The lone Orioles All-Star might be their most valuable trade piece since he’s actually playing well.
The trade deadline is now just ten days away. With the Orioles stumbling into the All-Star break and immediately afterwards, their chances of a miracle July rally before the deadline are, at last, kaput. For the rest of this week, I’ll be looking at one Oriole who’s likely to be traded and the teams who seemingly might bid on this player’s services.
We begin with Ryan O’Hearn. The lefty first baseman/designated hitter has played some outfield with the Orioles. Presumably a serious team would not have him in the outfield, so I’ll just consider the O’s matches to trade him as a 1B or DH.
O’Hearn turns 32 years old next week. He is one of three Orioles who has an OPS over .800 for the season so far. This performance got him elected as the American League’s starting designated hitter in the All-Star Game. This would not have occurred if the Red Sox didn’t trade Rafael Devers to a National League team, but still, it’s to O’Hearn’s credit that he played well enough to be the clear next choice.
The pending free agent is making an $8 million salary this year, meaning in any deal the new team would take on about $2.7 million in salary for the rest of the season. That’s assuming that a trade doesn’t negotiate the Orioles paying down some of that remaining money.
What kind of market might there be for O’Hearn? For the sake of this consideration, I’ve started with the list of teams who are either currently in a playoff spot or who are within four games of a spot. The list is pared down to those whose first base or designated hitter positions have generated in the bottom half for offense so far this season.
I think this is a reasonable list of buyers because they’re either already in a good position to make the postseason and should look to shore up their weaknesses to improve their odds of advancing, or they’re close enough that it’s worth taking a shot.
Giants
The most frequent first baseman for the Giants this year was LaMonte Wade Jr., who was so bad that they already designated him for assignment. Their most frequent designated hitter has been Wilmer Flores, though since acquiring Rafael Devers from the Red Sox, Devers has DHed every game.
Flores is batting .241/.316/.371. If the Giants are serious about trying to bridge the 2.5 game gap to a wild card spot, they need to improve this spot, and they need to improve it more than their other recent 1B/DH option, who is OPSing .713 for the season. O’Hearn is a clear upgrade here. Uninformed guess about trade return: O’Hearn for right-handed pitching prospect Carson Seymour.
Astros
The Astros keep signing aging first basemen to multi-year contracts and having that not really work out for them. The latest is former Oriole Christian Walker, who is in the first year of a three-year, $60 million deal. Walker is OPSing .669 while playing in nearly every game for Houston. This is a position of need for them, but they’re probably committed to trying to nudge something out of this experiment.
Plan A at DH going into the season for the Astros was Yordan Alvarez, who was bad before hitting the injured list with hand inflammation that turned out to be caused by a fracture. He’s only recently started swinging a bat again. In his absence, the Astros have been using a rotating cast at DH, none of which is hitting as well as O’Hearn.
These guys could use O’Hearn. They may not agree. Uninformed guess about trade return: O’Hearn for right-handed pitching prospects Michael Knorr and Alimber Santa.
Red Sox
They had Devers until the end of the 2033 season. Now, they don’t have Devers, and they’ve been playing several different guys at DH, including rookie Roman Anthony, veteran outfielder Rob Refsnyder, and left field/DH Masataka Yoshida. Refsnyder is hitting well in a reserve role, Anthony is doing well in his first few big league weeks, and Yoshida is signed through 2027.
At first base, though, where they infamously failed to talk Devers into playing, they’re currently rolling mostly with Abraham Toro, a switch-hitter who is batting .277/.325/.418. Any GM who’s actually serious about improving his team at the deadline – which isn’t all GMs, as we know from the Mike Elias experience – would have to look at O’Hearn as helping to secure a wild card spot.
Uninformed guess about trade return: O’Hearn for left-handed pitching prospect Hayden Mullins. If you don’t appreciate my attempt at keeping a Mullins in the system, let’s say righty pitching prospect Blake Wehunt, who is 6’7” and Elias probably likes.
Cardinals
St. Louis is doing fairly well at first base, where it has Willson Contreras, who is OPSing .760 for the season. That’s much lower than O’Hearn, but not bad enough that they’ve got to do something about it. At DH, they’ve struggled for the season, though lately have landed on a 25-year-old named Iván Herrera, who is doing very well, hitting .313/.383/.506 in 46 games.
Herrera is also a catcher, so perhaps the Cardinals might want to play him more there, play not-hitting Pedro Pages less, and improve at DH. I think this is not one of the stronger fits for O’Hearn, despite the Cardinals rating 21st in MLB in wOBA out of the DH spot so far this season.
Padres
San Diego is getting star-level play from Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado yet still has a well-below-average offense for the season. There are more egregious problems for them than first base (their catchers are very bad) but it’s not part of their solution either. They’ve got Luis Arráez and his .709 OPS at first base and a variety of bad lefty batters on the bench.
Gavin Sheets, the son of former Oriole Larry, is doing well enough as a 1B/DH/LF kind of guy who bats lefty, so maybe they don’t really need O’Hearn all that much. Too bad.
Reds
Cincinnati went into this season playing Christian Encarnacion-Strand (.610 OPS) at first base, who has been replaced by Spencer Steer. The righty-batting Steer is hitting .249/.308/.398 in 92 games. Get yourself some O’Hearn, Reds! Never mind that it wouldn’t even work as a platoon with Steer because he’s been stinking against lefties.
Two regular outfielders are spending a lot of time at designated hitter. One of these is former Oriole Austin Hays, who, when not injured, has mustered an .877 OPS. He is a lot cheaper than Tyler O’Neill, it must be said. The Reds have also had Gavin Lux doing a good bit of DHing. Lux is not meeting the moment for serving as a DH as he is sitting on a .725 OPS for the season. Uninformed guess about trade return: O’Hearn for righty pitching prospects Luis Mey and Zach Maxwell.
Rangers
Texas has been without its intended designated hitter, Joc Pederson, since mid-May. He suffered a hand fracture. As best I can tell, he’s not even going to be getting back to taking batting practice until around the trade deadline. He was very bad before getting hurt, OPSing just .507 in 46 games. Nobody who has filled in for him has been getting the job done.
They’ve also got first base problems, with their primary 1B being Jake Burger. This 29-year-old righty was already demoted to Triple-A once during the season and is sporting a .659 OPS through 75 games played. Burger is currently on the IL, though as best I can tell, that’s expected to be a short-term injury. O’Hearn’s a clear fit here on performance alone.
Uninformed guess about trade return: O’Hearn for righty pitching prospects Marc Church and Izack Tiger.
**
Please trade the Orioles a potentially decent pitching prospect for Ryan O’Hearn. Thanks! An unambiguously good prospect would be fine too, obviously, I’m just not kidding myself that two months of O’Hearn is worth that, no matter how dire a team’s need at 1B or DH.