We’re all grown-ups here (speaking personally … sort of?). On that dark day in early August where Adley Rutschman was traded to the Boston Red Sox for four prospects and a backup catcher, I comprehended the cold, rational logic of the deal. Perhaps injuries would keep the O’s 2019 1/1 guy from ever being a true MVP, the way he could have been. Perhaps, at 28, the catcher’s best days were behind him. And Boston really did throw a generous passel of prospects at the Orioles, such that I can believe
O’s GM Mike Elias really did mean it when he said he wanted Adley as an Oriole “forever” in July, then changed his mind upon seeing the return.
But it’s been hard for me watching this weekend series, seeing Rutschman in a Red Sox uniform—thriving, no less, as his two home runs Thursday night were the difference makers in the O’s’ 6-5 loss, their third loss in a row at a crucial time when they’re fighting for their season. I can’t help but feel like a dumped ex who sees their old partner happily going around with someone new. (I know he’s batting .170 as a Red Sock, but that doesn’t change Thursday’s result.)
You could feel it last night, building from Adley’s first at-bat, the weird mix of conflicting sentiments. Oriole Park faithful did the right thing, with nearly 20,000 fans in attendance, plenty of them wearing his old No. 35 (he’s wearing 31 in Boston now). When he stepped into the box in the first inning, the Orioles played “Alive” by Kid Cudi, his walk-up song for years, and home plate umpire Paul Clemons let it run. For nearly a minute, Rutschman looked around the park, tipping his helmet appreciatively, a moment that gave an eerie echo of his of MLB debut in May 2022, when he, too, had stood, emotional, at the plate and did a 360-degree turn to take it all in. Three pitches later, the O’s old catcher hit a home run to right—the first of two on the night, his first multi-homer game since he beat the Red Sox with two of his own back in April, albeit now on the other side of it.
“It was special to feel that kind of love,” Rutschman said after the game. “Emotional moment and really special. Just a really, really special moment.”
A sort-of skirmish has since broken out among Orioles fans on the interwebs: should we root for Adley as a Red Sock? On the one hand, it’s not like he requested a trade. But did the front office have to deal him to the Red Sox? A fellow Wild-Card contender? In the AL East? (Yesterday, if I’d been in attendance, I might have cheered the first round-tripper and not the second.) The deal with a rival, and impending prospect of thirteen doses of Dark Adley a season, add a note of bitterness that, to me, wasn’t there when also-face-of-franchise Manny Machado was dealt in 2018 to the LA Dodgers en route to the San Diego Padres, where he’s since had an All-Star-worthy career over eight seasons.
As for the trade itself, was it the right call from a baseball point of view? It’s still hard to say, and if Rutschman proves a terror in the AL East, hitting bombs off Orioles pitchers for seasons to come, it’ll certainly feel like a self-inflicted wound. Was the trade justifiable? Absolutely. It was a generous haul, with a SI Boston writer who seems prone to jumping to conclusions already calling the trade a potential “disaster“ for the Red Sox. Umm, okay. Though, to be sure, the new prospects look pretty good: Anthony Eyanson has a 1.51 season ERA for Double-A Chesapeake, and Enddy Azocar is crushing it in High-A Frederick, with a .353 average in 21 games. (It’s soon to say about 18-year-old OF Harold Rivas, assigned to the FCL Orioles, or Kyson Witherspoon, pitching well before he hit the IL with shoulder impingement.)
But the rational, value-adding, WAR-crunching perspective can’t be all of it. Adley was never just a special talent, the way Jackson Holliday is; he was the face of the franchise. Smart, affable, funny, a guy who gives great copy in interviews. A leader, full stop. Even Thursday, playing spoiler in the building that used to be his, he found a way to be gracious about it, which somehow made the whole night sting more (in my opinion), not less. Adley was supposed to lead the Orioles’ rebuild after forty years in the desert and see it through to completion. Now Baltimore faithful are stuck cheering (genuinely, with lots of meaning well) for a guy currently being paid to hurt them.
In the end, Baltimore experienced two terrific regular seasons with Adley Rutschman behind the plate, winning 101 games and the AL East in 2023 and returning to the postseason in 2024. But those teams failed to produce a single postseason victory. Instead, the team stalled out right when it was supposed to, in Elias’s own words, “lift off.” (I’m sorry for reaching for that phrase again; I know it’s just beating a dead horse at this point.) The starting pitching let us down. Or maybe it was the situational hitting. Or injuries. Or too much platooning, leaving lineups vulnerable with bad, niche hitters parked in key spots when it mattered. Whatever it was, Rutschman was supposed to be here when the Orioles finally finished the job.
The failure to keep Adley Rutschman—or, glaringly, to make a playoff run with him on the roster—says less to me about swinging-and-missing in the 2019 draft, and more about a general failure of the front office’s vision. Was the trade haul generous? Absolutely. Did injuries threaten to sap Rutschman of MVP potential? Sure, although we’ll see what he does in the seasons to come. But despite all that, it feels hard to shake the feeling that the real story here is that the Orioles organization failed Adley, not the reverse.
