You know the joke. “Where do you see yourself in five years?” Asks the questioner. Mitch Hedberg has the perfect answer. “I am celebrating five years since he asked me this question.” Mike Elias and the Orioles appear to have a five-year plan in place, and they did it on Sunday, signing right-hander Kyle Bradish to a five-year, $90 million extension. The deal buys out the starter’s final two years of arbitration, plus three free years, keeping him in the orange and black until his age 35 season in 2031. Bradish is making $3.55 million in the settlement this season, and will make $10 million if the new deal kicks in next year. He will receive a $3 million raise in 2028, then add $1 million to his annual raise each subsequent season. So you’ll make $10 million in 2027, then 13, then 17, then 22, then 28 in 2031. It’s a classic example of linear growth instead of exponential, and it should help Bradish stay a step ahead of inflation. In accordance with Baltimore bannerAndy Kostka’s, and it’s the largest contract for a pitcher in franchise history.
Bradish has a 3.50 ERA and 3.62 FIP for his career, but there is still room for uncertainty in his profile. He started 2022 and put up bad numbers in all 23 starts, posting a 4.90 ERA and 4.46 FIP. He broke out in 2023, going 12-7 with a 2.83 ERA and 3.27 FIP. The underlying numbers weren’t that great, as a large part of his improvement was a seemingly disproportionately large drop in home runs. While Bradish has made steady improvements in his walk, strikeout, and groundball rates, it would be unwise to expect some decline. Instead, he came out of the gate even better in 2024. His walk rate was definitely down, but he pressured homers a lot and raised his strikeout rate to 33%. It was a big jump, but it only took eight starts before the god of the ulnar muscles claimed your charge.
Bradish returned from Tommy John surgery at the end of August 2025, and picked up where he left off before the injury. In fact, during his six game starts, he struck out over 37% of the batters he faced. Combining the two seasons, Bradish threw 71 1/3 innings across 14 starts, posting a 2.65 ERA and 2.48 FIP. He put up 2.5 WAR in what was half a season. It was a formal rule.
Alas, Bradish hasn’t looked like the same guy this season. He sports a 3.61 ERA and 4.00 FIP, with peripherals to match. His strikeout rate dropped to 23%, and his walk rate was a career-high 11%. She looks tougher than flashy. He has one rising arm angle in the game, and that unusual look no doubt helps him keep hitters on their toes. This year, however, his angle has dropped a few degrees, which is probably part of the reason why his four-seamer has lost half a tick of speed and a few inches of height. On the other hand, he is still working things out. He changed his delivery in early May, and began relying more on his sinker than his four-seamer in June. If you’ll excuse some sloppy finishes that erase a few clunkers in late April and early May, Bradish has a 2.95 ERA and 3.63 FIP since May 8, thanks to slight improvements in both his walk and strikeout rate.
In late June, over at RotoGraphs, Corbin Young took a closer look at what has been ailing Bradish this season. Young’s primary diagnosis was a decline in both command and the ability to miss bats. He noted that despite the work Place + 105, Bradish was 90 this season. Thanks to the All-Star break, Bradish has only made three starts since that article came out, but it’s at least worth noting that he’s ranked +104th in that first-three span, and his whiff rate has jumped six points to 81%. In both of those starts, his four-seamer’s velocity dipped over 95 mph for the first time all season. I’m not saying we should read all that into such a small sample, but it’s reassuring to see that he can get back there, and it allows us to have at least a little bit of hope for him going forward.
As for why the timing is right for Bradish to sign this deal, we have no shortage of things to consider. The expiration of the current league’s collective bargaining agreement is subject to all negotiations, because no one knows what the situation will look like next year and beyond. Bradish is coming off two great, but Tommy-John-truncated seasons, and is now locked into a deal at age 35. That should look reassuring to the chef who will, in seven weeks’ time, be cutting his 30th birthday cake with the help of the brand new UCL. Maybe you think he would have been able to get a three-year deal with an AAV of $18 million as a 32-year-old, when he was originally scheduled for free agency, but that’s hardly a slam dunk. Dan Szymborski and his friendly ZiPS machine modeled what the 2027 extension might look like back in March. Five years and $61 million came out, even if ZiPS indicated that Bradish will play better this season than he has so far. Bradish blew that out of the water.
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From a management perspective, it’s not hard to imagine that the Orioles see themselves buying at least a little bit lower here, even after putting the price at some risk. While Bradish hasn’t reached his previous level after his first healthy season in two years, his stuff doesn’t seem that far off. This is his fourth straight season with an ERA at least 13% better than league average, and they clearly think he’s got a few more in the tank. Even in his brief appearances over the past two years, which included something less than half a season when he started, our simple dollars-per-MPI calculations have Bradish worth $20 million.
Furthermore, the Orioles are in expansion mode. They inked Samuel Basallo to an eight-year extension a little over a year ago and rookie Shane Baz to a five-year deal in March. Add in the five-year contract that Pete Alonso signed during the Winter Meetings, and you get the sense that the Orioles see themselves enjoying a breath of fresh air from this contention window, which opens in 2023, for another five years. If you’re an Orioles fan, you’re probably tired of banging your head against the wall hoping the team will make big moves this window. Neither Gunnar Henderson nor Adley Rutschman signed an extension. With all due respect to Chris Bassitt, Ryan Helsley, and re-signing Zach Eflin — who are already leading high-profile careers but were all at least a year removed from their best form when they signed with Baltimore — Alonso was the team’s only major addition last season after a fourth straight year of broken prospects.
It’s hard to say what this deal might indicate for the team’s plans at the deadline. MLB.com’s Jake Rill wrote on July 15 that the Orioles could end up being buyers or sellers, depending on where they end up at the end of the month. In the five days since that article was published, the Orioles are still two games out of the final Wild Card spot, but because they’ve gone 3-0 while the Twins, Astros, and Blue Jays have all faltered, their Playoff Odds have jumped from 21.6% to 31.0%. Bradish made his first start as a big-money pitcher on Tuesday, and will make one more before the trade deadline. There is a good chance that if he shuffles in those two games, it will be enough to push the team to the next level. It would be a great start to doing well in his shiny new contract.
