Part of the Orioles success from 2012-2016 is that a lot of the team was able to stay the same, with many of their strong performers remaining around. The starting rotation was not so stable through that whole era, with one notable exception: Chris Tillman, whose slide into ineffectiveness the O’s could ignore no longer as they designated him for assignment recently. Tillman declined to go pitch for Triple-A Norfolk and is officially an Oriole no more.
Tillman came to us from Seattle, the pitching headliner of that same Erik Bedard deal that brought Adam Jones to Baltimore, and it didn’t take him long in the O’s minors to show why, with a strong 2008 season for Double-A Bowie rocketing Tillman as high as the #17 prospect in MLB by Baseball Prospectus prior to the 2009 season.