Orioles pay the price for risky DFA, lose reliever to division rival

The Orioles made two risky DFA's last week, bumping relievers Dillon Tate and Nick Vespi off the roster in order to address injury issues and attempting to improve the major league bullpen. Vespi cleared waivers despite pitching to a 2.92 ERA in Baltimore, but the O's weren't so lucky with Tate.

Though he hasn't quite been himself since elbow injuries derailed his 2023 season, Tate has been a reliable bullpen arm for the Orioles since coming over in the Zack Britton trade back in 2018.

Throughout his career in Baltimore, Tate pitched to a 4.07 ERA in just over 212 innings. That figure is somewhat distorted by a dismal rookie year in which Tate posted a 6.43 ERA for the horrendous 2019 squad. Outside of that rookie season, Tate has been much better, totaling a 3.81 ERA with a strikeout rate just shy of 19%.

That strikeout rate had fallen to a career-worst mark of 15.5% in 2024 but he'd still been able to limit walks and homers, as evidenced by his 3.74 FIP. Along with that, there's enough in Tate's profile for Orioles fans to be a bit disappointed in losing him.

Orioles lose Dillon Tate to the division-rival Blue Jays

Despite the poor results in 2024, Tate had done extremely well limiting hard contact and damage on contact. He hadn't thrown enough innings to qualify for Statcast's leaderboards but his 4.5% barrel rate, 31.3% hard hit rate, and 52.7% ground ball rate would all rate in the 90th percentile or above, league-wide.

Unfortunately for the Orioles, Tate's upside likely won't be easily replaced. The bullpen in Baltimore has been a liability all year, but even moreso since the All-Star break.

Now that Craig Kimbrel looks like a potential DFA candidate in his own right, the Orioles are running out a handful of question marks every night. Kimbrel is completely falling apart, Gregory Soto has been extremely hit or miss in limited time, Burch Smith is a fringe major league reliever, Cole Irvin is far from the best version of himself, and Seranthony Dominguez has been almost as flighty as Kimbrel in the closer's role.

Yennier Cano has arguably been the most consistent reliever in the bullpen all year and there are just three players, Cano, Cionel Perez, and Keegan Akin, who have posted sub-4.00 ERA's on the year.

It's true that Dillon Tate has been too inconsistent for the Orioles to fully trust him this year but with the bullpen being as shaky as it has been, losing Tate to the Blue Jays is a tough loss to stomach.