3 upcoming Orioles free agents who have been good but don't need to be re-signed

The Baltimore Orioles won't have a ton of tough decisions to make regarding their own free agents this offseason. Most of the moves will be cut and dry, such as declining Jorge Mateo's option, though others, such as reuniting with Zach Eflin after a disappointing and injury-plagued season, will require much more careful consideration.

Baltimore is looking to rebound in 2026 and return to contention by leaning into their young core and taking the hard lessons from 2025 to heart as the club looks to do a much better job adding productive complementary pieces to support its foundation.

That's going to mean taking a hard look at some of these veteran free-agents-to-be who have been pretty good, but perhaps don't have a place long-term, and forging ahead in a different direction.

These three Orioles veterans have been mostly good, but shouldn't be re-signed this offseason

Starting pitcher Tomoyuki Sugano

For a team that desperately needs starting pitching depth, retaining any halfway decent innings eater should be a priority, right? Sugano has proven to be exactly that in his first season stateside, a guy you can count on to eat innings and perform relatively well every fifth day.

There are two issues, however. First, Sugano turns 36 next month, meaning the longevity one can expect from him is an open question. For a team with a lineup that almost exclusively features players 26 and under, a graybeard like Sugano wouldn't be the type of player who can grow with the team long-term.

Furthermore, despite a respectable-looking 4.39 ERA, Sugano's peripheral stats indicate that he's been much worse in 2025. While he does a great job limiting walks to a 5.5% clip, Sugano rarely strikes out batters, posting a 15.6% K-rate, and is only about average at generating ground balls, inducing them 41% of the time.

That means the unusual rookie relies on flyballs and an awful lot of the time to get outs, and with an average exit velocity allowed that's in the 34th percentile, those flyballs can end up doing a lot of damage.

Unfortunately, that has come back to bite Sugano at times during his 2025 campaign. His 1.68 HR/9 is wholly unacceptable, and leads you to believe that over time, he'll generate results that are closer to his 5.79 ERA rather than the low-to-mid 4's results he's gotten to this point.

Catcher/DH Gary Sanchez

Gary Sanchez's early July knee injury wreaked havoc on the Orioles' depth chart as the veteran slugger went down shortly after one of Adley Rutschman's several 2025 IL stints. While that threw Baltimore's catching situation through a loop for a brief moment in time, the arrival of Samuel Basallo has mostly offset the loss.

Sanchez began a rehab assignment on September 5, meaning he could be activated for the final few games of the season. With only 30 games played this year, the 32-year-old former New York Yankees top prospect didn't have much time to establish himself in Baltimore.

When he did play, Sanchez was mostly alright. Never known for his hit tool, the powerful catcher put up a .231/.297/.418 line that was good for a 99 wRC+ over 101 plate appearances. At first glance, a catcher with a league-average bat who also has 20+ home run power seems like a valuable commodity.

That is, until you realize that Sanchez is absolutely atrocious defensively. His defensive issues and propensity for prolonged slumps thanks to his all-or-nothing approach at the plate are what ran him out of New York a few years ago, and as he's bounced around the league in the years since little has changed.

Looking at fWAR to paint a picture of the totality of Sanchez's production, the defense he provided in his short time in Baltimore was so bad that he gave back all the gains he received by catching and hitting relatively well for the position, posting a -0.2 mark in the metric. Essentially, Gary Sanchez was worse than a replacement-level catcher who could readily be plucked off the waiver wire.

In addition to Basallo, the Orioles have Rutschman (for now) and Alex Jackson as part of the 2026 picture behind the plate, making Sanchez superfluous. Letting him walk to find greener pastures is the only sensible decision here.

Starting Pitcher Zach Eflin

No, Zach Eflin hasn't been good in 2025, but how much of his 5.93 ERA can be chalked up to the numerous injuries he's suffered this year is an open question. If you go back to the deadline deal that brought him to Baltimore for the 2024 stretch run, though, Eflin has had moments where he's looked really good, and was one of the main reasons the Orioles were as confident as they were in their starters at the season's outset.

That's proven to be misguided now, but the decision that must be made regarding Eflin is whether Baltimore believes he can return to the form that allowed him to post a 2.60 down the 2024 stretch, or if he's now an injury-prone pitcher who will put up an ERA pushing six.

The answer is he's likely somewhere in between. While it might be a little simplistic, the best place to peg him moving forward is somewhere around his career ERA of 4.28. That's solid for a mid-to-back-end starter, but nothing spectacular.

When you throw the durability concerns into the mix, Eflin has only topped 160 innings pitched three times in his 10-year career, it becomes clear that better options await Baltimore.

Much like the case with Sugano, Baltimore needs either a true ace who can anchor the top of the rotation or a reliable arm with the youth and upside to grow alongside their young core. With 2026 being Eflin's age-32 season, he provides neither and therefore should be a guy the club lets walk come the offseason.

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