BALTIMORE -- There’s a difference between MLB teams being open to listening to trade offers and them actively shopping players. It also takes at least two clubs to pull off a successful deal.
Some of the recent buzz in Baltimore has fans actively discussing the potential for trades.
Could the Orioles trade a big name, such as Gunnar Henderson or Jackson Holliday? Could they use a trade to clear up their logjam at third base? Could they instead use prospects from their farm system to trade for MLB players?
At this point, anything feels possible. (Well, almost anything. Pete Alonso, the star slugger who signed a five-year, $155 million deal last December, surely isn’t going anywhere.)
Before anybody panics, it’s important to remember what was stated before: Teams can listen to offers without actively seeking a trade. The O’s, who haven’t made the postseason since 2024, surely have to do their due diligence, as it wouldn’t make sense for president of baseball operations Mike Elias and new general manager Jared Banner to not even answer their phones.
It seems highly unlikely the Orioles would trade Henderson. The 25-year-old star shortstop remains a key part of the club’s core -- even if he hasn’t quite played up to his full potential since 2024 -- and it would take a huge offer to pry him away from Baltimore.
As for Holliday, he may be a more intriguing trade candidate, if only because it could potentially help the O’s solve their infield puzzle and would help them add to an area of need (starting pitching or outfield, most likely).
Before the Aug. 3 Trade Deadline, Holliday’s name was floated in trade rumors. Teams reportedly called about the 22-year-old infielder, who hasn’t reached his full potential three seasons and 307 games into his big league career.
Consider all of this:
• The Orioles could have five players for two spots (second and third) in their infield: Holliday, Jordan Westburg, Coby Mayo, Blaze Alexander and Christian Encarnacion-Strand.
Westburg missed all of the 2026 season, undergoing Tommy John surgery on his right elbow in May. Encarnacion-Strand was impressive, but the 26-year-old played only a small sample size (58 games). Alexander can also play the outfield, though his best defense comes in the infield.
Still -- assuming everyone from this group is healthy -- Baltimore could go with a combo of Alexander and Westburg at second and Mayo and Encarnacion-Strand at third. The argument against that would be all four are right-handed hitters, so there’s not much diversity in player type there. But a solid infield core exists, even if the O’s decided to move Holliday.
• There are surely teams out there that believe Holliday is only going to get better (the Orioles among them). He wasn’t the No. 1 overall pick in the 2022 MLB Draft and the former No. 1 overall prospect in baseball for no reason.
The talent is still there. The pedigree is there. Holliday should still develop into a great player.
And because of that, any trade offer for Holliday could feature a significant return.
• Let’s keep the Adley Rutschman trade in mind during all of this, because it’s important context.
Could anyone have envisioned Rutschman getting dealt to Boston on Aug. 3? Nope. It felt like he was in Baltimore for the long term (or, at the least, until hitting free agency after 2027).
Then, Rutschman was traded, changing the outside perspective of which O’s were untouchable.
Still, the Orioles didn’t trade Rutschman solely for the sake of making a big move. They were in a position in which it made sense to accept a massive offer from the Red Sox -- a whopping haul that featured four highly ranked prospects and a depth catcher (Carlos Narváez).
If the O’s make any more Rutschman-esque moves, it should be because they were blown away by a proposal and that they truly believed it benefited the health of the organization.
So, are the Orioles going to trade Holliday, a different player of that ilk or anybody else? It’s truly difficult to predict, and it’s possible no one really knows, at least not at this point.
Will the trade buzz quiet any time soon, though? Absolutely not. This is what happens in the offseason, especially in this day and age. Experts love to speculate. Fans crave rumors. The Hot Stove is going to keep burning -- whether it leads to any moves or not.
That much is for certain. Even if Baltimore’s potential trade plans are anything but.