Roch Kubatko on the impending trade deadline

Roch Kubatko on the impending trade deadline

We saw Sir Anthony Dominguez moving club houses yesterday as did the counterpart that he was traded for. It doesn’t mean that trade season is over yet though for the Orioles. No, what’s hug season though? The hug watch. Keep an eye if somebody hugs me that means that I’m out of here and I may have to just lose the headset and go. So, we’ll keep an eye on that. Uh, yes, we are getting a lot of trades right now. Uh, and this is what we expected and it’s really improved the pitching here when you look at it. Seven of the top 11 prospects right now are pitchers. So they’ve added some depth in the system and these are some high upside arms and you start with obviously getting the 37th pick from the Rays Slater Debron outfielder but then Soda goes to the Mets. So there Cena who’s 96 99 can top out 101 and Foster double A more polished at this point more advanced. Then you get Giron Watts Brown yesterday for the Blue Jays who just switched clubouses that we had talked about going over to the Chesapeake side. And this is a starter with a 60 grade slider and a fast ball that could be in the mid 90s. So this is an area it seems like they’ve really tackled right now because position players have always been ahead o of the pitching. So you know this is uh uh I think a smart move for Uh-oh. It’s the hug watch. It’s over. I’m going Kevin gets a showing. It is happening. Love you. I’m going over to the Blue Jays broadcast. I think we’re getting Caleb Joseph in return on that one. Oh man, they won that deal. They absolutely did. But you know, the clubhouse is braced for more moves obviously because as far as we know, you know, Charlie Morton, could he be gone? could Zack Efflin Ry O’Harn said he’s kind of soaking everything in right now just in case and Cedric Mullins getting kind of nostalgic a little bit long his tenure oral right now. So, uh there will be more moves and Tony Manscolito is not pretending that it won’t happen. He’s like, you know, we know it’s going to look a lot different and it’s going to be sad, but we’re counting on our kind of core guys to lead and to keep us on the right path because yes, they still want to win games, which is strangely what they’re doing right now. We’ve seen it happen before. I mean, look, it Boston is winning more now that they’ve moved Raphael Devers, which is not what anybody had on the on the odds projections there. Now, you do mention this with guys moving around. This is tough timing in in one particular area. Felix Bautista goes on the injured list and now you’ve moved Sir Anthony Dominguez, Gregory Sodto, Brian Baker, Corbin Martin does get the save, but I don’t think you expect him to be your closer. Uh, you know, we asked Vance Leo last night, was this the plan all along for him to close out the game in game two? And he’s like, “Oh, no. That was not necessarily what we were looking at.” I think a lot of it’s just going to be, you know, matchups, availability, how the game unfolds. You know, Andrew Kitro would be an obvious choice, but he’s like the high leverage eighth inning guy last night and that could happen again. So, it comes back down to okay, who was available and this is a guy Martin who had no saves in the majors and four in the minors over seven minor league seasons. He wasn’t necessarily the obvious choice. I think you saw in your highlight there, George Springer or not George Springer, but Bob Bashette chased a little bit there at the end, a fast ball that was you needed a a butterfly net to get hold, but it worked. So, yeah, they’re going to just going to have to kind of mix and match. You look at the bullpen right now and who you would have thought, you know, would you ever imagine that, you know, Martin Straoud, Elvin Rodriguez, Houston Roth, Grant Wolf, they’re all in the pen right now and they’re going to have to be high leverage guys ready or not. And especially because with Bautista, we don’t know when he’s coming back. So I think, you know, Kitridge makes sense. Canó though he’s got an RA close to five in the ninth inning. Those are a couple guys you would look at. Keegan Aken maybe if they’re lefties coming up, but it is definitely going to be mixing and matching and fingers crossed, which is what happens when you know you’re selling and your bullpen was the targeted area of other teams. Yeah, I I mean they talk about it all the time. It’s the last three outs that are the hardest for for mental and other reasons to get through here. So, it it is interesting and we touch on Felix, but we know we’re this is not the only team that is having an exceptional year on the injury list department. And so, we’ve seen some updates, some guys who are finally starting to make that progress through some rehab appearances, maybe a light at the end of the tunnel, especially for the rotation. Yeah, for some, not for Felix because, you know, there’s so much swelling in the shoulder right now that they’re going to have to wait a couple weeks to take another MRI on that. So, we’re talking, you know, weeks, not days before we even know what the problem is there. So, that’s kind of the negative there. But then there are some some encouragements here. You know, Tyler Wells, as we speak, is pitching a double A Chesapeake right now on his first rehab assignment. Kyle Bradish was there last night, his second one, he did Aberdine once and now Chesapeake and he had, you know, three and two/3 scoreless. So, he’s trending really well right now. And more importantly than the numbers is obviously how you feeling, how you recovering. And Ry Mal Castle, I mean, those numbers don’t matter maybe, but he did another three-run homer at Norfark last night. Uh, and he’s doing really, really well. And their plan here, he’s eligible to come off that 60-day IIL today, but they’re going to probably wait till the team is in Philly, give or take a day, next week. So, he’ll be back and that’s a guy again, if this team still wants to be competitive, you want, you know, a healthy Ryan Mountle in the lineup to see if he can get hot. Grayson Rodriguez, you know, they have don’t have any updates on that. and it’s the elbow. Of course, he’s getting multiple opinions on it and that’s never necessarily a good thing when you want more than one opinion. So, he’s kind of on hold right now waiting what’s going to happen with him. But, there are some guys coming back. This roster is going to keep changing, not just because of guys traded, but guys coming back and we’ll see if that kind of balances out a little bit. You lose a couple starters, maybe you get back a couple starters. Maybe Tyler Wells is your closer. We’ll find out. as we were kind of discussing that yesterday is it almost does carve out the fact that you need him there and we’ve seen him do it before. I mean, he’s been one of the best for the O’s. All right, Rock. Uh, no more hugs for you, at least for right now. We’ll let you get out of here while you’re still intact. Thank you.

There’s just one game left before the trade deadline, and the O’s could be very active in the next 48 hours.

Roch Kubatko joins “O’s Xtra” to discuss.

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