The Orioles were reportedly looking for a right-handed outfielder and they got one. Don’t look at his 2024 stats.
The Orioles snuck in a bunch of trades in the final minutes before Tuesday’s trade deadline. ESPN’s Jeff Passan was the first to report on the team acquiring outfielder Eloy Jiménez from the Chicago White Sox. The Orioles are sending minor league reliever Trey McGough to Chicago in the deal.
Mike Elias was a busy bee and this was not the only deal, with the Orioles also striking deals with the Phillies, Pirates, and Reds. In all, the Orioles received these players:
From Phillies: LHP Gregory Soto
From Pirates: RHP Patrick Reilly (minor leaguer)
From Reds: OF Austin Slater, INF Livan Soto
The Orioles in the process shipped out a number of players:
To Phillies: RHP Seth Johnson, RHP Moisés Chace
To Pirates: IF/OF Billy Cook
To Reds: Cash considerations (as far as I can tell right now)
In terms of the prospects traded, that Phillies swap for Gregory Soto is the most impactful one of this bunch. Johnson was rated as the third-best Orioles pitching prospect on most preseason lists that I’ve seen, one of the top 12 or so prospects in the system. However, he’s already on his second option year, still at Double-A, and hasn’t really demonstrated that he’s definitely going to be a big league starter or any kind of reliever. Chace, 21, was a semi-interesting pop-up guy this season who had a 3.46 ERA and 13.2 K/9 (but also 5.3 BB/9) for High-A Aberdeen.
Gregory Soto is the second not-very-good reliever the Orioles have acquired from the Phillies in the past several days. They actually surrendered prospects for this 29-year-old lefty, who made All-Star teams with the Tigers in 2021 and 2022. For his whole big league career, he’s walked way too many men (4.9 BB/9 over six seasons) but does give the O’s a big strikeout guy in the bullpen (11.2 K/9). Again, he hasn’t been good this year – a 4.08 ERA after a 4.62 last year.
It may be generous to refer to Jiménez as an outfielder at all, based on his defensive metrics across a six-year major league career, and also based on the White Sox having him start just one game in the outfield so far in 2024. This is more of a righty bench bat acquisition, presumably one that will promptly displace Christian Pache, who the O’s got as a throw-in when they traded Austin Hays to the Phillies.
In keeping with the acquisitions that Mike Elias has made over the last several days, Jiménez is not putting up good numbers in 2024. Neither are any of the other MLB-level guys acquired here. Jiménez has a history of some past success. He is hitting .240/.297/.345 across 65 games this season. He’s been better when facing left-handed pitching, though if anyone is supposed to get excited about a .730 OPS over 50 plate appearances, I don’t really know about that.
Jiménez has been a good hitter in his career, posting an .858 OPS with 16 homers in only 84 games a couple of years ago. Still just 27 years old, perhaps the Orioles are hoping he can regain some of that form. Who knows. This trade is another one where if you were primed to see the team acquire some definite difference-maker, well, you sure didn’t get that.
Unlike the day’s earlier trade with the Marlins for Trevor Rogers, there probably weren’t too many people in Birdland who have gotten attached to McGough. The 26-year-old lefty reliever was originally drafted by the Pirates in 2019 and found his way into the Orioles organization last year. He started this season with Double-A Bowie, was promoted after doing well, and has also done well, or at least gotten good results with Norfolk: A 2.08 ERA in 34.2 innings of use as a multi-inning reliever, with just a 1.096 WHIP.
If the Orioles wanted to, they might have just kept Austin Hays, called up McGough, and not traded for either Jiménez or Seranthony Domínguez and they could have ended up with a better team that way. Considering that Jiménez should be a right-handed DH only, they might have even been better off letting prospect Coby Mayo take these rips. Obviously, they feel differently about the matter.
Jiménez was making about $14 million this season in the final guaranteed year of a contract extension that he inked before even debuting in his rookie season. That contract comes with team options of $16.5 million and $18.5 million for the next two seasons, with a $3 million buyout if an option is not exercised. Jiménez would have to do something pretty special over these last two months for me to feel like there is any way that the Orioles would or should exercise the options.
My Camden Chat colleague Stacey reminded me as I was working on this article that just last year the Orioles pulled off a revival of fortunes for outfielder Aaron Hicks. Maybe the O’s want to try to work that magic again in 2024, this time on Jiménez. I remain disappointed that they did not trade for an unambiguously good player, but then, they didn’t trade away any of their unambiguously good prospects either.
What about Slater? Well, he’s sucked too. The 31-year-old righty was traded from the Giants to the Reds earlier this month. He is hitting .185/.308/.222 in 51 games. Livan Soto has previously been on the Orioles 40-man without ever playing for the team. The 24-year-old is a light-hitting infielder.
While I have your attention, the Orioles also pulled off a minor leaguer-for-minor leaguer trade in the minutes before the deadline. Super utility sort of guy Billy Cook, who has won some fans around here for his 2024 performance, was shipped to the Pirates for pitching prospect Patrick Reilly.
The 22-year-old Reilly was a fifth round pick a year ago from Vanderbilt and has pitched to a 3.38 ERA in 19 starts at High-A this season, with 108 strikeouts in 88 innings. In common with basically every O’s pitching prospect, he has walked too many dudes in his amateur and now pro career. Reilly has improved on this somewhat in 2024 (4.2 BB/9 after 5.6 in his college junior season) but that number is still too high to presage major league success.
Cook would have had to be added to the 40-man roster this offseason. That’s crowded for the Orioles. Getting any kind of pitching prospect for a guy they might have had to leave exposed to the Rule 5 draft in four months seems OK.
Don’t ask me how all of these guys are going to fit onto the team, because I don’t know. I guess we’ll find out tomorrow, assuming they are all able to report before the Wednesday afternoon game.