Baltimore Orioles: Consider the farm sold

If you thought the Baltimore Orioles weren’t going to do anything at the trade deadline, you were wrong. Starter Kevin Gausman and reliever Darren O’Day were traded to the Atlanta Braves in a deal that broke at approximately 3:15 PM. Just about 40 minutes later (just prior to the 4 PM deadline), second baseman Jonathan Schoop was dealt to the Milwaukee Brewers.

Let’s go trade by trade in terms of the return. For Gausman and O’Day, the Birds got RHP Evan Phillips, INF Jean Carlos Encarnacion, C Brett Cumberland, and LHP Bruce Zimmerman. They also received international signing bonus slots.

In return for Schoop, the O’s got RHP Luis Ortiz, INF Jean Carmona, and INF Jonathan Villar – the latter of which was previously on the DL and about to come off. Villar of course has been at the big league level with Milwaukee, and Houston before that. He’s under team control until 2021.

Regarding whether or not this was good return, that will have to remain to be seen. The Orioles didn’t get any top prospects per se in these trades. However they did get a big league infielder. Villar’s spent time both at short and second base. I suspect he’ll slide into the starting lineup as the second baseman in lieu of Schoop.

They also got international bonus slot money, which can’t be shoved under the rug. Ultimately, the Orioles saved about $30-$35 million in salary money between the rest of this year and next year. That’s a lot in savings. Now they have to hope that some of the prospects that have been acquired in the past couple of weeks hurry up and get to the big leagues. And that they’re good at their trades. Because that’s the true judgement of any trade – if it works out or not.