The Orioles' latest win-later trade, and its impact on the club's more immediate concerns.
Trading Cole Sulser and Tanner Scott days before the season is... very Orioles. Here's where my mind went when I saw what they did.
A week out from the Orioles’ home opener, allow me to share my first memory of one. It was 2010, my sophomore year at Loyola, and the Orioles had been on the road before coming home to face Toronto.
Free agent Mike Gonzalez was the Orioles’ closer that year and had already blown one save and nearly coughed up another lead over three games at Tampa Bay in the opening series, and was booed both upon his introduction and again when he blew a second save of the season in that home opener.
It was a local holiday, the first home game of the season, but it was also frustrating as hell. So, people booed. And I thought of that when I saw Sunday’s Orioles trade: relievers Tanner Scott and Cole Sulser going to the Miami Marlins for a 2022 first-day draft pick, a player-to-be-named and two prospects (25-year-old left-hander Antonio Velez and 17-year-old outfielder Kevin Guerrero).
No matter how understanding of the Orioles’ rebuild a segment of the fanbase is, there are still many that aren’t, and if the Orioles blow a lead because their bullpen doesn’t hold at the home opener, there might be some hearty boos as well from people who are fed up.
I hope, for the sake of not creating an echo chamber, some such people receive this newsletter. For the vast majority who I assume have been mainlining the “this is a rebuild, this is what happens” takes over the last 12 hours, and even to those who just want this team to be good again, here are the most significant things to consider with this trade.
The value of the compensatory balance pick to the rest of the draft
Only draft picks in the competitive balance rounds can be traded, giving the teams in the smallest markets and who receive revenue sharing an opportunity to use the extra asset as they wish. In the Marlins’ case, a pick after the second round didn’t feel as valuable as two legitimate big league relievers, so the Orioles were happy to take it off their hands.
Last year, the first pick in Competitive Balance Round B was No. 64 overall, and came with a $1.05 million slot. A year earlier, it was 61, with a $1.13 million slot. It stands to reason wherever this one lands, likely in the 60s, it will add $1 million or so to a bonus pool that was already going to be the draft’s largest.
Picking first overall and having the top pick in competitive balance round A means the Orioles were already going to have a ton of financial flexibility as it is, and adding another $1 million to this mix could mean several things for their strategy in July.
For starters, it would mean any kind of financial gaming of the bonus pool system – no matter how much they like the player they ultimately take – shouldn’t be in play anymore. The Orioles can just as easily go below-slot with their own competitive balance pick (likely No. 32 overall) or the first pick of the second round, which will be six spots later, if they want to capture some savings to give to a later pick.
Because of their recent history with Heston Kjerstad and Colton Cowser, there’s no eliminating that fear in the minds of Orioles fans. It should be reduced by this trade, though, and here’s why.
The Orioles have a lot of different gameplans of how drafts can go entering the actual event each year. But there are obviously best-case scenarios, and when those don’t play out, they have to pivot. Just because, say, a certain helium high school pitcher they really like in one draft as an over-slot guy doesn’t get to them doesn’t mean it’s bad to end up with a Coby Mayo later. Or just because a certain sophomore-eligible outfielder the entire industry believes you’re locked on goes a pick ahead of you doesn’t mean the draft board is completely blown up, either.
It’s nice to have a lot of bonus pool money to work with after the first round, as the Orioles have seen. But it’s also nice to take as many really good players as possible. The Orioles now have an extra pick and an extra $1 million in bonus pool capacity to that end. Hopefully that overrules any other inclinations they have for this draft in terms of strategy.
Remember the timing of the Richard Bleier trade
It’s easy to throw a blanket over the Orioles trading anyone who is either making any money or, in Sulser’s case, any good, though here we should consider the timing. The most similar to this one of the Mike Elias-era trades is when he dealt left-handed reliever Richard Bleier to these same Marlins for teenage infielder Isaac de Leon.
It was basically a week into the 2020 season, and yes, Bleier was making above the minimum salary in that shortened campaign. But Elias made it seem like with the likes of Scott and Sulser, a right-hander whose split-change was effective against lefties as well, that the Orioles were more than capable of back-filling for Bleier that season and going forward. It was kind of true.
Scott has been mercurial, to say the least, but has undeniable talent in his left arm. He was never going to close for the Orioles, and at some point, his value was going to diminish. Sulser was an effective waiver claim who has been the Orioles’ top reliever the last two seasons. In trading them, it stands to assume the Orioles believe the next level of pitchers they have can be effective enough to fill those leverage roles.
Dillon Tate is an obvious candidate. Bryan Baker fits the waiver claim mold same as Sulser, and perhaps they’re ready to give him a big chance. By virtue of being on the roster, Rule 5 draft protections Felix Bautista and Logan Gillaspie could be candidates based on their big-time stuff. Paul Fry is still around, too.
[Update: I initially forgot Cionel Pérez in this section, but he absolutely warrants mention as well.]
So while the Orioles undoubtedly weakened their bullpen for the coming season, the extent to which that’s the case will only depend on how those left behind perform.
It’s really unfortunate there’s not a lot to evaluate the Orioles’ trades on besides prospect rankings
It would probably be really nice for Elias to have any kind of recent example of a trade of present-day impact on the major league team paying off returns down the road on this major league team, but both Dan Duquette’s high-minors targets in the 2018 teardown trades and the longer-lead prospects Elias acquired have similarly not achieved that goal
That’s not ideal on a lot of levels, but what it’s left is a lot of reasons for people to doubt that any of this is going to work. Of the 2018 team trades, it’s clear the talent going out was far superior to that which came in.
Elias has now traded for nearly two dozen players. About half of them had full-season experience, with right-handers Kyle Bradish and Zach Peek, plus infielders Terrin Vavra, Jahmai Jones, and Tyler Nevin among the highest-rated prospects. Many others were recent international signings by their trading teams and are talented but years away from the big leagues.
This trade is no different, and the lack of tangible results for these trades hurts for several reasons. The former has already been laid out – it would be nice for Elias to be able to cite a trade that benefits those who are watching the Orioles every night on MASN or going to the ballpark. But to that end, this trade is another that seems to push their competitive timeline out even further.
If the Orioles decided they wanted to be good in 2023, Scott and Sulser would be relatively cheap, back-end relief options. It’s just hard to sell any kind of short-term gratification with any of this, and maybe that’s because there isn’t going to be any. Maybe this isn’t even the last thing they’ll do to subtract from this year’s club before the season. It’s just hard to understand why that’s still the case.
If the O’s are going to be good in 2023, it will have nothing to do with whether or not Cole Sulser and Tanner Scott pitch in Baltimore or Miami. This is about freeing up two 40-man roster spots at the end of spring training so that two other non-roster players can be added. Developing players like Sulser and Scott should be exactly the kind of thing good orgs do on a regular basis, so trading them ahead of a roster crunch shouldn’t really say much of anything about the club’s competitive timeline.
I was at that Opening Day, too. Miguel Tejada hit a homer. And I remember feeling a little bad for Gonzalez when he got booed coming in...then less bad when he got booed coming out.