The Orioles announced this afternoon that left-hander Cole Irvin has cleared waivers and accepted an outright assignment to Triple-A. The move comes on the heels of Irvin being designated for assignment on the day of the trade deadline last week.
The 30-year-old lefty was a fifth-round pick by the Phillies in the 2016 draft and spent the first two seasons of his career pitching out of the bullpen in Philadelphia but didn’t truly establish himself in the big leagues until he was traded to the A’s as part of a cash deal prior to the 2021 season. Upon arriving in Oakland, Irvin was moved to the rotation and quickly found some success as a back-of-the-rotation starter. In his two seasons with the A’s, the lefty pitched to middling results with a 4.11 ERA (95 ERA+) and 4.25 FIP, but did so over an impressive 359 1/3 innings of work. While that innings total may not seem like much compared to the recent past when starters would regular throw 200 innings in a season, that figure actually meant Irvin pitched the 13th-most innings in all of baseball over that two year period.
That ability to eat innings, his league minimum salary, and a relatively low acquisition cost seemingly made Irvin something of a perfect acquisition for an Orioles team that entered the 2023 season in desperate need of some certainty in the rotation following a 2022 campaign where they surprised with an 83-79 record and appeared ready to take another step toward contention despite the club’s intention of keeping payroll additions to a minimum until their vaunted positional core was fully in place at the big league level. Given how well the sides matched up and Oakland’s plan to trade everything on the roster that wasn’t nailed down, it was hardly a surprise when the Orioles acquired Irvin in a deal where they shipped infield prospect Darell Hernaiz to Oakland in exchange for both the lefty and pitching prospect Kyle Virbitsky.
As good a fit as Irvin seemed to be on the surface when he was brought in by Baltimore, however, things have not gone that well since he landed with the club. The lefty was optioned to Triple-A just three starts into his tenure as an Oriole after struggling to a 10.66 ERA in those appearances and wouldn’t return to the big leagues until he was called up to be a swing man in mid-June of last year. His solid performance (3.22 ERA and 4.25 FIP in 64 1/3 innings) earned him an arbitration-level contract with the Orioles this winter, who offered him $2MM to act as depth for their young rotation.
The depth Irvin provided proved to be a much-needed asset for the Orioles throughout the first half this year as their rotation battled injuries to each of Kyle Bradish, Grayson Rodriguez, John Means, Tyler Wells, and Dean Kremer throughout the early months of the year. Each of Bradish, Means, and Wells ended up requiring UCL surgery by the end of June, and those numerous injuries kept Irvin as a fixture in the Baltimore rotation throughout the first half. After a shaky start to the year, Irvin settled in to post a strong 1.88 ERA and 3.49 FIP in ten appearance (eight starts) from mid-April through early June.
Things took a turn for the worse from there, however, as Irvin had been lit up to the tune of an 8.72 ERA and 6.11 FIP in his final 32 innings with the Orioles. Those struggles led him to be moved to the bullpen in early July, but the Orioles pulled the plug when the lefty continued to struggle in a multi-inning relief role. Now that he’s with the club in Triple-A, Irvin figures to serve as a non-roster depth option for the club down the stretch, backing up a rotation mix that currently features Rodriguez, Kremer, and ace Corbin Burnes alongside deadline additions Zach Eflin and Trevor Rogers. An injury to any of those pieces or long reliever Albert Suarez could provide Irvin an opening to return to the majors this year but he’d have to leapfrog youngsters Cade Povich and Chayce McDermott, both of whom are already on the 40-man roster, on the depth chart in order to do so.