If there’s anything that frustrates your average Orioles fan these days, it’s the idea that there are too many prospects without clear pathways to the majors. Those fans feel the front office should use that potential surplus talent to supplement other parts of the roster.

It’s making me think about the previous most frustrating thing for Orioles fans: trading away the more experienced and expensive players on the roster, even as it made the team worse in the near term.

That began with the Andrew Cashner trade in 2019 and continued with Jonathan Villar, Dylan Bundy, Richard Bleier, Mychal Givens, Miguel Castro, Jorge Lopez and Trey Mancini through the 2022 season. Those trades were unpleasant in the moment and to varying degrees really had a negative impact on the Orioles at that time, but the returns — Kyle Bradish for Bundy, Cade Povich and Yennier Cano for Lopez, and Chayce McDermott and Seth Johnson for Mancini — all made the long-term benefit for the organization worth it.

The Orioles being a really good team meant the trade deadline was different last year; they added to the roster instead of subtracted. That doesn’t undermine the logic of trading players nearing the end of their club control for younger ones who can help the team longer term, it just makes it more costly to the task at hand, which is making the playoffs and having the best team possible for October.

There are any number of reasons not to make such trades this year. Sentiment doesn’t show up on a computer screen calculating the value of players, but it ranks high on this year’s list. Anthony Santander, Austin Hays, Cedric Mullins and Ryan Mountcastle represent the Orioles’ longest-tenured hitters, and all but Mountcastle have been All-Stars in recent years — it would send a terrible message to a fan base that expects things to be different with the resources of new ownership to move on from any of those players.

It would also affect the Orioles’ clubhouse in losing players who are producing well as the team is scrapping with the Yankees on top of the AL East and seeking home-field advantage throughout the playoffs.

And yet, the conditions would be ripe for the Orioles to make a move with one or two of them if they felt compelled. So much so that the team may have to fight its impulses to keep those players in Baltimore.

Santander’s bat is so hot that him being months from free agency probably doesn’t matter. His .965 OPS since June 1, a stretch in which he’s hit 18 home runs, has helped keep the Orioles offense humming in that stretch. No one in baseball has more home runs in that span, and while the Orioles could run a Ryan O’Hearn/Heston Kjerstad right field platoon out there in his stead, that’s replacing one player with two, and maybe still not getting the same level of production.

Hays and Mullins, both of whom endured difficult stretches to start the season, have bounced back to the point that they could fetch full value, even if their improved performances mean the Orioles themselves value these players a lot, too. Hays has a .936 OPS since June 1, albeit in a mostly platoon role, while Mullins has an .837 OPS in his last 30 games. Both are owed around $2 million for the remainder of this season and would be in their final year of arbitration before free agency in 2025, so they would carry value to other clubs given their experience and pedigree.

Moving any of them would allow the Orioles to play Kjerstad or Kyle Stowers more often, with Colton Cowser also benefiting. Coby Mayo would be the direct beneficiary of a Mountcastle trade, though given that Mountcastle is two years removed from free agency and is in a bit of a rough spell at the plate, it’s hard to see the team getting full value for him.

Trading any of these players, as unlikely as such a move feels, would probably be separate from the team’s pursuit of pitching help for 2024. Teams with the high-caliber pitching that could bolster the Orioles are probably looking at players who can help them beyond this or next year. Teams who could use veteran outfield production, though, might be willing to part with prospects that could help mitigate the impact of prospects the Orioles would end up trading away for said high-level pitching.

Again, I’m not sure how the Orioles justify making any of these kinds of trades this year other than the idea that it’s probably smart business to explore them and they could “win” this kind of deal if one presents itself. It’s also smart business to win on the field, which all of these players help the Orioles do. If they were to pull the trigger on any of these deals, though, this would be why.

Mailbag

“If you check the Astros’ trades for top pitchers, there’s a theme. Just about all of the ranked prospects they sent away fell flat. Apparently they knew very well which hi[gh-]minors stat accumulators would translate and they sent off the others. U[n]clear how much was ME’s [Mike Elias’] doing but he was there and involved. He plans to trade the flops.”

— Steven Joseph

This is an interesting concept from Steven, who notes that the players the Astros traded for closer Ken Giles (Vincent Velasquez, Brett Oberholtzer, Tom Eshelman, Mark Appel and Harold Arauz) or top starter Justin Verlander (Franklin Pérez, Daz Cameron and Jake Rogers) and starter Gerrit Cole (Joe Musgrove, Michael Feliz, Colin Moran and Jason Martin) aren’t keeping anyone involved in those trades on the Astros side up at night. A handful carved out nice major league careers, but Verlander helped them win a World Series.

I don’t know if they necessarily “know” which players will plateau in the high minors and which will break through, but I will say this. At the time, those felt like steep prices to pay, and the view from Houston’s front office might not have been that the Astros won the trades. I think the takeaway is that the front office knew which prospects not to trade, and at least in this version of the front office, execs have only chosen to trade a handful for a reason.

On the farm

The midseason All-Star break in the minors used to be an occasion to move players up a level, but the Orioles haven’t been beholden to that in years. They also haven’t done many promotions this year at all — and that feels a little strange given how the 2021 and 2022 seasons were marked by fast-moving prospects playing at three levels and Jackson Holliday played at all four affiliates last year. Notable promotions this year include Luis De León and Michael Forret from Delmarva to Aberdeen, outfielder Matthew Etzel going from Aberdeen to Bowie, and Brandon Young and Carlos Tavera bumping from Bowie to Norfolk. Perhaps once the trade deadline passes and players’ futures are solidified here for the near future, more promotions can take place.

Stats

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Corbin Burnes was plenty good when he joined the Orioles, but everyone can improve at something, and he has. The All-Star right-hander is throwing his curveball a career-high 21.7% of the time and missing a ton of bats with it, notching 33 of his 116 strikeouts on the pitch with a 39.8% whiff rate and 26.8% put-away rate. Most importantly, he can throw it to hitters on both sides of the plate, helping him keep opponents off balance after throwing it more often to lefties in recent years.

For further reading

💵 2024 Trade Value: The annual trade value series at FanGraphs kicked off and has a ton of useful information not only about the Orioles’ most valuable assets, but those of other teams. Here is the intro, which can lead you to the first two installments. Both have Orioles featured. (FanGraphs)

🤔 Better as a DH?: Good stuff here from Andy about something that’s obvious: Adley Rutschman hits much better as the DH than as catcher. I think the most salient point here is that he’s destroying left-handed pitching, and often serves as the DH against lefties. He’s come a long way from his .552 OPS against lefties as a rookie. (The Baltimore Banner)

🌟 Notes from the All-Star Game: Danielle is, I hope, recovering well from the mental and physical toll that a week in Arlington, Texas, takes on a person. A lot of good stories came out of it, including one on how fellow All-Stars view Gunnar Henderson. (The Baltimore Banner)