Another look at the O's new pitchers and Holliday set to return

In the end Garrett Crochet was not traded to the Orioles or anybody. Neither were Tarik Skubal or Blake Snell.

The O’s added four pitchers – two starters and two relievers – one each throwing left and right. But they didn't get any of the big three.

There were no blockbuster deals and no elite prospects were moved. The highest-rated prospect they traded was infielder Connor Norby, ranked No. 5 by MLBPipeline.com.

The O’s rotation, in some order, now likely consists of Corbin Burnes, Grayson Rodriguez, Zach Eflin, Dean Kremer and lefty Trevor Rogers.

The O’s added Rogers yesterday for Norby and Kyle Stowers who went to Miami where reportedly Stowers will get a lot of playing time and Norby went back to the farm to work on playing third base.

Rogers is 2-9 with a 4.53 ERA over 21 starts and 105 1/3 innings. He is 15-32 with a 4.23 ERA and 1.385 WHIP in 80 career starts.

He has been a career league average pitcher with a career ERA+ of 101. The O’s hope they are getting the lefty that has been on a pretty good pitching roll lately for the Marlins. He has allowed two earned runs or less in eight of his past nine starts. In that span he has a 3.17 ERA allowing a .237 batting average and .702 OPS.

Not a hard thrower, he, somewhat like Eflin, is a more pitch to contact guy with a 7.3 strikeouts per nine this year with 3.9 walks. His fastball averages 92.0 mph. He has gone six innings or more just four times.

But Rogers is under team control through 2026 and is making $1.53 million this season via arbitration.

So the O's gave up those prospects to get a controllable starter at a lower salary they can place in their rotation for several seasons.

The O’s have already seen reliever Seranthony Dominguez throw scoreless innings for them twice against San Diego and again last night. Now they add lefty Gregory Soto to the bullpen mix.

Acquired for minor league pitchers Seth Johnson, a member of the club’s 40-man roster and Moises Chace, Soto has gone 2-4 with a 4.08 ERA for the Phillies.

Under team control through 2025, Soto is a flamethrower and averages 97.7 mph with his fastball, in the top four percent of MLB. He has closing experience and saved 30 games in 33 chances with the 2022 Tigers. Soto also scores well in groundball rate. He was an All-Star with Detroit in 2021 and 2022.

He has also been pitching better lately, allowing six earned runs his last 19 innings since June 1 for a 2.84 ERA and .691 OPS in that span.

We will see if the O's can get Eloy Jiménez's bat going as they acquired the outfielder from the Chicago White Sox. He is batting .240 with a .642 OPS this year in 65 games and has missed time with an adductor strain and a hamstring strain. 

Jiménez, ranked as the No. 3 prospect in the majors before the 2019 season, posted an OPS of .858 in 2022 and .758 last year.

Holliday's return: Numerous outlets including this one reported last night that Jackson Holliday is returning to the Orioles. 

He is batting .271 this season with an OPS of .908 in 73 Triple-A games. In 19 games in July, Holliday has hit .277 with an OPS of .948. His OPS is .928 in 218 career games on the farm.

He went 2-for-34 in 10 games with the Orioles in April with 18 strikeouts. He was sent back to Norfolk but with the trade of Connor Norby and following Jorge Mateo's injury, it appears he is about to get another shot at the majors.