Orioles could jump into growing salary dump trend led by Red Sox, White Sox

Last offseason, the Baltimore Orioles' big signing was Tyler O'Neill. It was a move that made sense for the Orioles at the time. In 2024, they struggled down the stretch against lefties culminating in the playoffs against the Royals where left handed pitchers combined to put up 10.1 scoreless innings against the O's, allowing only six total hits.

Coming into the 2025 season, O'Neill had an incredible track record again left handed pitching. In 2024 he slashed .313/.429/.750 against lefties good for a 217 wRC+. Even if O'Neill had only been able to put up numbers similar to his last few years in St. Louis, it would have helped the Orioles lineup substantially.

O'Neill did come with a known injury risk. The most games he'd ever played in a season was 138 in 2021 and most years of his career he'd failed to reach the 100 games mark. By signing him to a three year deal with an opt out after the first year the Orioles were betting that he would stay healthy and play well enough to opt out and hit free agency again.

Instead O'Neill had the worst year of his career from both an on field performance and health standpoint and after playing just 54 games, slashing .199/.292/.392 and putting up -0.6 WAR he opted in to the remaining two years of his contract. Now the Orioles are on the hook to pay O'Neill 33 million over the next 2 seasons.

None of the injuries that hampered O'Neill in 2025 are the kind that won't heal over the offseason so O'Neill will hopefully enter the 2026 season healthy with a chance to redeem himself. He has enough talent that it's not out of the realm of possibility that he could finally have a fully healthy season and be well worth the contract he signed. However with his track record of health it would be unwise for the Orioles to have "hoping for a a healthy Tyler O'Neill" be a big part of their plan for 2026.

The Orioles have already taken steps to make it so they don't have to rely on O'Neill. They traded for Taylor Ward, a right-handed power hitter that plays O'Neill's exact same position. As of today the Orioles everyday outfield is projected to be Taylor Ward, Colton Cowser and Dylan Beavers, with O'Neill relegated to a small side platoon role as a bench hitter. It's nice to have depth on your bench that can come in to hit against lefties and fill in if there's an injury, but $33 million is a lot of money to spend on your fourth outfielder especially when he's also bad at defense and isn't a stolen base threat.

Red Sox have given the Orioles a good example of what to do with a bad contract

Having an expensive player who is a poor fit on the roster is a challenging spot for a front office but the Red Sox just gave the Orioles a prime example of how that situation can be managed. Last week they attached a prospect to Jordan Hicks in order to salary dump him on the White Sox.

Hicks was the returning salary in the infamous Rafael Devers trade. He had been struggling with the Giants and he was unplayable for the Red Sox. Boston was staring down the barrel at having to pay Jordan Hicks $25 million over the next two seasons to be the worst relief pitcher in their bullpen. They could have grit their teeth and born it and hoped that he bounced back to his previous form. Instead they decided they were better off using prospect capital to get Hicks off their roster and get most of his contract off their payroll.

The Red Sox gave up a lot to get Hicks off the roster. Sandlin is a legit prospect who is going to debut this season and could have played a big role in the Red Sox bullpen if they hadn't had to move him. On top of Sandlin the Red Sox sent money and two players to be named later. Getting Gage Ziehl helps soften the blow and helps The Red Sox avoid a potential 40 man crunch but this deal was all about getting rid of Jordan Hicks and freeing up $17 million over the next two seasons to improve the Boston Red Sox.

The White Sox were able to facilitate this deal in part because they also completed a salary dump a few weeks ago when they got off Luis Robert's contract for Luis Angel Acuna.

O'Neill is not as distressed of an asset as Hicks was, but he is more expensive so the Orioles might have to eat more of the deal than the Red Sox did. On the plus side however, they likely wouldn't have to include anyone from the farm system as valuable as Sandlin. If the Orioles were willing to pay down $8 million a year of O'Neill's contract for next two seasons then the team acquiring O'Neill on a two year, $17 million contract.

At $33 million on a crowded roster, O'Neill is albatross. However, at just $8.5 million annually, he could be real asset on a different team that needs offense and doesn't have as much money to spend. The return would be better than what the Red Sox got for Hicks but the prospect return is not as important as what the front office could do with an additional seventeen million dollars. They could go out a sign a reliever or they could add that money to their offer to Framber and finally bring that deal home.