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After losing starting pitcher Corbin Burnes in free agency, the Baltimore Orioles needed to find some sort of a replacement this offseason.
They did that on Friday by signing veteran starter, and two-time All-Star, Charlie Morton to a one-year contract worth $15 million.
It is probably not the type of move — or offseason — that Orioles fans were hoping for.
On its own, there is nothing wrong with adding Morton on a one-year deal.
There is relatively little risk, the value is probably right, and even though Morton is entering his age-41 season, he is still a good innings-eater who can at least be a solid middle of the rotation starter.
It’s fine. But it’s only that — fine. It is not something that will move the needle in a meaningful way for the Orioles, and it does not upgrade the rotation after losing Burnes — one of the best pitchers in baseball — to free agency.
Maybe retaining Burnes was not a realistic option given his own free-agency desires and wishes. But there were plenty of other top-end starters available, whether it be Max Fried or Blake Snell in free agency or Garrett Crochet in a trade, and the Orioles missed out all on of them.
Orioles fans should have entered this offseason with sky-high expectations. They have a great young team with rising stars all over the lineup, and finally escaped the Angelos era of ownership that consistently held the team back.
The offseason has consisted of them losing Burnes, likely losing Anthony Santander, and replacing them with Tyler O’Neill, 35-year-old Tomoyuki Sugano and now Morton.
Neither Sugano nor Morton will be an upgrade on Burnes, and for as good as O’Neill was for the Boston Red Sox in 2024, there is a very good chance that season was an outlier that he may not duplicate.
None of that improves the Orioles, and none of it shows the type of urgency you would expect from a team that’s won 192 games over the past two seasons and should be entering its prime window for World Series contention.
This was supposed to be an exciting, new era for the Orioles. Instead, it seems to just be more of the same where they take half-measures toward contention.
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