What Prospects Can Fill Potential Openings for Orioles After MLB Trade Deadline?

Originally posted on Athlon Sports | By Joe Rutland | Last updated Jul 9, 2025 12:00 PM ET

As the season rolls along for the Baltimore Orioles, there's a solid chance that the team will be sellers at the MLB trade deadline. Baltimore has players like Ryan O'Hearn and Zach Eflin who could get moved for prospects.

With that said, if it does happen, then who comes up to fill the void? The team does have some options, but let's take a closer look at who might get pushed off the team.

O'Hearn has been a solid producer at first base. His strategic at-bats and fielding work might be something teams in need of help can get. Eflin, Charlie Morton and Tomoyuki Sugano are all right-handers that can help some contender making a postseason push.

Now, when it comes to replacing them, who does Baltimore have in its system ready to make the leap? Andrea Arcadipane of The Athletic offers up some suggestions. The Orioles' top pitching prospect is right-hander Chayce McDermott, who is the team's overall No. 3 prospect.

Orioles prospect Chayce McDermott could join starting rotation

McDermott has seen some Major League action already. His three-pitch arsenal of a fastball, slider and changeup is quite a menu to have at the stage of his career.

Chayce McDermott had a solid start tonight and exited as the winning pitcher of record:

5.0 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 4 BB, 4 SO, 1 GIDP
93 pitches, 55 strikes pic.twitter.com/h6OJIrNHLy
— Norfolk Tides (@NorfolkTides) June 22, 2025

But McDermott's downside comes into play when looking at his control. He'll need to improve this part of his game to make a statement for Baltimore.

Cameron Weston, who has been a starting pitcher at Triple-A, offers up a fastball, slider, changeup, splitter and cutter. He's not seen MLB action yet, but the Orioles could find a spot for him as they roll toward the end of this down season.

Should O'Hearn get shipped out, a couple of players to keep an eye on are Coby Mayo and Heston Kjerstad. Mayo has in-the-field abilities, but he's not been impressive at all at the plate. With 82 plate appearances in MLB this season, Mayo has a .584 OPS, 26% strikeout rate and a 7% walk rate. Those numbers are not going to bring any excitement to Orioles fans.

What about Kjerstad? In 167 plate appearances for Baltimore this season, he's put together a .567 OPS, 27% strikeout rate and a 4% walk rate. Well, Baltimore fans aren't going to be jumping for joy with those statistics. Arcadipane suggests that the Orioles could platoon both players at first base in the season's later months.

All in all, Baltimore can move along from veteran players if it chooses to do so. Can these potential replacement players actually move the needle this season and get the Orioles at least into the postseason chatter? Probably not.

Any moves at the trade deadline probably will be viewed as simply putting stop-gap measures into place. Baltimore has a lot of work to do when this season ends.

This article first appeared on Athlon Sports and was syndicated with permission.

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