On Friday, the Orioles acquired 26-year-old right-handed pitcher Shane Baz from the Tampa Bay Rays in exchange for four prospects — catcher Caden Bodine, right-handed pitcher Michael Forret, outfielders Slater de Brun and Austin Overn in addition to the Orioles’ Competitive Balance Round A pick, the 33rd overall, in the 2026 draft.
Orioles president of baseball operations Mike Elias spoke about the trade in a video conference call on Saturday. Here are excerpts:
On acquiring Baz:
“I think he’s kind of a perfect fit for us in our rotation and our team right now. He is somebody that’s had a history that’s been checkered from the Tommy John surgery that he had at the end of 2022, but he’s successfully come back from that surgery. Had a really good run at the end of 2024 when he came back to the major leagues after that surgery, and then this past season threw about 170 innings and made all of his starts.
“We see a lot of underlying information in his statistics and his performance this year suggests that he had bad luck. A lot of it was driven by the ballpark that the Rays were playing in. He’s got great underlying metrics. Five plus pitches. I think he’s got a great arm and he’s a great athlete, and I think he hasn’t fully tapped into his ceiling yet, so we see him as a front end of the rotation starter. I think he has a ceiling to tap into being a top of the rotation starter. We’re not necessarily asking that of him in 2026, but he has that potential. He has one of the best starting pitcher arms in the major leagues and he’s got really elite stuff.”
On whether this is the big move for the starting rotation:
“I think our rotation is a lot better than it was before we made the trade, but I view it as a move in this offseason. We’ve been looking for moves and when we find one that we like, we’ve been doing it, and will continue to take that approach the rest of the way here. We still have like a month and a half to go, so we’re going to stay hard at work.”
On how close Elias is to fulfilling his offseason aims:
“I don’t think the roster is a finished product. We’re gonna keep working and looking for opportunities to improve the team and improve the roster. Or just maybe there are moves that we think are good value exchanges and we take advantage of those opportunities. I don’t know what’s coming. We’re just going to keep working in the marketplace.
“In terms of our kind of wish list at the very beginning of the offseason, it was at the top of our list, we were looking for a backend reliever, we were looking for one starting pitcher, we were looking for a big bat, and I think that we definitely checked those boxes, but there’s more that we’re going to be able to do and try to do. Our ownership group has put us in a really good position to explore all these things, and that’s been a huge benefit for us so far this offseason is the support that they’re providing. I also know that the American League East is certainly not finished with their activities, so we’ll just keep going.”
On Elias’ familiarity with Baz:
“I’m very familiar with him. I was living in Houston as Astros scouting director when he was coming up as a real young high school kid in Houston and ended up being a first-round pick in 2017. So, watched him a lot in high school. Actually, I went into his house and met his parents and him. I had a lot of familiarity with him and we know what kind of athlete he is and the ceiling that he’s got. He’s at a really good juncture after the Tommy John surgery and sort of platforming into 2026.
“So we kind of think he’s ready to go and we’re really expecting we’re going to get the best chunk of his career here coming up. Everybody’s really excited about working with him, and I know he’s really excited to join the team. This isn’t somebody that we’ve been attempting to acquire for years from Tampa just given they’re in our division and what they’ve been trying to do and also he’s been coming off injury, but when we talked with Tampa this offseason, they were open to making members of their starting rotation available with the right exchange of value.
“Obviously, we’ve ponied up for this deal. He’s a very talented pitcher that’s hard to get your hands on, and we’re really excited to work with him.”
On trading prospects:
“We’ve traded a lot of prospects since we’ve turned into a good team and buyers going back to like the 2023 season and the Corbin Burnes trade and the deadline in 2024. So when we’ve had opportunities, we’ve definitely been willing to deal from the farm system. I mean, this is the largest buy-side trade yet, I guess, we’ve done, and that’s because it’s a starting pitcher with his talent level with three years of club control. So that’s why it’s the case.
“I think that the reason that we lined up with Tampa here and why we worked well with their front office is we expressed a desire to try to avoid the players that are on our major ;eague roster right now in this trade, and they had other opportunities with Shane, I think, where they were getting some players that were either in the big leagues or closer to the big leagues, and we were steering more toward guys that were recently drafted or a draft pick itself. This is very much a move about the next few years with this major league team, and we hope we have Shane beyond that. I think he’s really going to grow well here in Baltimore and have a really exciting phase in his career, and I think he’s going to be a big part of what this team does.”
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