FanPost

The seed of this year's disaster was planted at the 2015 trading deadline

What are the odds that someone in the Orioles' front office will read this? Very low, but it's zero if I don't write it. And I really want whoever is running the Orioles in the future to learn from the terrible mistake team management made in July 2015.

The Orioles entered 2015 with promise. In 2014 they could have won the World Series. Most of the key players, except Nelson Cruz, were returning. But in 2015 the Orioles did not play well. Some guys came down to earth (Steve Pearce). Three starting pitchers -- Chris Tillman, Miguel Gonzalez and Bud Norris -- collapsed. They got Matt Wieters back from surgery in June and he started off hot, giving the team hope he would lead a resurgence, but he started slumping in early July and by late July it was clear he was not going to be the savior.

On July 24, a week before the trading deadline, the O's lost their 4th game in a row to drop to 46-49, fourth in the AL East and 5 1/2 games behind the second wild card, with four other teams ahead of them for that spot.

The O's had three desirable pending free agents. Wei-Yin Chen had a 2.86 ERA and was their best starting pitcher. Chris Davis, who played RF on July 24, was hitting .242/.342./.481. Setup man Darren O'Day had a 1.51 ERA. All three of them would have brought top prospects on the trade market.

If the Orioles had traded Chen, Davis and O'Day in July 2015, they would be a good team today, and be poised for a long period of contention.

And they were even talking about it. I don't know if it would have happened if they had lost four more games in a row; the Orioles have never liked trading down. Unfortunately, we'll never know, as the Orioles embarked on the most costly winning streak in franchise history.

The Orioles won five in a row against the Rays, who were mediocre, and the Braves, who were bad. On July 29 they were 51-49, and had pulled up to second in the AL East, six games behind NY. Disastrously, they were now only one game out of the second wildcard. The front office calculus changed. They decided to go for it.

On July 31 the Orioles traded prospect Zach Davies, who has been a key member of Milwaukee's rotation ever since, for Gerardo Parra, a bad outfielder who was having the best half-season of his career by a large margin. Parra had a 94 OPS+ from 2009 through 2014, but he was hitting .328/.369/.517 over 100 games. The Orioles, fresh off getting the best year of Steve Pearce's life, convinced themselves Parra had another three good months in him.

He didn't. Parra did accomplish something amazing in Baltimore: he was the 6th worst position player in the entire American League by WAR, even though he played only two months. He was that bad.

Many Orioles fans have complained about this trade since; obviously it was a disaster. Davies is good and Parra was not. But that's missing the really important point.

The Orioles should have traded down, not up, in 2015.

They got absolutely no benefit from keeping Chen, Davis and O'Day, and in fact they ended up making two more possibly related decisions that hurt the team to this day.

Chen left as a free agent. Good for him. It's good that the Orioles didn't sign him as he has pitched to an ERA over 5 in Miami when he hasn't been hurt.

O'Day, the Orioles overpaid to stay. Bidding against the Nationals for his services, Baltimore gave O'Day $31 million for four years, and has been rewarded so far with 111 innings and a 3.56 ERA. That's not worth $7.8 million a year, but at least he is a useful player.

Chris Davis: do I even need to say it? OK, for the historical record. Davis had a hot finish to 2015, hitting .288/.415/.665 with 22 home runs from August 1 to the end of the season. Like that 5-game winning streak, this cost the Orioles immensely.

With no other bidders ever publicly identified, the Orioles paid Davis, who would turn 30 before the 2016 season, $161 million for 7 years. He has hit .204/.304/.411 since the signing and is easily the worst player in the American League this year.

The Orioles could still have made this bad decision on Chris Davis. Maybe they would have paid him even more to come back. Who knows?

Imagine the prospects they might have brought in by trading him instead, and Chen, and O'Day. They would still have Davies, and they'd have those guys.

But, you say, then maybe they don't make the playoffs in 2016?

No connection. The three guys they should have traded were free agents. Chen left anyway. And Davis and O'Day were not a big help in 2016. Davis was mediocre but still somewhat useful, hitting .221/.352/.459. O'Day missed seven weeks with an injury and pitched to a 3.77 ERA. Whether or not the O's could have done just as well with replacements is academic because they were free agents anyway.

I'm writing this about the past, July 2015, for the future. In 2018, the Orioles are the worst team in baseball and it was easy for them to decide to trade their pending free agents.

In 2015 the decision would have been more difficult, but it would have averted this year's train wreck of a team. I hope the Orioles' front office recognizes the next 2015 when it rolls around.

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