The Baltimore Orioles have started to string together a couple of wins, but it’s likely too late for them to really turn their season around.
After planning to compete for a World Series title before the year and expecting to be buyers at the deadline, it’s beginning to look like they don’t have a choice but to become sellers.
Bob Nightengale of USA Today believes that they have some valuable pieces, as he listed three Orioles relievers among the top bullpen targets at this year’s deadline.
There was a lot of excitement around the return of Bautista after he was lost for all of last season due to Tommy John surgery. But he has not lived up to expectations.
The 29-year-old has a 3.78 ERA, 1.260 WHIP and 10.3 K/9 which is a career-worst statline across the board. He still has sky high potential, which is why they should still think about trading him.
Bautista still has another year of team control after this, giving whichever team wants him a longer term answer in the bullpen.
Baltimore would still likely want to compete next year, so they might not want to deal him. It would be a good idea to move him while he is still riding some of the hype from before his injury.
The Orioles added Soto last year from the Philadelphia Phillies and gave up two prospects in Seth Johnson and Moises Chace. It was a big swing that hasn’t worked out.
In 45 appearances for Baltimore, he has a 4.75 ERA with a 1.500 WHIP. Still, he’s a high-strikeout southpaw reliever, so they won’t have to worry about there being a market for him.
He does have a 3.01 WHIP and his Stuff+ numbers are about the same. They won’t get the same value back that they gave up, but they should be able to get a nice prospect from a contender.
Dominguez was the other Phillies reliever that they brought in at the last trade deadline and things have gone even worse for him.
He has a 5.68 ERA with a 1.526 WHIP. What’s really bad is that he has 13 walks in 19 innings of work. If someone could figure out what has changed to cause that, he really wouldn’t be having that bad of a season.
His four-seam fastball has had worse results than before while maintaining velocity.
Similar to Soto, they could get at least one solid prospect for him.
