Orioles Victory Card Number 33

Orioles Victory Number 33: 7-5 over the New York Yankees

1991 Score Bill Ripken

The Orioles are 6-6 against the Yankees this year. They are 7-6 against the Tampa Bay Rays. That's almost half of their total wins against just two teams. I don't really know what to make of it, but it's an interesting stat in a less than interesting year.

By holding on to the win against New York on Wednesday, the Orioles picked up their first win in the post-purge era. Yes, they had played some games without Manny Machado and Zach Britton, but as some fans had pointed out on social media, trading your pending free agents doesn't neccessarly mean you're rebuilding. Trading Jonathan Schoop and Kevin Gausman, two players with controlled contracts, does.

The game also featured the debut of some of the assets brought back from the recent fire sale. Breyvic Valera started at second base and drove in a run while Cody Carroll pitched a scoreless inning against his former squad. Neither of these players were the centerpieces of their respective deals, nor are they considered especially prized prospects. They occupy a space somewhere between "throw in" and "future cornerstone" in the sense that they will fill in for the holes in the roster until the cavalry arrives in a couple of seasons.

Valera is 26-years-old and had 25 games of major league experience when he was traded from the Dodgers as part of the Machado deal. He doesn't project as more than a utility infielder/organizational depth, but he hits from both sides of the plate and will most likely start at second until Jonathan Villar is healthy.

Carroll throws hard, but has trouble finding the plate at times. Both of those traits were on display during his short stint against the Yankees. He reached 98 MPH on the radar gun several times, but also threw recorded nine balls in his twenty-one pitch Orioles debut. Several of his misses were up in the strike zone, especially with his breaking stuff. He'll have to work on keeping those pitches down if he wants to have success in Camden Yards. If he can keep his slider out of the middle of the plate, he might develop into a late-inning reliever.

It might be awhile until we see the rest of the prospects like Dillon Tate or Yusniel Diaz in the orange and black since there is no real reason to rush them to the majors. Of the players that came back in the trade, Villar is the one that will get the most playing time the rest of this year and that's ok. Give the young players a chance to get accumulated to the organization and then see how they do in training camp next spring.

JustinG.'s Final Trade Rankings
(in order of most likely to be traded)

1. Manny Machado
2. Zach Britton
3. Mark Trumbo
4. Jonathan Schoop
5. Mychal Givens
6. Dylan Bundy
7. Brad Brach
8. Kevin Gausman
9. Danny Valencia
10. Adam Jones

Five players from the list were traded at the deadline. Not bad, but not surprising either. It also isn't likely to be the end of the purge. I fully expect Bundy and Givens to have the name bandied about during the winter meetings. Teams will always be interested in young, controlled arms and with the Orioles basically giving up on next season, any deal that continues to improve their prospect pool would be welcomed.