Emergence Of Trevor Rogers A Bright Spot In Bleak Season For Orioles

It’s basically been a lost season in Baltimore, after two quick playoff exits in 2023-24 that followed a long rebuild. They hoped that their young position player nucleus would be enough to compensate for question marks on their pitching staff, but it hasn’t worked out that way. They were weeded out of the playoff race fairly early on, and if not for the emergence of lefty Trevor Rogers as the season has progressed, there simply wouldn’t be much to get excited about.

The Marlins’ 1st round draft pick (13th overall) in 2017, Rogers was once one of the brightest young pitching prospects in the game. He made his major league debut in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season at age 22, and had a brilliant campaign in 2021. I often break pitching into three main components – missing bats, minimizing walks and managing contact. Rogers was very good at the first, above average at the third, and average at the second of those tasks, and the result was a 66 ERA-, 61 FIP- and a 79 “Tru”- (my batted ball-based proxy for ERA-) over 133 innings, at age 23. That’s one valuable commodity, who appeared to be ready to lift off into stardom.

It didn’t quite work out that way. He regressed in every way imaginable in 2022, also suffering back and lat muscle injuries that hampered his performance. 2023 was a total washout, as he tore his lat muscle and also strained his forearm. He regained his health in 2024, but not his effectiveness. Suddenly, Rogers was below average at all three core disciplines, and was sent to the Orioles at the trading deadline for prospects Connor Norby and Kyle Stowers. Both players have shown promise with the Marlins, with Stowers emerging as one of the premier sluggers in the NL in the first half. It was beginning to look like a disastrous trade from the Orioles’ perspective.

Then very quietly, a finally healthy Rogers began to recapture some of the promise of his youth and offer his new club some desperately needed starting pitching hope. He has a sterling 8-2, 1.51, record and 87/20 K/BB ratio in 95 2/3 IP over his first 15 starts – that’s well over six innings per start. Durability is the fourth plank of starting pitcher effectiveness.

Those of you who have read my work here know that I subject a pitcher’s actual numbers to batted ball-based tests that measure his true talent level. It might not surprise you that Rogers has been exceedingly fortunate this season. In fact, he’s had good fortune across all batted ball types, especially on fly balls (33 Unadjusted vs. 111 Adjusted Fly Ball Contact Score). Overall, he has a 49 Unadjusted Contact Score versus an adjusted 96 mark. His 83 “Tru”- is far higher than both his 37 ERA- and 56 FIP-. So you might expect me to say that Rogers’ 2025 success is a mirage, and that I don’t expect much from him going forward, right? Not quite.

There’s a lot to like here. First of all, I go back to the three core disciplines – Rogers is an average bat misser, has a walk rate over a full standard deviation lower than league average, and has been a slightly better than average contact manager – he has limited hitters to lower than average fly ball and liner authority. while hitters have hit their grounders materially harder than average against him. That’s better than the opposite arrangement. Toss in his above average durability, and he’s average or better across the big four traits. That means that a healthy Rogers has a very high floor.

Digging a little deeper, I love his batted ball frequency profile. His pop up rate is over a standard deviation above league average, and his grounder rate is over a half standard deviation above. That’s a very rare combination, and it indicates an ability to get outs at both the top and bottom of the strike zone.

Probing a little further, I love his four-seam fastball. While fastballs have declined in usage and effectiveness in recent seasons, I’ve found that really good pitchers tend to have really good ones.

Each season I calculate pitch grades for every qualifying pitch in the arsenals of starting pitchers who log 135 or more innings based on their pitch-specific bat-missing and contact management performances relative to the league. As luck would have it, Rogers has never qualified for pitch grades, and won’t reach 135 innings this season. I went ahead an calculated them anyway to use in this analysis.

And his four-seamer shines, earning an “A” grade, as its 12.5% whiff rate is over a standard deviation higher than league average. Its also been a comfortably above average contact management pitch, generating plenty of pop ups. Though it’s his most frequently used pitch (39.8% usage rate), that mark is way down from 57.7% back in 2021. Its 93.2 mph average velocity is back up to 2023 levels after a steep drop in 2024. More than anything else, his four-seamer is the biggest reason I believe in Rogers moving forward.

His slider/sweeper has been even more effective, earning an “A+” grade, largely on the strength of its incredible 44 Adjusted Contact Score (it’s his other pop up generator). He throws these two offerings a combined 19.6% of the time – contact management is a little more volatile than bat-missing, and I’d expect some downward regression to the mean from this pitch going forward.

Rogers’ other two pitches – his changeup and sinker, his two grounder generators – have been below average offerings this season. His changeup gets a “C+”, with average range bat-missing and contact management results, while his sinker gets a poor “D+” grade, thanks to a pretty awful pitch-specific 149 Adjusted Contact Score.

Overall, I don’t see Rogers as a star-level, Cy Young-contending type starting pitcher moving forward. But I do see him as an upper-rotation, high floor, moderate to high ceiling presence at or near the top of the Oriole rotation. He has one year of arbitration eligibility remaining in 2026, but look for the club to aggressively move to lock him up for the intermediate to long term if they can be convinced of his ability to remain reasonably healthy.