The Orioles on Thursday had one of the busiest trade deadlines in franchise history.
In total, the Orioles made eight player-for-player trades, sold nine major leaguers and acquired 16 prospects amid a disappointing season. Executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias held a 25-minute news conference Friday morning to answer questions about the trade deadline.
Here are five things we learned:
Elias had the opportunity to do what he does best …
The past year has shaken the fan base’s trust in Elias’ front office.
How fair that is or isn’t doesn’t matter. Whether owner David Rubenstein shares any of that doubt is unknown. But when a team that hasn’t won a playoff game since 2014 or made it to a World Series since 1983 initiates a painful rebuild and then wastes a year of its championship window, it has consequences.
However, there should have been little doubt leading up to this trade deadline that Elias operate as a seller in a successful manner. Dispassionately assessing players, evaluating minor league talent and shrewdly making transactions are hallmarks of this front office. Those traits also align with properly selling at the deadline.
Unsurprisingly, Elias did just that, selling off players who were either on expiring contracts and others who are (mostly) easily replaceable for a haul of 16 prospects. Between the deadline and the draft, the Orioles added 37 prospects, including about a dozen who are ranked inside Baltimore’s organizational top 30 for what Elias called “an enormous injection of talent.” National baseball analysts largely gushed over how Elias handled the deadline, with The Athletic ranking the Orioles as one of its winners.
When asked what his message to the fan base is, Elias apologized on behalf of the organization for a 2025 campaign during which the Orioles have spent the vast majority in last place in the American League East. But his calculation at the deadline was that the only way to make 2026 better would be to initiate a fire sale.
“We don’t want to be selling this year. A lot has gone wrong to put us in that place,” Elias said. “But once we’re here, let’s make the most of it, let’s get the most talent back, let’s extract the most that we can for the organization.”
It’s hard to argue that Elias didn’t achieve that goal.
… but for the Orioles to win in 2026, he has to excel in other areas
If the strengths of the Orioles’ front office overlapped with what July threw at them, the next six months will challenge Elias and company in different ways.
The organization has dug itself quite a hole on its big league roster while stocking up the minor leagues — a farm system that is now one of the deepest in baseball. The Orioles will enter this offseason in need at least two (maybe three) new starting pitchers for the rotation, potentially another impact bat, a backup behind the plate, on the infield and in the outfield and about half of a bullpen.
The last time the Orioles went into an offseason in need of adding a plethora of major league talent, what followed was perhaps the most disappointing season in franchise history.
Of course, not all of this season’s failure is a result of an underwhelming and partially ineffective offseason. But a better winter could have curbed the early season slide that put Baltimore too far back to make a playoff push.
Elias traded four players who could’ve been kept for 2026: infielder Ramón Urías, outfielder Ramón Laureano and relievers Andrew Kittredge and Bryan Baker. All of them would have helped the 2026 Orioles, but they’re all also replaceable, league-average players. In the deals that included those four players, the Orioles received nine prospects, five of whom are ranked inside Baltimore’s top 30.
It was hypothesized ahead of the deadline that Elias would prioritize MLB-ready players at the deadline, but he explained why that wasn’t his approach.
“If you were to go to the market and say, ‘I only want players who are ready in 2025 or 2026,’ first of all, the teams you’re dealing with, by nature, are contending and worrying about their major league depth, so they’re not going to want to put those players available as easily,” he said. “And second of all, you’re going to get less talent, less value, in return with those confines. … Yeah, a lot of the players we got back were in the lower part of the minor leagues, but you can use players to trade for the near term, and then also it can pay off in the long run. So I just look at it in terms of overall talent, wealth, for the organization.”
The theory of taking away from the 2026 team to eventually help the 2026 team is that those prospects can put the organization in a stronger position to trade for, say, a front-of-the-rotation starting pitcher. Elias has a history of making such a move, acquiring ace Corbin Burnes ahead of the 2024 season. He will need to make a similar move — perhaps several of them — this offseason to help get this team back on track.
Elias isn’t going to change his stripes
After the Orioles were swept out of the postseason, Elias described his intention to turn over every stone in the organization to get the team over the hump. He expressed similar sentiments after he fired manager Brandon Hyde and on Friday.
Whether those sentiments are just smart PR or actually an ongoing, internal mission remains to be seen. It can be both. There are certainly small changes that can be made within the organization, but Elias’ core beliefs and pragmatic approach will not be among them. That was evident in one of his answers Friday.
When asked how aggressive he expects to be this offseason, Elias rejected the premise of the question.
“I don’t like saying aggressive or not aggressive,” Elias said. “We want to be good, we want to be smart, we want to have it be effective. Signing Ramón Laureano was probably not an aggressive move, but it paid great dividends, and so you’re trying to get good results. It’s not easy, that’s why there’s so much fierce competition among 30 teams.
“We want to be good, we want to be effective, we want to be smart. That’s where our focus is on.”
Elias has proven he can still make risky buy-side moves (Burnes, Zach Eflin, Trevor Rogers) while staying true to his philosophies. But anyone hoping for him to go full-A.J. Preller (Padres GM) this offseason should alter their expectations.
The farm system might be better equipped now than ever for trades
The strength of the Orioles’ farm system for most of Elias’ tenure might have also made executing trades more difficult.
The farm was so good — ranked No. 1 in baseball from 2022 to 2024 — because it was top heavy. There was depth, to be sure, but the Orioles had the top prospect in baseball for three straight seasons and at least five top 100 prospects to begin four consecutive campaigns. Last year, the Orioles began the year with five of MLB Pipeline’s top 32 prospects — a virtually unprecedented amount of elite youngsters.
While an argument could be made that Elias should have parted ways with a couple of his former elite prospects, he never did, and those types of trades are rare. The latest example is how shocked the baseball world was when the Padres gave up No. 3 overall prospect Leo De Vries in the Mason Miller trade. To acquire Burnes, the Orioles traded two top 100 prospects in Joey Ortiz and DL Hall, but neither were ranked anywhere near as high as, say, Jackson Holliday or Samuel Basallo or Colton Cowser.
The Orioles could certainly benefit from having more top-tier prospects. Basallo is the only consensus top 100 prospect in the system. But having a less-top-heavy prospect pipeline, with an overflow of prospects in the heart of the farm system, could make trades easier to execute.
Examples aren’t hard to find. To acquire Jack Flaherty at the 2023 deadline, the Orioles gave up three prospects ranked between No. 10-20 in their top 100 list. To add Zach Eflin at the 2024 deadline, they parted ways with three prospects drafted the previous year, including two prospects in the same range as those traded in the Flaherty deal.
Elias has the ability this offseason or next deadline to overwhelm buyers with his prospect depth, and he doesn’t have to worry as much about the long-term ramifications as he did when most of his attractive prospects were on top 100 lists.
“I think that we kind of, maybe quietly, we pushed a lot of chips in in 2024 in particular, in that we traded a lot of players away. And we had a playoff season, but we didn’t have a long playoff run, as we all know,” Elias said. “It depleted a lot of the farm system, and it is important to have that ability to make trades when you want to. Our farm system is a lot richer and a lot more robust than it was one month ago, and that’s gonna help us.”
Basallo and Beavers might be on their way
Elias didn’t obfuscate when asked about his goal for Triple-A Norfolk standouts Basallo and Dylan Beavers. Will they debut with the Orioles later this season?
“Yeah, I hope so,” he said.
Basallo, 20, and Beavers, 23, are both putting up impressive numbers for the Tides this season, and neither are slowing down as they try to knock the door down between Triple-A and the major leagues. Basallo is hitting .270 with a .974 OPS and 20 homers in 67 games, while Beavers is batting .304 with a .916 OPS and nearly as many walks (56) as strikeouts (62).
However, neither were promoted to replace the six MLB players who departed the team on deadline day. Basallo could’ve replaced O’Hearn as a left-handed slugger, while Beavers made sense to fill in for Mullins or Laureano in the outfield. Elias said there are “some things we’re still looking for and hoping they’ll do” before deciding to promote them.
“They’re both having terrific seasons,” Elias said. “They’ve both been bright spots in this organization in a tough year. To see them performing in Triple-A like that, it’s really good. They’ve come a long way, and they’re almost there. There’s some things we’re still looking for and hoping they’ll do, but I do think getting them a taste in 2025 here would be a good thing for all parties.”
Have a news tip? Contact Jacob Calvin Meyer at [email protected], 410-332-6200 and x.com/JCalvinMeyer.