The Orioles’ affinity for water has not stretched to the front office. Unlike the Bird Bath section at Camden Yards, it’s no splash zone.
For the second time in nine months, Baltimore entered a period of roster fluctuation seen as a team capable of making big moves, with payroll flexibility and the sport’s deepest minor league system seemingly giving the Orioles the capability to add any player available both this past offseason and ahead of Tuesday’s trade deadline. In both cases, the Orioles made improvements to their roster but not to the level they appeared to have the opportunity to.
For the cost of four of their top 30 prospects, the Orioles brought in Oakland Athletics reliever Shintaro Fujinami on July 19 and St. Louis Cardinals starter Jack Flaherty minutes ahead of the trade deadline. The pitchers, each set to be a free agent after this season, reinforce a rotation and bullpen loaded with inexperienced arms approaching unprecedented workloads. The Orioles would have earned criticism for not making these moves, but they are not necessarily worthy of praise.
The deal for Flaherty cost Baltimore its Nos. 13, 15 and 16 prospects as ranked by Baseball America, with executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias making the most aggressive move of his tenure after previously parting with only one top 20 prospect in his nearly five years leading baseball operations. In discussing the swap, Elias mentioned multiple times that Flaherty “bolsters” the Orioles’ pitching staff, citing his experience and previous high inning totals. But this season marks the first time the 27-year-old has crossed the 100-inning threshold since 2019, when he finished fourth in National League Cy Young Award voting.
In the four seasons since, he has a 4.12 ERA, and his 4.43 mark this year is not all that different from the 4.47 figure Baltimore’s rotation has collectively posted in 2023. Of course, the Orioles’ front office uses far more than that metric to evaluate pitchers, but Elias himself acknowledged this deal didn’t necessarily net a premier starter.
“I don’t think there’s a ton of hierarchy in this rotation,” Elias said, “and I think that he goes in right with the best in our group.”
To his credit, Elias said the Orioles “took some very big swings,” though they whiffed. Reports linked the club to more tantalizing rotation options, including the top two in last year’s American League Cy Young Award voting in Justin Verlander and Dylan Cease. Elias noted that other teams were “fixated” on certain Baltimore prospects, particularly those ranked in leaguewide top 100 lists and some who the Orioles weren’t interested in moving.
“We were prepared to deploy every corner of our farm system within reason to make acquisitions,” he said.
Fujinami is electric but volatile, and even with his acquisition, Elias also pursued another reliever ahead of the deadline. Amid frequent usage, All-Star setup man Yennier Cano’s effectiveness has waned of late, adding to the hefty volume that’s been demanded of All-Star closer Félix Bautista. By not landing one more arm to support that pair, Elias was instead left hoping a collection of injured pitchers will be able to provide reinforcements down the stretch.
That group includes Mychal Givens, one of a handful of additions Elias made this offseason aiming to “supplement” but “not block” the members of the Orioles’ young core, as he put it at December’s winter meetings. In addition to Givens, they signed starter Kyle Gibson and infielder Adam Frazier to one-year deals, with each providing solid but not standout performances while supplying veteran presences. They traded a low-level prospect to the New York Mets for backup catcher James McCann and brought in starter Cole Irvin and a minor league pitcher from Oakland for infield prospect Darell Hernaiz, the highest-ranked prospect Elias had moved before Tuesday. Neither McCann nor Irvin has had much success with Baltimore, but they’ve provided depth. Not to be lost, a secondary focus of Baltimore’s offseason was hoarding left-handed corner bats, an effort that has resulted in Ryan O’Hearn’s breakout season.
It’s difficult now to judge that modest approach, with Baltimore holding the AL’s best record and a 1 1/2-game lead over the Tampa Bay Rays in the AL East, which Elias called “probably the toughest division in baseball history.” He said the team’s goal, in terms of what’s directly in front of it, is to win that division, an elevation of his offseason declaration of hoping for a playoff berth in any form.
But there are questions about how this group will hold up down the stretch, especially on the pitching side, and wonders of whether the front office did enough, in the winter and summer, to fortify it. The desire is to play not only in October, but also to the end of it.
“We think this team has what it takes to go deep,” Elias said. It’s a welcome vote of confidence after, this time last year, he effectively said he didn’t believe the Orioles had a high likelihood of reaching the playoffs despite being only a couple of games out of a wild-card spot amid comments made between two sell-side trades.
Both at that deadline and before and after this one, Elias emphasized that his job is about balancing the present and future. By his estimation, the past two weeks saw the Orioles trade away four future major leaguers should Easton Lucas, César Prieto, Drew Rom and Zack Showalter stay healthy, with Elias further making the point that being a buyer means “you tend to kind of lose every trade” given the years of control the team forfeits. Still, the Orioles left the deadline with all of their top dozen prospects, a group largely featuring players in Triple-A if not the majors.
“The system’s set up where you can’t keep everyone that you draft and sign and develop and sign international, and we decided to utilize these guys in trades for major league help,” Elias said. “I am pleased that we got a reliever that’s looking good and a starter that’s going to help. We were prepared to and were processing some trade discussions that included some of our top 100 type of guys, but I think it is a nice outcome here that we’re still sitting on a very special and perhaps historic group of Orioles talent right now, these guys that are all still with us.”
Internal belief in their youth paid off with a strong first four months of 2023. Whether the front office did enough to support it over the next three remains to be seen.
Orioles at Blue Jays
Wednesday, 7:07 p.m.
TV: MASN
Radio: 97.9 FM, 101.5 FM, 1090 AM
Orioles at Blue Jays
Thursday, 3:07 p.m.
TV: MASN
Radio: 97.9 FM, 101.5 FM, 1090 AM
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