Orioles trading Kade Strowd for questionable bench piece could be a costly mistake

It was already looking like the Baltimore Orioles were poised to make a mistake when it came to Kade Strowd's place on the big league roster. Despite having more upside (by a wide margin) than several of the other bullpen candidates, the lack of roster flexibility the Orioles are dealing with made Strowd's path to the Opening Day roster complicated. However, there was still hope that Baltimore could stumble their way into the correct decision until Thursday's trade with the Diamondbacks dropped.

The Orioles sent Strowd, along with two minor leaguers of marginal consequence, to Arizona in exchange for Blaze Alexander. The purported reason for the move was that the front office felt they needed a singular bench piece who could adequately play a plethora of infield positions, and Alexander was the one they landed on.

If that is truly the reason the Orioles made the move, this has all of the makings of a colossal miscalculation that makes the team strictly worse in 2026.

Trading Kade Strowd for the pittance the Orioles got just doesn't make sense

Now, if the Orioles wanted a super utility infielder for their bench, sure. Having some redundancy on the roster is a great way to guard against injuries completely derailing your season on the spot. The Orioles also have some guys who could benefit from days off here and there, and a robust bench makes that more feasible.

However, those are all reasons to bring in a guy like Ramon Urias, who can move all over the place, but who probably won't play that much or cost much at all. Instead, Baltimore gave up a reliever in Strowd, who has the stuff to be very useful in high leverage situations, as well as two prospects for a guy in Alexander who has not shown that he can hit consistently in the big leagues and isn't even that good of a defender (1 Out Above Average in 74 games last season).

This feels like Mike Elias seeing a former top prospect (which Alexander certainly is) who has been hitting the minor leagues and using the bench need to take a flyer on a guy. In a vacuum, that is a great idea to fill an otherwise minor roster spot. The problem here is the cost, and the odds are pretty good that the Orioles' bullpen is considerably worse than it would have been if they had just hung on to Strowd.