The answer is “neutral.”
And the question is not, “What is your favorite type of zone infraction and/or Milk Hotel?”
The question of course is, “How do you feel about what the Orioles did at the trade deadline?” And yeah, I’m neutral. But I promise there is more to my thought process than that and I know someone is probably making weird faces on TikTok, but give me just a second!
First allow me to defend my “neutral” stance. If you’ve spent more than, like, five seconds listening to me or reading my work or honestly just in my general vicinity throughout the last month, you know I didn’t want the Orioles to trade Trey Mancini.
That said, my philosophy was that the Birds probably couldn’t get much of anything back for Mancini and as it turns out, they did! Obviously it comes with the catch of Tommy John surgery, but Seth Johnson is a viable prospect and IMMEDIATELY the third-best pitching prospect in the entire system. That’s a legitimate return even with the surgery risk.
I don’t love parting ways with Mancini. I do not remotely believe the Orioles “had” to do it because he was a pending free agent. But I think the return, at least on paper, can potentially justify the baseball decision.
I had no problem with the Orioles trading away Jorge López, feeling as though they might be selling high on a potential asset given that the back end of the bullpen appears to have great depth. Felix Bautista looks like a closer of the future and López was found money. Competitive or not, I can understand a team making this particular sell.
But … uh … admittedly I expected a bit more quality than quantity from the return.
So all of that works out to roughly a “neutral” attitude to what the team did at the deadline. We won’t know for some time how these deals actually pan out but my initial reaction is neutral.
But the secondary question is a bit more relevant in the moment. You know that one. It goes like, “What kind of message did you send your fans?” Perhaps you’re sick of that question. I get that. But it IS relevant. And that answer is also complex.
I like Mike Elias. I think Mike Elias has done a good job in the context of what he was hired to do here. But I don’t think Mike Elias is above criticism. And I think this was a horrendous statement to make.
“But ultimately, I have to tether my decisions to the outlook and the probabilities of this year. We have a shot at a wild card right now, but it is not a probability that we’re going to win a wild card.”
I think these comments might be quite honest. I think, like many others, Elias believes that the Orioles have performed beyond their reasonable capability and that eventually it will be difficult for them to avoid coming up short. I think that isn’t an unreasonable thought process. But it’s absolutely not one that needs to be vocalized to … anyone at all! Not the fan base, not the players on the team, not anyone!
This community is trying to fall in love with this baseball team again and Elias is a representative of the team. It is unfathomable that the fan base would get a message of, “Hey, this magical feeling you’re experiencing? It’s probably not real” FROM THE BASEBALL TEAM ITSELF! Not ideal!
I truly hope Elias was simply being too honest. I think there were about a billion more appropriate ways to make the same point. “We know this team has a shot at reaching the postseason but we also understand how difficult it will be to win a World Series, which is our ultimate goal.”
These moves can be justified. There’s absolutely no reason to celebrate them, however, and there is plenty of room for opinions that winning should always be the singular priority and that these trades are unjustifiable.
But there’s still one thing that really irks me about all of this.
Part of the reason I was willing to even be neutral about moving assets from a competitive team was because I’ve maintained the mantra of “next year is more important than this year” even as the Orioles have been one of the best teams in the American League during the last two months. The goal is winning a World Series. While next year is still unreasonable to expect a culmination of that goal, it does present the first season where it would be fair to gauge whether they’re closing the gap on the top World Series contenders.
Yet “next year” was definitely not a consideration at the deadline. Not only did the Orioles not acquire a pitcher with team control as some fans had hoped they might, only one of the six players they acquired is currently above the High-A level!
So we’re still left wondering when exactly the window is supposed to open. That’s an uncomfortable position to leave the fan base in. Should fans be invested now, when the team’s general manager tells them they probably won’t win? Should they be invested this offseason? Should they keep waiting and just not bother for a while?
Perhaps these questions seem overdramatic, but there are still lots of fans who have struggled to get back on board (and losing the most identifiable player on the roster certainly doesn’t help them) and it would be nice for them to see a clearer picture.
We continue to wait to see the organization identify one young player, buy out his arbitration years and commit to that player as being a centerpiece for years to come. With Adley Rutschman becoming exactly the player everyone thought he would be right in front of our eyes, he would be the most obvious candidate.
And in the meantime, it would be nice for Orioles fans to see the arrival of a Gunnar Henderson or D.L. Hall in the hopes of fortifying their “not probable” playoff chances.
I’m still on board with what’s happening in this organization. But it’s been time to shift into the next phase of this rebuild. This fan base deserves to see that commitment even more than they deserve to see big September baseball games this year.
Photo Credits: Colin Murpy/PressBox