Injury concerns about Jack Flaherty may have scared Orioles away from reunion

Prior to Tuesday's trade deadline, there was much speculation about how the Orioles were planning to address their rotation. With so many injuries, plus the feel good stories of Albert Suarez and Cole Irvin fading quickly, fans knew that GM Mike Elias had to do something.

Many fans spoke out against the idea of bringing back Jack Flaherty after a disastrous second half in 2023. However, it felt hard to deny that based on his performance in 2024, Flaherty wasn't a fit for what the O's needed.

Before his trade to Los Angeles, Flaherty had pitched to a 2.95 ERA with an impressive 3.12 FIP in 18 starts. He'd been running the best strikeout and walk rates of his eight-year career and was looking like a legitimate candidate to start postseason games for whichever team was set to acquire him.

However, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported on Tuesday that all might not be well with the right hander.

Jack Flaherty's back injury prevented a trade to the Yankees

Early in July, Flaherty was forced to miss a start thanks to a lingering lower back injury. The issue required several injections to fully recover from. Flaherty has been fine in the three starts since, pitching twice against Cleveland and once against Toronto. In those three starts, Flaherty allowed just 3 combined runs and struck out 18 batters with 5 walks.

Despite that performance, the Yankees decided to walk away from an initial trade agreement with the Tigers. Yankees' GM Brian Cashman felt that Flaherty's injury was too much of a risk for the Yanks to take during the stretch run and the Tigers pivoted to a deal with Andrew Frieman and the Dodgers.

While player medicals aren't publicly available, teams do have more insight than we do. It's possible that lingering injury was a consideration for Mike Elias during his conversations over this past weekend.

At the very least, we know that the Orioles had considered reuniting with Flaherty, though it didn't come to fruition. Rosenthal and Katie Woo of The Athletic had reported as such early last week, that the Orioles were open to bringing Flaherty back if the right deal were to surface.

We also know that the trade package Los Angeles sent back to Detroit was underwhelming compared to expectations. The Dodgers shipped catcher Thayron Liranzo and shortstop Trey Sweeney to the Tigers.

MLB Pipeline has Liranzo as the 5th best prospect in a weak Tigers' system, with Sweeny all the way down at 24th. Neither of the two were in consideration for a top-100 overall spot.

Flaherty's lingering injury issue was almost certainly a factor in the light return going back to Detroit. We can't say for sure, but it's definitely possible that the talk of his injury pushed the Orioles in a different direction at the trade deadline as well.