The Baltimore Orioles face a daunting task down the stretch as they try to hold off the rest of a loaded AL East.
Their rotation has been adequate so far, but there are a lot of innings still to come. So they added right-hander Jack Flaherty in a trade with the St. Louis Cardinals.
“We need help with the innings load down the stretch,” Orioles general manager Mike Elias said. “We’ve got a lot of young starters that haven’t done this before. We’ve got members of our relief corps that are injured, tired, so we were just looking for pitching help in all shapes and sizes.”
The Orioles hope the 27-year-old Flaherty will provide enough of a boost to help them stay atop the division. It wasn't the biggest move Tuesday by any means, but Baltimore acquired Flaherty without giving up any of the top names in its stellar farm system.
With a low payroll and a wealth of prospects — particularly position players — the Orioles had a chance to be one of baseball’s most aggressive teams at the trade deadline.
“We took some very big swings, and some things came close," Elias said.
One possible target, Dylan Cease of the Chicago White Sox, didn't end up being traded. The New York Mets sent high-priced veterans Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander to Texasand Houston, respectively, and both those pitchers had no-trade clauses that needed to be navigated.
Baltimore ended up with Flaherty. He can become a free agent after this season, but the Orioles did not part with any of their eight prospects ranked in baseball’s top 100 by MLB Pipeline. They gave up infielder César Prieto, left-hander Drew Rom and right-hander Zack Showalter. Prieto is Baltimore’s No. 16 prospect and Rom is No. 18.
“The top of our prospect list is as good as is out there,” Elias said. “It took a long time to get people off of that part of the list."
That's not to say the Orioles wouldn't have traded some of their more highly touted prospects, but they ultimately decided to make a smaller move.
“A lot of teams really fixated on a lot of players that we had that we just didn't feel were appropriate to go in those deals,” Elias said. “That's part of why this went to the last minute for us.”
Flaherty was 7-6 with a 4.43 ERA this year for the Cardinals, who are mired in last place in the NL Central. St. Louis also dealt left-hander Jordan Montgomery to Texas on Sunday.
Flaherty was fifth in the National League Rookie of the Year vote in 2018, and the following year he went 11-8 with a 2.75 ERA for the Cardinals, placing fourth in the Cy Young Award race. His performance has been more ordinary since then, with ERAs over 4.00 in 2020, 2022 and this year.
The Orioles have succeeded this season without any real stars in their rotation. They've been pretty healthy, with the same six pitchers making all but one start, but that means fatigue could be a factor for some of their younger starters. Baltimore recently sent Tyler Wells to the minors to give him a bit of a rest. Flaherty will presumably take that spot in the rotation.
The Orioles have also leaned heavily on Félix Bautista, their outstanding closer, and fellow All-Star reliever Yennier Cano. Baltimore acquired reliever Shintaro Fujinami from Oakland last week but did not add more bullpen help on deadline day.
The 24-year-old Prieto hit .317 in 27 games for Triple-A Norfolk this season, and the 23-year-old Rom went 7-6 with a 5.34 ERA for Norfolk. The 19-year-old Showalter went 0-2 with a 2.37 ERA for Class A Delmarva.
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