Trade season has started early for the Orioles, with an unexpected candidate.
Mike Elias has officially started his July trade season. No one would have predicted the first player who’s been shipped off of this disappointing Orioles team. It’s reliever Bryan Baker who has been dealt ahead of Thursday’s doubleheader against the Mets. FanSided’s Robert Murray was first to report on a coming deal sending Baker to the Rays. The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reported that the return is the Rays pick at #37 in the MLB Draft, which begins on Sunday. The deal was announced about 90 minutes before first pitch.
Most talk about who the Orioles would trade has centered around players who will be free agents following this season. The 30-year-old Baker, on the other hand, has not even entered into his arbitration seasons yet. He won’t become a free agent until after the 2028 season and he probably won’t make significant money in any of the next three seasons. This wasn’t about salary relief in any way.
Baker has had some interesting stretches of solid pitching in his Orioles tenure, and some frustrating high-profile failures. It’s regrettable that everyone’s final memory of Baker as an Oriole will be him absolutely bombing Tuesday’s game against the Mets. He closes with a 3.73 ERA across four seasons with the team.
Up until Tuesday, this was unambiguously Baker’s best season to date, with an increased strikeout rate and decreased walk rate compared to what he’d done before. He had a fiery attitude that was fun when he was doing well, beefing with the Blue Jays, practically moonwalking off the mound after clutch strikeouts, and so on. If I didn’t think about his 2023 postseason failure every time I looked at him, I’d probably have enjoyed him. Even after that meltdown earlier this week, he’s still got the strikeout rate going for him and the lowest WHIP of his career so far.
On one hand, it sucks to trade a guy with three years of control left. The 2026 Orioles are going to need good relievers and also decent relievers. On the other hand, Baker is a reliever who is outperforming his track record this season, who is already on the older side. He barely even made the team out of spring training, perhaps only avoiding the waiver wire because of Andrew Kittredge’s injury.
With that in mind, the Orioles might think Baker is at the peak of his value and not likely to keep delivering at that level for long, so get something while you can. Time will tell us if they’re right. I feel a bit insulted that they’ve traded a guy with multiple years of control and all they get back is a pick, though at least we won’t wait long to find out who’s being picked with this.
This makes the second time that the Orioles have traded a reliever for a draft pick. The Orioles sent Tanner Scott, as well as Cole Sulser, to the Marlins ahead of the 2022 season. On that occasion, they got back a couple of prospects in addition to a competitive balance round B draft pick. That’s after the second round. Here, they get only the draft pick for Baker, which is in round A. These competitive balance picks are the only ones that can be traded. Trading Scott when they did turned out to not have been a good decision.
The Orioles will now have picks in the Draft at 19th, 30th, 31st, and 37th overall. Acquiring the 37th pick will add about $2.6 million to the O’s draft bonus pool. They’ll now have the biggest pool available of any team in the Draft. They have the potential to do something interesting in adding talent here. If you want to believe this, don’t check out how the early round 2024 Orioles picks are performing this season.