The news that Mike Elias delivered on Feb. 15 in Sarasota regarding Kyle Bradish’s UCL sprain and John Means likely starting the regular season on the injured list was the opposite of funny.
But looking back at the suddenness of the Corbin Burnes trade, it’s amusing that so many Orioles fans were giving the probable new owner David Rubensein credit for making the Burnes trade happen.
It turns out that Elias must have been keenly aware of the likelihood of both Bradish and Means missing substantial time in 2024. In the case of Bradish, it’s suddenly very possible that he will need Tommy John surgery and miss all of 2024.
In rare cases, a PRP injection and rest can help a player dodge the bullet of Tommy John surgery, but the other side of that blade is how much of the second season do the pitcher and team want to risk? If Bradish gets the surgery in March, it would seem he’d be available at some point in 2025. Delaying the surgery to April or May means a late summer return, if that.
The Means situation is quite perplexing in terms of how much time he’ll miss again this year.
So, camp has just started and the Orioles are down to Burnes, Grayson Rodriguez and Dean Kremer as the penciled-in members of the rotation. That leaves two big holes, and the Orioles are fortunate to have Tyler Wells and Cole Irvin on hand — even if they don’t equate to what the club was hoping to get out of Bradish and Means.
Just the other day, I was thinking about how many free agents were still available — big names to decent names to raffle tickets. Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery are still “free,” but probably not free enough for the ’24 budget.
Matt Boyd, Mike Clevinger, Johnny Cueto, Domingo German, Zach Greinke, Michael Lorenzen and Jake Odorizzi are among the other names still available. Ex-Oriole prospect Zach Davies, traded by Dan Duquette in 2015 for Gerardo Parra, is also available.
Then there is the possibility of Elias working another trade. However, the fact that this news is now public will probably raise the other side’s asking price.
As mentioned earlier, Wells and Irvin can stop the bleeding, but the club seemed to have a low level of confidence in Irvin in 2023 after his rough start to the season. They may now view Means and Irvin as one entity and are hoping they can get 160 starter innings out of the two left-handers.
If Wells is now going to be penciled in the rotation, the bullpen is missing a very important arm behind new closer Craig Kimbrel. The free-agent reliever list is thin, though Brad Boxberger, Anthony Bass and Ryne Stanek could fit.
This bummer news on the first day of workouts is an awful lot to chew on, especially with fans having such high expectations just a few days ago.
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