Zac Gallen May No Longer Be an Ace, but He Could Still Steady and Elevate the Orioles’ Rotation .MH

The Orioles didn’t have the kind of 2025 season they were hoping for. On the other side of the country, neither did Zac Gallen. Now the two could be a perfect match as they both look to improve their fortunes in 2026.

The Orioles’ search for a starting pitcher continues apace, and the longtime Arizona Diamondbacks right-hander has hit free agency for the first time. Like most other starting pitchers on the market, Gallen has some red flags. But if the Orioles are waiting for the perfect candidate to come along, they’re going to be waiting forever. And Gallen brings enough positive attributes to the table to make him an intriguing option.

Gallen, originally a third-round pick by the Cardinals out of UNC in 2016, was part of the trade package (along with Sandy Alcantara) in the Marlins’ haul for Marcell Ozuna in 2017. Then, after making his MLB debut with Miami in 2019, Gallen was shipped off again after just seven starts, sent to the Diamondbacks for then-minor leaguer Jazz Chisholm Jr. in a fascinating prospect-for-prospect swap. Arizona is where Gallen has made his major league home ever since, working 176 starts for the D’Backs in the last seven seasons.

Gallen’s most dominant two-year stretch was 2022-23. In the former of those seasons, he went 12-4 with a 2.54 ERA and averaged less than a baserunner per inning, posting a league-leading 0.913 WHIP and 5.9 H/9. Gallen finished fifth in the NL Cy Young voting that year. He got even more accolades the following season with a third-place Cy Young finish and his first All-Star appearance. Gallen set a career high with 210 innings, second most in the majors, during that 2023 campaign. (If you’re wondering, the last time any Orioles pitcher worked that many innings in a season was 21 years ago, when Sidney Ponson threw 215.2 in 2004.)

Gallen’s durability is one of his calling cards. In three of the last four seasons, he’s made at least 31 starts and pitched at least 184 innings. Both of those totals would have led the 2025 Orioles. A hamstring strain in 2024 is the only time he’s spent on the injured list in the last four years. No major league pitcher is ever guaranteed to stay healthy, of course, but Gallen is about as safe a bet as you can get. That in itself is valuable for an Orioles staff that had only two pitchers make more than 20 starts this year.

So Gallen is reliable. But will he be effective? That, of course, is the big question. The answer has always been yes…at least until this year, when he suffered his first sub-par season. In his 33 starts for the Diamondbacks, Gallen posted a career-worst ERA (4.83) and ERA+ (89). His hit rate (8.3 H/9) and home run rate (1.5 HR/9) were also the highest of his career, and for the first time ever, he averaged less than a strikeout per inning (8.2 K/9).

The Athletic’s Keith Law, who ranks Gallen as the 20th best free agent this offseason, warns that the right-hander’s stuff has taken a step back. “[H]is four-seamer, once a dominant pitch, has become quite ordinary,” Law writes. “[T]he pitch doesn’t seem to have the same ‘rise,’ and the whiff rate on it went from about 19.5 percent in those two peak years to 13 percent since.”

The four-seamer is part of Gallen’s six-pitch repertoire that also includes a sinker, knuckle curve, cutter, slider, and changeup. The Orioles (or any team that signs him) could try to alter or consolidate his pitch mix, perhaps by having him scrap the cutter, which has never been a particularly effective offering.

Because of Gallen’s declining stuff and uninspiring contract year, Law sees him settling for a two-year deal for “fourth starter money.” But MLB Trade Rumors is a bit more optimistic about his potential earnings, predicting he’ll land a four-year, $80 million deal. Either way, that’s a price point that the Orioles shouldn’t hesitate to jump on. This season’s struggles aside, Gallen’s track record suggests he’d fare nicely as at least a mid-rotation starter. And if it turns out that this year was an aberration and Gallen can reverse some of his troubling 2025 stats, all the better.

At 30 years old, Gallen probably won’t return to the pitcher he was in his prime, but it’s not as if he’s got one foot in the baseball grave, either. As MLBTR assesses, “Gallen’s stock is undeniably down but even his diminished results in 2025 would upgrade almost any rotation around baseball.” I’d certainly take him as a durable #3 starter to slot behind Kyle Bradish and Trevor Rogers. Sure beats Charlie Morton.

Zac Gallen might not be the ace that Orioles fans are hoping for. But he’d make the 2026 team better, and that’s a good start.