Did Baltimore Orioles Get Fleeced By Philadelphia Phillies at Trade Deadline?
The Baltimore Orioles and Philadelphia Phillies were busy ahead of last week’s trade deadline, especially with each other. While contenders rarely swap players midseason, that didn’t stop these two pennant hopefuls from making a pair of big trades with each other.
In the first one, the Orioles got reliever Seranthony Dominguez and outfielder Cristian Pache in exchange for outfielder Austin Hays. In the second one, Baltimore received another reliever, Gregory Soto, in return for two prospects (Seth Johnson and Moises Chace).
Along with Craig Kimbrel, the Orioles now have three former members of the Phillies’ bullpen, which may not be the best strategy for a team with championship aspirations.
It’s unclear why Baltimore’s front office decided to load up on former Philadelphia relievers, especially when none of them are that good. While they’re all proven veterans with postseason experience, Kimbrel and Soto were dreadful in the Phillies’ NLCS collapse to the Arizona Diamondbacks last year.
Kimbrel has been a disaster for the Orioles this season with six blown saves and may be on the verge of losing his closing job (he was recently used in a non-save situation). Dominguez had a 4.75 ERA before being traded, while Soto has a 4.42 ERA since the beginning of last year.
Meanwhile, Pache has already been DFA’ed by Baltimore, which isn’t surprising. He’s a career .181/.244/.274 hitter with nearly twice as many strikeouts (167) as hits (90).
In return, the Orioles gave up a much better outfielder in Hays, who was an All-Star last year and is a career .261/.314/.433 hitter. They also shipped out a pair of promising young arms in Johnson and Chace. Johnson is now Philadelphia’s No. 10 prospect according to MLB Pipeline, while Chace slots in as its No. 25 prospect.
Now that the dust has settled, it looks like Dave Dombrowski got the best of Mike Elias, who seems to have overpaid for Trevor Rogers as well. Hopefully these moves don’t come back to haunt Baltimore in October, especially if it faces the Phillies in the World Series.