Here are the Pirates pitchers that the Orioles should target in a Coby Mayo trade

Trading Coby Mayo is one of those things that is easier said than done. To the Baltimore Orioles, Mayo represents a successful 4th-round pick that they developed into a consensus top 50 prospect, and they would like a return that reflects that upside. The teams potentially trading for Mayo want to pay a price that reflects his struggles in the majors so far and his lack of a real defensive home on the diamond. The Pittsburgh Pirates could be the team that meets the Orioles in the middle and gets a trade done in the weeks leading up to the season.

For years, the Orioles and the Pirates have seemed like natural trade partners. The Orioles have had success drafting position players, and every year their rotation is questionable. The Pirates are the inverse; they've enjoyed a healthy pipeline of homegrown pitching talent, and every year they have one of the worst offenses in baseball.

This offseason, the Pirates have been much more aggressive in pursuing offensive talent to support their already excellent pitching staff, but one position on the infield has not been addressed: third base.

One of the first quotes Mayo gave this spring training was that he's not done at third base, and since the start of camp, he has worked out almost exclusively on the left side of the infield. By acquiring Mayo, the Pirates could inject some offensive upside into a position where they've gotten very little production over the past few years.

The most obvious framework for an Orioles/Pirates trade is the Pirates send over one of their MLB-ready arms in exchange for Mayo, but who would they be willing to make available, and of the pitchers they'd be willing to trade, do any of them move the needle for the Orioles?

Here are the Pirates' pitchers, tiered based on whether Pittsburgh would be willing to trade them for Coby Mayo

Tier 1 - Not available

• Paul Skenes
• Bubba Chandler

These are guys the Pirates are not putting in a trade for, maybe anyone, let alone Coby Mayo. It would be a waste of everyone's time if the Orioles were trying get one of these names in a trade. It's probably a waste of time to include them in the tiers.

Tier 2 - Most likely not available

• Jared Jones
• Hunter Barco
• Braxton Ashcraft

If the Pirates were to offer any of these arms in a Mayo trade, the Orioles should say yes and try to get the trade submitted to the league before the Pirates change their mind. They're not included in the "Not available" tier, in part because they're just not as good as those guys, and also, it's possible the Orioles could coax the Pirates into moving one of these arms by packaging additional prospects with Mayo to make the trade more appealing.

Tier 3 - Likely available

• Mitch Keller
• Thomas Harrington

The two pitchers in this tier are in pretty different situations. Mitch Keller is here because he's expensive, and the Pirates are notorious for not wanting to spend money, so if there was an opportunity to move the Keller contract without the public viewing it as a straight salary dump, they wouldn't pass up on it. Thomas Harrington is more the odd man out in this Pirates system. He's struggled early in his career, and his ceiling projects to be lower than some of the Pirates other pitching prospects, so if any of the Pirates MLB ready arms are available, it would be Harrington.

In the case that the Orioles and Pirates can't come together on one of these starting pitcher-centered Mayo trades, it's possible that the two teams could work out a different kind of deal. Instead of an MLB-ready arm, the Orioles could target a prospect package of multiple lower-minors prospects similar to what they did at last year's trade deadline.

Seeing Mayo traded for prospects would be disappointing for Orioles fans, but such a deal would clear the infield logjam, and down the line, the Orioles could use those prospects in trades at the deadline to fill holes on their roster, similar to how they've already begun trading the prospects they got from last year's deadline fire sale.