Mike Elias' assessment of the Orioles bullpen is divorced from reality

The Baltimore Orioles jettisoned almost their entire bullpen ahead of the 2025 trade deadline and used a mash-up of minor league arms and waiver claims to finish the season. That kind of isle-of-misfit-toys bullpen construction is totally fine for a bad team coasting out the end of the disappointing season.

However, nobody was looking at the Orioles' bullpen over the last three months of the 2025 season and saying, "That group of pitchers is just a Ryan Helsley and an Andrew Kittredge away from being able to compete for a World Series." Unfortunately, those are the only players the Orioles added to supplement their bullpen going into 2026.

When Mike Elias met virtually with the media for the first time since December, he was asked about the state of the Orioles bullpen and gave the following response.

"I think that we've got a very strong bullpen, and I think we have demonstrated the ability with our pitching program and our pitching coaches to bring in guys from the outside and hopefully coach them up a little bit and continue to improve players, so I think the bullpen is going to be very good."

Mike Elias

GMs don't usually get in front of the media and talk about how the team they built stinks. However, Mike Elias at least acknowledged that the Orioles were still in discussions with free agents and potential trade partners when he was asked about the Orioles lackluster rotation. When it came to the bullpen, he made no indication that the Orioles needed to improve.

Despite being projected to have one of the worst bullpens in the league, Mike Elias believes the Orioles have done enough

When it comes to Elias' comments on the bullpen, two parts of his quote deserve a closer look. "We've got a strong bullpen," and "we have demonstrated the ability... to improve players".

"We've got a strong bullpen"

No, they don't. Even if it were assumed that Ryan Helsley and Andrew Kittredge are going to pitch like they're back on the 2024 Cardinals, which is giving Helsley a large benefit of the doubt, considering he was the worst relief pitcher in baseball in the second half of 2025. The real problems start with their projected 7th inning man, Keegan Akin.

Akin cannot be trusted to pitch high-leverage innings. Every time the Orioles have asked him to step up and take on a bigger role in the bullpen, he has been a game-blowing machine. Akin recently had an arbitration hearing where an independent arbiter determined he wasn't worth $3 million. That's the third-best arm in the Orioles pen.

The only other experienced arm in the pen is Yennier Cano, who was incredible in 2023 and was so bad in 2025 that he might just not make the team at all if he struggles in spring training. Once you get past those four names, the rest of the pen looks especially bleak.

Colin Selby, Dietrich Enns, Rico Garcia, and Grant Wolfram are all perfectly qualified to be the 27th man during a double header or get called up for a couple of weeks if someone gets hurt. However, if you intend on competing for a playoff spot, it is irresponsible to go into the season with a bullpen where the majority of arms are guys that were designated for assignment by teams that didn't even make the playoffs the year before.

The Orioles had more talent in their bullpen in years where they lost 100+ games than they do right now.

"We have demonstrated the ability to improve players"

Not recently they haven't. In 2022 and 2023, the Orioles bullpen massively overachieved. In 2022, they were ninth in bullpen ERA, and in 2023, they were fifth. During that time, they got breakouts from Felix Bautista, Yennier Cano, Jorge Lopez, Cionel Perez, and Danny Coulombe. At that point, it would have been fair for the Orioles to feel like they could make chicken salad out of chicken something else.

Since 2023, they have not been able to turn random waiver claims into quality relievers as they did before. In 2024, they were 23rd in bullpen ERA, and in 202,5 they were 25th. The only teams with worse bullpens over the last two seasons have been the Rockies, the Nationals, the D-Backs, the White Sox, and the Angels. That's not a good group to be in.

That's why it's so jarring to hear Mike Elias talk about how good the Orioles are at developing bullpen arms. When it comes to bullpens, the Orioles' peers are the worst teams in baseball. Where is this confidence coming from?