If I’m playing the general manager for the Baltimore Orioles right now, I’m wondering how I allowed this to happen after a massive rebuild and frankly, I’m worried about my job security. I tried to save face by firing manager Brandon Hyde, but still, the Orioles are in a worrisome spot.
After some of the worst years in franchise history, the Orioles made the postseason in 2023 and 2024, though they didn’t win a single playoff game.
And now, they sit 44-54, well out of the AL East race and 8 ½ games out of the last wild card with almost half the American League in between them and a postseason berth. Caesars gives them just +2000 odds to make the playoffs.
It looks like they should be selling in front of the trade deadline and that has to worry the fan base.
The good news is the window of contention should still be open next season and the year after with the core of the group that made the 2023 and 2024 playoffs. Catcher Adley Rutschman is under team control through 2027 while shortstop Gunnar Henderson is controlled through 2028 with other talented youngsters like Jordan Westburg, Colton Cowser and Jackson Holliday around for longer.
Pitching has been a problem, though some of that can be traced back to injuries to Kyle Bradish and Grayson Rodriguez. There were steps taken backward on offense, too.
Also, keep in mind that the Orioles were once 16-34 and have gone 28-20 since then. They’ve been a good team since Memorial Day.
Everything points to this being a lost season that could well be an outlier, so long as the Orioles move to reload for next season and build around the strong core they still have.
As such, no, I don’t believe the Orioles should start doing radical things like trading players with multiple years of control. This is a short sell-off that is intended to function as a quick reload before contending in 2026.
Here are three moves the Orioles should make.
It’s a seller’s market and while Cedric Mullins was expected to be one of the big bats to go, the lefty-swinging first baseman O’Hearn, having the best year of his career at the plate, is a far more valuable addition. O’Hearn will be 32 years old by the trade deadline and hits free agency after the season. It’s possible there will be teams desperate enough for lefty power to pay in hopes that O’Hearn is the guy he was through the first two months of this season. Given his age, the rest of his career history and that he’s a free agent after this season, it seems unlikely he’s in the Orioles’ future plans, which means it’s an easy decision to move him.
2. See what they can get for pitchers
O’Hearn isn’t alone, of course. The Orioles have some rental starting pitchers, such as Charlie Morton, Zach Eflin and Tomoyuki Sugano.
Unfortunately for Baltimore, none of these guys are exactly lighting the world on fire. Then again, if they were, the O’s might not be sellers.
- Eflin was a good acquisition for the Orioles down the stretch last season and has experience in the playoffs. The problem here in his walk year is he’s been terrible and injured. He’s expected to rejoin the Orioles’ rotation for a few starts before the deadline and everyone will be hoping he throws well.
- Morton is 41 and has a great career resume that includes a lot of good postseason starts. He was awful to begin the season and lost his rotation spot, but then he posted a 2.61 ERA in 51 ⅔ innings to close the first half. Then he got crushed by the Rays to open the second half. Surely someone will take him, but how much can the Orioles get back?
- Sugano, 35, hardly misses any bats with 59 strikeouts in his 99 ⅓ innings. He also has a 4.44 ERA (88 ERA+). Again, it’s difficult to know if the Orioles will get much back, but it’s possible he’ll be on the move as well.
Relievers Seranthony Domínguez and Gregory Soto are also free agents after the year and might as well be traded for organizational depth. Both are having good enough years to draw interest on the trade market this season.
3. Extend Gunnar Henderson
It’s always easier said than done and everyone is going to point out that Henderson’s agent is Scott Boras, but Boras gets extensions for his players as long as he believes the offer is a fair one.
This is the Orioles’ chance to pacify their fan base and prove this relatively new ownership group isn’t just operating in similar fashion to the Angelos family. I bypassed Rutschman here because he’s a catcher, is 27, is not too far from free agency and hasn’t been a great hitter for over a year now (in fact, it might be worth discussing a trade of him, though I don’t want to do drastic things like that just yet). Henderson, though, is a marquee player at shortstop who finished fourth in MVP voting last season and is several years from free agency. He also just turned 24 years old last month. Surely the Orioles are capable of giving Henderson a deal that competes with what the Royals did for Bobby Witt Jr.
Especially in light of being sellers after an extended rebuild that, thus far, resulted in zero playoff wins, locking up Henderson long-term not only makes him the obvious face of the franchise moving forward, but it buys a lot of desperately needed goodwill with the fan base.