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Should we worry about Luis De Leon’s start to the season or his increasing reliever risk?

Well, it is about the time of the year when everyone starts to make knee-jerk overreactions to things that have happened in the first couple of weeks of the season. Here’s mine, we have all been fooled by the industry and their offseason hype of Luis De Leon. Not only that, but I think we need to seriously consider dropping him in the rankings and begin to worry he might not actually be a starting pitcher longterm. The dreaded “reliever risk” label needs to be applied to him soon, before he rises up rankings too far and the burn people feel when he does move off of starting pitcher is too much to handle.

In 2025, De Leon played at three different levels (Single-A, High-A, and Double-A) for the Baltimore Orioles. He pitched in 87.1 innings across the three stops and ended with a 3.30 ERA. His 2.59 FIP was excellent, while his 28.5% (84th percentile) strikeout rate established himself as one of the premier pitchers in the minor leagues with elite swing and miss stuff. In fact, he didn’t give up a single home run on the season and kept hitters to a batting average below .200. He had a really good year in 2025, but he wasn’t done playing baseball when the season ended, as the Orioles sent him to the Arizona Fall League (AFL) to get more innings. He was superb there as well, pitching an additional 16.1 innings, with an ERA of 2.76, and a strikeout rate of 31.2%.

Reaching this point of the article, you begin to be star struck by De Leon’s upside as a starting pitcher and to tell you the truth I am as well. He’s able to limit hard contact, rack up big strikeout numbers, and is in the upper minors. However, looking closer at why he shot up rankings in the offseason will actually reveal the “flaw” in his profile that should bring in the relief pitcher risk label. In the AFL, he was pumping his fastball into the upper 90s and was sitting around 97 mph on the offering. Then in Spring Training, he was again reported to be averaging 97 mph on his fastball. If you dive into his pitch arsenal you can see why this is more exciting than normal. He has two plus breaking balls he pairs with his fastball and that is before you realize he has a splitter, changeup and sinker to throw at batters.

Now we get to what should bring him the relief pitcher risk label, De Leon’s start to the 2026 season. It has only been two games, but in the starts he was not the same pitcher that many saw during the offseason. His fastball/sinker ranged from 91 mph to 95 mph, not the upper 90s as advertised. One of the alarming and shocking observations I had while watching the two games, was not only that he couldn’t locate the fastball at all, he didn’t get any swings and misses on the pitch either. It most certainly is early in the season and weather could have played a factor, or he might not have been loose enough to let the fastball rip, but topping out in the mid 90s is not the same as the upper 90s. In my opinion, it wasn’t the weather though, it very well could have been that in the AFL and Spring Training he was throwing short one or two inning stints, so he was able to get more on his fastball than when he was starting.

The second crucial observation from De Leon’s first two games, was that he hardly throws his fastball/sinker. He relies heavily on his plus secondary pitches and other offerings. If you take a look at starting pitchers in the major leagues, there are almost none that feature a fastball as little as he has so far this season. There are even less that have as little control as he has to this point of the year. When you look at relief pitchers though, you will find a lot more niche like pitch arsenals.

De Leon has immense potential as a starting pitcher, but it will ultimately be his ability to harness his fastball that will determine his outcome. If he can’t get the velocity up throughout the duration of a game, or control it enough to not be wild and get swings and misses, he will be relegated to the bullpen for his future endeavors. Should we be worried that the number one ranked prospect in the Orioles organization has a bigger reliever risk than we thought, yes we should. Should we be worried that his start to the season has been marred by poor control on his fastball, not as much, but it is growing by the start. He still has the talent and upside to reach his high-end outcome, but be aware there is far more reliever risk in his arm than initially thought.