When Brandon Hyde took the Orioles job at the winter meetings late last year in Las Vegas, his new boss Mike Elias had just floated the notion that Jonathan Villar was the team's everyday shortstop.
With Tim Beckham not offered a contract in early December, such was the gap atop the depth chart at that crucial position that the Orioles were planning to pull the man who stepped in seamlessly at second base after he was traded for Jonathan Schoop from his best position to fill another need.
But moves that came that same week — the selection of shortstop Richie Martin from the Oakland Athletics in the Rule 5 draft and the trade for the Philadelphia Phillies' Rule 5 pick, Drew Jackson, moments later — began a series of transactions in which Elias and the front office sought to rectify that.