When Alex Cobb signed a four-year, $57 million contract with the Orioles in late March of last year, Baltimore thought that they were getting a top-of-the-rotation starter who could help solidify a starting pitching staff in desperate need of inning-eaters. They knew that they were getting a veteran who finished with an earned run average (ERA) below 3.00 in two of the four seasons in Tampa Bay in which he started a minimum of 22 games.

Just over a year into the biggest Orioles contract handed out to a pitcher since Ubaldo Jimenez‘s four-year, $50 million deal was signed before the 2014 season, Cobb hasn’t lived up to the billing.