The Orioles and Bryan Baker both surprised each other in the last year

It's been almost exactly a year since the Baltimore Orioles traded away Bryan Baker. During the All-Star media availability, Baker was asked about being traded by the Orioles and remembered just how crazy that day was.

"That day was a pretty crazy one. I thought I was going to be pitching in a doubleheader against the Mets that day, but then I was packing up everything I had and going to Boston and throwing there. So that was crazy"

It was a surprising trade for a lot of reasons. The Rays are one of the Orioles' division rivals, and at the time of the deal, the trade deadline was still several weeks away. On deadline day, players on bad teams often sit around the clubhouse nervously anticipating being traded. Even with how bad the Orioles' record was last season, nobody was thinking about being traded on July 11th, and yet that's exactly when the Orioles pulled the trigger on the Baker trade.

The Orioles didn't know what they were trading away when they moved Bryan Baker last year

Looking at the big picture, it's easy to see how this deal came about and why it needed to happen when it did. The Rays wanted to trade a draft pick for Baker, and if they waited until the deadline, the draft would already be over and the pick spent. They could hope that the Orioles would like whoever they took with the 37th pick, or they could get on the phone a little earlier than usual and get the deal done. They chose the latter.

As far as the Rays and Orioles being division rivals, it seems this is not something that bothers either front office, as these two teams have made a habit of trading with each other over the last three seasons, completing three trades and swapping 10 players and two draft picks.

The more important question than why the Orioles and Rays made an in-division trade three weeks before the deadline is: should the Orioles have made that trade? With Baker taking questions at the All-Star Game, it's easy to look at that trade as a mistake. When you factor in that the player the Orioles took with the 37th pick was sent back to the Rays as part of the Shane Baz trade, it doesn't look any better. When you look at the state of the Orioles bullpen, it starts to look disastrous.

To the Orioles' credit, if you look at the Bryan Baker and Shane Baz trades as one big drawn-out transaction between the Orioles and the Rays, process-wise, the Orioles wouldn't mind what they did. Trading a good controllable reliever along with a prospect package for a young and controllable starter that you can then extend is a good process. If you look at who Baker was as a pitcher at the time of the deal, it's especially easy to comprehend why the Orioles would trade him for a valuable draft pick.

This issue is that the Orioles underestimated Baker. They would not have done the trade they did if they knew he was capable of what he is currently doing in Tampa Bay. The Orioles knew that Baker had it in him to be a sub-2 ERA closer with elite expected stats to go along with elite counting stats; they would have much rather held on to him and used different assets to complete the Shane Baz trade.

Simply put, the version of Baker that the Orioles traded away was less valuable than the 37th pick. The version of Baker that the Rays are getting this season is much more valuable than the 37th pick. So just like the Orioles surprised Baker by trading him out of the blue, Baker has now surprised them back by being one of the best relievers in baseball.

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