There was a world where Tyler O’Neill entered this offseason with a difficult decision to make about his future. This isn’t it.
O’Neill, 30, endured a disaster of a year with the Orioles in 2025 after signing a three-year, $49.5 million deal with the team in free agency last winter. Injuries limited the veteran outfielder to 54 games, and he set career lows — abbreviated 2020 season aside — in batting average (.199) and on-base percentage (.292) while slugging just nine home runs with 26 RBIs.
His contract included a player option that would allow him to forgo the remaining two years and $33 million and re-enter free agency this offseason, but O’Neill is all but assured to return to Baltimore in 2026 as he aims to rebuild his value and find a way to stay on the field.
“Unfortunately, it’s been an unhealthy year for me, so that’s all going to be taken into account,” O’Neill said in late September. “I believe in this group and I really like the guys here. I think we got a good shot for competing deep into the postseason next year. So, it’s a really good feeling to want to show up and be around these guys and play baseball in an environment like Camden Yards is really fun to do on a day-to-day basis.”
The Orioles finished 75-87 and missed the playoffs for the first time since 2022, a step back for what had been an ascending ballclub. O’Neill was the team’s biggest acquisition last winter, tasked with replacing longtime outfielder Anthony Santander after the latter hit 44 home runs and won a Silver Slugger Award in his walk year. Yet neither he nor the Orioles lived up to expectations, sending both into this offseason with uncertainty surrounding their potential.
“From what I see as an evaluator, the talent is there,” president of baseball operations Mike Elias said in his end-of-season news conference. “The power, the swing, the way he moves in the outfield, that player is in there. He wasn’t able to express the type of production that he’s done in his best years this year because he wasn’t available that much and that’s been part of his history, and we know that.
“I think he’s a tremendous roster fit for our group when he’s up and running and going good, and he’s a guy that can carry a lineup when he’s doing that. It’s a really high-impact, middle-of-the-order threat when he’s on a roll. Just talked to him extensively. He’s frustrated too and now that we’ve had him for a year, we’re talking with him and trying to plan out ways to do as best as we can to keep him in tip-top form for as much as possible next year, because I do think he can really raise the ceiling of this team, and I’m optimistic about it.”
The list of ailments that plagued O’Neill this season was lengthy. Neck inflammation, a left shoulder impingement and right wrist inflammation each sent him to the injured list. The neck injury prevented him from turning his head all the way to the left and impacted his swing. He suffered a setback with his shoulder and received a platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injection to aid his recovery. An illness, left ribcage discomfort and “general soreness” also sidelined him for multiple days at a time, even when he was on the active roster.
O’Neill, the son of a bodybuilder who fills out every bit of his 5-foot-10, 200-pound frame with muscle, plans to consider some adjustments to his offseason training regimen to improve his durability with an emphasis on “the little things.”
“I want to come into spring next year healthy, ready to go,” O’Neill said. “Being able to contribute a lot more than I was able to this year. Just being dealt with a variety of injuries, it just sucked, man. And there’s not really one particular place to blame it all. But it’s definitely motivating for me to be able to have a successful offseason rolling into next year.”
The Orioles are going to need him, or at least some version of the player who hit 31 homers for the Boston Red Sox in 2024. After trading Ramón Laureano and Cedric Mullins at the deadline, Baltimore enters this offseason with O’Neill, Colton Cowser and Dylan Beavers as its projected outfield. Beavers, despite impressing down the stretch, will be a rookie entering his first full season, while Cowser struggled even more than O’Neill on a per-plate-appearance basis.
Injuries also prevented O’Neill from spending enough time in the clubhouse to establish himself as a true veteran leader. The Orioles are short on those after seeing Corbin Burnes, James McCann, Ryan O’Hearn, Danny Coulombe, Santander, Laureano and Mullins all depart over the past two years, among others. O’Neill is the Orioles’ only player under contract with a guaranteed salary north of $2 million, and his seven years of service time lead the team.
While the Orioles have an offseason ahead to bolster their outfield and pad the number of veterans in their clubhouse, O’Neill represents their best internal option for addressing both.
“Tyler’s got all the traits to do it,” interim manager Tony Mansolino said. “I’m very fond of Tyler, and I think he’s unfortunately misunderstood because he wasn’t here enough, because he was hurt, but I think Tyler is a huge piece to this thing in a lot of ways. Obviously, both on the field with his immense potential and what he’s done here previously in his career, and then also just his natural way of going about things.”
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