Uninspiring Trade Deadline Passes For The Orioles

Entering play tonight the Baltimore Orioles are 63-44, leading the American League East by 1/2 a game.
Even with a poor July, the O’s are well positioned to reach the post-season with 55 games remaining in the regular season.

We entered this season questioning the strength of the bullpen, with Felix Bautista unavailable here in 2024.
We entered this season questioning the rotation, as Kyle Bradish and John Means began the year on the Injured List.

Both Means and Bradish returned to action, but were quickly lost for the year.
So was Tyler Wells.

The Orioles have spent the last few months as clearly one of the better teams in the game.
They currently have the 2nd best winning percentage in the American League, and they’ve outscored their opposition by 83 runs (also 2nd best in the American League).
The O’s are 2nd overall in Runs Scored, 1st in Slugging Percentage, 11th in On-Base Percentage, and 10th in ERA.

This is a high quality team, that is capable of winning the World Series.
It’s also a team with real limitations which needed to be fortified here at the Trade Deadline.

Bautista was the best closer in baseball last year.
Bradish finished 4th in the AL Cy Young balloting.

Not having Bautista at all this year, and barely having Bradish was unfortunate, but their lack of availability is not new.

With Bautista not available this year, Craig Kimbrel was a fine stop-gap.
You knew the 36 year old was not going to be his former self, or 2023 Bautista.
You were signing him for his vast experience, and hoping he had enough left in the tank to help.
He has helped.
He’s also clearly not what he was, and it was pretty apparent on Opening Day that adding another high leverage reliever by the Trade Deadline was going to be a priority.

Corbin Burnes was a great addition.
However, once Bradish was lost for the year, that became largely a wash.

Bradish’s last start this year was June 14th.

Once he was known to be done for the year, it was abundantly clear a quality starting pitcher was needed.
Ideally a starter which would slot in-between Burnes and Rodriguez.
The playoffs are largely a flip of a coin, but you’d be increasing whatever odds you have, if you were in position to start Rodriguez in Game 3 of a playoff series.

So the deadline has now passed, and what did the Orioles accomplish?

They obtained Zach Eflin for Jackson Baumeister, Mac Horvath, and Matthew Etzel.  (Can read the FanGraphs evaluation of this trade here.)

They obtained Seranthony Dominguez, and Christian Pache for Austin Hays.

& today

They obtained Trevor Rogers for Connor Norby and Kyle Stowers.

In Eflin, they acquired a 3rd starter who slots ahead of Dean Kremer in the rotation.
In Dominguez, they acquired a power arm for the pen.
In Rogers, they acquired a 5th starter, who bumps Albert Suarez to the pen.

My Takes: 

1) Eflin was a fine addition, but he wasn’t the front-end starter you needed. I’ll assume the O’s will pick up his $18M option for ’25, and I think he will add rotation depth. The O’s basically needed two starters, if he was the second starter you added, you’d feel pretty good.

2) Dominguez and Suarez as additions to the pen are good. Two power arms which can help.  Neither is the known commodity high-leverage guy they needed.

3) Rogers is probably a better starting option right now vs. Suarez, or Cole Irvin, or Cade Povich; but even that is debatable. His Baseball Savant page isn’t very attractive. While his addition bumps Suarez to the pen, any additional starting option would have done that. Or you could have just made Irvin the 5th starter, and kept Norby and Stowers. If you couldn’t find a better starter than Rogers, they should have pivoted and made sure they found a high quality reliever.

4) Norby and Stowers were spare parts for the Orioles organization, but there was some value there. Both figure to go to Marlins and play regularly. They could be very solid regular players, who add a lot to Miami for years on their team controlled contracts.  To me, they should have been (particularly Norby) filler for a larger trade.

5) The Orioles are apparently calling up Terrin Vavra to replace Norby on the roster.  Are you any better with Rogers and Vavra vs. Irvin and Norby?  Why isn’t Jackson Holliday the call here? To answer my own question, presumably they are still looking for Holliday to pass some internal benchmarks. Myself, I’d be giving Holliday the 2nd base job, and telling him to run with it.

I didn’t want to see the Orioles move Holliday or Coby Mayo for anyone.
I did think that Samuel Basallo, Heston Kjerstad, Norby, Dylan Beavers, and Chayce McDermott should have been available.
Maybe they were, and the O’s couldn’t find the right trade partner.
Maybe there were trades to be made, and the O’s decided giving up Basallo and Kjerstad was too much talent and team-control to let go.

Keeping an extended window open is a goal of the Orioles, and one I support.
The way that the O’s have been built, they have a core available, which should allow for sustained contention.
The O’s didn’t want to make moves which could jeopardize that.
That’s understandable.
That’s why I didn’t want to see Holliday or Mayo moved.
Some will say that’s why they didn’t want to see Basallo or Kjerstad moved.
That’s fine, it’s a reasonable opinion, even if I disagree.

Whatever the internal decision making was, they didn’t accomplish enough.
And it’s fine to retort that they can’t make other teams trade X, but the bottom-line is that the O’s needed a front-end starter, and a high-leverage reliever; and they obtained neither.

It also goes beyond ’24 and this forthcoming post-season too.
Burnes is a Free Agent.
With the new Ownership, I think the O’s might make a strong effort to retain him, but there are no guarantees.
They know Bradish won’t be available.
If the O’s lose Burnes in Free Agency, they are going to have to obtain another Front End starter to team with Rodriguez, if they want to maximize their chances at contending in ’25 and ’26.
Eflin will help to a degree now, and will help next year as well (again assuming the O’s pick up the option). He’s not enough now, and won’t be enough next year either though.

July was ugly for the Birds.
They were often a hard watch.
They’re still capable of winning the World Series.
They still might be the favorite in the American League.
There is definitely luck involved with the short-sample size of the post-season.
What the last few days come down to, is that the O’s did very little to increase their odds of winning the organization’s first World Championship since 1983.

I’m posting this at 4:30 EST. There is still 90 minutes left before the deadline.
I’d love to be surprised.