Not that I’d do either, or think the team would do either, but if you’re trading a bunch of prospects, it makes the most sense to do it for Skenes so you have a lot more team control. Though Skenes also likely costs you MLB players as well.
Agreed. With the amount of control they’d still have, no question it’d probably take a haul unlike we’ve ever seen for Pittsburgh to part with him.
That'd be a disappointment getting him over one of the main two guys that were out there but that would definitely be an Elias type move since he doesn't like to offer long contracts to pitchers.
If Elias wanted to sign Suarez or Valdez the club would have already done that. Move on to the next tier. Elias was willing to pay a bat for 5 years but not a pitcher. Pretty telling really.
I feel like he would’ve gone four for Ranger but not going to five is why he went to Boston. Elias has always valued bats more but doesn’t realize (or just doesn’t care) that to get top tier pitching, you’re going to probably go a little more with the AAV and/or years than you’re comfortable with to get them.
With the Twins in disarray right now, I wonder if they'd be interested in trading either Joe Ryan or Pablo Lopez. Ryan would come with multiple years of control at around $13.5 million a year I believe. The only problem with trading Bradfield is that we'll still have to be looking for a CF next season since Ward will likely be gone and I'm sure they'd put Cowser back at his natural position in left. If we can obtain a CF somehow, I'd be interested. I think in a trade, we'd have to trade one of either Mountcastle or Mayo since there's no point in going into this season with three first basemen. I'd prefer trading Mountcastle over Mayo at the moment because at least Mayo is able to play more than just first.
Parting with a major leaguer would be fine though since we have a surplus of first basemen to choose from that aren’t going to see a lot of playing time. I saw someone do a mock trade where we would trade for Joe Ryan, which is a guy I’d love to have. It'd involve trading Mayo, Bateman, Gibson and a minor leaguer ranked between 25-30.
The one I found was a guy on YouTube named Jim Riley who was talking about the turmoil with the Twins and did the mock of Mayo, Bateman, Trey Gibson and a prospect that’s ranked around 25-30 for Joe Ryan. He didn’t list the values but he has for other players in previous videos a while back I remember. I’d try to do the trade on that website but don’t really feel like spending the $25-$50 to do that.The problem is that the two 1B guys that the Orioles can spare also happen to not have much trade value: Mountcastle is recently rated at negative 4.4M by BaseballTradeValues.com, while Mayo's value is now down to 8.9M (hence the "emptying the farm" comment). For example, here's the only recent mock trade involving Joe Ryan that I could find:
- The Twins offer: Byron Buxton OF (35.1M), Joe Ryan SP (51.7M), total 86.8M
- The Orioles offer: Dylan Beavers OF (33.4M), Round A Comp Balance Pick (5M), Luis De Leon SP (13.2M), Esteban Mejia SP (16.8M), Trey Gibson SP (15.2M), total 83.6M
This specific hypothetical trade proposal was understandably downvoted as "bad for both teams," though:
- It would be unfair for the Twins from a dollar value standpoint anyway-- and assuming that the Round A Comp Balance Pick listed here was the one already used in the trade for Baz, the Orioles would be 8.2 million short and thus need to include another prospect (unless the Twins are willing to take Mayo, or maybe Povich who's rated at 13M).
- For the Orioles, parting with Beavers and Gibson might be difficult. (Obviously you could also drop Buxton and Beavers from this proposed trade-- but I don't know if something like "Ryan for De Leon + Mejia + Gibson + Povich" would be considered acceptable either.)
Interestingly enough, the Orioles have now acquired Blaze Alexander for Kade Strowd (40 FV in 2025) + Welling Aracena (45 FV in 2025) + José Mejía (not ranked by Fangraphs as of 2025). This suggests that Alexander is probably backing up 2B/SS (which Jeremiah Jackson has played in the minors, but not really at the major league level), plus that this theoretically allows the Orioles to flip Jackson Holliday or Jordan Westburg for a pitcher as a last resort?
