There’s something about a day when your team loses two players due to injury, right? Injury news to any one particular player is always disappointing, but it seems fairly simple to say “no one player will determine the fate of the team” or something along those lines. But when it’s more than one? You start to feel like some higher power has it out for your team.
May 31 was that type of day for Orioles fans. John Means and Tyler Wells were already on the injured list, but the hope was that both would be back and could play a role for a team with World Series aspirations.
We now know that won’t be the case, which is a huge bummer. It also came during the worst possible weekend to find news about their specific injuries because searching “UCL” led to nothing but Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund content.
It’s a bummer for the team but perhaps more importantly for both guys. Both had already gone through Tommy John surgery. It is terribly crushing for Means in particular because he was such a stalwart for the team during terrible years. His no-hitter was perhaps the most significant, positive moment for the team since the Delmon Young game in 2014. Then winning finally arrived, only for him to barely be able to be a part of it. There is a real possibility that, with free agency pending, this might be it for Means in an Orioles uniform.
The good news for the Orioles is that, A) their starting pitching has been excellent, and B) the starting pitching is quite deep. Consider that currently there are three pitchers (Dean Kremer, Means and Wells) who have been in the rotation when healthy but aren’t at the present time. And yet the Orioles have still been able to piece an effective five-man rotation together without even having to dip into the minor leagues.
Because of that, it is fairly easy to respond to the news of Means and Wells being out for the season by saying, “Well, they’re so deep that they can probably survive this.” And yeah, that’s true. Today. When Kremer returns, the Orioles could still go back to a comfortable six-man rotation. But their cushion is gone. And in a world where there could still be more injuries, I should never again type the world “comfortable.”
Cade Povich is the one minor league arm that could be nearing ready for a shot to compete in the major league rotation. He could also be asked to help out of the bullpen, which is … another important part of this conversation.
The truth is that at this point, it seemed unlikely that Wells would return to the rotation this season barring more troubling news to others. The depth the Orioles had built up in the rotation was particularly encouraging because it meant that Wells could be moved back into the role of a late-inning specialist. If he had been able to return quickly enough, he might have been able to prove his value as a leverage arm quickly, perhaps limiting what the club would have to look for at the deadline.
Instead, the Orioles are a bit thinner in the rotation than we thought they would be and there’s one fewer option to address what has been a solid but not spectacular bullpen. And while their depth in the rotation might very well be enough to get through the season, injuries happen after July 30 too. And after July 30, there’s no recourse for addressing future depth issues.
This is my convoluted way of saying that I don’t think the Orioles necessarily NEED to trade for another starting pitcher … but I think they should try to swing for one anyway. Trading for a starter could provide an upgrade to the back end of the rotation (Dean Kremer and/or Albert Suárez) and prove to be an insurance policy should another starting pitcher injury occur after the trade deadline. It also allows one of the starters to perhaps be shifted into an impact bullpen arm and, should the correct pitcher be acquired, provide further insurance against potential departures of Means and Corbin Burnes in free agency.
Perhaps the White Sox would listen on the duo of Erick Fedde and Michael Kopech to address both the rotation and the bullpen?
That is the good news in all of this. If there’s a team that has the pieces to acquire pitching help, it’s the Orioles. We know they’ll be looking for help in the pen. It just seems that despite their rotation depth, they’d be wise to keep their eye open for a starter as well.
Photo Credits: Kenya Allen and Colin Murphy/PressBox