Four questions that will define the Orioles' second half
The .500 Orioles begin a crucible of a second half this weekend against the Yankees. Whether they keep up their recent form or not, I'll be looking for the answers to these four questions.
The Orioles will presumably have the occasion on the upcoming homestand to introduce top pick Jackson Holliday to the crowd at Camden Yards before sending him off to Sarasota to begin his professional career.
They’ll also, in a much less expected development, host a pair of series against division rivals that mean something to them as opposed to just the visitors.
These are heady times when it comes to the Orioles, and it’s been a while since they got to this point in a full season with anything other than player development goals and pride fueling them.
At .500 coming out of the break, the Orioles are in a position where any continuation of their July surge could make them the most surprising playoff contender in recent memory. Even if they don’t reach those lofty heights, it’s still a massive improvement over the 100-loss seasons of the recent past.
Which of those two outcomes they ultimately live out will have a lot to do with the answers to these four questions, which will either directly impact which direction they go or significantly drive their direction into the offseason.
Who will be on the team in two weeks?
This is an obvious question to ask in mid-July with the trade deadline looming, but where the Orioles are concerned the possibility of trading players is balanced by the potential for adding exciting ones from the farm around the same time.
The Aug. 2 deadline will be a tense one for many in the Orioles clubhouse, to say nothing of those who care about them, since for the first time in years a real case can be made that this team shouldn’t be stripped of its veterans in favor of prospects.
All-Star Jorge Lopez and outfielder Anthony Santander, each with two years of club control, could fetch attractive hauls. Pending free agents Trey Mancini (who has a mutual option), Jordan Lyles (on whom the club holds an option), plus Rougned Odor and Robinson Chirinos are the types who haven’t often survived trade deadlines since Elias took over.
A negligible return, however, wouldn’t make even a trade for someone two months from leaving town worth it in this situation. Elias might be right to ask for the moon in these talks, and if he gets it, all the better. But if not, they should just hold the course — even if it impacts the other half of this equation.
There are the potential for several prospects to join the Orioles in a full-time capacity and further add young talent to their overperforming club, with outfielder Kyle Stowers and left-hander DL Hall performing well at Norfolk. So too are infielders Gunnar Henderson and Jordan Westburg, though their debuts would be a little more surprising.
Others on the farm are worth thinking about as well. Are we going to see Matt Harvey pitch for the Orioles again? Is Kyle Bradish going to get his rotation spot back? Is it going to be worth hurrying Grayson Rodriguez back from his lat strain to pitch for the club in September?
The Orioles could look a lot different in a few weeks. Whether that’s a good thing, bad thing, or somewhere in between probably has a lot to do with how the next week goes.
Can they hold up inside the division as well as they did out of it?
The next week, with the Orioles exiting the All-Star break to host three games against the Yankees and four against the Tampa Bay Rays, will certainly make whatever the front office wants to do at the deadline more clear. The club battled back to .500 while getting fat on out-of-division teams who aren’t as good as their AL East peers, and the Orioles lost two of three to the Rays before the break to kick off a stretch of 23 of their next 33 games inside the division.
They have a miserable schedule the rest of the way, not to mention seven games against Houston. But it’s the division games the Orioles will be truly measuring themselves by. If they’re able to tread water and play around .500 ball against their division foes — they entered the break at 16-21 in the division for a .432 winning percentage — and continue to win series outside of it, this team has a chance to be playing meaningful baseball in September.
If they don’t, there’s not really a path to that goal. And while it’s not necessarily a real goal to simply not be playing out the string at the end of the season, it would represent a solid step in the direction the Orioles want to go.
Will staying in the playoff race have the desired long-term consequences?
How solid a step? It’s hard to really know. I doubt every homestand will be like the last one before the break, where the ballpark was packed and full of energy, but two-plus months of that supporting a surprising playoff contender could not only change the perception others have of the Orioles but perhaps also the one they have of themselves.
There’s likely going to be a level of understanding among the fanbase and those who follow the club if there aren’t any win-now moves made to help the Orioles chase a playoff spot. But if the team keeps playing well despite that, it will be a little less defensible to watch what will have amounted to five-plus months of competitive baseball and not decide to invest in the roster and make it as good as it can be.
Increased attendance from a good team should add resources to put back into the club, even if revenue sharing and national television contract money are already delivered to the Orioles annually for that purpose. Cost certainty from having so many young players should allow them some payroll flexibility as well. The areas where the Orioles are deficient grow fewer by the year, it seems, and making more signings like Lyles than Odor can be a good use of resources.
I guess the question is whether the Orioles playing well, should it continue, will actually mean anything. They have such a talented core both in the majors and the high minors waiting to join it that one feels like it should. Then again, the point of rebuilding is to avoid being a club in the middle, so if the front office doesn’t think the team can compete with the top teams in its division, it’s no given they’ll build on what’s happened this summer.
How many prospects ultimately graduate?
One of the most significant factors as to how good the Orioles are the rest of the season probably has something to do with the answer to this question. Elias said entering the season there could be as many as five or six prospect graduations this season, meaning they exhausted their rookie status, and the Orioles are a little behind that pace right now.
I’m not sure if Félix Bautista or Tyler Nevin were the kinds of graduations he meant, but if so, then the Orioles are well on their way. If we’re keeping it as a high threshold of top-10 types, Bradish is close to joining Adley Rutschman as graduating off their prospect list this year, and it stands to reason Rodriguez would be well on his way were it not for his injury. Stowers debuted as a COVID replacement but hasn’t been up since for lack of an everyday opportunity, and Hall remains in Triple-A despite uncommonly impressive stats at the level.
It seems like Hall and Stowers could end up with significant roles in the second half and end up graduating, and adding the missed opportunity for Rodriguez would get to the five that were forecast — unless the Orioles add someone like Henderson or Westburg to their infield and really try to field the most talented team possible in the second half.
The W/L record over the next few weeks will tell us all a lot about where they’re going this year.
Jon, do you think the front office has already chosen a firm direction and will execute the plan regardless of their record, or will the team’s play over these few weeks leave give them options to consider?
To me, it seems like if they falter a bit and maybe have a 2-8 kind of stretch over the next ten games they’ll be more likely to trade a player like Trey. Or if they’re playing well, perhaps they keep him?
I expect that no matter what happens, Santander is likely traded. They’re going to want to give Stowers those at-bats if I had to guess.
But perhaps if the team plays well, they’ll keep Trey and Lopez.
I’d love to see them grab a middle-of-the-rotation starter with some controllable years. They don’t need to be in win now mode, but teams will be selling off some interesting pieces that could help the O’s over the next few years, not just the last two months of this season.