Kyle Goon: What exactly does Tyler O’Neill do here? It’s time for the Orioles to move on.

There are still a few days left of spring — which has shaped up to be a good thing for the Baltimore Orioles, once again a respectable baseball team after winning 10 of their last 16.

If not for a rogue umpiring crew on Sunday — that might be the only foursome that doesn’t know what a runner leaving the basepaths looks like — that record might be even better. But I digress.

There is still time for “spring cleaning” for this franchise, a chance to move forward with what is working, and to rid themselves of what will only drag them down between now and the trade deadline.

In the words of neatnik Marie Kondo, the Orioles have a chance to keep only what “sparks joy” and shake off the karma of the doldrums of early May. And let me tell you someone who has sparked almost no joy for O’s fans this year, or really any of his Baltimore tenure: Tyler O’Neill.

No one looks forward to his at-bats. Even on a team with an iffy defensive outfield, O’Neill manages to be one of the weak links. He’s bottom of the table in wins above replacement (minus-0.6), essentially hurting the Orioles’ chances to win whenever he’s in the lineup — which is increasingly rare anyway.

Baltimore should do the best thing for everyone here. Cut O’Neill. Let him go.

I don’t want to suggest this is an easy decision, because it certainly is expensive. When O’Neill opted in to the full length of his three-year deal last November, he ensured that he was getting $33 million from the Orioles through the 2027 season whether he went back to being a masher of left-handed pitching or not.

Turns out the answer is “not.”

I don’t believe O’Neill is going to turn a corner anymore. I question if anyone actually does. During Baltimore’s 10-game homestand, manager Craig Albernaz valiantly tried to argue that O’Neill was perhaps a week away from finding the groove in his swing. It has not happened.

Do you know when O’Neill’s last extra-base hit was? A home run on May 16.

Do you know when O’Neill’s last multi-hit game was? He’s only had one the whole season, all the way back on April 7.

The only way you could get more blue about the Canadian’s performance is by looking up his Baseball Savant page and seeing how he ranks well below average in every meaningful batting metric.

I don’t know who exactly is a dramatically better option for the Orioles to call up. Heston Kjerstad is holding his own in Norfolk rather than lighting the world on fire (.264 average, .647 OPS with one home run).

But I don’t know how much it matters who replaces him. O’Neill is a drag on this team, and even the answer the coaching staff has produced — playing him as sparingly as possible — hasn’t yielded good results. You could pick a guy out of a hat, and he’d have a reasonably good chance to outperform O’Neill.

You might argue that the Orioles need to bring up a right-handed bat that can replace O’Neill. But he isn’t really doing his part there at all. His batting average against left-handed pitching (.100) is only higher than Jackson Holliday and Colton Cowser among the Orioles, both lefties. He also has the third-lowest OPS against lefty pitching this year, too.

(And just saying: Kjerstad’s career split against lefties is a .211 average with a .250 on-base percentage.)

To get this production from a guy who is making the third-most in annual salary from the club this year? Oof.

It’s not a one-off for O’Neill — this is the second straight season that he’s been one of the Orioles’ worst performers against left-handed pitching, which is the one thing he was supposed to add to the lineup. As the immortal line from “Office Space” goes: “What would you say you do here?”

Even if he started turning around his performance tomorrow, O’Neill would still go down as maybe the worst free agent signing of the Mike Elias era. The Orioles are going to pay him either way. If he’s going to continue to be an absolute hump, you might as well pay the man to stay home. Fans don’t like him. His struggles are painful for his teammates and coaches to defend. And I’m willing to bet O’Neill isn’t having a ton of fun, either.

The Orioles don’t need a below-average outfielder who can’t hit to continue to drag on this roster. O’Neill probably could use a reset, too.

Designating O’Neill for assignment would, on the one hand, be a final admission of failure for the Orioles that he will never be what they once hoped (goodness, back in 2024, Elias said the Orioles recruited O’Neill by showing him how they were moving the left-field wall back in!).

But I don’t think anyone expects an O’Neill resuscitation to happen. The failure haunts this roster every time he comes to the plate. At least if he’s off the team, O’Neill can’t hurt the group’s performance anymore.

For everything, there is a season. But 2026 will never be the season for Tyler O’Neill as an Oriole.

Leave him on the sidewalk with everything else Baltimore won’t need for the rest of the year. It’s time to move on.