What Should the Orioles Do With Adley Rutschman?

Is it possible that Adley has played his last game as a Baltimore Oriole?

The MLB trade deadline is upon us, and this Baltimore Orioles roster as we know it is going to look a lot different afterward.

“No team will look as different as the Orioles after the deadline,” said ESPN’s Jeff Passan in a recent column, a huge turn of events from where this team was a year ago: a contender eager to add arms at the deadline to go all-in as a contender. Now, the twelve-under Orioles are looking to completely overhaul their roster.

The insider believes there are 14 players on this roster—was fifteen before Gregory Soto was dealt to New York—that are considered potential trade candidates, including their lone All Star representative, Ryan O’Hearn, and four of its current starting pitchers.

That said, among those not mentioned was Adley Rutschman, the Orioles former first overall pick that seemingly set the tone for the future of Orioles baseball.

Rutschman was the poster boy of the rebuild in Baltimore, one that saw the Birds add a plethora of youthful, talented bats that made them a serious threat in the American League in 2023 and 2024.

But now, the fall of the Orioles has also come with the fall of its All-MLB catcher, whose sudden decline has stunned many fans and analysts at home.

What was seemingly a bad stretch turned into the longest slump of his professional career, one that has coincided with losing baseball. Now, the future of the Orioles ‘can’t-miss’ talent is up in the air, particularly once CBS Sports brought up the possibility of a trade at this year’s deadline.

What does the future look like for Adley Rutschman in Charm City? And is his time as the face of the Orioles ending before it really ever started?

“The Future”

When the Orioles received the first overall draft selection in 2019, it began the rebuilding of the Baltimore Orioles. No more Manny Machado. No more Adam Jones. No more Zach Britton. Instead, a new group of Birds ready to take the world the storm. Rutschman was the start, the face of a new generation of baseball in Charm City.

After spending a few years fine-tuning his talents in the minor leagues, he found himself in the Majors in May of 2022, when Baltimore was on about a 65-win pace. From that point on, however, the team turned around, and made a postseason push.

After a 16-24 start, Rutschman helped steer the team to a 67-55 record the rest of the way to finish above .500 for the first time since 2016. After commanding the group to the sixth best American League record and eleventh best MLB record in his time on the squad, he was awarded a second place finish in AL Rookie of the Year voting, a 12th-place finish in AL MVP voting, and led the Orioles in WAR, walks, on-base rate, OPS and OPS+.

And it wasn’t a fluke. The next season, with some help from star 2019 draft counterpart Gunnar Henderson, the Orioles won 101 games and were the first seed in the American League. Rutschman was awarded Silver Slugger, a ninth place MVP finish, and it was clear: the future of Orioles baseball ran through Adley.

(Image from MASN.com)

By the two year anniversary of his call-up, the Birds were 197-132 with Adley, the best record in the American League. In 2024, with Henderson now joining him in MVP talks, the Orioles were again one of the MLB’s more dangerous threats for a World Series, and it all ran through their catcher, who was having another career season.

His value was apparent. “Rutschman isn’t the only reason Baltimore is successful, but it’s clear his joining the Orioles was an inflection point for success,” said Sports Illustrated’s Matthew Postins in May of last year.

Although, shockingly, the wheels began to turn sideways for Rutschman and the Orioles, who look years removed from their “glory days.”

Slump

There seems to be no other word for it. Except, a slump usually refers to a period where a player is struggling to perform to their normal standards for a few weeks, maybe a month or so.

But what happens if the face of a baseball team goes on a one-year slump that has shown little signs of an upcoming termination? You get the disaster that is the 2025 Baltimore Orioles.

At Independence Day of 2024, Rutschman had reached a level far superior to any he had reached up to that point in his career. Slashing .288/.355/.461 with an OPS of .806, fifteen home runs and 55 RBI’s, Adley was on his way to another All-MLB selection and a career season, with his Orioles sitting at 55-32. Nothing to fear.

However, from that point on to the end of the season, Adley looked like a shell of his former self, if that. He batted under .200 the rest of the way with an OPS of .577, hit just four homers in those 67 games while driving in only 24 runs.

And the team suffered as a consequence. Baltimore closed out the season 36-40 and were a quick out in the Wild Card round, at home, to the Kansas City Royals.

Rutschman contributed to the elimination, too, taking two pitches down the middle in game two when the Orioles needed their star most. Just afterwards I wrote the words I had been painfully waiting to write in the prior months: I tried to tell people back in late July-early August: the Orioles have an Adley Rutschman problem.

Little did I know how terrible that problem would later become.

With hopes that he could re-ignite his previous fire after the offseason, Orioles fans had little worries about how Rutschman would respond. That said, they should have. Because similar things, if not worse, continued for Adley.

Instead of coming out firing on all cylinders like many expected after an elite Spring Training, Rutschman lacked potency at the plate and struggled in his first month.

Adley was three-for-five with two homers on Opening Day, though hit just two more with only five additional RBI’s in his next 24 contests. 25 games in, and Adley had an OPS below .700.

That stayed true throughout the next few months, and as soon as he was maybe starting to get things going, he found his way to the injured list. Nonetheless, there has seemingly been little uptick in production, and the Orioles have suffered with one of the MLB’s worst records.

Remember that 197-132 record in the Orioles’ first two years with Adley that was the best in the American League? Well, since that time, the Birds are 107-113, good for the fourth worst record in the AL. The tides can clearly change in a heartbeat in Major League Baseball.

Why Has Rutschman Gotten Worse?

This is the golden question, and the one that encouraged the panicking Orioles to select a catcher with each of their first two selections in the MLB Draft, both in the first round.

And not to mention, the Orioles top prospect in Samuel Basallo is developing nicely, and appears to be a dangerous hitter at the plate. He’s a catcher, too. In just a year, the Orioles have lost full trust in Adley to be their future superstar at backstop.

(Image by thebaltimorebanner.com)

Though how come this has been the case? How could a perennial MVP candidate at 27 years old fall off such a steep cliff that it makes fans wonder how he ever was what he used to be? Well, there could be a few contributing reasons.

One that many advocates of his game point to is an at-bat in June of last season, where the ball hit Adley’s hand. It was never recorded as a legitimate injury, but many speculate that it changed his form and positioning and therefore results at the plate. Although, it’s now July of 2025, and to see assume that this injury has lingered for so long is unreasonable.

Just before the season began, I did a full breakdown on this matter, where I said I believed that his conservative approach was finally hurting his results. I pointed to advanced analytics from Baseball Savant that showed that he was getting easier pitches but maybe was too uncomfortable to swing, as his meatball-swing percentage was a career low in 2024.

I also referred to his very-low first-pitch-swing rate, forcing him into unfavorable counts. That contributed to a lower contact-rate. He was also walking less, which I said was a critical part of his game.

All of the advanced analytics coincided with this theory, and possibly one that suggested it was because of a change in form, possibly from an injury. However, that has not translated into 2025. In fact, he has pretty much improved in all of those categories that I attributed to his decline.

He’s walking far more than he did last year, though still not at his previously elite level. Still, his first-pitch-swing rate is at an all time high, and his correlating chase-contact percentage is at an all-time low.

He is also making contact on pitches in the zone on more than 90% of pitches for the first time in his career, and he’s whiffing less than ever. And his meatball swing percentage is at its highest mark since his rookie year.

Mechanically, I feel he’s doing the right things. And that’s because he is, but the results haven’t followed.

The “Unluckiest” Hitter

As of May 31st, Adley was the ninth-unluckiest hitter in Major League Baseball. This was calculated by taking his wOBA—a stat that measures a player’s overall offensive contribution per plate appearance—compared to his xwOBA (expected). And while this was nearly two months ago, the players who ranked near the top of the list have seen in an uptick in production since.

Image from Thomas Nestico (@TJStats) on X — May 31st, 2025 at 11:30 AM

Salvador Perez—the unluckiest hitter in the MLB at the time—has bat .300 with a .953 OPS since, and his season-long statistics are now nearing where many projected they would be in 2025.

Same goes for Juan Soto—second on the list—who was batting .231 at the time of ranking. Though in the past two months, there might not be a player who has performed better. Soto has had an OPS above 1.000 since the beginning of June.

Usually in baseball, luck balances out, as seen with the top two players on this list.

And while Adley’s stats certainly didn’t return to its All Star level or see the uptick many fans were hoping for, he did start to get things going before being placed on the injured list.

In the 15 games after this ranking, Rutschman slashed .309/.381/.509 with an OPS of nearly .900, and walked almost as many times as he struck out. He also had five multi-hit games, compared to the seven in his previous 53 showings.

Now, it was a small sample size, but in this stretch, the Orioles were 9-6 and starting to look like a team that could make a postseason push. Since then, they’re under .500. So, I’m not saying to completely buy that he has been “unlucky.” That didn’t seem to be the case last season.

However, it might be too unreasonable to get rid of him given his decorated past.

His Impact

Many fans believe it’s time to trade Rutschman. Other catching prospects could overtake him sooner rather than later, and his previous All Star-level production could entice a team to take a shot on the 27-year old. However, how would this team operate without Rutschman?

Because while he has gotten worse since, Postins’ message from the May 2024 column remains true: Adley’s call-up was the turn-around of the Orioles. And it’s been ever since he’s been cold from the plate that this team has returned to a well-below .500 record.

Now, baseball—more than any other sport—is a game where one superstar can usually not dictate the outcome consistently. A starting pitcher only pitches once every five days, and even an elite hitter only gets five cracks—maybe—per night among the team’s 40-to-45 attempts.

Although, this team has clearly thrived when Rutschman has been dominant. In those 12 multi-hit games he’s put together this season, the Birds are 8-4. There are very few players across the whole league whose performances make as great of an impact on their team as Rutschman’s do to the Orioles.

Trading Adley wouldn’t be trading a .230 catcher; it would be trading the identity of this franchise set the day he was selected in the 2019 draft. With two more years of control remaining, the Orioles have time to see if he can return to his elite level before deciding whether to extend him or move to Basallo or whoever else is available.

It’s good that they didn’t sign him to a massive rookie extension after just a few seasons, but it’s not worth giving up hope on Rutschman.

So, while I think the Orioles should listen to offers for Adley if they become available, I think it would be unreasonable to accept an offer unless it’s too great to pass up, which with his performance over the past calendar year probably won’t come about.

Will Adley ever return to his All Star-level performance and re-take the keys to the franchise? I don’t know; time will tell. That said, it would definitely be a big shock if the Orioles don’t take the gamble that he could.

(Image by clutchpoints.com)

Chase Coburn

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