Shane Baz was a perfectly pedestrian starting pitcher for the Orioles during his first season in Baltimore. It's fair to wonder if that's all he'll ever be.
Baz looks the part of an ace, big and strong with ample velocity and is a durable option, having not missed a start the last two seasons. But Orioles baseball boss Mike Elias, ever the failure and especially when it comes to doing business with the Rays , was aiming for a lot more than that when he paid an extreme prospect price to land him (four top chips including potential franchise catcher Caden Bodine), and then signed him to a rare contract extension for these parts.
This has to be more about quality than quantity next season, given the way Elias generally approaches the offseason ( tepid at best ). It's fair to project that Baz will need to be much better in 2027 if this team is going to chip away at a 19-game deficit in the AL East - behind those pesky Rays, among others. And it's also fair to wonder - given where he is in his development and being as removed from Tommy John surgery as he is - if this was a reasonable snapshot of the next 2-3 years. Given Baltimore's issues with sustaining even MLB average pitching, this might be who Baz, 27, is and he shouldn't be considered more than what a guy like Dean Kremer was in past years.
I know this much, if Elias builds this rotation like Baz and Kyle Bradish, who has ample reasons for concern in his first full year back from Tommy John, are going to be the headliners, he will have another failed season on his hands. Only a fool would bank on that, and this team has major needs, starting pitching primary among them .
Baz cuts a striking enough figure on the mound but cannot generate nearly the type of swing and miss as one would expect. He received terrible run support last season, and did well to curtail the propensity for back-breaking longballs, but his middling season was about a lot more than bad luck. He just doesn't miss enough bats and when the Rays give up on a young, cheap starter with years of control, they tend to know what they are doing.
Baz, a righty, had an ERA+ of 99 - as average as you can get - though he certainly made strides in his first season in Baltimore and embraces a full arsenal of pitches. But outside of his fastballs, there were problems. Bottom 18th percentile in breaking ball run value and bottom 5% in offspeed run value. Tough to win up here like that unless the fastball is truly overpowering and sawing off bats, and that's not this.
There is too much contact in general - 28th percentile in batting average - and not enough ground balls (30th percentile) and not nearly enough whiffs (20th percentile). And the word is out on how pronounced his splits are - lefties eat him up - and lineups increasingly get stacked against him that way, and he needs to harness a change-up or some other weapon against lefties or not much will change.
Baz faced 155 more plate appearances against lefties than righties. He surrendered 11 homers to lefties, who put up an aggressive slash against him: .278/.348/.437 - .789 OPS.
You give him grace for changing organizations and adjusting to that and heaven knows the degree of support and development he got in Tampa is eons beyond anything Elias offers. And he did get much more consistent from late May on, but if he cannot help himself with ore strikeouts, playing for an organization that puts no emphasis on fielding acumen, and that many balls continue to be put in play, expecting more than average production seems pretty silly to me.
This article was originally published on www.si.com/mlb/orioles/onsi as Shane Baz Was The Epitome Of An Average MLB Starter For 2026 Orioles. Will 2027 Be Any Different .
