This year’s trade deadline approaches, with four days to go until the point where teams are mostly locked in to what they’ve got already for the rest of the season. The Orioles are 2.5 games out of a wild card spot with 53 games still to play. Their playoff odds, as reckoned by sites like Baseball Reference and FanGraphs, are in the range of 20-25%. They are too close to give up and too far out of real contention to deplete the farm just to push to make something happen this year.
Unless there’s a
sweep in either direction in this weekend’s series against the Phillies, the question of whether the Orioles should buy or sell is probably not going to get a decisive answer. They’ll be plugging along in the periphery, still below .500 and still sort of contending. What’s Mike Elias supposed to do about that? There’s not an easy answer.
Nationally in The Athletic and locally in The Baltimore Banner, the latest is that the Orioles could possibly end up doing a little bit of selling and a little bit of buying at the same time. Ken Rosenthal describes the team as a “classic example of a team working both buy and sell angles, unsure what to make of their club.” Anybody who’s been following this team all year can relate to that feeling. I am also unsure what to make of this club.
In The Banner, Andy Kostka breaks it down like this (emphasis mine):
The Orioles are holding out as long as possible to determine their deadline approach, although they are making plans for buying, selling, and a mix of both, according to multiple sources throughout the industry, and are expected to be active ahead of the deadline. The likeliest path forward, sources said, is for Baltimore to buy and sell.
Each of these reports highlights a trio of players who are in their final season before free agency as the ones who the Orioles are gauging their value. That’s starting pitcher Trevor Rogers, reliever Andrew Kittredge, and outfielder Taylor Ward. These players could be traded while the Orioles seek to upgrade in other deals with players who would ideally help both this year and beyond.
Rosenthal’s report also lists the Orioles as “pricing” Adley Rutschman, though Kostka mostly shoots that down, saying that while “teams have called to check on the availability” of both Rutschman and Jackson Holliday, “the Orioles aren’t actively shopping” either player. Kostka believes that the right-handed relievers in the bullpen are a group where the Orioles might deal away even if they also buy, listing not just Kittredge but also Yennier Cano, Rico Garcia, and Tyler Wells.
Orioles fans might be packing Garcia’s bags for him after he’s given up home runs in three of his last four appearances. Other teams probably have some modest interest in Garcia for the same reason that manager Craig Albernaz keeps putting him in the pressure situations: They know he can be better than his recent worst. Cano or Wells would be real subtractions, not just from the current bullpen but also next year’s. However, betting that a good reliever will stay good is not always a good bet to make.
Whether Rogers or Ward are dealt might depend on whether other teams are willing to pony up with an offer that’s just too good for Mike Elias to refuse. If teams are going to value Rogers based on his 4.27 season-long ERA, the Orioles are probably better off hanging on. If they’re willing to value him like a guy who has a 2.21 ERA since June 1 after having a 1.81 ERA last season, maybe that’s too good to pass up, even if it weakens the rotation.
Ward is in a similar situation there. If somebody who’s a more serious contender, pushing to shore up a roster for October rather than just to maybe squeak into the postseason, sees Ward .383 on-base percentage as a right-handed batter and thinks that’s just the thing to cure what ails them, there’s a real case to make to make that deal. The sheer number of contenders could make this a seller’s market.
Depending on how the Orioles shuffled their roster in the aftermath of that deal, they might even end up with an improved outfield defense without Ward regularly getting playing time out there. “Trade Ward and bring up Enrique Bradfield” might not work, but it’s not the craziest idea out there.
It’s tougher to believe the same about losing Rogers from the Orioles rotation, unless you’re really, really a fan of pitching prospect Nestor German, who’s been pitching pretty well for Triple-A Norfolk. Or if you’re really, really a believer that Chris Bassitt is going to come back from his back surgery looking like the 2025 version of Bassitt that Elias probably hoped he was signing. I am not a believer. I do not want to hear anything like “it’s like we got someone at the deadline” come out of Elias’s mouth about Bassitt or about Félix Bautista as he works back from rotator cuff surgery.
Elias has pressed the plunger and exploded a fringe contender before. That was in 2022, when he ruffled the feathers of the fanbase (and perhaps also the team) by trading Trey Mancini and Jorge López at that year’s deadline. Doing the public-facing damage control for those decisions was when he uttered his now-infamous statement that “It’s liftoff from here.” The implication of that was that he’d be adding aggressively to improve the team, an implied promise that he has not lived up to overall. The Orioles did go 101-61 in the next season, though. They did lift off. Getting into a steady orbit has proven tougher.
The central question remains: What are the Orioles supposed to do in this situation? Elias’s cold analytical assessments often don’t produce outcomes that line up with what the hearts of Orioles fans want to happen. Sometimes, subsequent events have vindicated the Elias approach. Others have repudiated it. How he looks at this situation is going to come down to what the Orioles do over the next three days. No pressure, guys.
