One player's hot streak could be the key to the Orioles trade deadline

After an injury-riddled 2025 season, O'Neill picked up his option and locked himself in with the Baltimore Orioles for two more seasons. The Orioles signed O'Neill originally to help balance out their extremely left-handed-heavy lineup. Instead, he's been one of the worst hitters against lefties in baseball. That being the case, the Orioles would have loved to have moved him in the offseason, but with how much he is being paid for this season and the next, he was basically unmovable.

As the season went on and O'Neill's struggles got worse and worse, it looked like the Orioles were going to be left with the options of cutting O'Neill in the offseason and just eating the contract or allowing him to take up a roster spot while being one of the worst players in the league just to avoid the embarrassment of admitting you made a mistake.

Tyler O'Neill might be playing his way off the Orioles in a good way

For a team that is going to have to remake itself in the upcoming offseason, being stuck with O'Neill's contract was going to make things difficult. However, over the last month, O'Neill has played much better baseball, and suddenly there is a spark of hope that the Orioles might be able to convince a team at the upcoming deadline to take him off their hands.

Since June 7th, O'Neill is slashing .277/.358/.638 with nine of his thirteen hits going for extra bases. It's the kind of heater that the Orioles envisioned being a regular occurrence when they gave O'Neill $50 million dollars. Also during that span, his defense has been much better than what it had been his previous year and a half as an Oriole. In April and May, O'Neill was worth -2 fielding run value; in June and July, he's back in the positive with a fielding run value of 1. The eye test backs this up as O'Neill has made several diving plays reminiscent of when he was a Gold Glove right fielder for the Cardinals.

One of the hottest trade commodities at this deadline is a right-handed power bat. Many of the best teams in the league desperately need a right-handed bat that they can plug into the lineup or, at the very least, could really use a short side of the platoon option to deploy against tough lefties in the playoffs. The Phillies, Mariners, Guardians, Yankees and Braves are all being connected to various right-handed hitters ahead of the upcoming trade deadline, including O'Neill's teammate Taylor Ward.

Ward got off to a hot start to the season, and many people assumed he would be the Orioles' best trade chip, but with him slumping right as O'Neill is surging, could O'Neill end up being the right-handed corner outfield bat that teams end up calling the Orioles for?

For that to be the case, O'Neill will have to keep this hot streak going up through the deadline. One good month is probably not enough to wash the stink of the last year and a half off of him, but two good months can make a lot of GM's very forgetful, especially as other trade targets either end up not being available or come off the board early.

If the money is making teams squeamish about trading for O'Neill, the Orioles could easily offer to pay   down part of the contract to make him even more attractive or maybe even get teams to give up some sort of prospect return of him.

Getting O'Neill off the Orioles roster would be great for them becuase this offseason is going to have to be one with many changes, and having the money from O'Neill's contract off the books, as well as an open roster spot they can fill, gives the Orioles a lot more flexibility to reshape the team into a contender.

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