Orioles' deadline desperation could lead to blockbuster Mets trade

Before the start of the second half of the season, the New York Mets revealed they are ready to be sellers at the upcoming trade deadline. SNY's Chelsea Janes reported that a source had told her that the Mets were open for business and willing to discuss a trade for anyone except for a short list of names that did not include Francisco Lindor. Lindor's conflict with teammates and fellow superstar Juan Soto has not been a secret, so it's not shocking that the Mets are thinking about breaking their star duo up. Lindor is a great player, but the combination of Lindor's age, contract, and how he's played this year is going to make moving him at this deadline difficult. For the Mets to find a Lindor trade partner, they'll need a team that is desperate and willing to shake things up, which brings an unlikely candidate to the forefront: the Baltimore Orioles.

Despite their losing record, the Orioles are just two games out of the Wild Card race, but with a large collection of similar playoff wannabees standing between them and their goal. With the team as currently constructed, they are not good enough to just play out the rest of the season and expect to make up that ground. The Orioles' typical half-measure deadline moves they've made in years where they were trying to make the playoffs are not going to cut it. Unless the Orioles make a significant change, they are going to be on the outside looking in at the playoffs for the second season in a row.

Francisco Lindor is one of the few players that would really move the needle for the Orioles

If the Orioles are going to try to make the playoffs despite how they've looked so far this season, they might as well actually go for it. Trading for Lindor would be actually going for it. Adding Lindor to this Orioles team would cure them of several of their worst ailments and instantly make them a much better team.

For one, the Orioles infield defense has been a mess all season. The combination of the Orioles pitchers not striking anyone out and the Orioles infield being a ground-ball butcher shop has been disastrous at times. Putting Lindor at short and moving Gunnar Henderson to third (more on that later) would give the Orioles an elite left side of the infield overnight, converting a massive weakness into a strength.

The other thing Lindor can provide is a switch-hitting bat at the top of the order. Something the Orioles have been desperately missing since Anthony Santander left after the 2024 season. Lindor's offensive numbers this season have been brutal so far, but his xwOBA and xBA are in line with his career averages. His bat speed and exit velocities are holding up; it's a good bet that he's going to hit more like the .800 OPS player he's demonstrated he is over the past several years with the Mets.

It's maybe a little obvious to say that adding a good player would make the team better, but Lindor's skill set specifically would fit perfectly in Baltimore. So why isn't this happening? Well, there are some reasonable concerns.

First thing is the age. Lindor is 32-years-old, and that is right around when all-star veterans tend to experience a brutal decline. So there is a risk that if the Orioles were to trade for Lindor, they could get stuck with a declining version of him that wouldn't actually be all that helpful for the rest of his contract. Which brings up one of the other big concerns with Lindor: his massive contract.

In 2021, Lindor signed a 10-year $341 million contract with the Mets that stretches from 2022 to 2031. Of that massive contract, there are five years left, each with a salary of $32 million remaining, plus a sizeable chunk of deferred money. $32 million annually is a lot of money for the Orioles. They are already set to pay former Met Pete Alonso $31 million annually over almost that exact same stretch of time. In the present, with both of them in their primes, that's not a bad deal, but once they age and are less effective, having both of those contracts on the books could be troublesome for the Orioles' ability to build a team.

It would certainly make it difficult to sign a big-money starting pitching free agent, as many believe the Orioles need to do, and would also make it difficult to sign players like Gunnar Henderson and Adley Rutschman to big-money extensions. The Orioles' era of flexibility would be over; they would officially be the Lindor and Alonso show.

A smaller but not insignificant risk is that if the Orioles brought in Lindor and gave him the shortstop position, it could upset current shortstop Gunnar Henderson. With how Henderson has played this year, it may feel easy right now to say "who cares what he thinks," but that sentiment won't feel so smart when he breaks out of his slump and is an MVP candidate who has made up his mind to leave the Orioles becuase they moved him off his position after a bad couple of months.

So that's the risks and rewards of bringing in Lindor. On one hand, you have a dramatically improved team, and on the other, you have the potential to get stuck holding the very expensive bag on an aging and increasingly injured veteran while chasing off your own franchise shortstop.

Once that risk assessment has been made, then comes the issue of appropriately compensating the Mets for Lindor. That's a fascinating push and pull. The Mets will want a nice return for having to give up a great player still in his prime, but his contract and age will thin out the prospective buyers and make him much more affordable than a player of his caliber usually would be on the trade market. It certainly doesn't help that there is a feud in their building that is holding the Mets’ feet to the fire. Still, they are not going to give Lindor away for free just to restore "the vibes".

It's hard to imagine a front office as risk-averse as the Orioles' doing something this bold, but things are getting desperate in Baltimore; the losing cannot go on without someone being held accountable, and a big move might be what it takes to get things turned around.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow