{"id":559406,"date":"2026-02-07T10:16:53","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T10:16:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/559406\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T10:16:53","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T10:16:53","slug":"orioles-news-blaze-alexander-acquired-for-kade-strowd-and-minor-leaguers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/559406\/","title":{"rendered":"Orioles news: Blaze Alexander acquired for Kade Strowd and minor leaguers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Orioles responded to missing out on starting pitcher Framber Valdez by trading for yet another right-handed hitter who can\u2019t be optioned freely to the minors. MLB.com\u2019s Steve Gilbert was first to report<\/a> that the Orioles are swapping Kade Strowd to the Diamondbacks for Blaze Alexander. A pair of minor leaguers are also going to Arizona, reported by Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic<\/a>: pitcher Wellington Aracena and infielder Jos\u00e9 Mej\u00eda.<\/p>\n

Blaze Alexander has a cool first name and not very cool just about anything else. He\u2019s now played in 135 big league games across two seasons and batted .237\/.322\/.366 in that time. He hit slightly better in 2025, getting the OPS over .700 though still counting as a below-average hitter, and provided enough defensive value across four different positions (mostly third base) that he was worth 1.7 bWAR in 74 games.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not bad. That\u2019s basically your Ram\u00f3n Ur\u00edas replacement. One might fairly observe that the Orioles could have just kept Ur\u00edas and then not had to trade Strowd plus other guys in order to get Alexander. I don\u2019t get paid to run a baseball team, so what do I know?<\/p>\n

Strowd, 28, made a solid impression with the Orioles in the back half of last season, allowing a 1.71 ERA and 1.101 WHIP across 25 games. There were some markers of good fortune in the former 12th round pick\u2019s results, particularly a .227 BABIP that is unlikely to be repeated in 2026 or beyond. He has typically had a higher walk rate than you\u2019d like in the minors and that was true at the MLB level as well. It seems the Orioles thought this was the peak of his value.<\/p>\n

Why they then also had to add Aracena and Mej\u00eda to the deal is beyond me. I would have been confused by this trade if it was Strowd for Alexander just on its own. I don\u2019t even like Strowd.<\/p>\n

Mej\u00eda is an infielder who received around a $400,000 signing bonus from the team three years ago. He hasn\u2019t gotten higher than the Florida Complex League yet in his career. In 47 games there last year, Mej\u00eda batted .274\/.418\/.411.<\/p>\n

Aracena was one of the players acquired when the Orioles sent Gregory Soto to the Mets last July. He was the #23 prospect in the Orioles system before being sent off in this trade. The 21-year-old righty Aracena finished last season with a 2.25 ERA and 1.087 WHIP in 23 games across two levels with the Orioles and Mets. He was striking out a lot of guys but also walking way too many guys, with a 5.0 BB\/9 for the year.<\/p>\n

Beyond the general \u201cWhat in the heck?\u201d reaction to this deal, my next thought is this probably shows that the Orioles have no plans of having Jeremiah Jackson back up any position on the infield dirt. This trade doesn\u2019t happen if they have confidence in that outcome. The next thought after that is, who is actually going to pitch in this bullpen this year? Strowd seemed to have earned a spot based on how he pitched last year. Whoever\u2019s taking his spot has proven even less than he has.<\/p>\n

Or at least that\u2019s how it looks to me. Mike Elias is a weird guy and he might have some more weird roster moves that nobody foresees between now and when things lock in for Opening Day. Maybe one of those moves will even appear good at first glance, or ever turn out to be good over any length of time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Orioles responded to missing out on starting pitcher Framber Valdez by trading for yet another right-handed hitter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":559407,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2374],"tags":[143,47,7936,2538,5,4,125],"class_list":{"0":"post-559406","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-baltimore-orioles","8":"tag-baltimore","9":"tag-baltimore-orioles","10":"tag-baltimore-orioles-news","11":"tag-baltimoreorioles","12":"tag-baseball","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-orioles"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116028836872723611","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/559407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}