After a week away for the All-Star break, welcome back to SI’s MLB Power Rankings. With the trade deadline closing in, this week’s edition focuses on the teams who have changed their situation the most since last year’s deadline. (For the last ranking, click here, and for more on this format, here.) Rank on!
The Orioles’ position as a team is not meaningfully different from what it was in July 2018. They’re still bad—notably so, though not quite notably enough to be historically so. What’s the difference, then? Last year, Baltimore had plenty of pieces to trade: Manny Machado, Darren O’Day, Kevin Gausman, Jonathan Schoop, Brad Brach.