The Orioles announced during Saturday night's game that they have acquired outfielder Alejandro De Aza from the Chicago White Sox in exchange for minor league pitchers Miguel Chalas and Mark Blackmar.
De Aza is a 30-year-old who's played all three outfield positions over a seven-year big league career. Over 545 career games, he's batted .268/.331/.398 and has stolen 77 bases. This season, in 121 games, he has batted .246/.312/.358. That's pretty bad but it's actually a lot better than David Lough. It seems like De Aza is what the Orioles hoped Lough would be.
The left-handed hitting De Aza has significant platoon splits. That batting line this year improves to .279/.347/.410 against right-handed pitching, while he bats a paltry .105/.160/.145 against lefties. De Aza might even be able to make starts against righty pitchers, sparing us from watching Nelson Cruz or Delmon Young out there.
Hopefully, MASN will inform Gary Thorne on how to properly pronounce his name now that he's on the Orioles. Thorne is fond of saying De Arza.
Making $4.25 million in his second year of arbitration, the Orioles will also have control of him for next season as well if they want to. Acquiring him at this time means that he will be eligible for the Orioles postseason roster, should they make it into the postseason.
Chalas and Blackmar are basically the definition of minor league organizational depth that probably will never matter. Chalas was pitching in relief in Frederick, putting up a 4.48 ERA. Blackmar, in his fourth season in the organization, had a 3.18 ERA in 26 games for the Keys, 18 of which were starts. If they turn into something, congratulations to Chicago. The Orioles have a division to win this year.