Veteran Offseason Acquisitions of Orioles Have Been Clear Busts

Nothing has gone right for the Baltimore Orioles in 2025.

Coming off two straight playoff appearances, including winning the American League East in 2023 with more than 100 wins, expectations were high entering 2025.

Needless to say, those expectations have come nowhere close to being met.

The Orioles enter Memorial Day with an 18-34 record, sitting last in the American League East, 14 games behind the New York Yankees in first. They also are 14th in the American League as a whole, and 27th in MLB.

While the roster has seen a general lack of production from many areas, two key offseason acquisitions stand out above the rest.

To this point in 2025, they are two of the 10 biggest busts among all acquisitions from this past winter.

Charlie Morton and Tyler O'Neill Named Bust Signings for Orioles

A recent article from Kerry Miller of Bleacher Report ranked the biggest bust signings from the offseason. Both Charlie Morton and Tyler O'Neill -- two of the biggest signings from general manager Mike Elias over the winter -- made the top 10, placing eighth and seventh, respectively.

For Morton, the 41-year-old pitcher is simply another case of a player not knowing when it is time to hang up the cleats. And, honestly, if there are teams still willing to pay, there is no reason to turn them down.

Morton's career levels of production look more like a bell curve than anything resembling consistent staying power.

From 2008-2015, he posted an 84 ERA+. From 2016 through 2021, it skyrocketed to 126. Since 2022, however, it has fallen back to below league average at just 96.

This year has been especially bad.

The veteran holds a 7.68 ERA across 41 innings and a 49 ERA+. It would be the worst season of Morton's career should the current trajectory hold, and a performance far from the innings-eater Baltimore needed him to be when they gave him a one-year, $15 million contract.

While both signings were questionable for different reasons, the three-year, $49.5 million contract Elias gave to O'Neill is the more puzzling of the two.

Injuries have plagued the outfielder throughout his career -- including this season -- and he has played 100 or more games in a campaign only twice in his eight years at the Major League level.

O'Neill was coming off one of the best showings of his career in 2024, where he hit 31 home runs and posted a 133 OPS+ across 113 games for the Boston Red Sox. The outfielder has fallen well short of that this year, playing in just 24 games so far with only two home runs and a 76 OPS+.

While there has been some good to come from the Orioles in 2025, it has been few and far between, with the bad far outweighing the good.

But for Morton and O'Neill, they stand out as the worst of the worst on the roster, and can only be seen as more bust signings from Elias.

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