4 pending free agents the Orioles need to target this offseason

Keynan Middleton

Turning our attention to the Baltimore bullpen, some real work has to be done here. The Orioles' relievers have been pretty good this season as a group, but that production has been top heavy with Felix Bautista, Yennier Cano, and Danny Coulombe doing a lot of the heavy lifting. With all of those guys coming back in 2024, the Orioles need to add some depth to take some of the burden off of them and one name that they need to at least keep an eye on is Keynan Middleton.

Middleton should appeal to a data-driven organization like Baltimore as his Statcast page has a whole lot to like despite his 3.96 ERA this season. He misses bats, limits hard contact, and has the pitch characteristics to be a really successful reliever. It sure doesn't hurt that getting away from the dumpster fire that is the White Sox organization who traded Middleton at the deadline should allow him to excel. The nice thing about Middleton is that while he won't be a bargain bin contract, he also doesn't carry with him a huge built-in premium as a high leverage reliever with name recognition which should keep him in Baltimore's price range.

Brent Suter

It isn't often that a reliever that plays for the Rockies puts up results worth getting excited about, but that is exactly what Brent Suter has managed to pull off in 2023. After a pretty successful stint with the Brewers from 2016-2022, Suter has put up a 2.43 ERA in 43 appearances with Colorado this season. One way he has been able to pull that off is that he is among the best in the entire league at limiting hard contact even if he doesn't get a ton of swing and miss.

Despite Suter having a lot of things going for him including throwing with his left arm, the fit for the Orioles isn't perfect. Generally we would expect Baltimore to favor guys with higher strikeout rates than Suter sports and his bottom percentile fastball velocity isn't great. However, for a 33 year old guy that shouldn't require a huge or lengthy financial investment, Suter should be worth making an exception for.

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