The biggest Orioles questions left to be answered as virtual winter meetings begin

The latest adjustment to baseball’s calendar because of the coronavirus pandemic is the reworked MLB winter meetings, which were meant to be held as an in-person event this week in Dallas to jump-start the offseason.

Instead, the industry meetings and all the other accoutrements of the week are being held virtually.

That doesn’t mean, however, that the offseason is at a different stage than the meetings’ annual arrival would suggest. Teams, including the Orioles, will still use the time as a way to check in with other clubs and set their course internally for the coming year.

The Orioles’ brass won’t be in Dallas the way they were meant to be this week, but either way, here are four questions that will need to be answered as the virtual event kicks off Monday.

1. Is there anyone left to trade?

General manager and executive vice president Mike Elias has spent the past two years using any experienced players on the Orioles roster who weren’t part of the team’s long-term plan as trade chips for prospects who can help in the future, to the point that it’s unclear who is actually left to be moved.

The pricey remainders of the contracts for first baseman Chris Davis and right-hander Alex Cobb are the team’s biggest financial commitments, though the former is untradeable and it’s unclear of the market for the latter.

Below them, the players in the team’s trading window in terms of a salary well above the league minimum and appeal to other teams are outfielders Trey Mancini and Anthony Santander. They’re the team’s two most recent Most Valuable Orioles, and Mancini was already a fan favorite before he missed this season battling colon cancer. Moving either would be tough to justify, even for an organization that has made its plan clear for the past two years.

That doesn’t leave much more in terms of trade assets. That’s not to say that some of the players who signed ahead of the arbitration process this month or the free agents who join them on the 2021 Orioles won’t be candidates in July, but until then, the trade market for the Orioles might be a cool one.

2. How quickly will they start making additions?

Compared with the first offseason under Elias, last offseason was an active one in terms of player acquisitions.

The Orioles signed starting pitcher Kohl Stewart to a big league deal at the end of December and infielder José Iglesias in the first week in January, and then ended up with meaningful minor league free-agent signings in reliever Cesár Valdez and catcher Bryan Holaday later that month. Left-handers Wade LeBlanc and Tommy Milone were minor league free-agent signings in February.

The Orioles’ needs are the same with a thin infield and uncertain rotation depth. This week, they’ll likely get a better impression of where the market is and whether they can find value by moving quickly on a target who is in their price range, or whether they’ll be better suited waiting out what could already be a slow and depressed market to get such players on lower-risk, less-expensive minor league deals.

History shows that the Orioles will likely wait out the market. What’s less clear is just what will be available to them once they decide to dive in.

3. What’s the latest on the minor league affiliate situation?

At last year’s winter meetings in San Diego, the plan from MLB to consolidate control of the minor league baseball structure and contract over 40 teams was fresh. Now, it might at last be finalized and become public.

Even a year ago, Elias was pretty clear that the Orioles were in a good situation with their affiliates and wouldn’t change a thing if it were up to them. That feeling was mutual from all of their minor league affiliates, many of whom are local and benefit from the connection fans have to the team’s prospects, especially during their current rebuild.

But if there are only going to be four affiliates outside of the complex leagues for each team, one of the minor league teams in the Orioles system will lose that distinction. The hope for that team will be that they end up with another organization to keep affiliated baseball in that community and minimize the impact that losing a team could have.

4. Is there room for a Rule 5 pick on this roster?

The Orioles under Elias have only come away with waiver claims and a pair of Rule 5 draft picks at each of the last two winter meetings, and if past is prologue, that’s probably as ambitious as their acquisition haul from this offseason period can be.

They enter Monday with two open spots on the roster, so they have plenty of room to add. The only question will be what they want to add. Last year, they took a pair of pitchers in Brandon Bailey and Michael Rucker, but didn’t have room for them after signing Stewart, LeBlanc and Milone as the offseason progressed.

It’s possible they could go after another arm, though with plenty of young rotation options such as Dean Kremer and Keegan Akin and a bullpen that’s still not long on experience, it might make more sense to fill in the roster with inexpensive veteran options rather than more rookies.

Perhaps, though, they can take an infielder who can try and replicate the path of Richie Martin — who learned on the job and provided steady defense in 2019 — with an eye toward bolstering the high-minors infield depth the system lacks.

That might be the simplest way to use a roster spot for a team without many internal solutions on the infield. Whether it proves to be a productive plan is another matter.