Once promising Orioles prospect's DFA is the culmination of his fall from grace

A year ago, Chayce McDermott was the Baltimore Orioles' top pitching prospect. He was coming off back-to-back strong seasons in Triple-A, and with the Orioles lack of major league pitching depth, it was only a matter of time before he was called up to the big leagues. While he was waiting for this call-up, though, his performance on the mound fell off a cliff, and it became clear he was not going to be a solution for the Orioles' rotation woes.

The Orioles tried to make things work by moving him to a relief role but things never clicked for McDermott in the bullpen and after a poor spring training and a bad start to his minor league regular season the Orioles decided he was the most expendable person on the 40-man roster and DFA'd him to make room for Maverick Handley to come up and catch for a few weeks while Adley Rutschman is on the IL.

Orioles are fortunate to be in a position where Chayce McDermott is not their top prospects anymore

There are other arms on the Orioles' 40-man that could have been the corresponding move for Handley if the Orioles had wanted. They got Jayvien Sandridge and Nick Raquet, who have been on the team for only a couple of weeks and were acquired for basically nothing. So the fact that it was McDermott who lost his 40-man spot speaks to how the Orioles are truly at a loss for what to do with him.

McDermott still has a lot of pieces that seem to fit together to make a quality pitcher. His fastball velo is good, with elite induced vertical break, and he has a wide arsenal of offspeed pitches to go to off the fastball. It's possible that someone will claim him and figure him out the way the Orioles have claimed and figured out pitchers that other teams have DFA'd. It's also possible that other teams will see his ERA over 6.00 over the past two seasons and feel perfectly fine letting the Orioles keep McDermott.

Whether he stays or goes, it seems like the Orioles have already learned their lesson from the McDermott saga: When it comes to planning for the future of your rotation, you can't have "just enough" internal starting pitching prospects.

From 2019-2022, the Orioles were stockpiling talent for the future of their team. They loaded up on more infielders and outfielders than could ever possibly fit on an active roster. As far as young pitchers go, after the 2022 trade deadline, the Orioles had Kyle Bradish, Grayson Rodriguez, DL Hall, Cade Povich, and Chayce McDermott either having just debuted or in the upper minors. That is just barely enough to make up a rotation.

Of those six, Bradish worked out, Rodriguez was good until he was hurt, Hall was traded for Corbin Burnes, Povich is hanging on for dear life in the majors, and McDermott has now been DFA'd. All things considered, that's probably an above-average outcome for any sample of pitching prospects. Which is why you need more than six real pitching prospects to build a competitive rotation without signing any major free agents.

Today, 10 of the Orioles top 15 prospects are pitchers, and they are much better set up for the future from a pitching perspective. As more of these pitching prospects that the Orioles have drafted, signed, and traded for in recent years continue to climb up prospect rankings and advance through the minors, the more it will seem ridiculous that so much hope rested on the shoulder of Chayce McDermott.