As the trade deadline draws closer, the Orioles find themselves in the position of being a team that is a virtual lock for the postseason while still having a roster that could certainly use some pitching help for October.
If the Orioles are looking to make a big swing at the deadline, there are three prospects I’d expect every team will inquire about: Samuel Basallo, Heston Kjerstad and Coby Mayo. Basallo and Mayo are currently top-20 prospects at MLB.com and Kjerstad was until he recently hit the playing time threshold to graduate from being a prospect. With the expectation that Jackson Holliday is untouchable, these three will be the most enticing players that could be available to this year’s sellers.
While some fans would balk at moving any of these players, I certainly wouldn’t lose any sleep over moving at least one of them to meaningfully improve this year’s team. Here’s three reasons why.
The Orioles have won a whole bunch of games the last two years without them
Since the start of 2023, the Baltimore Orioles are 156-92 in the regular season, good for a winning percentage of 62.9 percent. They have won those regular season games with zero appearances from Basallo and Mayo and just 27 from Kjerstad.
While Kjerstad has already shown he can contribute to the major league roster and I’d expect Basallo and Mayo to do the same if they’re not traded, it feels hard to believe that the Orioles’ World Series chances this year will hinge on any of these players.
I have no doubt this trio will all be important for future teams if they’re not moved, but future versions of the Orioles should not be prioritized over the 2024 team that is trying to win the World Series right now.
I’m not asking the Orioles to trade all three of these players to rent an improved setup man, but I am hoping they’ll realize this is perhaps the only year they’ll ever have game 1 starter like Corbin Burnes. The Orioles haven’t had an ace like Burnes since Mike Mussina and it’d be a shame if they didn’t try to realistically maximize their chances to win a World Series with him by holding onto players they’ve barely needed to get to this point.
Keeping O’Hearn and/or Santander makes it much easier to move Kjerstad and/or Mayo
While Basallo hasn’t reached the majors due to being a 19-year-old in AA, Kjerstad’s lack of major league playing time and Mayo still being in AAA are largely because they’ve been blocked by some other pretty solid hitters.
However, two of those pretty solid hitters might be departing Baltimore after this season: Anthony Santander will be a free agent and Ryan O’Hearn has a team option after this year.
If O’Hearn and Santander both depart, it will free up about 1,000 plate appearances to be used elsewhere with Kjerstad and Mayo seeming like the two players who’d end up claiming most of them.
However, there’s plenty of good reasons to try to keep O’Hearn and Santander in Baltimore the next few years.
After providing a 120 OPS+ across 2022 and 2023, Santander’s OPS+ this year sits at an improved 130 after an excellent June. It’s unlikely Santander’s June OPS of .960 will continue until the end of the year, but even if he cools down, it seems pretty reasonable to expect him to end 2024 with another OPS+ right around 120.
Santander has also enjoyed a clean bill of health since 2022 and if he plays in 150+ games again this year then it will be the third straight year he’s done so.
Meanwhile, O’Hearn has successfully proven that 2023 wasn’t a fluke and the player he was in Kansas City has nothing to do with the player he is now. O’Hearn’s OPS+ has improved from 122 to 136, making him the third-best hitter on the team behind Gunnar Henderson and Jordan Westburg.
It is worth noting that O’Hearn has remained forbidden from regularly seeing lefties, but his production as a platoon bat is hard to argue with.
O’Hearn will be 31 next April and Santander will be 30, so there also shouldn’t be too much concern over either hitter suddenly experiencing a major decline due to aging. The 2025 Orioles would have a formidable lineup with both of them regularly playing and I’d guess they’d be helpful for the 2026 and 2027 Orioles as well.
There’s certainly a chance that Kjerstad and Mayo’s ceilings include being better hitters than O’Hearn and Santander in the next few years, but this deadline is more about allocating the team’s resources in the best way possible than trying to guess what these four players’ OPS+ will be in 2026.
Keeping O’Hearn and Santander after this year and using Kjerstad or Mayo in a trade for pitching is a better use of the team’s payroll and prospect capital than letting Santander walk and missing out on a big name at the deadline because they weren’t willing to include Kjerstad or Mayo.
The team’s track record for developing position player prospects means the future should be just fine
The Orioles find themselves a virtual lock for the playoffs thanks to the contributions of Mike Elias draft picks like 2019’s #1 pick Adley Rutschman and 2021’s #5 pick Colton Cowser.
However, they’re also in this position because the #30 pick in the 2020 draft became Jordan Westburg and the #42 pick in the 2019 draft was Gunnar Henderson. They also included Joey Ortiz, the 108th pick in the 2019 draft, in the Corbin Burnes trade.
The Orioles have produced multiple quality major leaguers outside of the first five picks of the draft and it’s quite likely that Basallo (international signing) and Mayo (#103 in 2020) will continue that trend regardless of whether it happens in Baltimore or elsewhere.
I’m not expecting the front office to find perfect clones of Basallo, Kjerstad and Mayo if they get moved, but I don’t think it’s particularly far-fetched to expect we’ll have some more position players turn into top-100 prospects without being top-five picks when it has already happened several times.
BSL Analyst
Rose Katz is a recent graduate of the University of Maryland’s journalism school, where she worked for The Diamondback as the online managing editor and a sports blogger. As a student, she spent almost all of her time on campus in The Diamondback’s newsroom or at Xfinity Center, Ludwig Field and Maryland Stadium. Rose gained intern experience with the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN).