Does Orioles First Significant Trade Mean They Will Be Deadline Sellers?

The 2025 MLB trade deadline is fast approaching and the Baltimore Orioles just made their first significant trade of the season. Is this a sign of things to come?

Early on Thursday morning, Robert Murray of FanSided broke the news that the Orioles would be shipping reliever Bryan Baker to the Tampa Bay Rays.

The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal then clarified that Baltimore would be receiving the No. 37 overall pick in this Sunday's draft.

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This is a confusing trade to parse through. On the surface, it appears that the Orioles may have given up on the season as they just traded away a solid reliever.

However, that is a very rich price to pay for the Rays, so this could have just been a spot where Baltimore just couldn't say no.

Baker is under team control through the 2028 season, which will carry him through the rest of his prime years.

The 30-year-old has posted a 3.52 ERA with a 1.096 WHIP and 49 strikeouts in 38.1 innings. He's a very solid reliever, but it's hard to pass up on another first round pick.

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This deal does seem to lean towards the Orioles having their eyes on the future. They now have the Nos. 19, 30, 31 and 37 selections before the second round of the draft. They also now have the most bonus pool money of the draft at $19.1 million.

Through 90 games, they sit with a 40-50 record. That puts them 12.5 games back in a competitive AL East and seven games out of an AL Wild Card spot.

While they could still fight back into Wild Card contention, the injury situations only continue to get worse, and their already abysmal pitching staff just lost one of the only steady guys.

With so much draft capital, a struggling roster and an interim manager, now seems like the time for them to start looking towards the future.

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Players that for sure are now on trade watch include designated hitter Ryan O'Hearn, outfielder Cedric Mullins and a number of different pitchers.

O'Hearn and Mullins are headed to free agency either way next season and would be two of the best bats available on the market.

Charlie Morton, Zach Eflin, Seranthony Dominguez and Gregory Soto are among the pitchers on trade watch as they are also headed to free agency after the year is over.

Even guys with more than one season of team control like Felix Bautista and Ryan Mountcastle have been brought up in trade conversations.

The next few weeks just got a whole lot more interesting for Baltimore, even with the team not playing great baseball.

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