The Orioles have made their most significant pitching commitment in franchise history. Baltimore announced Saturday that it agreed with right-hander Kyle Bradish on a five-year, $90 million extension covering the 2027 through 2031 seasons, a deal ESPN reported before the club confirmed the terms.
The contract makes Bradish the highest-paid pitcher in Orioles history, per MLB.com, eclipsing a mark Baltimore had set less than four months earlier. It buys out the 29-year-old’s final two seasons of arbitration eligibility and covers what would have been his first three years of free agency. The salary climbs across the life of the deal: $10 million in 2027, $13 million in 2028, $17 million in 2029, $22 million in 2030 and $28 million in 2031.
Baltimore’s front office framed the move as the culmination of a long relationship. “We have believed strongly in Kyle since he first joined the organization as a Minor Leaguer in 2019,” president of baseball operations Mike Elias said in a statement. Owner David Rubenstein added that “keeping players of Kyle’s caliber in an Orioles uniform is an important part of our long-term vision,” thanking Elias and the baseball operations department for their work on the agreement.
Bradish arrived in Baltimore as a relatively anonymous piece of the 2019 Dylan Bundy trade with the Angels and grew into the front of the Orioles’ rotation. For a club that has spent the past several seasons building an enviable young position-player core, the question has always been whether it would pay to keep frontline pitching in-house rather than shop for it every winter. The Bradish extension is the clearest answer yet.
The timing is notable, too. With the August 3 trade deadline approaching and Baltimore evaluating its own rotation depth, locking up Bradish removes one of the roster’s biggest long-term uncertainties before the market heats up.
