The Orioles’ DH is putting up an All-Star caliber season, but that will mean little if Mike Elias & Co. don’t find a way to keep him around in 2026.
In Sunday’s game against the Red Sox, Ben McDonald threw out a stat that I was unprepared for. The Orioles’ top color commentator said that right behind Aaron Judge on the American League OPS charts was Orioles 1B/DH Ryan O’Hearn.
I knew O’Hearn was having a great start to his season, but didn’t think it was entering “best hitters in the AL” territory. But when you pull MLB.com, Baseball Reference, Fangraphs or any of your favorite stat sites, there’s Turn and Burn O’Hearn and his .968 OPS, right behind the Yankees’ superstar.
ROH also currently sits fourth in the AL in average at .340, second in on-base percentage at .426 and sixth in slugging at .542. It perhaps shouldn’t come as a surprise that O’Hearn continues to improve, since he’s done nothing but grow as a player after joining the Orioles in 2023.
When O’Hearn was DFA’d by the Royals, he was a -2.2 WAR player for his career, hitting .219 with a 30% strikeout rate. In his first year in Baltimore, he posted career highs in HRs, RBIs, average and OPS while going from the fringe of the roster to the heart of the Orioles lineup. In 2024, he proved he could replicate that performance as an everyday player. Now, in 2025, he’s playing the best baseball of his career and providing a boost that this Orioles offense desperately needs.
As awe-inspiring as O’Hearn’s breakout is, it’s overshadowed by his expiring contract. His play has now vaulted him ahead of names like Zach Eflin, Cedric Mullins and Tomoyuki Sugano as the most impactful of Baltimore’s impending free agents. And the longer O’Hearn keeps up this level of play, the more Orioles fans will no doubt start to get flashbacks to Anthony Santander’s situation last season.
With O’Hearn, the current front office has its first big chance to rebuild the trust it lost after its shortcomings this past offseason. The slow and disappointing start to 2025 likely means this season is a lost cause. With the Orioles floundering in last place, the overwhelming opinion around baseball is that they’ll be sellers at the deadline. In a recent Twitter AMA, McDonald even said he could see the Orioles selling players like O’Hearn, Mullins and Eflin at the deadline.
Given the trajectory of this season, the Orioles can’t afford to hold onto these players like they did Santander and let them walk for nothing at the end of the year. For some of these Orioles, flipping them at the deadline for players with team control beyond 2025 will be necessary to make this team competitive again in 2026 and beyond. However, any set of moves that result in O’Hearn not being on the 2026 Opening Day roster would be another mistake by this front office.
The Orioles need players who not only help them win games but who, deep down, care about bringing a World Series title to Baltimore. The Orioles gave O’Hearn a second chance when it looked his major league career was on the brink. That debt of gratitude is something that can’t be bought on the free agent market. Earlier this year, O’Hearn described landing with the Orioles as “without a doubt the best thing that has ever happened to me.” That sounds like a player who wants to spend as much time in black and orange as possible and who wants to spend that time bringing championships back to Camden Yards.
If the Orioles want to compete again in 2026, they need to spend the offseason upgrading the roster. Making meaningful upgrades becomes hard to do when you have to start by replacing your good players before replacing the underperformers. Keeping O’Hearn would be the first step in ensuring that the foundation of this Orioles team is strong to support the roster reconstruction Mike Elias & Co. must undertake this winter.
ROH’s desire to stay in Baltimore means the Orioles should be able to resign him at less than the $18.5M/year Santander got from Toronto, and perhaps even less than the $16.5/year that the Orioles gave Tyler O’Neill. Spotrac projects that the soon-to-be 32-year-old O’Hearn will command around $14M/year in free agency. While that would represent a $6M increase from his current $8M, it is still a bargain given his current levels of production.
As McDonald suggested, there is the third option of trading O’Hearn for something at the deadline and then attempting to resign him once he hits the open market come November. While we’ve seen that work with the Tigers and Jack Flaherty, or further back with Aroldis Chapman and the Yankees, the strategy comes with a lot of risk. The team that trades for him may work out an extension with him before he hits free agency. Another team may come with an offer too good to turn down in open free agency.
If the front office decides to trade O’Hearn and then doesn’t resign him, it will come across as a signal to this fanbase that the Orioles are not looking to compete next year. O’Hearn has earned the right to be considered among Henderson, Rutschman, Holliday, Westburg and Cowser as part of this team’s core.
Moving on from a core member of this team’s lineup would be a clear indication that the front office thinks the window for contention is no longer now. This is especially true if all Baltimore gets back for ROH are prospects that are a few years from making an impact at the majors.
Mike Elias likely needs to knock this offseason out of the park if he wants to keep his job. Resigning Ryan O’Hearn is the move that can start the offseason on the right foot before we even get to November. Fail to keep O’Hearn and, like many of the current Orioles, Elias will probably be looking for a new team in 2026.