Trading away six guys in one day means you need to call up six guys to replace them.
The core of the Orioles roster was untouched by Thursday’s trade activity. Everyone will still recognize this team. At the same time, the trades caused a lot of upheaval. Just on Thursday, the Orioles traded two infielders, two outfielders, a starting pitcher, and a reliever. That’s added to the three relievers who were traded earlier in July. The roster moves announced ahead of Friday’s game against the Cubs brought in a number of different faces, of whom some are familiar and others are not.
Some of the moves were made on Thursday. The Orioles placed Zach Eflin on the injured list with a recurrence of his lower back injury, effectively ruling him out as a trade candidate, and recalled starting pitcher Brandon Young. The team also recalled infielder Jeremiah Jackson and righty reliever Yaramil Hiraldo. Typically, these two players would have had to have a minimum 10 day stay in the minors, but that rule doesn’t apply if replacing a traded player.
Before the Friday afternoon game, the Orioles also announced these roster moves:
- IF Luis Vázquez recalled
- OF Jordyn Adams contract selected
- IF/OF Terrin Vavra contract selected
I think it’s a real insult to Orioles fans that prospect Dylan Beavers is not among these call-ups. I should be used to this from Mike Elias by now, yet I’m still surprised in this instance. It’s absurd to have traded away two outfielders and replace neither one with an age-23 outfielder (he’ll be 24 in ten days) who is batting .304/.414/.502 across 83 games for Triple-A Norfolk this season. Beavers has to go on the 40-man roster this offseason, so it’s not like this is jumping the gun for that.
Give Beavers the chance because the Orioles need to know if he’s going to be able to be a major league contributor or not. And not that Elias cares about this at all, but O’s fans deserve to have at least one real prospect get a chance over the last two months so that this massive sell-off doesn’t just open holes for a bunch of retreads who don’t deserve to be in MLB again. In essence, the Orioles have chosen Vavra over playing Beavers. That’s an absolute joke. Find out if the guy can play when the in-season stakes are zeroed out.
It’s a different kind of insult to not see Samuel Basallo here. At least that one is one that I can understand. A player with his hitting talent should hopefully have a decent chance of competing to be Rookie of the Year over a full season next year. Doing that means waiting to call him up until after he will maintain rookie eligibility for 2026.
I think we’ll see Basallo at the end of the month. Hopefully we see Beavers around then as well. Until then, we get Vavra and we get more Alex Jackson – who, to be fair, has been a fun story with his “all hits are extra-base hits” streak.
As for the other players: Vázquez is mostly notable for having been pressed into service as an emergency pitcher three separate times, and he’s still got a 0.00 ERA after 3.1 innings. Jackson is a guy who I’m hoping gets an extended look over the last couple of months, not so much because I think he’ll be good as he’s earned the chance and the Orioles should be giving guys chances. Vavra, we know.
There might be one more roster move still before game time. The least consequential trade that the Orioles made yesterday was acquiring pitcher Dietrich Enns from the Tigers for cash considerations. Enns, a 34-year-old lefty, pitched in Japan and Korea over the last few years. He had a 5.60 ERA in seven games with Detroit this year and was doing fairly well with their Triple-A team before that. He may not stay for long, depending on when the Orioles plan to activate Cade Povich.