Jon Meoli: As the Orioles welcome back Adley Rutschman, their deadline trades loom large

A lot can happen in a month.

When Orioles president of baseball operations Mike Elias woke up a month ago Thursday and proceeded to trade Adley Rutschman, the player he selected first overall in 2019 as a means of building a foundation for this Orioles, the team was four games under .500 and looking like a playoff long shot.

As had happened in the preceding four months, the Orioles’ season has died and been reborn countless times since. They troughed at six games under after being swept by the Yankees in mid-August, then won eight of 10 to get back to .500 for the first time since April, only to back those up with two mind-bending losses to a bad Rockies team that bring them home.

The trade that had a seismic impact on the Orioles’ season and, by extension, called into question much of Elias’ tenure leading the team, is a month old. The more we learn about what the Orioles yielded in return, the rosier the outlook gets.

The pesky-but-maddening team Rutschman left behind is still in the playoff mix and in many ways controlling its own destiny. That is a trip wire that’s going to complicate not only these four games against Boston, starting Thursday, but the rest of the season.

Even if the Orioles are better for the trade — and the others they made at the deadline, to a lesser extent — that long-term benefit is going to feel hollow if they fall short of the playoffs and we’re left feeling that they undercut themselves too severely.

Early August was heavy, processing what the Orioles did in trading Rutschman, given all he stood for and meant to the team. How the season would finish felt secondary. That’s not the case anymore. In the month since, it’s become all that really matters.

That starts with what has happened behind the plate. In the week between the trade and Rutschman’s Aug. 11 activation in Boston from the injured list, where he was recovering from a wrist issue, the combination of Carlos Narváez and Yohel Pozo was 4-for-24 (.167) with a .522 OPS.

Samuel Basallo was activated from his shoulder injury Aug. 19. The Orioles’ catchers managed two more hits in the preceding week, bringing the Narváez-Pozo combination to a combined 6-for-42 (.143) with a .448 OPS before Basallo’s return.

I imagine everyone who cares enough to read this has pulled up Rutschman’s stats since the trade to check in on how he’s faring up north. It hasn’t been great. He’s hitting .170 with a .500 OPS and 15 strikeouts in 59 plate appearances, with manager Chad Tracy saying this week he’s been dealing with a hyperextended elbow that’s expected to impact him the rest of the season.

There’s a chance he’d still be banged up in Baltimore, but it’s more likely he’d be hitting better than he has with Boston, where he’s adjusting to a new town and team. It’s hard to say how much better the 2026 Orioles would be without that trade. It’s unlikely they’d be worse.

In some cases, the trades have helped. Taylor Ward’s impact was waning, and his trade to Seattle cleared a more regular role for Dylan Beavers, who has an .811 OPS since the trade deadline. Luis Robert Jr., claimed off waivers, will only enhance the outfield mix.

The deal also yielded a revelation of a reliever in Alex Hoppe (no earned runs in 12 appearances with a 1.03 WHIP), who has taken on leverage relief spots for manager Craig Albernaz almost immediately. But he’s really just replacing Tyler Wells, who was dealt to Tampa Bay for Triple-A starter Michael Forret. He’s going to contribute to this rotation long term, but the current one seems to be wearing down, which is happening in part because Dean Kremer was traded to the Minnesota Twins.

The Orioles got plenty of good players back in all of these trades. Given how good their pro scouting department has proven to be, that’s almost a given. It’s just that the guiding factor in these trades was that the Orioles weren’t in a strong enough position for Elias to justify not making them.

There were only 2.5 games between the Orioles and the last wild card on the morning of the trade deadline, but having five teams ahead of them in the standings complicated that.

What was clear then and still is now is that no one outside the top teams in the American League is in a strong position. The Orioles’ front office only recently, and perhaps begrudgingly, started to operate in a way that indicated it wanted to give it a go. The team shifted Luis De León to the bullpen (though others at Triple-A should have joined him at the time, given the state of the bullpen) and claimed Robert.

On the field, the Orioles are pushing as hard as they can. Given how many times they’ve looked like all is lost only to win a few games and stir some belief, they’ll probably continue to do so until the math says they can’t.

That, too, was true at the deadline, which was probably part of the reason the front office rolled the dice on trading Rutschman. If this team were going to finally click, it could do so without its franchise catcher. But, because they were doing something so meaningful to the franchise as a whole, the impact of the deadline deals on the 2026 Orioles was almost brushed aside. That was a mistake.