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 Coby Mayo’s future with the Orioles:
“He had, I think, a very successful stretch run last year, he looked really good and is in a really good spot. And there is still a lot of playing time available for him on a team that has Pete Alonso now. We have first base reps, we have designated hitter reps, as you mentioned, and the exploration of other positions — whether it’s third or something in the corner outfield — has been something we’ve always talked about with him. So the path remains open for him.”
If Baz can be as successful as Trevor Rogers:
“First of all, we’ve got an excellent pitching coach in Drew French and the staff that he has around them, too — Mitch Plassmeyer, Ryan Klimek, Forrest Herrmann and Hank Conger is going to be joining the effort now. We have a lot of people that we really trust to coach up the pitchers. I think Trevor was a big success story for those guys and the strength and conditioning team and all that. We involved Drew and the pitching coaches in the scouting process, especially before a major trade like this, and they’re really eager to work with Shane. He checks a lot of scouting boxes that we look for from a human scouting standpoint but also on the analytical side. I think he’s going to work really well with our program and our pitching coaches.”
On how the Grayson Rodriguez trade set up this one:
“I think I had to hope that we would find a trade like this, but it’s very hard to hang your hat on that happening. The availability of these kind of guys is fleeting, and then you have to line up on trade. We knew we’d be out in the market for starting pitching, that was something that we were very confident in. And, yeah, this is a trade that’s going to benefit us for years with Shane, but 2026 and 2027, the first couple of years, they’re a big part of that equation. If we’re bringing him in to help the team, and then in the trade return, we’re losing other parts of the team, it definitely takes away from the logic. Not saying it’s impossible to do a trade like that and maybe we do something later, but in our view, we were willing to put a lot of value on the table given that it was a few years off, in our eyes, from impacting the 2026 scene.”
On whether 2025 draft picks would be included in a trade:
“I think it was always possible. I think we talked about it last year when we sold at the trade deadline that even though some of those players are in the lower minors, you can trade them to help in the near term, or they help populate your farm system and make you feel better about trading other players. I think that was the case here. Slater de Brun, who we’re very high on, we only had him because of the pick that we got from Tampa in the Bryan Baker trade, and the Caden Bodine pick was something that we got from a qualifying offer free agent leaving. There are ways that getting these players, these draft picks, players from prior trades can benefit your team in the near team, and I think this was an example of that.
On trading with Tampa Bay:
“I have a tremendous amount of respect for Erik Neander and the staff there and the way they do things and the organization that they’ve built. They always have a ton of talent, so that makes you end up talking to them quite a bit. And I think that we respectively understand the difficulty of our division and the need to kind of make moves and be creative to keep your team in mix. We find ourselves talking to them a lot. I think we see players kind of similarly, so it helps us line up on things. And I think we speak similar languages, and we have a good working relationship with those guys.”
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