As the 2018 Orioles stared down the reality of the necessary teardown, Zack Britton was another player where there was no question of if they would trade him, only where and when. One year ago today, we got our answer when the O’s sent him to the division rival Yankees.
The idea of trading Britton was in some ways even more strange than Manny Machado, as Britton had been in the organization for so long that Mike Flanagan was the general manager when he was drafted in 2006. He’d been around forever and seen a lot of people come and go through the organization.