Pitching help needed, but at what price?
Blue Jays and Orioles both exploring market heading into trade deadline
One of the reasons the pitching market has been slow to develop in advance of Monday’s non-waiver trade deadline is the sticker shock most GMs are experiencing as they sift through the quality, or lack thereof, of the merchandise available.
Both the Toronto Blue Jays and the Baltimore Orioles — who square off tonight in the start of a key three-game series, with the Jays trailing the O’s in the AL East by just 1½ games — could really use some help in the starting rotation, but they have been reluctant to pay the price.
“I don’t think we’re really in a lot of big discussions,” Baltimore manager Buck Showalter told reporters on Wednesday. “We’re not in the rumour mill, are we? We shouldn’t be.”
Orioles GM Dan Duquette is the one doing the shopping, but he’s keeping Showalter apprised and Showalter has not been impressed by what’s being asked and offered.
“What are we giving up to get it?” Showalter said. “Dan and I, he’s brought a couple of things to me, but nothing that seemed imminent. A couple of them, I said, ‘Yeah, I like that guy. But for what? No, of course we wouldn’t do that.’ You can get a pretty good starting pitcher for blank, and he’s gone at the end of the year. Dan and the organization have shown they’ll go for it if it’s right, if they think it’s a big difference-maker and it really fills a real weakness we think we might have.”
Those comments sound a lot like those emanating from the Blue Jays’ side of the ballpark as well.
While the two teams are set to go at it on the field, they’re also competing against each other off it.
Both teams are offensive powerhouses, though neither has come out of the all-star break with guns blazing. And both teams are very much involved in the pursuit of pitching help, especially starters, before the deadline.
Unlike other seasons, the quality of pitchers available on the trade market is thin, yet the demand is high. Proof of that arrived two weeks ago, when the Boston Red Sox traded away a premier prospect, shortstop Anderson Espinoza, to get left-handed starter Drew Pomeranz, a lukewarm talent at best.
Red Sox boss David Dombrowski accurately assessed the market, swallowed hard, and paid the price. Since then, no additional starting pitcher dominoes have fallen — but once the logjam is broken at the top, you can expect plenty of business to get done, even as the GMs themselves recognize that values are skewed toward the sellers.
Of more immediate concern to the Orioles is their vaunted offence. In the 13 games since the all-star game leading up to Thursday night’s makeup game in Minnesota, the Orioles have averaged just 2.8 runs per game with a .211 team batting average and a .268 onbase percentage. As a team, they have hit 13 homers since the break, but have struck out 90 times with 30 walks.