Orioles’ Roster-Building Flaws Continue With Charlie Morton Signing

The Orioles finally got tired of being poked with a stick to choruses of “Do something!” and signed Charlie Morton to a one-year deal worth $15 million. Will this move silence those voices? Probably not! But as Baltimore’s GM, Mike Elias seems impervious to external feedback, so those still crowing may as well be talking to a wall. Then again, maybe a wall would have a better understanding of the importance of balance when it comes to construction, making it better equipped to construct a big league roster. But more on that in a minute.

In a vacuum, signing Morton to an affordable, short-term deal is a positive addition. Though 2025 will be his age-41 season, Morton has logged at least 160 innings in each of the last four years and put up league average (or better) numbers. Given the scarcity of healthy, quality pitching over the last few years, pitchers who post are extremely valuable. And if one didn’t know Morton had already crested 40, scanning his production wouldn’t yield any obvious giveaways. He has become more of a finesse pitcher, relying on command and weak contact over strikeouts, but the shift has been subtle. Over the last four seasons, he’s thrown his curveball more than his four-seamer and his groundball rate has gradually grown, while his strikeout rate has slowly dwindled. Morton’s curve is easily his best pitch by Stuff+ at 122, and that’s what he uses to induce whiffs and groundballs. His other offerings have Stuff+ scores ranging from 72 to 86, but he locates them well and they mirror the spin of his curveball to keep hitters off balance.

As a pitcher relying on his ability to keep the ball on the ground, it would make Morton’s life easier to take the mound in front of a strong infield defense. In 2024, the Orioles infielders logged -20 OAA and -14.3 defensive runs, but there is reason to think they’ll do better moving forward. Last season’s numbers include a lot of Jordan Westburg playing second base instead of third, where he’s a much stronger defender, and Ramón Urías looking at times overcooked while covering the hot corner after Westburg went down with a fractured hand. Meanwhile, this is a young team that still has room for growth. Ryan Mountcastle’s defense at first has seen small year-over-year improvements since 2022, when he made the move from the outfield permanent. Ideally, Jackson Holliday will get settled in at second, and though Gunnar Henderson’s play at shortstop is the least of anyone’s concern, given that he’s still only 23, there’s no reason to think he’s done leveling up his game.

If his recent track record continues into 2025, Morton can contribute important innings to a contending team. But in the context of the existing Orioles roster, and alongside the news that Corbin Burnes is officially off the market (with no reasonable replacement for Burnes available in free agency), bringing in Morton isn’t enough to help the O’s progress from good regular season team to successful postseason team.

Thus far, Baltimore’s offseason has been characterized by modest shuffling at the margins of the roster. First, adding Gary Sánchez to take on the James McCann role of sharing time behind the plate with Adley Rutschman to keep him fresh and productive. Then, signing Tyler O’Neill to take over for outfielder Anthony Santander, who is likely to sign elsewhere in free agency. And finally, bringing in Tomoyuki Sugano, a 35-year-old NPB veteran with questions around how well his stuff will translate to MLB. None of these moves definitively makes Baltimore better; really, the purpose of these additions is mostly to replace players who are no longer on the team. Morton, though, cannot replicate Burnes’ value, so if the Orioles are going to make up for their ace’s departure, they’ll need to find that production on the trade market.

Under Elias, the Orioles have proven they can construct a winning roster through drafting and development, but if you were to ask Elias if he’d be interested in acquiring a one-tool player, regardless of how good that tool is, he’d probably say no. But from what we can observe from the outside, Elias is a one-tool GM. He acknowledges Orioles’ owner David Rubenstein’s urgency to win a World Series, saying Rubenstein “wants to do everything we can do within our power” to reach that goal, which presumably includes spending in free agency. Elias is choosing not to. He’s overseen multiple trade deadlines and offseasons with opportunities to upgrade the roster via trade. In that span, he has acquired just one impact player — Burnes — and let him walk after one season. This approach may have worked eight years ago, when Elias was with the Astros, but in 2025, too many teams excel in multiple facets of roster construction, and Elias cannot get away with relying exclusively drafting and developing. That’s especially true for Baltimore, a team that churns out a surplus of position players from its pipeline, but not enough pitchers. The O’s need a more balanced approach.

Elias denies that he’s unwilling to sign free agents who would require the Orioles to give up a compensatory draft pick; instead, he’s said the team weighs the value of those picks when evaluating potential signings. That’s reasonable enough, but considering how inactive the O’s have been at the top of the free agent market since Elias took over, it’s fair to wonder if he inflates the value of draft picks. Or, maybe he doesn’t adjust for the fact that draft picks provide future value, and the Orioles need major league value right now. It’s the responsibility of a GM to manage multiple objectives within the front office. That Elias seems singularly focused on building a system for sustainable success, even if it comes at the expense of winning in the present, is confounding.

Elias has made it clear that sustainability and avoiding contracts that might turn into dead money on the books is part of how he evaluates himself. As he spoke about Rubenstein’s enthusiasm for winning, he went on to say that doing everything “within our power” also means “within our skill set to approach that correctly, and there’s measurement to how you go about this business. There’s give and take. You can’t do everything that you want to do all the time.” I would argue measuring how you go about it should include the opportunity cost of moves not made. Elias may think he’s insulated himself and the team from the risk of large negative line items on his résumé by only trafficking in small scale deals, but the value lost by not signing Blake Snell or Burnes or anyone else should also show up in red ink on his performance review. Inaction carries risk that can be just as impactful as the risk of overpaying an established player. And while it’s fair to note that Elias is far from the only GM choosing to play it safe on the free agent market, if he’s so risk averse that he can’t bear the idea of handing out a contract with an AAV over $20 million, he’s going to have a tough time constructing a roster that can win a series in October.

And while we’re talking about October, the Orioles have looked good in the regular season for a couple of years now – only to get swept out of the postseason. Random variation in short series explains some, if not all, of their playoff misfortunes. But it also provides an easy excuse for justifying inertia. Baltimore’s roster has proven itself perfectly adequate for winning in the regular season. The offense is formidable and the pitching has performed well enough despite injuries and patches of inconsistency. Over the course of 162 games, there’s room for players to miss time or go through slumps, and it’s okay to rely on the fringey corners of the roster to make contributions. But to overcome the randomness of the postseason, teams need impact players who can stay locked in for a full series or carry the threat of tilting the game with one swing of the bat. And crucially, they need to be able to do it under the pressure of the postseason. As good as Baltimore is at development, it’s very difficult to develop good postseason performers without veteran teammates around to lead by example and show them how it’s done.

Re-tooling on the margins will bring the O’s continued success in the regular season, but doing that and not adding an impactful veteran presence to a young roster creates yet another imbalance, one that doesn’t consider what it takes for a roster to also be successful in the postseason. Last year, the Orioles made a move in the right direction by trading for Burnes, an established ace, to lead the pitching staff. They still didn’t manage a postseason win, but that doesn’t mean the approach was wrong. If anything, the Orioles didn’t go far enough with their roster additions. But, instead of learning from last year’s prudence, Elias seems to be backtracking.

The Orioles were smart to sign Morton; he’s still a capable pitcher and he does provide a veteran presence. But at this point in his career, he’s a complementary piece. He’s definitely not the impact pitcher that Burnes is, and an impact pitcher is what the Orioles need.

Which highlights the final imbalance on the Orioles’ roster, a rotation built entirely out of starters who either hover around league average or have upside but lack consistency. And unless Trevor Rogers or Cade Povich wins a spot in that rotation, it will also be composed entirely of righties. It’s a perfectly fine rotation for plodding through a regular season, but not one that intimidates in October. Sure, the Dodgers proved you can win a World Series with a cast of mostly middling pitchers pieced together by Dr. Frankenstein, but given the rapidity with which they signed Snell, it’s clear they’re not bold enough to think they can make that work more than once. So while it’s certainly possible to have success without a clear no. 1 starter, it’s something a contending team should try only out of necessity — not by choice.

The Morton signing makes the Orioles better, but only in comparison to where they were after they didn’t re-sign Burnes. Because compared to last year’s rotation, this one is worse.