Another Orioles reliever is on the move. This time, he won’t have to go very far to join his new team. The O’s traded Seranthony Domínguez to the Blue Jays in between games of Tuesday’s doubleheader. The move was first reported by Jays reporters Shi Davidi and Ben Nicholson-Smith.
Coming back from Toronto to Baltimore is pitching prospect Juaron Watts-Brown, the Jays third round pick in the 2023 draft. Watts-Brown, a righty, started this season with Toronto’s High-A affiliate and got a midseason promotion
to Double-A, where he’s got a 3.48 ERA across 11 games, with 53 strikeouts in 51.2 innings pitched.
In recently-updated prospect rankings, MLB Pipeline has Watts-Brown as the #10 prospect in the Blue Jays system, with Baseball America putting him at #14. At first glance, that seems like a nice return in a one-for-one swap for two months of a rental reliever in the form of Domínguez.
Pipeline’s report on Watts-Brown noted that “this is a big season” for him, because he did poorly after a midseason promotion to High-A a year ago, ending up with a 6.35 ERA with a .244 batting average against in nine games. He improved a lot on the ERA (3.62) if not much on the BAA (.232) before getting the promotion this year. I guess the Orioles were impressed with the improvement enough to think this was a good get for Domínguez.
Baseball America on Watts-Brown’s future: Watts-Brown shows projectable starters traits with command of a four-pitch mix and a swing-and-miss weapon in his slider.
When talking about pitchers being projectable, that usually means potential to add some velocity because they think there’s room to add strength on his 6’3” frame. Watts-Brown largely sits 92-94 with the fastball, according to BA. If that number goes up by another 1-2mph with regularity, that would make him more interesting. He’ll probably be headed for Double-A Chesapeake after this trade, hopefully showing enough to start out next season in Triple-A Norfolk’s rotation.
Watts-Brown joining a Baysox rotation that’s already got Nestor German and Trey Gibson, and maybe soon could also have Michael Forret, is going to make that group worth following over the rest of the season.
Domínguez jumps from the Orioles clubhouse to the Blue Jays in the middle of Tuesday’s doubleheader. His O’s tenure saw him post a 3.50 ERA across 68 games last year and this year. Homer-prone problems really prevented him from being what the O’s needed a year ago. This year, he’s solved the homer problems so far but he’s been walking too many guys, dropping a 5.2 BB/9, which offsets a higher-than-ever 11.7 K/9 somewhat.
That’s Toronto’s problem now. The problem for the Orioles will be figuring out who can successfully rack up some saves with Domínguez and Gregory Soto having been traded and Félix Bautista on the injured list for an extended period of time.
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