The Baltimore Orioles have stacked three winning seasons in a row, making the playoffs in each of the last two. Most of the Orioles lineup is filled with players that were with the team in 2024. Their rotation, on the other hand, has a few new faces.
This winter Baltimore added 41-year-old right hander Charlie Morton to their pitching staff. Morton signed a one-year contract for $15 million to play his 18th season in the Majors. The Orioles will be Morton’s sixth, and potentially final team.
Morton is a reliable veteran that’s started 382 regular season games, plus another 17 in the postseason. He’s had four seasons where he finished with a 3.2 WAR or greater, maxing out at 5.1 WAR in 2019. Apart from those spike years, Morton has been a slightly above average starter for most of his abnormally long career. He’s a known quantity, where no one is expecting any kind of breakthrough.
Baltimore brought in another starting pitcher this offseason, one that is much more of a mystery box than Morton. Tomoyuki Sugano is a 35-year-old right hander that has spent his entire professional baseball career in Japan. He’s pitched for the Yomiuri Giants of the NBP Central League since 2013, compiling a 2.43 ERA over his 12 seasons. The Orioles signed Sugano to a one-year, $13 million contract in December.
Sugano is not a flame thrower, his four-seam fastball velocity consistently lands in the low 90’s. He instead relies on location, movement and changing speeds with his six-pitch repertoire. He throws both his cutter and slider with consistent usage, while his sinker and curveball are mixed in less frequently. If Sugano needs a hitter to swing and miss, his splitter has been his put away pitch.
Sugano is coming off a great year where he went 15-3 with a 1.67 ERA. Over his career he’s won two Sawamura Awards (the NBP’s Cy Young equivalent) and two league MVP’s.
He had some exposure to some high-end Major League hitters during the World Baseball Classic in 2017. Sugano pitched six innings in that contest, allowing three hits and one unearned run.
It’s hard to takeaway much from one quality start that happened almost eight years ago in a tournament. It’s equally difficult to take Sugano’s 2024 production in Japan and use that to project what he’ll do in his first Major League season.
Regardless, Sugano is expected to get his opportunity to show what he can do as part of a Big League rotation. A number of veteran, Japanese pitchers have had success in Major League Baseball, from Masahiro Tanaka to Hideo Nomo.
It would be quite a surprise if Sugano performed at that level, but he enters the year as an American League Rookie of the Year dark horse on a contending team. Baltimore isn’t in the business of developing random veterans heading towards opening day. They signed Morton for stability, and they brought in Sugano as a low-risk shot at difference making upside. That’s how teams with title aspirations operate.
Opposing hitters will have no familiarity with Sugano, which could be a great asset for him and the Orioles. It’s much easier to exceed expectations on a winning team, especially when you have the experience that Sugano has.