In recent years, the O’s have been rather conservative at the trade deadline, and in retrospect, you feel like they could have, should have gone bigger. In 2023, their midseason haul was highlighted by an ineffective Jack Flaherty and Shintaro Fujinami. In 2024, they chose quantity over quality, trading for outfielders Eloy Jiménez and Austin Slater and pitchers Zach Eflin, Gregory Soto, Seranthony Domínguez, and Trevor Rogers.
Of those six, just half—Slater, Domínguez and Eflin—posted a positive WAR for the Orioles, and Slater and Domínguez just barely. Perhaps a lack of serious ambition at the deadline.
Zach Eflin, on the other hand, was a revelation.