Orioles sign right-hander Kyle Bradish to 5-year contract extension

The Orioles have sealed a third contract extension with a key player in the last year.

Right-hander Kyle Bradish will be under team control through 2031 after he and the Orioles agreed to a five-year extension, the club announced Saturday. Bradish was originally under team control through 2028, so this buys out three years of free agency.

The contract is worth $90 million, a source said, making it the richest deal for a pitcher in franchise history. Since August, Baltimore has also signed catcher Samuel Basallo and right-hander Shane Baz to extensions.

“Keeping players of Kyle’s caliber in an Orioles uniform is an important part of our long-term vision,” Orioles principal owner David Rubenstein said in a statement. “We are grateful to Kyle for his commitment to our organization and to Baltimore. Thanks to [president of baseball operations] Mike Elias and the entire baseball operations department for their dedication throughout this process.”

“We have believed strongly in Kyle since he first joined the organization as a minor leaguer in 2019,” Elias said in a statement. “He has worked hard, with the support of our entire development team, to become one of the best starting pitchers in the league. He’s an exemplary member of our team and our community, and we are thrilled that he and his family are here to stay. This extension reflects the continued dedication of our ownership group, led by David Rubenstein, to build and sustain a team that our fans and Baltimore can be proud of.”

Baltimore acquired Bradish from the Los Angeles Angels as part of a trade for right-hander Dylan Bundy. He has flourished in the Orioles organization.

Bradish, 29, has been a dominant starter before and after his 2024 Tommy John elbow reconstruction surgery.

In 2023, he produced a 2.83 ERA in 30 starts and finished fourth in AL Cy Young voting. His 2024 season was cut short due to injury, and he returned late in 2025. But, in a full 2026 to date, Bradish has a 3.61 ERA and 106 strikeouts in 107 1/3 innings.

He has been even better since May 8, with a 2.95 ERA in 12 games.

“He’s such a good pitcher,” catcher Adley Rutschman said in May. “The guy continues to work. Not the start [to the season] he wanted, but the guy just continues to get better and learn.”

Bradish worked last winter to return to his pre-surgery form at Push Performance in Arizona. Marcel Renteria, his pitching coach there, said in March that Bradish followed a modified schedule to slowly build his velocity so he could be at his peak performance in the middle of the season.

“We monitored workload and introduced intensity at the right time, introduced spin at the right time,” Renteria said. “It was one of those we knew he could go and grab 95, 96 [mph] at any moment in the offseason, but it was one of those where we’re like, we want peak Kyle midseason.”

The buildup has worked well to ensure Bradish’s health. And to teammates it appears as though he hasn’t missed a beat when it comes to his stuff.

“He can be a guy with [Paul] Skenes and [Tarik] Skubal right now,” left-hander Trevor Rogers said in March. “When you bring up Kyle Bradish, it’s like, ‘Damn, it’s going to be a long one for the other side.’ And on our side it’s like, ‘Yeah, we got Bradish.’”

The success this year is partially due to a tweak he made to his mechanics early in the season, along with an increase in how often he throws his curveball.

In May, Bradish lowered how high he raised his left knee in his windup. Everything else fell into place.

“It kind of keeps me in like a 1-2-3 movement instead of a bunch of other moving pieces, just straight down the mound and rotate,” he said.

Now he and Baz are centerpieces of Baltimore’s rotation for years to come. Baz is under contract through 2030.

This article has been updated.