Getty Jesus Luzardo pitches during a March 28 game against the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Looking to build off of their breakout 2023 season, the Baltimore Orioles have won five in seven. With pitching help available, should they trade for another arm?
Bleacher Report’s Zachary D. Rymer linked the Orioles with Marlins pitcher Jesus Luzardo in an April 5 column.
Luzardo, just 21-years-old and too talented for a Miami Marlins team that’s rebuilding, could be available if their 2024 tailspin continues.
The left handed pitcher posted a 3.58 ERA last season, which would have ranked second among all Orioles starters.
He’s just 27 years old and will be under team control through 2026.
Miami is 0-9 to start the year, with no end to the losing streak in sight. Only two other teams have fallen to such a poor start in the last 20 years: the 2016 Atlanta Braves and the 2016 Minnesota Twins.
Rymer thinks that Baltimore has plenty to offer in a deal for Luzardo, even after they acquired Corbin Burnes in February.
“The Orioles’ trade for Burnes was surprising in more ways than one, including for how little they had to sacrifice from what’s easily the best farm system in the league,” Rymer wrote. “They thus left themselves plenty to barter with in future trades, including one for Luzardo if they ultimately decide they need another arm.”
The Orioles are home to the MLB’s top farm system, and with that, have three prospects in the league’s top 31.
Rymer has Baltimore trading two of them in a deal with Miami. His trade proposal has Coby Mayo, Heston Kjerstad going out in exchange for the Marlins starting pitcher.
Orioles Have Trade Chips Aplenty
Rymer cited the depth of the Orioles’ farm system one of the would-be motivating factors to do the deal.
“Even without roping Jackson Holliday into this,” Rymer wrote. “It’s saying something that the O’s could part with Mayo and Kjerstad and still be left holding their two best prospects.”
Baltimore’s home to the best Triple-A team in baseball, where Kjerstad and Mayo both are outperforming their spot in the system through seven games of play.
So much so, that Ryder considers them potential immediate contributors for the Marlins.
“Both could step in right away in Miami,” Rymer writes. “Potentially helping to ward off a protracted rebuild.”
Kjerstad is slashing .531/.556/1.188 with six home runs and 25 RBIs.
Mayo is off to a hot start, although perhaps not as hot. He’s batting .394/.444/.697, with two home runs on 13 hits and six RBIs.
There’s a Growing Market for Starting Pitchers
Injuries are the worst part of sports, for the sake of the player, and because of the quickness with which the business side intervenes.
Teams with injured players are forced to address their new needs, and opposing teams can mark up the price on those needs, playing on another team’s (desperate) position of need.
All that said, two pitchers are set to undergo Tommy John surgery after injuring themselves in a 2024 start, Eury Perez and Shane Bieber.
And another, Spencer Strider, received bad results from an MRI on April 6.
For teams who are looking at acquiring starting pitching, “yesterday’s price is not today’s price,” as the saying goes.
Baltimore may be best equipped to pay a premium. But that doesn’t mean an Orioles team that’s strategically built what they have today will be quick to pull the trigger.