Orioles playing dangerous game recreating 2023 Phillies bullpen

For the past month, Orioles fans had been begging for Mike Elias to add at least one additional reliever at the trade deadline. Well, those wishes came true, as the O's added not one but four pitchers in total, including two potential high-leverage relievers.

On Friday, the O's acquired RHP Seranthony Dominguez and outfielder Christian Pache from the Phillies, sending platoon outfielder Austin Hays to Philly in return. Dominguez has made two appearances in an Orioles uniform already, throwing two scoreless innings with 2 strikeouts, 2 hits allowed, and nary a walk.

Mike Elias followed up the Dominguez trade with a number of moves on Tuesday, one of which was again with the Phillies. This time, Elias brought LHP Gregory Soto to Baltimore in exchange for minor league RHP Seth Johnson.

Both pitchers have had success in their careers but to this point in 2024, neither had been all that exciting.

Orioles make questionable decision to rebuild 2023 Phillies bullpen

Even after two scoreless innings with Baltimore, Dominguez has a 4.50 ERA on the year. He's shown a tendency to strike out a ton of guys, but hasn't always had enough control to keep the walks down. He's been better in that regard in 2024 though, posting a career low 7.3% walk rate.

Likewise, Soto has the ability to miss bats but he lives on the edge of the zone, and therefore gives up a ton of walks. Per Statcast, his 12.1% walk rate is in the bottom 10th percentile league-wide and is a big reason why he's running a 4.08 ERA heading into Wednesday's games.

Looking at the moves individually, there are definitely pros and cons here. You can talk yourself into either guy, and since we have so much faith in the Orioles pitching development team it's fair to think that the group will get the most out of these guys during their time here.

However, there's one glaring issue with these moves. When you combine Dominguez and Soto with current Orioles closer Craig Kimbrel, you get a significant part of the 2023 Phillies bullpen. Yes, the same bullpen that choked in last year's NLCS and let the Diamondbacks sneak into the World Series.

Kimbrel was one of the worst offenders, allowing 4 runs on 4 walks and 5 hits in just 3 innings of work in that NLCS. However, Soto also gave up a run on 2 hits and a walk in two appearances, and Dominguez coughed up an unearned run on 2 hits and 3 walks in 3 outings. Regardless of how much you like any of these three relievers individually, it's difficult to not see the connection there.

Now, if this all sounds a bit too fatalist, you might have a point. This is a different squad than the one that got swept by the Rangers in last year's ALDS, and there were a lot of other factors that went into the Phillies' October collapse. The Orioles might genuinely be playing with fire by building the bullpen this way, but all we can do is cross our fingers and hope that Mike Elias' plan works.