Ok so heres the second post on trade deadline needs, this time for the Orioles instead of the Jays. As of now the Orioles have been more or less cruising, they haven't really gone on any amazing tears making an extended winning streak but on the other hand they haven't had any serious losing streaks either keeping them in the running in the AL East however even though that is the case it doesn't mean that they don't have some areas that should be addressed if they plan to continue to compete this year and maybe make the playoffs. The first and most obvious area that the Orioles need to fill is obviously their catcher since Matt Wieters their having elbow surgery and will be out for at least the rest of the season and maybe longer. Now I understand that the Orioles have acquired Nick Hundley to take care of starting catcher duties as of now and he's been doing a good job defensively as he's thrown out a fair number of attempted steals and hasn't made any bad mistakes to date, however he is only hitting .226 and not for much power, which is something that Wieters did provide as he has hit in the range of 20 homers over the last few years. So perhaps a new starting catcher would be good and then move Hundley down to spot starts as a primarily defensive catcher. The next area that Baltimore needs to address is, much like the Jays, their starting rotation, I will go on record saying that its amazing what Buck Showalter has managed to get out of his starters as a good number of them are really average or below average performers according to their career stats (ie. Bud Norris, Miguel Gonzalez, Wei Yin Chen and thats not even getting into Jiminez). Finally the last spot that the Orioles need to look at getting someone to fill in at is 2nd base as they have the same issue there as they have at catcher, they lost Brian Roberts to the Yankees via free agency and he provided good defence and a fair amount of power where as the replacement Johnathan Schoop is, like Hundley, more of a defensive replacement who isn't that quality of a hitter.
Now there in terms of replacements for catcher there isn't all that much out there in terms of catcher so saying that the Orioles should trade for an upgrade there may just be moot so I won't try to argue one way or another there. Their position with Schoop seems to be a more flexible one as there are players like Ben Zobrist who are expected to be on the trade market who would fit into the Orioles lineup rather nicely and given that Zobrist hasn't played spectacularly this year it would make him more affordable for the Orioles without having to give a lot of prospects that they may be attached to. Another potential second base opportunity could be with the Phillies Chase Utley, though I wouldn't put much stock into a trade for Utley though because the Orioles are a smaller market team like the Rays and they are more of a 'build the team around the farm' type organization so expect them to got for a more cheap alternative to Utley. It is possible however that they could make a more for Rickie Weeks of the Milwaukee Brewers, Weeks has been a bit of a thorn in the Brewers side for a few years now after he had a bit of a monster offensive season. After that however he seemed to just fade away and now Gennett has the starting job at second. Now while Weeks may look like he is diminished he has been hitting well as of late and moving him to a more hitter friendly division could help those numbers get back up there and lets not forget that so far the AL East has been pretty weak and all but one of those parks are fairly hitter friendly making it pretty ideal place for someone like Weeks. Then there is another similar situation to Weeks in Dan Uggla, however he would be a bigger gamble than Weeks would be since he is on the wrong end of 30 and has been a bit of a defensive liability as well, though in a hitters park he could potentially do some major damage offensively. The last couple of options that the Orioles have are decent but they are long shots due to who they would have to give up or how much money they would have to commit to the player's already established salary. Those would be the Reds Brandon Phillips, the Cardinals Mark Ellis, the Pirates Neil Walker (though I don't expect them to trade him even if they end up sellers) and the Dodgers Dee Gordon or Alex Guerrerro (though this is dependent on the Dodgers fall close to out of contention and both of these guys performing really well warranting one of them to be moved). Overall I believe that the most likely scenario would be the Orioles moving in on Rickie Weeks since it kind of fits they style of getting cheaper players that would benefit from their hitting situation.
As for pitching there is a large number of problems in the Orioles starting rotation as, like I said before, almost none of them are above average starters. So where do they go to improve it? Well the first is option they have is the most obvious, wait until he is considered better then bring up their other top gun pitching prospect, Dylan Bundy. Now there is no guarantee he will hit the ground running, especially since Gausman had a bit of a stumbling start when he was called up last year. However given that the AL East is not what it was last year it is likely an ideal time to pull him into the majors to not only get him used to who he'll be pitching to in the future but to take advantage of weaker lineups in an attempt to make a playoff push. The other options they have would be all the same ones that I listed with the Jays; David Price, Jeff Samardzija, Jason Hammel and James Shields. Now I could see the Orioles making a a play for any of these starting pitchers though again whether they secure them or not is all going to be based on how many prospects they are willing to give up, for example if they want to supplant 2 of their current starters then they might want to go smaller and snag Jason Hammel back and then call up Bundy, or they could go all out and put together a package, likely including Bundy or Gausman, for Price or Samardzija. Overall given that the Orioles are a more prospect focussed team I would expect them to go for Hammel but they do have experience with him before so they understand better than most whether he would work with their team or not and when you look at the trade market for Samardzija and Price there are only a few teams with the need that have the prospects the Cubs/Rays would be looking for so the Orioles may be able to leverage that into a lesser than normal deal for one of the two. Basically I'm saying that who the Orioles will go after isn't so cut and dry because there are major upsides for all of them and they have the resources to secure any of those starters as well.
There is one last spot that the Orioles seem to be looking at upgrading, and that is in left field as David Lough has been really disappointing. The one team that I see with a perfect fit for that is the Dodgers as they have that major 4 big time outfielders to fill 3 spots so there is potential for a trade there, however if the Orioles were to secure one of with Crawford or Kemp (since Ethier is their only REAL center fielder) the Dodgers would likely have to swallow a lot of their current salary to get him moved. All in all the Orioles have pretty much the same issues the Jays do, with the exception of a few more offensive woes but what they do have over the Jays is a farm system that is still ripe with high end talent making them much more capable of pulling of bigger trades to improve the club.
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