Foster Griffin went to Japan three years ago not because he envisioned it would get him back to the major leagues eventually, but because at the time it was the only place that offered him a chance to be a starting pitcher.

Having bounced back and forth between Triple-A, Kansas City and Toronto while making seven MLB appearances in relief from 2020-22, the left-hander saw an appealing opportunity with the Yomiuri Giants. And once he got the blessing from his then-pregnant wife, he made the move across the Pacific and hoped for the best.

Three highly successful years later, Griffin found himself Tuesday talking about his latest opportunity: Becoming a member of the Nationals’ 2026 rotation after signing a one-year, $5.5 million contract. It’s an opportunity he couldn’t have realistically foreseen when he first left for Japan.

“It’s tough so far to wrap my head around it, to be honest with you,” he said in a Zoom session with reporters. “You hear about some guys going to Japan and coming back and getting deals. But to be honest with you, that was never at the front of my mind when I left. I just wanted to go out there and re-establish myself as a starter. I kind of feel like I got this second chance at baseball in my career, by getting the opportunity to go to Japan.”

In their quest to add some much needed experience to an otherwise young rotation, the Nationals turned their sights to Tokyo. Not for a native Japanese pitcher, but for an American-born, former first round pick who indeed resurrected his career in unexpected fashion.

Would the Orioles dare to make a roster move on the day before Christmas?

There are no organizational rules against it. President of baseball operations/general manager Mike Elias won’t silence the ringer on his phone.

It didn’t happen last year. They signed three players to minor league deals on Dec. 23 – pitchers Matt Bowman and Gerald Ogando and outfielder Jordyn Adams. And they traded first baseman Lewin Díaz to the Braves for cash considerations on Dec. 23, 2022, during that weird stretch where they’d lose him and take him back. It felt like a toxic relationship.

Catcher Lians Beato signed a minor league contract on Christmas Day 2018. Gift exchanges weren’t paused and he never made it past the Dominican Summer League.

You must go back to 2014 to find the last Christmas Eve transaction, when the Orioles signed left-hander Cesar Cabral to a minor league deal. They claimed catcher Ryan Lavarnway on waivers from the Cubs the previous day.

The Washington Nationals announced the remainder of their Major League coaching staff on Tuesday. The announcement was made by Nationals President of Baseball Operations Paul Toboni and Manager Blake Butera. The complete list below joins Butera’s staff, which also includes Bench Coach Michael Johns and Pitching Coach Simon Mathews, who were announced in November.

Matt Borgschulte, 35, enters his fifth season as a coach at the Major League level and his first as Washington’s hitting coach. He spent the 2025 season as the hitting coach the Minnesota Twins and three seasons (2022-24) as the co-hitting coach for the Baltimore Orioles. Under his tutelage, Twins outfielder Byron Buxton (2025) and Orioles designated hitter Anthony Santander (2024) won their first American League Silver Slugger awards, and in 2024, Baltimore hitters ranked second in Major League Baseball in home runs (235) and third in slugging percentage (.435), extra-base hits (530) and total bases (2,424). Orioles infielder Gunnar Henderson was named the American League Rookie of the Year, and both he and catcher Adley Rutschman won American League Silver Slugger awards in 2023.

With the Twins organization, Borgschulte spent time as the hitting coach for Triple-A St. Paul (2021), Single-A Fort Myers (2019) and the Gulf Coast League Twins (2018) and was the hitting coach at Minnesota’s Alternate Training Site in 2020. He joined the coaching ranks in 2017 with Single-A Palm Beach in St. Louis’ system after coaching at Southwest Missouri State from 2015-16. A native of St. Louis, Borgschulte played two collegiate seasons at Western Kentucky University before transferring to Drury University (Mo.).

Andrew Aydt, 30, comes to Washington after spending the last seven years as a coach at Driveline Baseball, most recently in the role of assistant director of hitting since January of 2024. In that role, he managed 15 coaches and more than 600 players and oversaw their entire Major League Baseball and professional player operation. During his time at Driveline, Aydt worked with a roster of more than 50 Major League players, including Corbin Carroll, Jeremy Peña, Vinnie Pasquantino and Nolan Arenado as well as top prospects like Travis Bazzana.

A native of Wildwood, Mo., Aydt played baseball and graduated from McKendree University (Ill.) in 2018 with a bachelor's degree in economics and earned a master’s of business administration in 2019. 

The Washington Nationals signed left-handed pitcher Foster Griffin to a one-year Major League contract on Monday. Nationals President of Baseball Operations Paul Toboni made the announcement.

Griffin, 30, returns to Major League Baseball after spending the last three seasons with the Yomiuri Giants of Nippon Professional Baseball. He went 18-10 with a 2.57 ERA, 9.1 strikeouts per 9.0 innings and 2.0 walks per 9.0 innings in 54 starts from 2023-25. A NPB Central League All-Star in 2025, Griffin went 6-1 with a 1.52 ERA, 87 strikeouts, 22 walks and just one home run allowed in 89.0 innings across 17 starts last season.

Griffin made his Major League debut with the Kansas City Royals in 2020, tossing 1.2 innings of scoreless relief to earn the win on July 27 vs. Detroit. He last appeared in Major League Baseball in 2022, pitching in six games between the Kansas City Royals and Toronto Blue Jays. Griffin went 6-0 with a 2.10 ERA in 38 relief appearances between Triple-A Omaha and Triple-A Buffalo in 2022.

A first-round pick (No. 28 overall) by the Kansas City Royals in the 2014 First-Year Player Draft out of The First Academy (Fla.), Griffin was the Royals Minor League Pitcher of the Year and representative in the SiriusXM All-Star Futures Game in 2017. He went 49-50 with a 4.54 ERA in 194 Minor League games (154 starts) prior to joining the Yomiuri Giants in 2023.

The Nationals’ one-year contract with Foster Griffin has been finalized, and the 30-year-old left-hander’s signing is now official.

Griffin and the Nats had agreed to terms last Tuesday on a $5.5 million deal, plus incentives, but the contract wasn’t finalized until he passed a physical.

With that matter now resolved, the former first round pick of the Royals turns his sights toward his official return to major leagues after a highly successful, three-year stint pitching in Japan.

Griffin joined the Yomiuri Giants in 2023 after failing to stick in the big leagues and enjoyed immediate success. He went 6-5 with a 2.75 ERA and 1.074 WHIP in 20 starts during his first season abroad, then returned the following season to go 7-6 with a 2.93 ERA in 24 starts.

Griffin’s third season in Tokyo was his best; he went 6-1 with a 1.53 ERA and 0.966 WHIP in 17 starts, earning a selection to the NPB Central League All-Star Game. He allowed only one homer over 89 innings.

The Orioles succeeded in trading for a starting pitcher without losing anyone from the major league roster or on the threshold of joining it.

Does that desire change in future deals?

President of baseball operations/general manager Mike Elias spoke Saturday in a video call about “steering more toward guys that were recently drafted or a draft pick itself.” He veered in a different direction than other executives who also wanted Rays starter Shane Baz.

The odds of winning remain higher by refusing to strip away talent that could be needed in 2026. Makes sense when you put it that way. Don’t potentially weaken one area to strengthen another. But Elias could reach the point where he dips into the excess, if that’s how he views it.

This roster has four first basemen if you include catcher Samuel Basallo’s second position. Pete Alonso has played in 162 games in each of the past two years and never fewer than 152 in six full seasons. He’s a $155 million roadblock.

Grayson Rodriguez is probably sitting at home wondering how he got dragged into another trade.

Rodriguez has one of his own, with the Orioles sending him to the Angels a month ago for power-hitting outfielder Taylor Ward. The former top pitching prospect is gone but far from forgotten.

Rodriguez’s name keeps coming up in discussions and analysis of the Shane Baz deal with the Rays. Similar ceilings and injury histories, though Baz returned from ligament-reconstructive surgery on his right elbow to make 31 starts last season.

The last Rodriguez start happened on July 31, 2024. His record improved to 13-4 after he allowed three earned runs (four total) in six innings and struck out eight Blue Jays in a 10-4 win.

Craig Kimbrel and Burch Smith covered the last two innings. James McCann was behind the plate. Cristian Pache was a defensive replacement in right field. Times were good.

While acknowledging there’s much work to be done, and while making a point to focus on long-term over short-term success, new Nationals president of baseball operations Paul Toboni has also gone out of his way to praise the talent already in place and salivate at the possibility of immediate, significant improvement.

“I’ve told many of them, and I really believe it: I think there’s another gear to tap into with many of them,” Toboni said in his introductory press conference, a refrain he has repeated multiple times since.

Anirudh Kilambi offered a similar sentiment in his formal introduction Friday as the Nats’ new general manager, referencing some sage wisdom he received from his former boss in Philadelphia (a man who has taken four different franchises to the World Series during his career).

“One of the things Dave Dombrowski mentioned to me over the last few years, as he has onboarded to multiple organizations and done really well, is that they’re always really good people and really good players, even in organizations that haven’t had the most success recently. And that’s something I took with me as really great advice. There are going to be superstars wherever you go, and you need to be in a position to help them grow, whether that’s on the field or off.”

The Nationals, as currently constructed, need help. There’s no debating that. They need a reliable starting pitcher. They need to fill a gaping hole at first base. They need several experienced relievers.

Shane Baz is the third eye-popping move made by the Orioles this month and there’s more than a week remaining before the calendar runs out in 2025.

Do you see what I see?

Closer Ryan Helsley signed his two-year, $28 million contract on the 1^st, and first baseman Pete Alonso signed his five-year, $155 million deal on the 11^th. President of baseball operations/general manager Mike Elias hopped back into the trade market by acquiring Baz from the Rays for four prospects and a Competitive Balance Round A pick – the 33^rd overall in the draft.

Baz never seemed to be tied to the Orioles or anyone else. The Rays apparently weren’t in a major rush to move him. It just happened organically, as these things are wont to do.

“That’s not necessarily the direction we were looking to go because of how highly we think of Shane,” Rays president of baseball operations Erik Neander told the media. “But we had teams coming after him aggressively, and there is a point where, if a certain threshold is reached, you can’t help but have to consider it.”

Mike Elias remembers Shane Baz from their days in Houston – the executive working as scouting director with the Astros and the teenager pitching at Concordia Lutheran High School. Elias went to the right-hander's house and met his parents.

This is where the relationship began, though it didn’t fully blossom until about eight years later.

“I had a lot of familiarity with him,” Elias said.

Elias traded for Baz yesterday, sending four prospects and a Competitive Balance Round A pick to the Rays. The Pirates made Baz the 12^th overall selection in the 2017 draft and packaged him a year later in a deal with Tampa Bay.

Now it’s Elias’ turn.

The same question was asked after the Orioles surrendered four prospects and a Competitive Balance Round A pick yesterday to acquire pitcher Shane Baz from the Rays.

What’s next?

We wondered about it after closer Ryan Helsley signed for $28 million over two years and again after first baseman Pete Alonso agreed to the five-year, $155 million deal that ranked as the second-most lucrative in franchise history.

Yesterday’s trade caused a redesign of Tampa Bay’s Top 30 prospects list, as calculated by MLB Pipeline, and it's dramatic. Pitcher Michael Forret is No. 5, outfielder Slater de Brun No. 6, catcher Caden Bodine No. 11 and outfielder Austin Overn No. 20. That’s a forceful injection of talent for a pitcher who won’t rise atop the Orioles’ rotation.

Baz isn’t expected to be a No. 1 starter and he probably slots behind Trevor Rogers in the current alignment, leaving Tyler Wells and Dean Kremer for the last two spots. He’s likely to be pushed further back - which would have happened to Grayson Rodriguez before the Orioles traded him to the Angels - if president of baseball operations/general manager Mike Elias negotiates a bigger signing or deal.

The O’s rotation, in need of help, just added a flamethrower. 

Today, Baltimore acquired right-hander Shane Baz in exchange for prospects Slater de Brun, Caden Bodine, Michael Forret and Austin Overn, as well as a Competitive Balance Round A selection. According to MLB Pipeline, Forret slots in as the Rays’ No. 5 prospect with de Brun right behind him. Bodine checks in at No. 11 and Overn at No. 20. 

That’s a steep price, but one that the O’s were willing to pay for a young, controllable arm that could help the club in both the short- and long-term. 

You may remember Baz, the 12th overall pick in the 2017 draft, as one of the key pieces that Tampa Bay acquired from the Pittsburgh Pirates in the now-infamous Chris Archer trade. The righty has long been considered to be one of the most intriguing young arms in the game, being ranked as high as the 12th-best prospect in baseball entering the 2022 season. 

That No. 12 ranking, ironically, was the second-highest for a pitching prospect that season behind only Grayson Rodriguez. 

Because Paul Toboni had previously suggested he might wait a while to hire a general manager, Anirudh Kilambi had little reason to expect a phone call from the Nationals’ new president of baseball operations earlier this month. Besides, Kilambi was perfectly happy in his role as an assistant GM with the Phillies, leading their research and development team, helping supplement a big-market team with big-name stars and a deep-rooted desire to win a World Series now.

Toboni, though, was keeping an open mind all along on hiring a GM this winter, instead of waiting a year to fill that all-important No. 2 role in his revamped front office. And having met Kilambi a few years ago and having heard great things about him from others in baseball since, he decided to contact the Phillies two weeks ago and request an interview.

“We could’ve waited a year or evaluated for a year, but that wouldn’t have allowed for us to push forward at the rate that we would’ve wanted to in year one,” Toboni said. “And year one’s a really important year. Ani in many ways helps us with that, and obviously he’s going to help us way beyond that first year. … I was very comfortable keeping this vacant if we didn’t come onto the right fit. Ani just happens to be an exceptional fit for us.”

Barely two weeks removed from their first phone call, the Nationals officially hired Kilambi as their new GM, giving Toboni one of the sport’s brightest young data minds as his top lieutenant in a front office that bears very little resemblance to the one that had been in place since the franchise arrived in D.C. more than two decades ago.

At 35, Toboni already is the youngest president of baseball operations in the majors. At 31, Kilambi becomes the youngest GM. And that’s to say nothing of 33-year-old manager Blake Butera or the countless other under-40 executives and coaches the Nats have hired in the last two months to remake an organization mired in six consecutive losing seasons since reaching the ultimate peak in 2019.

The Orioles took a big swing to address their needs in the starting rotation.

Earlier this afternoon, they completed a trade for Tampa Bay right-hander Shane Baz, the 12^th overall selection in the 2017 draft. The cost in prospects is steep, with the Rays receiving outfielders Slater de Brun and Austin Overn, catcher Caden Bodine, right-hander Michael Forret and a Competitive Balance Round A pick.

MLB Pipeline ranks de Brun as the No. 6 prospect in the system, Bodine 10^th, Forret 11^th and Overn 30^th. The Orioles held the fifth selection in the A Round, which takes place between the first-round compensation picks and the second round.

President of baseball operations/general manager Mike Elias has sought at least two starting pitchers, with a willingness to spend money or consummate a trade. Baz is the first move, and another one is anticipated at or near the top of the rotation.

A big appeal of Baz, 26, is the three years of team control. He has a career 4.25 ERA and 1.227 WHIP in 54 starts over parts of four seasons, with 103 walks and 293 strikeouts over 286 innings.

The Orioles today announced that they have acquired right-handed pitcher Shane Baz from the Tampa Bay Rays in exchange for minor leaguers Caden Bodine (C), Slater de Brun (OF), Michael Forret (RHP), Austin Overn (OF), and a Competitive Balance Round A pick (No. 33) in the 2026 First-Year Player Draft.

Baz (pronounced bahz), 26, went 10-12 with a 4.87 ERA (90 ER/166.1 IP) with 158 hits (26 HR), 91 total runs, 64 walks, and 176 strikeouts in 31 starts for the Rays last season. He tossed a career-high 8.0 innings of scoreless ball on June 26 at Kansas City and completed at least 7.0 innings in five outings in 2025. His 9.52 strikeouts per nine innings and 24.6 percent strikeout rate both ranked in the top 20 of qualified major league pitchers last year. Baz has posted a 4.25 ERA (135 ER/286.0 IP) in 54 career starts, including a 3.06 ERA (27 ER/79.1 IP) in 14 games after returning from right elbow ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction in 2024. The right-hander was originally selected by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the first round (12^th overall) of the 2017 First-Year Player Draft out of Concordia Lutheran (TX) High School. He was acquired by Tampa Bay along with right-handed pitcher Tyler Glasnow and outfielder Austin Meadows from Pittsburgh in exchange for right-hander Chris Archer on July 31, 2018.

Bodine, 22, was selected in the first round (30^th overall) of the 2025 First-Year Player Draft out of Coastal Carolina University (SC). He made his professional debut last season and is ranked as the No. 10 O’s prospect according to MLB Pipeline.

de Brun, 18, was selected in the Competitive Balance Round A (37^th overall) in the 2025 First-Year Player Draft out of Summit (OR) High School. He’s ranked as the No. 6 Orioles prospect according to MLB Pipeline.

Forret, 21, was selected in the 14^th round of the 2023 First-Year Player Draft out of the State College of Florida. In 19 appearances (18 GS) last season, he posted a 1.58 ERA (13 ER/74.0 IP) between two levels and struck out 91 batters in 74.0 innings. The righty is ranked as the No. 11 O’s prospect according to MLB Pipeline.

The Orioles today announced their 2026 major league coaching staff, led by first-year manager Craig Albernaz. Pitching Coach Drew French (3^rd season), Assistant Pitching Coach Mitch Plassmeyer (3^rd), Pitching Strategy Coach Ryan Klimek (4^th), and Third Base Coach Buck Britton (2^nd) return to the staff, while the club has hired Donnie Ecker as Bench Coach, Dustin Lind as Hitting Coach, Brady North as Assistant Hitting Coach, Jason Bourgeois as First Base Coach, Hank Conger as Bullpen Coach, Miguel Cairo as Infield Coach, and Joe Singley as Field Coordinator and Catching Coach.

Ecker, 39, spent the last four seasons with the Texas Rangers as the club’s offensive coordinator (2022-25). He also served as bench coach from 2022-24. The Rangers had at least one American League Silver Slugger Award winner in each of his first three years, and the team was selected as the winner of the inaugural team Louisville Slugger Silver Slugger Award in the AL in 2023 after Texas won the World Series behind a record-setting regular season in which the Rangers led the AL in batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and OPS. He has also worked professionally for the San Francisco Giants as hitting coach (2020-21), Cincinnati Reds as assistant hitting coach (2019), Los Angeles Angels as Triple-A Salt Lake hitting coach (2018), and a hitting coach for St. Louis Cardinals’ Single-A teams in Peoria (2017) and Palm Beach (2015-16). The utility player was selected in the 22^nd round of the 2007 First-Year Player Draft by the Rangers out of Lewis-Clark State College (ID) and played two professional seasons.

Lind, 37, was the assistant hitting coach for the Philadelphia Phillies from 2024-25. He spent the previous four years with the Giants as director of hitting and assistant major league hitting coach, working on the same staff all four seasons with Albernaz, and Ecker for two (2020-21). He worked as an independent hitting consultant with the Seattle Mariners from 2014-17 before joining the organization as a minor league quality assurance coach in 2018 and was promoted to director of hitting development and strategies for the major league club in 2019. The former outfielder played collegiately at Montana State University-Billings from 2007-08 and Sierra College (CA) from 2010-11.

North, 34, had been the assistant hitting coach for the Tampa Bay Rays since the start of 2022. This will be his first role outside of the Rays’ organization after serving as the hitting coach for the GCL Rays (2019) and Class-A Bowling Green (2021). He was assigned to Class-A Charlotte in the same role in 2020 before the minor league season was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. North was the director of hitting and mental performance at Top Level Athletes in Orlando, Fla., among other non-professional baseball roles, prior to joining Tampa Bay. The first baseman and outfielder played with Independent Lake Erie and Washington of the Frontier League after playing collegiately at Cumberland University (TN), Jacksonville University (FL), and Hillsborough Community College (FL). The Tampa, Fla. native graduated from Gaither (FL) High School.

Bourgeois (pronounced BOOSH-wah), 43, joins the Orioles after serving as the first base and outfield coach for the Chicago White Sox for two seasons. He spent five years in the Los Angeles Dodgers organization, working as a minor league outfield and baserunning coordinator from 2021-23 and as a coach for Single-A Great Lakes in 2019. Bourgeois would have been on the coaching staff for Single-A Rancho Cucamonga in 2020 before the minor league season was canceled. The former outfielder played parts of eight major league seasons from 2008-15 with the White Sox, Milwaukee Brewers, Houston Astros, Kansas City Royals, Rays, and Reds. He was originally selected by the Rangers in the second round of the 2000 First-Year Player Draft out of Forest Brook (TX) High School.

The Orioles announced their 2026 coaching staff this morning, with no new hires after the most recent reported updates.

Drew French returns for his third season as pitching coach and Mitch Plassmeyer for his third season as assistant pitching coach. Ryan Klimek enters his fourth season as pitching strategy coach and his 10^th in the organization.

Buck Britton made his major league debut last season as major league coach before shifting to third base coach, the role that he’s filling in 2026.

The 11-man staff under new manager Craig Albernaz includes Donnie Ecker as bench coach, Dustin Lind as hitting coach, Brady North as assistant hitting coach, Jason Bourgeois as first base coach, Hank Conger as bullpen coach, Miguel Cairo as infield coach and Joe Singley as field coordinator and catching coach.

“I think it's going to be a great fit for everyone,” Albernaz said at the Winter Meetings. “All of our guys, our goal for our coaching staff is to have great coaches, great teachers, great communicators, but more importantly, great people. I think all the coaches that were brought in and the coaches that have been here, our pitching group and also Buck, they're great people. And so for us, we just needed great people around our players to support them.”

There were a few glaring needs for the Orioles entering this pivotal offseason. Others weren’t so obvious. 

Due to Félix Bautista’s injury, Baltimore was left without a reliever with extensive closing experience. More injury concerns and free agent departures created holes in the starting rotation, and a busy trade deadline saw bullpen arms shipped away for prospects. 

On the position player side, similar injury concerns, combined with underperformance, created questions about the lineup’s feasibility heading into 2026. 

The additions of Pete Alonso, Taylor Ward, Ryan Helsley and Andrew Kittredge, among others, have addressed many, but not all of those concerns. With shakeups to the roster, Annie Klaff and I took inventory of where Baltimore currently stands and what is left to be done on this week’s edition of “The Bird’s Nest,” which you can watch here. 

What will the Orioles do at first base? 

Though on-field changes have been minimal at this point, with the promise of much more to come before pitchers and catchers report, this has already been the most consequential offseason in Nationals history off the field.

Never in the previous two-plus decades had the club hired both a head of baseball operations and a manager during the same winter. And those are far from the only new people running the show. The front office has been totally remade. So has the coaching staff. And when it’s all said and done, the entire player development operation is likely to have been overhauled as well.

On top of all that, the types of people the Nationals have been hiring for all of these positions bear little resemblance to those who previously held those jobs. Nearly every one of them is in his 30s (or even 20s, in a few cases). Nearly every one of them has a data-heavy background. A good number of them have zero prior big league experience, and some of those don’t even have prior professional experience, coming instead from college programs and private pitching and hitting labs.

While it mirrors in some ways what other organizations were already doing over the last decade, it’s probably taken the young, analytics-heavy mantra to a whole new level. Paul Toboni, 35, is the youngest president of baseball operations in the sport. Anirudh Kilambi, 31, is the youngest general manager in the sport. Blake Butera, 33, is the youngest manager in the sport. And they haven’t been surrounded by older, more-experienced cohorts. They’ve been surrounded by contemporaries.

Is this going to work? Only time will tell. Three years from now, we may look back and praise the Nationals for brilliantly identifying the next wave of great executives and coaches before any of them were on other teams’ radars. Or we may look back and ask: “What on earth were they thinking?”

Baseball business will slow down over the holiday but isn’t necessarily poised for a total shutdown.

The Orioles found their closer (Ryan Helsley) and two big bats (Pete Alonso and Taylor Ward) by the second week in December, and they also brought back a trusted set-up man (Andrew Kittredge) and might have snagged a fifth outfielder (Leody Taveras) to back up in center. That’s an impressive number of boxes checked, but there’s more to do before players start reporting to spring training.

The rotation is light on proven starters. Zach Eflin and Tomoyuki Sugano remain on the free agent market. The Orioles are down to Kyle Bradish, Trevor Rogers, Dean Kremer and Tyler Wells, along with a batch of No. 5 candidates that includes Cade Povich, Brandon Young and Trey Gibson – the latter waiting to make his major league debut.

Sixteen pitchers made starts for the Orioles last season, including Keegan Akin (three), Scott Blewett, Dietrich Enns and Rico Garcia as openers. Sugano led the crew with 30, followed by Kremer with 29, Povich with 20 and Rogers with 18.

Charlie Morton was next with 17 before the Orioles traded him to the Tigers at the deadline. He retired with the Braves. Kyle Gibson made four starts before his release on May 20, and he retired two months later.