The Baltimore Orioles have won eight straight, and at the moment sit two games out in the American League wild-card race. But O’s general manager Mike Elias says the club is still in rebuild mode.
“All I can say is, we do everything from a very global, very thoughtful perspective about what is the right thing to do for the health of the Orioles franchise, and all that’s being taken into consideration for the draft, but also for the trade deadline coming up, and I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Elias said over the weekend.
The MLB trade deadline is Aug. 2, so, three weeks away. A lot can happen in three weeks, as Washington Nationals fans can attest. The Nats, on July 11, 2021, were six and a half out in the NL East, and two games back of the Atlanta Braves, who went on to win the World Series in October.
By the trade deadline, which was July 30 last season, the Nats were still two games behind the Braves, but GM Mike Rizzo decided to pull the trigger on a blockbuster deal that sent stars Max Scherzer and Trea Turner to the Los Angeles Dodgers for Josiah Gray, now the team’s top starting pitcher, and Keibert Ruiz, now the everyday catcher.
But the Nats are just starting their rebuild after winning a World Series in 2019. The Orioles are several years into a rebuild that is only now starting to feel like it’s going somewhere, with Baltimore, at this writing, sitting at 43-44, and very much in the thick of the AL wild-card race.
The O’s have the #1 pick in next month’s MLB draft to add to a stocked farm system, and top prospect Adley Rutschmann now in the starting lineup at the big-league level.
The future is bright, indeed, but in the here and now, there’s the decision as to what to do about 2022, with guys like Trey Mancini (.779 OPS, 8 HR, 35 RBI) and Rougned Odor (.657 OPS, 9 HR, 32 RBI) about to become free agents, and relievers Jorge López (1.74 ERA) and Dillon Tate (2.61 ERA) and outfielders Cedric Mullins (.709 OPS, 7 HR, 36 RBI, 16 SB), Austin Hays (.759 OPS, 11 HR, 45 RBI) and Anthony Santander (.755 OPS, 15 HT, 43 RBI) all being targeted by other contenders looking to add depth in their stretch runs.
The latter five all have multiple years of team control complicating the front office decisions on them.
It wouldn’t be a surprise to see the O’s unload Mancini and Odor for prospects, but getting rid of any of the other foundational pieces would seem to be counterintuitive.
Elias’s final words on this over the weekend – “What I’m saying is we’re taking a look at everything as we make these decisions, and we’ll see what happens” – make sense given where we are now.
Even with the long winning streak, Baltimore is still a game under .500.
If they’re still under .500 three weeks from now, it wouldn’t even be waving the white towel to make some moves with the future in mind.
But if the team builds on its winning ways, it’s going to be hard for Elias to not want to ride this out to see where it goes.
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Chris Graham
