Jon Meoli: Why the Orioles’ trade deadline plans hinge on Trevor Rogers

David Rubenstein doesn’t need me to verify his math, but it certainly checks out.

If the Orioles win seven out of every 10 games the rest of the way, we’re talking about a 91-win team that would likely surge into a playoff spot and render their frustrating start moot.

The Orioles’ control owner declared his hope that this was a playoff team and posited that kind of baseball was possible while sidestepping a question about what he hoped president of baseball operations Mike Elias does with the roster leading up to the Aug. 3 trade deadline.

No one is more central to that than Friday’s starter, Trevor Rogers. He’s at once their best trade chip as a pending free agent and an irreplaceable part of their pursuit of Rubenstein’s goal. He’ll have around 10 starts the rest of the way. He has been among the best starters in baseball since June 1, and even with Friday’s forehead slapper of a loss as evidence to the contrary, even these inconsistent Orioles can win when Rogers pitches well.

So much will dictate Elias’ course over the next 10 days, with the Orioles’ play and where it leaves them in the muddled American League playoff race the most important factor. The deadline path will impact no one more than Rogers, and, to me, no one will influence it more.

Rogers, a 2024 trade deadline acquisition, was both an opportunistic addition given his performance had deteriorated since his All-Star rookie year with Miami in 2021 and a costly one. The Orioles sent Kyle Stowers and Connor Norby to the Marlins for his services.

Once he got over his offseason knee issue that cropped up in 2025, he was a singular bright spot in a disappointing season, with a 1.81 ERA in 18 starts to earn Most Valuable Oriole honors. He picked up where he left off in early April but swooned through the end of May before this recent surge.

Rogers entered Friday with a 1.69 ERA — third best among qualified starters since June 1 — and a 1.04 WHIP in his last nine starts. And against the Braves he pitched seven innings of two-run ball.

It’s that kind of reliability from Rogers and the rest of the rotation that helped the Orioles to this month’s seven-game winning streak and helped them pull closer to .500 and a playoff spot, though it’s only brought them so far. Their FanGraphs playoff odds were at 24.3% entering Friday, with Las Vegas odds implying a slightly better chance than that.

They’ll go up with every win, though, and if the front office thinks there’s a credible path to October, those 10 Rogers starts are going to be a significant part. He’ll shoulder that responsibility with fellow starters Kyle Bradish, Shane Baz, Dean Kremer and Brandon Young.

But in the news conference announcing Bradish’s five-year contract extension Friday, Elias noted that the “healthy competition” among the starters has led to them doing “a great job this year.” The Orioles have a lot of conviction in this group, and if there was any part of this roster worth betting on, it was those starters.

Still, we’re talking about a bet against the odds. Ten AL teams began Friday’s play with a better chance to make the playoffs than the Orioles. Eight teams, including the Orioles, were within five games of .500 in either direction.

It might make needle-moving addition at the deadline too risky a move, but none of that precludes the Orioles from adding a much-needed bullpen piece or two to a team that Rubenstein backed Friday to “make a really solid run for the playoffs and beyond that.”

That feels like a scenario Rogers would be a part of. He also backed Elias, an executive whose decision-making framework has a lot more space for the data and the Orioles’ projection models than hope and chance.

There’s little precedent from his time leading the team for this one. But a few years ago he shed light on his decision-making process when it comes to borderline calls in relation to leaving Jackson Holliday off the 2024 opening day roster, then calling him up shortly after the season began.

“I’ll tend to err on the side of the one that’s more easily correctable, reversible,” he said.

But maybe this isn’t borderline and he decides the Orioles are too much of a long shot to hang on to Rogers. They’d get a meaningful prospect haul, even with Rogers being a rental, due to the paucity of pitchers available.

They’d also be meaningfully diminishing their chances to win those 10 or so games Rogers would have pitched, with respect to anyone who could replace him, be it Chris Bassitt, Cade Povich or Trey Gibson. (It’s of course possible that the Orioles acquire a controllable starting pitcher to replace Rogers in a different trade, though there’s plenty of risk in that and it comes with its own costs.)

Trading him is a decision you make only if you’re certain the playoffs are out of reach for this team, no matter the future value that could come back. It’s also not an easily correctable one. There’s no backsies if the Orioles go on a run in August and realize they could use him.

There’s going to be plenty to influence the Orioles’ deadline path over the next three series. With each new development, the question of how much of a difference Rogers can make will be about the only one that matters.