Ridiculous Trade Idea: How The Orioles Could Acquire Chris Sale

We all know the Orioles need another decent starting pitcher. But what they could really use is an excellent starting pitcher. Considering the O's farm system, however, they don't have the necessary pieces to acquire a true ace (if one were truly available). Well, let's go a little outside the box, then.

The Washington Nationals are desperate for a solid late-game relief arm. Hey, the Orioles have some of those (and one who is really, really good in Zach Britton)! And if you believe everything that's passed along from apparently plugged-in MLB reporters (hint: not always a great idea), the Nationals are willing to trade prized starting pitching prospect Lucas Giolito to accomplish the task:

Sources who have spoken with #Nats believe they would trade Lucas Giolito to #Yankees for Andrew Miller, straight up.

— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) July 29, 2016

Apparently the Yankees are not willing to do this. But, you know, perhaps the Orioles should. The Orioles are trying to win now, and dominant relief arms are extremely important. But the O's should also be in the hunt for any kind of starting rotation help. And picking up one of the best young starters in the minors while also not trading away a young, everyday talent like Jonathan Schoop is enticing.

Picking up Giolito but losing Britton, though, isn't a win-now move. While it definitely helps in the long run, losing Britton still hurts. And even though it would make sense to keep Giolito and hope he transforms into an ace, why not use him to trade for someone who's already an ace? That ace would be Chris Sale.

As they should, the White Sox are asking for a ridiculous amount in return for Sale. If they were somehow able to land Giolito, the O's would be able to put together a competitive package for the... let's say, eccentric lefty. By offering Giolito and then two or three of the team's top prospects -- Chance Sisco, Cody Sedlock, Jomar Reyes, Ryan Mountcastle, etc. -- the O's would have a shot to land one of the very best starters in the game.

By doing so, Sale would headline a rotation that immediately doesn't make you shake your head in frustration:

Chris Sale
Chris Tillman
Kevin Gausman
Yovani Gallardo
Dylan Bundy

Regardless of what you think of Bundy's usage, that's a very intriguing and talented crop of pitchers (minus Gallardo). And the best thing about acquiring Sale, besides him being outstanding, is that he's under team control through 2019 for extremely reasonable terms: $12M in 2017, $12.5M option for 2018, and $13.5M club option for 2019. I mean, that's Ubaldo Jimenez money!

Will this actually happen? Of course not. The O's aren't going to trade Britton in the middle of a pennant race, though it will make sense to explore a Britton trade during the offseason. Still, you could kinda, sorta imagine it happening. And it's at least interesting, right?

First-Place Orioles Obviously Aren't Sellers, But Should They Buy?

If you're a glass-half-full type of person, then, at best, you may view the Orioles' trade deadline deals of the past few years as a mixed bag. If you're not, then surely you hated many of them. There are a couple of players who helped the O's -- Andrew Miller, Bud Norris, Scott Feldman -- and also a bunch of guys who didn't. And when you look back at the price to acquire them, it doesn't look so great.

July Trade Players Of Note In The Duquette Era

O’s get: Jim Thome, Omar Quintanilla, Scott Feldman, Steve Clevenger, Francisco Rodriguez, Bud Norris, Andrew Miller, Gerardo Parra, Junior Lake

O’s gave up: Jake Arrieta, Pedro Strop, Nick Delmonico, Josh Hader, L.J. Hoes, 2014 comp. balance pick, Eduardo Rodriguez, Zach Davies, Tommy Hunter, Gabriel Lino, Kyle Simon

I might have left a couple out, but it's clear that the O's didn't get many bargains. The O's pulled off a cream-of-the-crop addition one time: Andrew Miller. Regardless of what you think of the Miller trade, he was very good in an O's uniform.

The rest of the time, Duquette aimed for the middle, or for relatively minor or moderate upgrades, and those moves mostly did not pay off. If the Orioles wanted to go after another reliever -- clearly Buck Showalter craves another left-hander in the bullpen -- they could put together a trade package for that. But many teams desperately need starting pitching upgrades, and nearly all of them will be able to assemble more enticing groups of prospects than what the O's can cobble together. That could lead the Orioles again shooting for a fringe starter.

So how should the Orioles proceed? It's not an easy question to answer. The way I see it, the Orioles could do one of three things. They could do nothing, rolling the dice with what they have and hoping it somehow works out. Second, they could target a few low-risk, high-variance players who wouldn't cost much. That could keep the likes of Ubaldo Jimenez, Mike Wright, and/or Tyler Wilson out of the starting rotation, even if there's no guarantee the new additions pitch any better. Or third, they could go after a legitimate starting rotation upgrade, whether that's Julio Teheran, Jake Odorizzi, Sonny Gray, Matt Moore, Rich Hill, Drew Pomeranz, Jeremy Hellickson, Ervin Santana, or someone else. Maybe some of those guys aren't on the market. Most likely, the O's would struggle to put together an enticing package for many of those names. And maybe they'd struggle to outbid other teams in the hunt for rotation upgrades. But at least some of those names are within reach.

I've been going back and forth about this. For a while I was in the do-nothing camp, but it's extremely difficult to talk yourself into riding things out with this group of starters. It's just too painful for a core that has a chance to win something significant right now.

The Orioles clearly want to add a left-handed starter. My guess is they would prefer to add two starters to go along with Chris Tillman, Kevin Gausman, and Yovani Gallardo. Maybe it would be easier to do that by adding someone like Jon Niese instead of Rich Hill. Either way, you're rolling the dice. These guys aren't aces.

You'd figure it wouldn't take a whole lot to acquire Niese. And again, Niese is just one example. There don't appear to be any slam-dunk starters in this market, or anything similar to the skill level the O's acquired when they picked up Miller to improve their bullpen a couple years ago. Maybe the O's could similarly acquire an add-on to a powerhouse bullpen to aid a bad rotation, but it's unlikely they go for a top-shelf reliever again. The O's also probably view Darren O'Day's impending return as the shot in the arm the bullpen needs.

At the minimum, I think the O's need to pursue a starting pitcher of some kind and a left-handed reliever. But no matter what, I won't feel great about it. The O's have the opportunity to make a decent move or two and improve their chances of getting into the playoffs, but in order to do that, they'd hurt an already weak farm system. Just because the Orioles have a low-rated minor league system doesn't mean it's completely devoid of talent. Whether the O's would be able to get the most out of those prospects is a fair question to ask, but that that's even a question is pretty sad for the state of the O's prospect development system currently in place.

This is what can happen when you both refuse to pay top dollar for starting pitching but are also terrible at developing your own pitching prospects. And yet, the O's are still, somehow, two games up in the American League East.

Being a GM is hard. The Orioles need starting rotation help. They also routinely need prospect help. Who's ready for the trade deadline?

Why the Orioles' Success Against Bad Teams Is a Good Sign

On June 3rd, the Orioles were 23-28 and people were discussing whether the Orioles should sell. Now, on July 10th, the Orioles are 43-42 and people are beginning to wonder whether the Orioles should buy. The trade deadline is coming closer each day and the Orioles need to make a decision about how to proceed.

On the one hand, the Orioles are one game above .500 and only three games out of first. And it’s not like the Yankees are so tough. They’ll get a boost having just reactivated Ellsbury and Miller but they depend on a number of older players. Teixeira and A-Rod have been two of their best hitters and it will be interesting to see whether they can remain both healthy and productive over the length of an entire season. Pineda threw 84 innings total in 2014 but has already thrown nearly 100 innings this year and fatigue will be an issue. It wouldn’t be a surprise if they fell apart over the second half of the season.

On the other hand, the Orioles have primarily beaten up on cream-puffs so far this year. The Orioles are 29-19 against teams below .500 but only 14-23 against teams above .500. They’ve been decent against teams above .500 that are in their division (10-12) but have gone 4-11 against teams above .500 not in the division. It gets worse because the Orioles have 45 games against teams above .500 remaining but only 32 games against teams below .500 remaining. The Orioles have been able to have a winning record primarily by beating teams under .500 but pretty soon they’ll be playing a number of teams above .500. Historically, how do teams slightly above .500 at the end of June perform for the rest of the season when they only beat weak teams?

From 1998-2014, there have been 138 teams that have finished June between 1 to 8 games above .500. I looked at how these teams performed against teams above .500 (at the end of June) as well as the percentage of games these teams played against teams below .500 to see whether teams that do well against teams above .500 or played a lot of games against teams above .500 from the start of the season to the end of June are more likely to make it to the playoffs than other teams that finish June between 1 to 8 games above .500.

This first table shows how teams do based on difficulty of schedule.

Teams with a harder remaining schedule are about as good at the end of June as teams with an easy remaining schedule and their performance is roughly the same. Both are expected to win about the same amount of games on average and have similar chances of winning at least 90 games. Teams with an easy remaining schedule are more likely to win their division while teams with a hard remaining schedule are more likely to win the wild card and make it to the playoffs. This indicates that teams with easy remaining schedules are probably in weak divisions and therefore have a better chance of winning their division while teams with hard remaining schedules are probably in hard divisions and therefore can win the wild card by being successful against their rivals. This is good news for the Orioles because the team leader is just six games above .500 and the Rays are just one game above .500 which means that the Orioles aren’t facing difficult competition but they are playing against a number of rivals for a wild card spot.

The next table shows how teams do based on their performance against teams over .500.

All in all, teams that are successful against teams over .500 typically have a better record at the end of June but it evens out by the end of the season. This indicates that being able to beat the top competition doesn’t mean that they’ll be successful in the future. In fact, teams that struggle against the top competition do better than those that those that don’t.

The final table looks at how teams do based on their performance against teams under .500.

This pretty much tells the story. Teams that do well against teams below .500 usually end up winning the same amount of games as teams that don’t. But a larger percentage of teams that do well against teams below .500 end up winning more than 90 games and consequently making it to the playoffs.

All in all, a team like the Orioles that is successful against bad teams but has struggled against good teams is in a better position than one would have thought. This probably means that the Orioles should be slightly encouraged by their start and should be thinking about how to improve the club rather than selling.

Things were beginning to look grim at the end of May. But after dominating against some weaker competition, things are beginning to look up for the Orioles.