Rotation Ruin! Orioles Face Another Crushing Blow to Projected Starting Lineup

The starting rotation for the Baltimore Orioles has been a major topic of discussion all winter.

In free agency, they lost their ace, Corbin Burnes, to the Arizona Diamondbacks. The two sides agreed to a massive six-year, $210 million deal.

Replacing a player of that caliber is no easy task, especially when the Orioles seemingly weren’t willing to dive into the upper echelon of the free-agent market. They weren’t connected to any of the other big names, such as Max Fried and Blake Snell.

Baltimore was, however, connected to some of the players on the trade market, like Garrett Crochet and Jesus Luzardo, but didn’t get a deal done for either player.

Instead, the team has taken a quantity-over-quality approach, stockpiling an impressive amount of depth for the starting rotation.

Veterans Charlie Morton and Tomoyuki Sugano were both signed to be complementary pieces behind Grayson Rodriguez and Zach Eflin. Dean Kremer is projected by many to round out the five-man rotation.

The lack of a proven ace is certainly a glaring weakness in this group.

How will they stack up against the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox in their own division, who have bonafide aces in Gerrit Cole, Fried, Crochet and Tanner Houck.

Other playoff contenders, such as the Detroit Tigers and Houston Astros, have Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal and Framber Valdez headlining their rotation. The Seattle Mariners have a rotation full of aces.

Matching up against those top-of-the-line starters will not be easy, but it isn’t the only issue Baltimore could have heading into the season.

Another issue they will have to overcome is their lack of left-handed starting pitching.

Their projected Opening Day rotation currently has five right-handed hurlers. Trevor Rogers and Cade Povich are the top left-handed options, but they could be ticketed for Triple-A to begin the season.

Not having any southpaws could come back to hurt them even more than the lack of an ace as teams will be able to load up on left-handed hitters to take advantage of platoons and split stats.

The only left-handed pitchers the Orioles are expected to have on their staff at the start of the season are relievers Keegan Akin, Gregory Soto and Cionel Perez.

That is something certainly worth keeping an eye on, as it could impact the roster decisions they make at the end of camp. Ideally, they would have at least one left-handed starting option on the Major League roster, but it is a real possibility there are zero on Opening Day.