The trade deadline passed and unlike the majority of baseball teams, the Orioles did almost nothing. A simple trade of Freddy Galvis was all the Mike Elias front office accomplished, which was surprising. The Orioles aren’t in contention for the playoffs this season and given what we’ve seen from the team and their AL East competition this year, it’s looking like 2022 might be a difficult season for Baltimore as well. But it wasn’t that the Orioles did almost nothing, it’s that they didn’t try to do anything. There was reportedly a trade in the works for a reliever, but that didn’t end up happening. Also, the team had more than one reliever who they likely could have dealt in addition to their best trade chip, first baseman Trey Mancini, but there have been no reports on the team even trying to make more deals.
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I know many Orioles fans are attached to Mancini given what he’s gone through personally and his role as the effective face of the franchise. Mancini is a good player and he’s clearly a good person and a teammate, but he’s not a great player, and his contract is going to be up after next season, a season in which, as I said, it doesn’t appear likely the Orioles will contend. So why didn’t the front office move Mancini or their other tradeable players at the deadline, and what does it say about the front office’s thoughts on the roster that they didn’t?
First, this is not a Colorado Rockies situation where the front office is run by people who don’t have a clue what they’re doing. You might not agree with everything the Orioles do, but they clearly have a plan and are following it. It’s fair to look at what the Orioles did or did not do during the deadline and extrapolate a bit. The team held on to Mancini, so why? Well, they could still trade him during the coming offseason. Traditionally a player’s value is greater when they have more than a year’s time under contract remaining, but that doesn’t mean Mancini holds no value. Additionally, while teams tend to be more desperate for help during the trade deadline and thus more willing to pay higher prices for players, the market for players tends to be smaller than during the offseason when more teams fancy themselves contenders. It’s possible that there wasn’t enough interest in Mancini for the Orioles to get close to a deal.
Take what a GM says with a grain or more of salt, but Mike Elias did a press availability after the deadline and said, referring to Mancini, “I hope he’s here as long as possible.” That seems to indicate the team wants to get an extension done with Mancini. Why they haven’t negotiated that yet, I don’t know. Perhaps they were too busy with the draft and the trade deadline and they’ll get to it now. Or perhaps they want to wait until the offseason so they can better gauge his value. But, suppose they do plan on extending Mancini. Doesn’t that point to a return to contention sooner than is typically assumed? Otherwise, why lock up a 30 year old first baseman long term? I mean, didn’t we do that already?
Just signing Mancini won’t be enough to make the Orioles contenders, of course. The team has lots of needs, some of which can be addressed by the farm system. Kiley McDaniel of ESPN just released his mid-season Top 50 prospects list and the Orioles have the number two and number nine prospects on the list (and, if we’re being honest, it should really be the number one and number eight because number one is Wander Franco who is in the majors with Tampa already, but I digress). Adley Rutschman and Grayson Rodriguez would be great additions to any team’s roster, and their likely ETA is next season. It’s difficult to step into the majors and make an immediate impact but if the Orioles are targeting 2022 as a transitional year, and 2023 as their first season in contention mode, then perhaps keeping Mancini could make more sense.
However, Rodriguez and Rutschman, exciting as they are, won’t be enough. So logically that also points to the team making some additions via trade and free agency. Free agency is the one area where fans have yet to see the Mike Elias regime participate on any real long term contracts. The Orioles are in good position to make significant additions though. They have room on their roster and they don’t have any long-term contractual entanglements that would prevent them from spending. And, as luck would have it, there will be a bunch of very good players on the market after this season.
It’s unlikely the team spends extreme amounts of money, as that doesn’t seem to be Elias’s style nor does it seem to be the owner’s, but one or two targeted signings could go a long way towards making the team much better and doing so faster. But that’s also kinda the thing about keeping Mancini. It’s not just about his role in the community, or his battle and win over cancer. It is about those things, but this front office isn’t one to hold sentimentality close. Play this out to the end and this points to winning more games – or trying to – sooner than certainly I expected. We’ll see how things play out. Maybe they end up trading Mancini after all, but statements like the GM’s after the deadline seem to indicate they’re going to offer Mancini an extension. If they do, and he signs it, that’s the first step towards something. Remember, whether you like it or not, this team has a plan.
Orioles Analyst
Matthew Kory is a Orioles / MLB Analyst for BSL. He has covered baseball professionally for The Athletic, Vice Sports, Sports On Earth, FanGraphs, and Baseball Prospectus. He lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife, two boys, and his cats, Mini Squeaks and The President. Co-Host of The Warehouse.