Heading into the final days before this year’s trade deadline, one big question about how the Orioles would approach it was: Would the team trade anyone with 2026 team control? Late on Wednesday night, Mike Elias answered that question with a yes. National baseball writer Jon Heyman first reported that the Orioles are trading Ramón Urías to the Astros.
The return for Urías is not substantial. MLB.com’s Astros beat writer Brian McTaggart reported that the Orioles are receiving 20-year-old minor league
pitcher Twine Palmer back in the deal. Palmer was a 19th round pick out of an Oklahoma junior college in the draft a year ago. He does not appear on either the updated MLB Pipeline or Baseball America top 30 prospect lists. A FanGraphs list for the Astros posted in July rates Palmer #37 in that system.
The 31-year-old Urías has been with the team since the 2020 season, posting strong numbers in a utility role over the 2021 and 2022 seasons and cromulent numbers ever since. Urías was passed over in terms of his importance to the team with the arrival of all of the exciting infield prospects, first Gunnar Henderson, later Jordan Westburg, still later Jackson Holliday. I would say he might be one of the least-appreciated players to ever put up 10+ bWAR with the Orioles.
Houston has dealt with some injury challenges to its infield mix over the last month, with shortstop Jeremy Peña suffering a fractured rib and third baseman Isaac Paredes straining a hamstring a couple of weeks ago. That is enough to have had them looking for at least a modestly competent fill-in in the form of Urías, whose 2025 salary of $3.15 million means he won’t cost too much for them to carry over to next year either.
Urías has never had strong peripheral batting stats, and this year that’s continued while his results have also been shading towards where “fine” starts being “not fine.” He’s batting .248/.300/.388 across 77 games this season. If the Orioles thought the former Gold Glover would bounce back from that, they’d probably want to keep him around. If they don’t - and it seems they don’t - then it makes sense to get something for him now rather than waiting until the offseason, when there won’t be any “contender has a short-term need” to help goose his possible trade market. Not that the “something” looks like all that much at first glance.
I’d guess that we’ll start seeing more of Jeremiah Jackson, the unexpected Triple-A Norfolk infield standout, now that Urías has been dealt. Jackson was on the roster for one day last week and got optioned again without playing. The 25-year-old Jackson has been raking for 40 games with the Tides, batting .377/.400/.673. In a lost season, it’s time to give a guy like that a shot and see if he’s worth counting in as part of their future plans. There are not any homegrown infield prospects waiting at Norfolk to get their chance.
So what’s up with this Palmer character? If you’re wondering, his name really is Twine. That’s not a nickname. Here’s some of what FG said about him earlier this month:
Palmer is unrefined – (earlier in the season he had) walked 19 in 29.1 innings, and that’s a major improvement from his draft year – but he’s also 6-foot-5 ... Palmer’s north-south attack with his slider, cutter, and curve gives lefties fits, and (earlier he had) only allowed three extra-base hits (all doubles) in 126 batters faced. A funky reliever is probably all that should be hoped for at this stage, but that’s more than most dare dreaming about in the 19th round.
Since that was written, Palmer has only issued another three walks while throwing 13 more innings. That’s a small sample size and hard to say if there’s any durable improvement going on there. All of this is going on at the Low-A level, where Palmer has appeared in 13 games this season. That three doubles line still holds, and he’s now faced 175 batters. There’s something interesting there. No guarantee it’s still interesting in a year after he’s tasted higher-level competition.
Whether starting or funky relieving is in Palmer’s future, it’s probably at least a couple of years away from helping out the team. So we find another trade where Elias does not seem to have considered getting a player who can get a big league audition at the end of this year to maybe help next year as part of his return. You don’t have to like it. I think it’s a bummer to see a six-year useful Oriole like Urías shipped out for one Low-A pitcher.
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