Orioles rumors circling Kyle Schwarber spark confusion about Baltimore's strategy

The Baltimore Orioles are desperate to return to the postseason in 2026 so they can more convincingly brand 2025 as nothing but a weird outlier year. Yet, Baltimore’s front office still hasn’t filled the club’s most desperate offseason need: another starting pitcher. It’s still just early December, but Orioles fans’ palms are beginning to sweat about the rotation.

Will Baltimore walk away from the Winter Meetings (now in session) with another impact arm to place beside Trevor Rogers and Kyle Bradish? As fans ask themselves this question, they’re furrowing their collective brow at new intel from The New York Post’s Jon Heyman, who recently revealed that the Orioles are pursuing free agent slugger Kyle Schwarber, of all people.

The Orioles should probably ignore the Kyle Schwarber sweepstakes and focus on acquiring a starting pitcher

“The Orioles are among many pursuing Schwarber as he’s a nice fit for their 1B/DH need,” Heyman wrote this week. “They also checked on (Pete) Alonso, but that may be slightly less likely now that they’ve tendered Ryan Mountcastle a contract.”

Okay, the Schwarber-Orioles news isn’t that crazy. Baltimore does have a first base/DH need, as alluded to by Heyman, and at the end of the day, virtually any team would love to add Schwarber.

What’s bothersome about the Schwarber buzz is that the Orioles are probably wasting their time if they are spending a considerable amount of it on Schwarber-hunting. He’s very likely going to end up returning to the Philadelphia Phillies, and if not, there are a handful of suitors way ahead of the Orioles in line, including Baltimore’s division foe, the Boston Red Sox.

With Schwarber, the Orioles are shopping for luxurious jewelry before they’ve shopped for groceries. They badly need starting pitching. Even if they don’t end up signing the best remaining free agent (Framber Valdez) or pull off a blockbuster trade for Joe Ryan (doubtful), the O’s need to land someone legit to plop into their rotation, else any hopes of staying afloat in the 2026 American League playoff picture are delusional at best.

President of baseball operations Mike Elias hasn’t been inactive, generally speaking. He went out and got Taylor Ward and Ryan Helsley. But now it’s time to really zero in on team need. With the Toronto Blue Jays attacking the offseason with their own desperation, the least Elias could do is put all of his remaining eggs into Ranger Suárez’s basket and enter next season with a rotation that doesn't look wildly out of place in the AL East.

While bolder moves to improve the rotation are welcome, no one’s asking for offensive reinforcements in the form of Schwarber. Even if they miraculously landed him, the Orioles would still have a terrible problem with their roster construction.