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The Orioles have met with free agent Andrew Cashner to discuss the possibility of signing the right-handed starter, according to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic.
Baltimore has been looking for three starters to fill its rotation without handing out long-term contracts and has had great interest in Cashner for a couple of months now.
Cashner is coming off one of his best seasons of his career, going 11-11 while posting a 3.40 ERA and a career-high 4.6 WAR across 28 starts for the Rangers. His WAR tied for the eighth-best in the American League and his ERA ranked ninth among AL pitchers. He has also started at least 27 games in each of the last three seasons after having a ton of injuries in the early part of his career with the Cubs and Padres.
However, the 31-year-old Cashner had his struggles, as he struck out only 4.6 batters per nine innings, while walking 3.5, making for a 1.34 strikeout-to-walk ratio — the lowest of his career. In addition, he logged only 166 2⁄3 innings and Rosenthal says that most analysts believe Cashner is “a candidate for regression” this season because he also “benefitted from a .267 batting average on balls in play, the second-lowest in the AL.”
Cashner made $10 million last year in Texas, so the Orioles may try to sign him to a short-term deal similar to that annual payout or slightly above it.