The more the Orioles trade their stars away now, the more comfortable they'll be continuing it. So what will the impending competitive window actually look like?

Jorge Lopez's deadline day trade to the Twins was another in which the Orioles decided to trade a player while his value was highest and prioritized a longer-term return.

This time last year, there would have been thousands of volunteers to drive Jorge López to the airport in the event the Orioles traded him. His trade Tuesday to the Minnesota Twins warranted a different reaction, mostly because he’s turned himself into an All-Star reliever and is two-plus seasons away from free agency, but also for where the position these Orioles are trading from.

For years, trades like this and yesterday’s Trey Mancini trade were pitched to the Orioles as fuel for a long-term, sustainable contender. These are, even if many of the predecessors were not. They spent many of those years in the big league wilderness, spinning their tires in the mud.

Now, with basically no credit given to the trades of the last three years, they’ve made it back to civilization, only to get bogged down in a mud pit nearer to the side of the road. They’re close to joining up with the traffic, but keep getting pulled back at the last second.

It’s time for anyone who hasn’t to accept the fact that trades like this are going to be occurring every summer and every winter from here on out, whether the Orioles’ ownership group allows Mike Elias to spend or not, whether all their prospects pan out or not, and whether this team is in first place or fourth come deadline time.

That’s what Elias meant Monday when he said “the organization is going to have to do business in a manner that is more balancing of the present and future than perhaps it had in the past.” Here is what that could look like in the next few years, theoretically.

For starters, Anthony Santander and his third-year arbitration salary aren’t on this team come Opening Day. Then begin the rumblings of how Cedric Mullins and Austin Hays and a healthy-again John Means are at their most valuable to acquiring clubs come the summer of 2023, and Ryan Mountcastle starts getting expensive in 2024, and the cycle continues.

The Orioles trading Trey Mancini was hard enough. Talking about it the same way as the three years of rebuilding trades doesn't help.

The playoff window that this current group has pried open might finally be opening, but is it ever going to be open wide enough for the current generation of players and the one set to join Adley Rutschman in the majors — Gunnar Henderson, Kyle Stowers, Jordan Westburg, and before long Colton Cowser and Heston Kjerstad then Jackson Holliday — to fit into that window at the same time?

There are many more examples of teams in smaller markets and without ownership groups willing to spend big on player salary of cycling players out before they get too pricey and while their value to bigger, more flexible clubs is at its highest. With that in mind, it’s hard to imagine anyone named in the last two paragraphs reaching free agency with the Orioles.

Even when (if?) they’re on a 90-something win pace come deadline time, those moves will probably still be considered, if not made. The only hope is that they’re made in concert with some moves to add younger, more controllable major league talent to at least sustain where the Orioles are.

Which brings us back to this week: the Orioles got rid of two players who were meaningful contributors to the 2022 club, acquired a half-dozen intriguing, bat-missing pitching prospects who likely are at least two years away from the big leagues at most, and brought in a bench outfielder in Brett Phillips whose role on the club is in question.

Inside the adjustment that helped Orioles infield prospect Joey Ortiz become "a dude" at Bowie

They also notably did nothing to create an opportunity for any of their top prospects to come up and get blooded in the big leagues, most notably Stowers. It’s hard to envision, absent an injury, the Orioles finding an occasion to add Henderson or Westburg to the roster this summer. Having Terrin Vavra and Yusniel Diaz in the fold is nice, but can only serve to at-best keep the club where it is now when the roster that remains in place after Tuesday’s deadline seems primed for more.

The players are doing what they’re supposed to and trying to win despite a trade deadline that freshly-minted Formula 1 fans like myself can say is analogous to Ferrari’s race strategy — never putting the car in the best position to succeed despite seeming poised to do so.

The most charitable view is that by keeping Santander and Jordan Lyles, Elias did strike the balance he said they’d be seeking between the present and the future. Simply not doing everything possible to hurt the future is not the same as actively helping it, though, so until that balance is weighted with the eventual debuts of prospects who will help fans forget what a pleasant week this is, all they’ll have left to do is…watch a winning baseball team.