The Orioles have made another trade. The team announced on Friday morning that catcher Alex Jackson has been traded to the Twins in exchange for a minor league infielder, Payton Eeles.
With the Orioles
committed to Adley Rutschman and Samuel Basallo as their catchers and with the 29-year-old Jackson being out of minor league options, Jackson was a candidate to get non-tendered at tonight’s deadline. The fact that he was traded for a 26-year-old minor leaguer who was signed out of independent baseball not too long ago suggests that the Orioles would have put him in that non-tender pile later today if this minor trade hadn’t come along.
Jackson was the most successful of the assortment of desperation catchers who the Orioles brought through in the 2025 season. This was among the few positive surprises for the team, as Jackson, before this season, had a career .456 OPS in the majors. He batted .220/.290/.473 with the O’s in a 36-game stint. Jackson was fun enough as a modestly-positive Oriole in a bad and dumb season that I have good memories of him, so much so that it was a surprise to look at his batting line to write this article and see that his batting average and on-base percentage were not good.
Particularly, the fact that Jackson struck out 37 times in 100 plate appearances, nice and easy math for a 37% strikeout rate, makes it unlikely that he would duplicate even the small positives he was able to accumulate in 2025, like the power numbers. He was kind of in an awkward middle spot of having made just a bit too positive of an impression for the Orioles to dump for totally nothing but not really good enough for them to change their plans just in order to keep him around.
Out of minor league options, the Orioles did not have the choice of freely stashing Jackson at Triple-A next season. They would have had to figure out a way to carry him as a third catcher all season. That’s a tough squeeze for a modern baseball roster. It’s not about the projected $1.6 million salary so much as it is about the roster spot.
In the end, Jackson was dumped for pretty much nothing. Eeles, who turned 26 last week, is not a prospect of any kind. He played five college seasons, went undrafted and unsigned, and ended up in indy ball. That’s where the Twins found him last year. The early days of affiliated ball went quite well for Eeles and although the Twins started him out in Low-A, he raced to Triple-A shortly and spent more than two months at that level in 2024, batting an incredible .299/.419/.500. He also stole 20 bases. Not bad for an out-of-nowhere guy.
The magic did not quite continue on into 2025, with Eeles slipping to this batting line: .253/.379/.321 across 86 games. Obviously, there are things to like there, particularly his ability to work a walk. Players who are only slugging .321 in Triple-A are probably going to have a tough time maintaining such a high OBP against MLB pitching.
Eeles only played in 86 games because he missed the first two months of the season after having knee surgery over the previous offseason. I guess if you really want to believe that some lingering discomfort is what sapped his power, go for it.
That’s a dream for another time. For now, the Orioles have cleared a 40-man roster spot and taken care of one of their roster bubble decisions. Since Eeles did not arrive in affiliated minor league baseball until 2024, he’s a ways off from thinking about Rule 5 draft protection. The Orioles can put him at Norfolk next year and see what happens. Maybe there’s a future utility infielder in there. Eeles split time between second base and shortstop in the Twins system, with some left field mixed in.
One last note on Eeles: The man is listed at being 5’5”. Being undersized is probably why he had to go to indy ball before an MLB team noticed him. Short kings, stand up and support your guy.
The non-tender deadline is 6pm Eastern tonight. This may not be the last player the Orioles part with today. Ryan Mountcastle, Yennier Cano, and Keegan Akin have all been bandied about to different extents as possible non-tenders, and if Mike Elias can move any of them in another minor trade before the deadline, he’ll probably do it.
