The Orioles and free agent reliever Andrew Kittredge are in agreement on a one-year, $10MM guarantee, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. The Paragon Sports International client receives a $9MM salary for the upcoming season and is guaranteed a $1MM buyout on a $9MM club option for 2026. Baltimore has a full 40-man roster and will need to make a move when the contract is finalized.
Kittredge will step into a setup role in front of star closer Félix Bautista, who is making his return from Tommy John surgery. The veteran joins Seranthony Domínguez, Yennier Cano and Keegan Akin as potential high-leverage pieces in Brandon Hyde’s bullpen. Kittredge has plenty of seventh and eighth inning experience. He led the National League and finished second in MLB (behind Houston’s Bryan Abreu) with 37 holds for the Cardinals last season.
The righty earned the trust of St. Louis manager Oli Marmol as the top setup arm in front of star closer Ryan Helsley. He worked 70 2/3 innings with a 2.80 earned run average. Kittredge punched out a league average 23.3% of batters faced while limiting walks to a modest 7% clip. He missed bats on an above-average 13.7% of his pitches while doing a reasonable job keeping the ball on the ground.
Related Post
Kittredge, who turns 35 shortly before Opening Day, isn’t a flamethrower. He worked in the 94-95 MPH range with both his sinker and four-seam fastball. That’s solid velocity but by no means exceptional for a modern late-inning reliever. Kittredge’s specialty is beating hitters with a plus slider. He turned to the breaking ball around half the time.
Opponents hit .177 against the pitch while swinging through it more than 40% of the time that they offered at it. He particularly excelled at getting hitters to go out of the zone. Opponents swung at nearly 42% of the pitches that Kittredge threw outside the strike zone. Among pitchers with 50+ innings, only Arizona left-hander Joe Mantiply got chases at a higher rate.
The one knock against Kittredge last season was a problematic platoon split. Pitchers who lean on a slider-sinker mix often struggle with opposite-handed hitters. That was certainly the case for Kittredge. He stifled right-handed batters to a .188/.247/.291 line in 183 plate appearances. Lefties teed off at a .296/.337/.571 clip with six homers in 104 trips. His career platoon splits aren’t as drastic, but lefties have managed a solid .244/.320/.455 slash in more than 400 plate appearances against him. Baltimore has a trio of southpaws who are locks for bullpen spots if healthy: Akin, Gregory Soto and Cionel Pérez. That gives Hyde some options if he wants to shield Kittredge from opposing lineups’ best lefty bats.
Despite the vulnerability to southpaws, Kittredge has a strong multi-year track record. He debuted with the Rays in 2017 and spent parts of seven seasons in Kevin Cash’s bullpen. Kittredge worked in middle relief for the first few years but had a breakout showing in ’21. He fired a career-best 71 2/3 innings of 1.88 ERA ball to earn an All-Star selection. Kittredge injured his elbow early the following year and required Tommy John surgery. The timing of that procedure limited him to 31 appearances between 2022-23.
Tampa Bay flipped him to St. Louis last winter for outfielder Richie Palacios. Kittredge picked up where he’d left off pre-surgery during his only season with the Cardinals. He owns a 2.48 ERA across 162 appearances going back to the start of the ’21 season. That made him one of the better relievers in this year’s free agent class, though his age limited the contractual upside.
MLBTR ranked Kittredge the offseason’s #40 free agent. We predicted a two-year, $14MM pact covering his age 35-36 seasons. He falls short of the multi-year deal and that overall guarantee but secures a solid salary for the upcoming campaign. Kittredge is the third pitcher and the fourth free agent whom the O’s have signed to a one-year deal this winter. Baltimore has added Charlie Morton ($15MM), Tomoyuki Sugano ($13MM), and Gary Sánchez ($8.5MM) alongside their biggest acquisition — outfielder Tyler O’Neill on a three-year, $49.5MM contract that allows him to opt out after the first season.
The five free agent expenditures have added $63MM (including Kittredge’s option buyout) to next year’s payroll. Baltimore has certainly been a bigger player under first-year owner David Rubenstein than they were in recent years under John Angelos. The O’s have shied away from any significant long-term commitments, instead adding shorter-term veteran pieces around their prized position player core. RosterResource calculates their ’25 player payroll around $156MM, which would be their highest figure since 2017. O’Neill is their only player on a guaranteed contract that stretches beyond this year.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
