This former Orioles prospect is making the team regret including him in offseason trade package

The Baltimore Orioles and the Tampa Bay Rays have been frequent trade partners over the last few years. It's not common for divisional opponents to regularly swap players and prospects, but the Rays shifted into a mini-rebuild right as the Orioles were supposed to be ascending to contender status, so their timelines lined up: the Orioles have been buyers, and the Rays have been sellers. They also match up well because the Rays like to get a lot of bites at the prospect apple, and the Orioles have typically preferred to move large packages of lower-ranked players than hand over their top prospects.

The Orioles were able to get Zach Eflin from the Rays in 2024 in exchange for a trio of prospects that proved to be mostly inconsequential to either team's future outlook. Feeling good about that transaction, the Orioles went back to the well this offseason for an even more ambitious trade, swapping four prospects and a draft pick for Shane Baz.

The Orioles paid a heavy price for Shane Baz and may be already experiencing some buyers remorse

The package was headlined by prospects that the Orioles had just drafted in the first round of the 2025 draft, Caden Bodine and Slater de Brun. It will be interesting to track how those two progress, but in the early returns, the trade seems like one of the other lesser-known prospects was the real prize for the Rays: 22-year-old right-handed starting pitching prospect Michael Forret.

Forret was a 14th-round pick in the 2023 draft who had a breakout season in 2025, leading to him finishing the year in Double-A. This season, he's picked up right where he left off, pitching to a 1.75 ERA in 25.2 innings with the Rays' Double-A affiliate, the Montgomery Biscuits.

Forret is not a perfect pitching prospect; he's struggled to keep his walks down, and he's averaging almost one home run allowed per start, but he's been so hard to hit that he's sporting a sub-one WHIP despite having a double-digit BB%. In 2025, Forret flashed the near-elite command, so it's reasonable to think that as this season goes on, his early-season walk issues will subside and all the Rays will be left with is a top pitching prospect in the upper minors.

From the Orioles' side, Baz is off to a rough start this season, but his stuff has been good, and now that the Orioles have extended him, he has a five-year runway to give the Orioles enough value to make this a fair trade.

Results-wise, it's unfortunate that the Orioles might have handed over a top pitching prospect as a throw-in to a trade, but process-wise, this is what the Orioles should be doing. They have a limited window right now where Gunnar Henderson, Adley Rutschman, and Pete Alonso are on the team as their offensive core, and they need pitchers who can contribute right now. The only real issue Orioles fans should have with this trade is that they didn't do it again for Freddy Peralta or Mackenzie Gore and build a rotation that wouldn't put the games out of reach in the second inning every game.

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