The 2025 trade deadline is over and the Orioles are left to play the final 53 games of their season with a roster that’s undergone a serious makeover and a room full of players who aren’t kidding about their intent to keep winning. 

Doing so just got a lot harder.

Executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias did what he felt was necessary in trading away nine players and aiming mostly at the lower levels of the farm system with the returns. It wasn’t supposed to be this way in 2025, but the Orioles tried to spin a negative into something positive.

“As we saw yesterday, we had a very active trade deadline,” Elias said earlier today in a video call that lasted almost 27 minutes. “We were in a position to have to sell because of a very disappointing first half with this team. I’ve spoken about it. This is not how we envisioned this season going and it’s something that we’re taking a hard look in the mirror about, about how we got here. I think a lot of it was bad luck, but there’s also stuff that we need to improve on as an organization, and we’re going to do that. But this is a business where there’s a lot of competition and we fell short in the first half.

“I think the team has played really well lately and we’ve gotten healthier, and we’ve seen the style of play and some of the success that we were hoping for in the last few weeks on the field. But looking at our record, our front office and our entire operation made a decision to sell at the deadline, and I think in the context of that, we are very pleased with the talent that we’ve received in return. And I think along with our draft, this has been an enormous injection of talent into the Orioles organization over the month of July.”

What comes next, of course, is making it through the next two months without many of the veterans responsible for the better results. Production and leadership went out the door. 

“We hope that the play on the field continues to move in the right direction, particularly with our core players that we’re going to be counting on the rest of the season and next year. And we’ll get to work on improving and setting the roster for the 2026 season throughout the course of the second half, including outside moves as they become available on the wire and perhaps in free agency, but also we’ll look to promote some of our promising young players from Norfolk as we go along. So a lot to look forward to,” Elias said.

“This has been a season with a lot of negative things transpiring, but we’ve made the best of it at the deadline and we hope that brighter things are ahead in the very near future.”

The video call shed some light on the thinking behind the trades and other business happening in the organization. Here are the takeaways:

Dealing controllable players happened because the other teams pressed the issue.

Elias stated a few weeks ago in an interview on MLB Network Radio that he’d be “passive” about trading players under contract for 2026, but infielder Ramón Urías, relievers Bryan Baker and Andrew Kittredge, and outfielder Ramón Laureano were jettisoned. Kittredge and Laureano had club options for next season.

“It was only a possibility if the return was gonna be more than commensurate, and we feel that was the case,” Elias said today.

“We weigh that into everything. It’s different when it’s a rental, but if there’s a player that was in your plans for 2026 or beyond, you’ve got to weigh that, and I think we were able to take advantage of that.”

It wasn’t realistic to expect impactful major league talent to come back to the Orioles in these trades.

That’s not usually how it works out for sellers, which Elias explained twice today.

“If you were to go to the market and say I only want players who are ready in 2025 or 2026, first of all, the teams you’re dealing with by nature are contending and worrying about their major league depth, so they’re not gonna want to put those players available as easily,” Elias said. “And second of all, you’re gonna get less talent, less value, in return with those confines. So my view, we don’t wanna be selling this year. A lot has gone wrong to put us in that place. But once we’re here, let’s make the most of it, let’s get the most talent back, let’s extract the most that we can for the organization.

“Yeah, a lot of the players we got back were in the lower part of the minor leagues, but you can use players to trade for the near term, and then also it can pay off in the long run. So I just look at it in terms of overall talent, wealth, for the organization and making the most of an opportunity that you have that you don’t want to have at the trade deadline.”

Elias makes an important point here regarding the added depth in the system. Some of it can be flipped over the winter for veterans equipped to assist in the playoff push.

“I think that we kind of, maybe quietly, pushed a lot of chips in in 2024 in particular, in that we traded a lot of players away, and we had a playoff season, but we didn’t have a long playoff run, as we all know,” Elias said. “And it depleted a lot of the farm system, and it is important to have that ability to make trades when you want to. Our farm system is a lot richer and a lot more robust than it was one month ago, and that’s gonna help us.”

Packaging Laureano and Ryan O’Hearn wasn’t the initial strategy.

Teams expressing interest in the two players wanted them in separate deals. Elias and Padres general manager A.J. Preller kept working on it, and the pot sweetened considerably with high-ceiling left-hander Boston Bateman coming to the Orioles.

Bateman was the No. 4 prospect in San Diego’s system, according to MLB Pipeline’s rankings, and he’s No. 6 with the Orioles.

The deal was negotiated over the course of a couple weeks, with the sides steering toward a 2-for-6.

“I think with the way their roster is shaped, they obviously have room for both guys,” Elias said. “I think the Padres have a really strong roster now, and A.J. and I have known each other for a long time and we worked well together on figuring out a very complicated trade. But I think ultimately it’s a good one for both teams and I wish those guys very, very well. They were incredible for us and just really, really good players and I hope to see them have success. All the guys.”

To follow up, the Orioles don’t get Bateman without Laureano.

“I’m not sure that we trade Ramón Laureano without the return level that we feel like we got from the Padres. So that’s something that, again, it’s just a matter of what we’re getting back with a player that we were possibly planning on retaining in 2026,” Elias said.

“I think Boston Bateman in particular, a very premium pitching prospect from the left side, the likes of which very hard to get your hands on. Did a very good job, the Padres, IDing him and drafting him in the second round last year, and he’s off to a great start and looks really good. And it’s just something that brought us to the table on Ramón and that entire trade. We’ll look to get back the most that we can if we’re putting a player like him on the table.”

The Charlie Morton trade came down to the wire.

The deadline was a firm 6 p.m. yesterday evening and the announcement arrived a few minutes past it. The Orioles sent the 41-year-old Morton to the Tigers for lefty Micah Ashman, a product of the 2024 draft.

“The Morton deal was very late,” Elias said, “last 30 minutes.”

Elias made plenty of moves but couldn’t achieve every single goal.

Though Elias didn’t provide specific examples, veteran starter Zach Eflin was assumed to be on the table but remained in the organization, landing on the injured list again with lower back discomfort. Tomoyuki Sugano also stayed and he’s starting Saturday against the Cubs.

“I wouldn’t say 100 percent of things got across the finish line, but that’s really hard to have happen,” Elias said. “A lot’s got to go right for that. But overall, with the agenda that we had, which was to bring talent into the system and move players that their contracts were either expiring or near expiring, I think we did quite well in that regard.

“I think that we brought in a lot of talent and they were the right moves for the situation that you’re in and that’s part of the duties of the front office, to weigh the spot that the team’s in and do the right thing by the organization at the deadline, and I do feel like that was accomplished.”

The approval to include cash enhanced Elias’ chances of completing some trades.

Money also went to the Tigers with Morton, to the Padres with O’Hearn and Laureano, to the Astros with Urías and to the Blue Jays with Seranthony Domínguez.

Perhaps it’s an indication that owner David Rubenstein will authorize more spending in the offseason.

“First of all, we did send money in a lot of these trades and I want to thank and credit David and our ownership group for making that lever available to facilitate better talent returns,” Elias said. “Often times, especially nowadays, the teams on the buy side of these trades, they’re in the CBT space, so they’re paying luxury taxes, they’re giving up draft picks when they take on payroll, so it’s really important for them sometimes to get some financial help, and you’ve got to have owners who are able and willing to do that in order to participate. So I think that was very helpful in us being able to execute an effective sell deadline and I think that speaks to their ability and willingness to invest not just in the team and the payroll but in the organization.

“They really want to win, they’re disappointed with how this went. And we’re gonna get back in the saddle.”

Improving the pitching in the farm system was a large part of Elias’ focus.

Teams can never have too much of it, and the Orioles unintentionally keep proving that old adage.

Eight of the top 12 prospects are pitchers, according to MLB Pipeline, which hasn’t included the draft picks. Wellington Aracena (No. 22) and Anthony Nunez (No. 24), acquired in separate trades with the Mets, also made the list.

“I think it’s really good,” Elias said. “I think we’ve seen 2025, 2024, all these last couple of seasons have shown us that pitchers are gonna get hurt and you need a lot of them, but we have a lot of really good ones and this is probably as strong as our pitching stable’s been in the last few years, so hope these guys stay on track.

“Brought a lot into the deadline, but also the guys that we’ve drafted and signed internationally and internally here with the Orioles, there’s quite a bit to like there and I feel good about our pitching stable right now. And we’re gonna need it.”

Elias agrees with interim manager Tony Mansolino that the core group of players can, and must, step up with so many veterans gone.

“I think they are. I think it’s happened naturally," Elias said.

"They’re logging more time in the big leagues. These guys have had a lot of experience. We’ve had a couple really good seasons with some playoff heartbreak. Now we’ve had this. I think these guys are growing up and taking ownership of the team, and very happy with the determination that this group of players has, and there’s definitely a bond between these guys, as well. So we are all disappointed with where we’re at, but there’s a lot of determination to not have this happen again.”

And speaking of Mansolino, Elias finally can direct his attention to settling on a manager for next season.

Elias said he’s given it “quite a bit of thought.”

“Tony continues to do a great job keeping the team on track, and we’ve seen improvement and we’ve really liked what he’s done in the spirit of the team under his helm,” Elias said, “but I’m, with the deadline and the draft over, turning over my focus to setting up the organization for 2026 and that includes thinking about that position.”  

Don’t keep waiting on Grayson Rodriguez.

The 2025 season was supposed to feature Rodriguez as the No. 2 starter and the ace-in-waiting. He was supposed to finally become established and be the homegrown stud atop the rotation.

The talent’s always there, but the body won’t cooperate.

Surgery seems to be inevitable, though not as serious as maybe feared.

“We’re still kind of finalizing the medical plan, but Grayson, he’s had a tough year,” Elias said. “If you recall, he was feeling some elbow impingement during spring training and we had to shut him down and start him back up. Unfortunately, that has kind of reappeared.

“At the time that was the opinion of all medical parties and including outside opinions to treat the injury conservatively before we go diving into an elbow surgery. But now with this recurring I think that option is back on the table and this would not be an elbow reconstruction, it would be a debridement of some bone that needs to be removed or can be removed. And if we go through with this, which is a possibility here in the next few days, it will put him down for the rest of 2025, but it will put him in a position to return for 2026 spring training. So we’ll have an official update on that if and when that takes place, but that is now increasingly in the conversation.”

Elias is hopeful that fans will remain engaged and trust that better times are ahead.

The front office didn’t completely blow up the team, but the amount of talent stripped away rattled some people. Elias knows it.

“We are sorry that 2025 has gone this way,” Elias said. “A lot had to go wrong and it has, and we’re addressing that. And part of it is doing the right thing by the talent in the organization with the deadline, and between the draft and the deadline, we’ve had an enormous injection of talent into the organization. It’s going to benefit us short-term but also long-term, and it needed to be done and we executed well in those constraints.

“We have an extremely exciting group of young players on the Orioles that we’ve all come to enjoy and these guys are still here, they’re fighting hard, they’re aware as a group of where we’re at and very determined to do better going forward. These guys are still here as the heart and soul and they are still with us and we have a great place to start as we build for the rest of 2025 and 2026 with Gunnar, Adley, Jackson Holliday, Colton Cowser, Jordan Westburg, a lot of good players coming, and we’re in a good spot despite the misfortunate first half.”

Elias’ optimism has grown since moving through the deadline.

The amount of talent injected into the system has him feeling much better about the club’s future. And not that far down the road.

“You never know how the deadline’s gonna go,” he said. “You can have bad luck at the deadline and deals can fall through and you can end up not doing what you need to do or want to do, and by and large that didn’t happen. We feel good with how the chips fell and the talent that we brought in. It’s going to help us in any number of ways.

“This isn’t what we wanted to be six months ago, but we’re in a much better spot than we were one month ago and our core players are rolling a little bit and getting healthy and (Samuel) Basallo and (Dylan) Beavers are getting close, and other guys, so there’s bright stuff ahead. We hope that this misfortune passes and we get back to where we expect and need to be going forward.”