The Baltimore Orioles are going to be one of the most fascinating teams to monitor ahead of the July 30 trade deadline.
If they want to land someone, they have the ability to do so because of how many elite prospects they have in their farm system. Virtually every rebuilding team would jump at the opportunity to ship out their best players to get these youngsters in return.
But, it’s not clear how aggressive the Orioles are going to be.
Mike Elias doesn’t want to completely deplete his assets, hoping he can still hold onto some of his top prospects who might develop into impact Major Leaguers during later points in their career, or still present the organization with trade chips to land more high-end talent as needed.
There was an interesting report from Jeff Passan of ESPN that suggested Baltimore will be “trying to thread the needle” at the upcoming trade deadline, hinting they will be both buyers and sellers.
For a team with real World Series aspirations, it seems counterintuitive for them to actually ship out players when they need depth and bench options for the second half of the year and into the playoffs.
Passan’s reporting moved from interesting to shocking when he wrote, “… they land here due to their willingness to discuss moving veteran first baseman Ryan Mountcastle or center fielder Cedric Mullins.”
That’s a bombshell.
It was reported here that the Orioles had been engaged in conversations with at least one team to move Cedric Mullins, but there were some whispers earlier in the year that the front office was eyeing an outfield upgrade because of the veteran’s steady decline the past couple seasons.
Being willing to move Mountcastle is eye-opening.
After being called up in 2020, the slugger has hit 20-plus home runs in two out of his three full years and likely would have made it three straight if he hadn’t been limited to 115 games last season because of vertigo issues during the summer.
It’s not like Mountcastle isn’t producing either.
This year he’s slashing .267.307/.438 with 12 homers, 43 RBI, an OPS+ of 113 and wRC+ of 109.
The first baseman is also putting together his best performance in the field with a defensive bWAR of 0.0, which is the first time he has had a figure that wasn’t a negative value.
All of that is to say, it’s strange to see a team with championship aspirations be willing to sell off a player who is helping them win games and is such a huge part of the lineup and clubhouse.
Like Passan is alluding to, this is Elias and his front office trying to thread the needle.
If they pull off the blockbuster trade that lands them another ace to insert into the top of their rotation, they likely would have had to ship out multiple star prospects that weakens their pipeline.
Being able to flip Mountcastle to get a return back would mitigate some of those losses.
What comes from this will be seen, but at this point in time it’s clear that Baltimore is planning on having an active deadline.
