Baltimore’s 2-1 win that night, a victory that officially eliminated the Mets from playoff contention. Tuesday’s homer, his 36th of the season, was his lone hit in five plate appearances, though it loomed large in an 11-inning, 7-5 win that sent the Mets to their 82nd loss, guaranteeing them their first sub-.500 season since 2023, before David Stearns took over as president of baseball operations.

In the wake of Alonso’s homer, the scene at Citi Field took a surreal turn, as chants of “Fire Stearns!” followed Alonso’s cameo, ringing out around the ballpark. The crowd — officially 28,097 but in actuality much more sparse, befitting a home team playing out the string — vented its anger and disappointment regarding Stearns’ offseason overhaul of the roster.

Pete Alonso grins as Mets fans chant “fire Stearns” after Alonso hit his 300th home run in his old ballpark pic.twitter.com/XbNLhDE7yn

— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) September 16, 2026

Read the rest of this entry »

In last week’s mailbag, I ran through the list of teams that posted losing seasons and finished with positive run differentials. The question was inspired by this year’s Tigers, who were 64-75 (.460) when I wrote my response the previous afternoon, despite outscoring their opponents by 0.34 runs per game. I wrapped up my answer by mentioning that the Tigers could become the first team ever to lose 90 or more games during a season in which they scored more runs than they allowed. So before we get to this week’s mailbag, I’d like to provide an update on Detroit’s chance at history.

As of Friday afternoon, the Tigers had gone 3-4 in their past seven games, bringing their overall record to 67-79 (.459) with a per-game run differential of 0.377. Fittingly, all four of their losses in that span were decided by one run, while their margin of victory in their three wins was +12. They are the worst team in the majors this season in one-run games, with a record of 14-27 (.341). Their .459 winning percentage on the season puts them on pace for between 87 and 88 losses this year.

This week, I’ll answer the inverse of that question and discuss teams that finished above .500 with negative run differentials. We’ll also see how different baseball would be if teams could use a DH for every position, find the teams that score the most runs on bases-loaded walks and hit-by-pitches, and look at how teams should deploy their relievers in the ninth and 10th innings of tie games. But first, I’d like to remind you that this mailbag is exclusive to FanGraphs Members. If you aren’t yet a Member and would like to keep reading, you can sign up for a Membership here. It’s the best way to both experience the site and support our staff, and it comes with a bunch of other great benefits. Also, if you’d like to ask a question for an upcoming mailbag, send me an email at mailbag@fangraphs.com. Read the rest of this entry »

The long weekend was a particularly rough one for center fielders in the AL East. On Saturday, the Yankees’ Trent Grisham landed on the injured list with a Grade 2 strain of his right hamstring, and then on Sunday, both Luis Robert Jr. of the Orioles and Ceddanne Rafaela of the Red Sox joined him on the sidelines, the former due to a low-grade left hamstring strain and the latter because of a right quad strain. Their absences could have some impact as the teams jockey for position in the AL Wild Card race, where Baltimore’s chances have taken a major hit due to a recent six-game losing streak.

The most serious injury is that of the 29-year-old Grisham, who left Friday’s game against the Padres at Petco Park in the middle of the third inning. Reportedly, he initially felt tightness in his hamstring while being thrown out trying to steal second base in the top of the second, after drawing a leadoff walk against Padres starter Walker Buehler. In the bottom of the frame, he got a very late jump on a bloop by Xander Bogaerts that landed for a two-out RBI single, the game’s first run. After the inning, the YES Network broadcast showed Grisham in the dugout talking to Michael Schuk, the team’s director of sports medicine and rehabilitation, who then followed him into the clubhouse.

Right fielder Spencer Jones shifted over to center to replace Grisham, with Heliot Ramos entering the game in right. Both wound up figuring in the Yankees’ 3-2 defeat, when Jones led off the top of the 10th inning with an RBI single but was thrown out trying to steal third base as Ramos swung through an 88-mph slider from Mason Miller for strike three. The Yankees ended up losing when Luis Campusano hit a walk-off two-run homer off Paul Blackburn in the bottom of the 10th. Read the rest of this entry »

Baseball is a team sport, but sometimes there’s only room for two faces on a poster.

Before every playoff series, the league, its broadcast partners, and anyone else with an interest in promoting the event will circulate something based on the poster for the 1997 John Woo film Face/Off.

Half Cage, half Travolta, all smoldering scene-chewing and cartoonish violence. If that doesn’t get your blood pumping I don’t want to know you. There’s more to each side of the matchup than just the one guy, but in baseball as in film you put the superstar’s mug on the promo material if you want to sell tickets. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s easy to forget that the trade deadline isn’t actually the last chance for teams to reload before the postseason. Players can join a team through waivers as late as August 31 — Monday, for those of you who, like me, have trouble keeping track of the calendar — and still be eligible for the playoffs.

It’s common practice for teams to put expensive vets on the wire to see if anyone will bite and take the contract off their hands. The Angels famously flooded the waiver wire in 2023, as their last-ditch effort to load up for a playoff run with Shohei Ohtani left backfired in a matter of days. This year, the biggest name on the move was Luis Robert Jr., who’s bound for Baltimore. Read the rest of this entry »

In 1981, when a seven-week players’ strike split the season into two “halves,” and in 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic shortened the season to 60 games, teams with sub-.500 records snuck into the postseason via expanded playoff formats created to accommodate the unique and extraordinary circumstances. No team finishing below .500 over the course of a full schedule has received a playoff berth, but the possibility looms large this year. With five and a half weeks and about 35 games per team still to play, the American League has just five teams above .500, including one — the AL West-leading Astros — that entered Wednesday right at that mark before beating the Angels. It’s not out of the question that two sub-.500 teams could make the playoffs, but for all of the owners’ carping about a lack of competitive balance, messy free-for-alls such as this are just what Major League Baseball wants.

If the postseason were to start today, the Rays (76-50) would win the AL East by five games and White Sox (66-60) the AL Central by four games, with both earning first-round byes. The Yankees (71-55) and Red Sox (68-59) would qualify as the top two Wild Card winners; as the fourth and fifth seeds, they would square off in a best-of-three Wild Card Series as they did last season. But from there, things get ugly. The Astros (64-63) are currently clinging to a two-game lead over the Rangers (62-65) atop the AL West, but with a projected win total of 82 wins according to our Playoff Odds, they don’t have much margin for error when it comes to clearing the .500 bar, and could join or surpass the 2005 Padres (82-80) and 1973 Mets (82-79) in terms of mediocre division winners. The 1994 Rangers were a whopping 10 games below .500 at 52-62 but one game ahead of the A’s (51-63) when the players’ strike put them both out of their misery, though MLB does not consider any first-place teams from the shortened season to be official division winners. That’s how the Braves, who trailed the NL East-leading Expos by six games when the strike hit, are still considered to have won 14 consecutive division titles from 1991–2005 (an assertion I take issue with, but that’s an argument for another day). Read the rest of this entry »

Jim Palmer faced 870 different hitters over the course of a Hall of Fame career that spanned from 1965 to 1984. A Baltimore Oriole throughout, the now-80-year-old broadcast analyst did so while fashioning a 268-152 won-lost record and a 2.68 ERA. A six-time All-Star who captured three Cy Young Awards, he is widely considered the best pitcher in franchise history.

How well does Palmer remember his matchups against Carl Yastrzemski, Rod Carew, and other notables from his era? Moreover, can he correctly answer questions such as “Who did you strike out the most times?” and “Who did you surrender the most home runs to?” I decided to find out. Given his reputation as an entertaining storyteller with a good memory, Palmer seemed like a perfect fit for our Challenging Career Quiz series.

That he didn’t know who he had faced the most times came as a surprise. Palmer faced Yastrzemski a whopping 197 times, with his next most frequent matchup, Graig Nettles, lagging well behind with 160. Of course, his not being able to name the Red Sox icon didn’t mean there weren’t stories. With Palmer, there are almost always going to be stories. Read the rest of this entry »

As we analyzed what various teams were likely to do at the deadline, the Orioles were one of the toughest teams to peg. Just a few games under .500 and within shouting distance of the final American League Wild Card spot, Baltimore had a lot of ways to approach the rest of their season. While the Dean Kremer and Taylor Ward deals signaled the club’s intention to sell, the decision to trade Adley Rutschman to Boston not only confirmed Baltimore’s direction for the rest of this season, but also arguably changed the course of the franchise. It’s the end of an era, and a bitter pill to swallow for a fan base barely a half decade removed from “playing badly for Adley.” Not surprisingly, Elias’s claim from exactly four years ago that the competitive window was open in Baltimore (“it’s liftoff from here“) has made the rounds again on social media today.

If it’s any consolation for O’s fans, the prospect package from the Red Sox is quite a haul. In exchange for Rutschman (along with catcher Jake Rogers and cash), the Orioles have acquired prospects Anthony Eyanson, Enddy Azocar, and Kyson Witherspoon, along with catcher Carlos Narváez and a player to be named later or cash. That’s two Top 100 prospects, including a guy in the top 30, and a pitcher who could enter that orbit as well. Let’s touch on each of them individually and then muse a bit about what this means for Baltimore’s system and the franchise overall. Read the rest of this entry »