The Baltimore Orioles have spent the winter seeking rotation help. On Thursday, they may have found some.
According to Roch Kubatko of MASN, the Orioles reached an agreement with free agent Andrew Cashner on a two-year deal worth $16 million. The deal includes a vesting option and could be worth more than $40 million when all is said and done:
Cashner, 31, spent 2017 with the Texas Rangers, with whom he posted a 3.40 ERA (or 138 ERA+). He nonetheless landed on our riskiest free agents list due to the disconnect between his surface-level and advanced statistics:
Cashner's strikeout and swinging strike rates each plummeted, with the latter moving from 18.8 percent to 14.9 percent. He didn't make up for the reduction in swings-and-misses with improved control or upped groundball tendencies, either -- he walked more and generated a lower percentage of groundballs than his career norms.
It's worth noting Cashner did seem to tweak his arsenal, junking his slider for a harder cutter. Batters hit nearly 70 percent grounders on the cutters they put into play, so perhaps Cashner can keep the ball on the infield more often heading forward. For now, there's no reason to think he's anything more than a back-end starter whose ERA is going to cause some fights.
Even with some regression, Cashner could still represent an upgrade for the Orioles, who could still stand to add another arm. Currently, the Orioles figure to trot out a rotation built from Dylan Bundy, Kevin Gausman, Cashner, and Mike Wright. Those four figure to fair better than Chris Tillman, Wade Miley, Ubaldo Jimenez, and Jeremy Hellickson did last season, when they combined for a 6.61 ERA over 444 ⅔ innings with the Orioles.