3 front office mistakes that cost the Baltimore Orioles dearly in 2023

The trade deadline was a disaster for the Orioles

By all accounts, the trade market at the deadline was a total mess. There weren't anywhere near enough sellers to meet demand given the addition of another wild card slot in the playoffs and many of the bad teams around the league have been bad for a while and didn't have much to offer. By simple supply and demand, that meant that trade prices were much higher than we are used to seeing.

However, if any team could have taken advantage at the deadline, it was the Orioles. Sure, they did end up acquiring Jack Flaherty and Shintaro Fujinami at the trade deadline, but no one should have realistically thought that either of those guys were going to move the needle much. Fujinami had been terrible in Oakland and Flaherty hasn't been good or healthy since 2019 when he finished in the top 4 of Cy Young voting.

Baltimore's hesitancy to move their young players did allow them to avoid some trade disasters that befell teams like the Angels (wow was Lucas Giolito bad), but there were some really high impact arms that got moved in Jordan Montgomery, Justin Verlander, and Max Scherzer. Scherzer ended up getting hurt and both he and Verlander are owed a lot of money, but that doesn't explain why the Orioles weren't bigger players for Montgomery despite having more than enough prospect capital to get a deal done and all of it is indicative of a decision-making process that isn't nearly aggressive enough.

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