The Baltimore Orioles starting rotation is beginning to shape up for the 2025 campaign.
With the signing of NPB’s Central League MVP Tomoyuki Sugano, Grayson Rodiguez returning from injury and another year of Zach Eflin, Baltimore should see a significant uptick in consistency from its mid-rotation starters.
However, what the O’s still lack is a starter who can headline their rotation in 2025. Several names have been floated around as to who that guy could be, but the ones seen the most are Corbin Burnes, Luis Castillo and Dylan Cease.
With that being known, let’s go into depth with each one of them and give our take on who we would like to see the O’s go after.
CORBIN BURNES
The most obvious of the three for Baltimore to target is Corbin Burnes. Not only was Burnes an Oriole just last year, but he’s the only free agent of the three, meaning the O’s wouldn’t have to part with any of their top prospects, which we know GM Mike Elias tends to be reluctant to do.
Burnes is the most established of the three by quite a bit, with four All-Star selections, two First Team All-MLB selections and the 2021 Cy Young Award recipient.
A rocky 2023 had many fans worried about Burnes, but he returned to form with the Orioles, posting a 2.92 ERA, 128 ERA+, 1.096 WHIP and 181 strikeouts in 194.1 innings pitches.
Burnes is one of the best pitchers in the league at avoiding hard contact, with a hard-hit rate of just 31.6% (95th percentile). His whiff rate of 28.6% (74th percentile) also suggests his stuff is still in a good place.
He’s also notched at least 165 innings pitched in four straight seasons, which for an Orioles rotation that was so decimated last season is a huge bonus.
Burnes does not come without some red flags, though. While he has adapted over the years and found ways to stay a top pitcher, there are several indications that regression will catch up to him.
For starters, Burnes’ strikeout rate declined for a fourth straight season (2021 – 35.6%, 2022 – 30.5%, 2023 – 25.5%, 2024 – 23.1%). He’s also seen his FIP (fielding independent pitching) ballon over the last four seasons (2021 – 1.63, 2022 – 3.14, 2023 – 3.81, 2024 – 3.55).
Now, we don’t think that means the Orioles should completely avoid Burnes, as even with the declining strikeout rate, he’s continued to pitch at a high level. However, we do think it’s clear that Burnes’ 2021 season is well behind him, and paying him top of the market value into his late 30s would carry some risk.
DYLAN CEASE
Next up, we have another very familiar name to Oriole fans. Dylan Cease was constantly linked to Baltimore throughout the 2023 offseason before Elias and Co. eventually pivoted to Burnes.
Once again, Cease has been listed as a potential trade piece, this time by the San Diego Padres, and could potentially land in Charm City.
Cease’s best year came in 2022, when he finished second in the AL Cy Young race, posting a 2.20 ERA and 1.109 WHIP. He took a major step back in 2023, with his ERA skyrocketing to 4.58 before finally getting his change of scenery with a trade to the Padres.
Cease had a nice bounce-back year with San Diego, posting a 3.47 ERA, 118 ERA+, 1.067 WHIP and 224 strikeouts in 189.1 innings pitched. While Cease’s stuff is a notch above Burnes, he does have a few concerning metrics working against him.
The 28-year-old righty does have some of the filthiest stuff in the game. His breaking ball had a run value of 17 in 2024, which was in the 99th percentile in all of baseball. He also boasted a 32.4% whiff rate (92nd percentile) and 29.4% strikeout rate (89th percentile).
Where Cease is concerning, though, is that he struggles to avoid hard contact. He had a hard-hit rate of 38.6 (51st percentile), struggled with command at times with a 8.5% walk rate (41st percentile) and, even scarier, struggles to keep the ball on the ground, as his groundball rate was just 40.3% (39th percentile).
Those numbers, combined with Camden Yards moved in wall, could lead to another tough season for the veteran. We do like Cease but think 2022 was a massive outlier for the player he really is.
LUIS CASTILLO
The last front-line starter the Orioles have been linked to is Seattle Mariners ace Luis Castillo.
The Mariners and Orioles have seemed like perfect trade partners for a while now, with Seattle having a surplus of young pitching and Baltimore having a surplus of young hitting. With the M’s seemingly ready to move off their former ace, Baltimore has rightly inserted themselves into the mix.
Castillo has had several dominant seasons in his eight-year career but took a step back in 2024. In 175.1 innings pitched, Castillo struck out 175 batters, posted an ERA at 3.64, an ERA+ at 101 and a WHIP of 1.169. While he does limit walks, metrically, he grades similar to Cease but does not make up for it in the ability to generate whiffs.
In 2024, Castillo’s whiff rate sat at 25.9% (53rd percentile), his strikeout rate at 24.3% (60th Percentile), and he gave up hard contact at a 41.9% clip (22nd percentile). The Dominican native does have a devastating sinker that continuously grades out as a plus pitch, but even with that, he is in the 43rd percentile of groundball percentage, which, again, likely won’t play well in Camden Yards.
It’s also hard to trust Seattle pitchers, as park factor labels T-Mobile Park as almost equally pitcher-friendly as Coors Field is hitters-friendly. Much like Burnes, Castillo has seen his FIP rise in three straight years (2022 – 3.07, 2023 – 3.81, 2024 – 3.91).
Maybe most concerningly, Castillo has lost about 1.5 mph on average on his fastball, which had an average velocity of 97 mph in 2022 and 95.6 mph in 2024. He, by no means, is a bad pitcher but has just as many risks as Burnes or Cease, with a fraction of upside.
That concludes our breakdown on some of the starters linked to Baltimore. Overall, in our opinion, Burnes is the best option for the Orioles moving forward. While he would command a lump-sum of money, he is the best pitcher of the bunch and wouldn’t force Elias to part ways with prospects he could use for other trades to better the team.
We know it’s been a slow offseason thus far in Birdland, but all signs point to Elias getting aggressive when the time is right. After all, he didn’t acquire Burnes until February 1.
Do you want the O’s to get any of these big-name pitchers, or should the Birds look elsewhere on the pitching market? Let us know in the comments below! Make sure to follow The Baltimore Battery on Facebook, Twitter (X) and TikTok, and use the hashtag #baltimorebattery when sharing our content!
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