Who will the second half Orioles be?

The Baltimore Orioles are going into the All Star break with a 54-35 record and are on pace for 98 wins, by far their best season since they were division champs in 2014. They currently sit only two games behind the Tampa Bay Rays who, after a blistering start to the season, have come back to Earth in the past few weeks. Both the Orioles and the Rays have difficult second half schedules including 8 games against each other 4 at the Trop and 4 at Camden Yards that could potentially decide who wins the division and the benefit of resting while the other has to win a 3 game series against the second best wildcard team (likely either Astros or the Rangers so you get to face either the defending World Series champs or the team sending half it’s starting lineup to the All Star game) 

Not to mention the rest of the AL East will not be going quietly into the night, a bad two week stretch for the O’s and suddenly the Yankees, Blue Jays and Red Sox are all breathing down your neck. All of these teams began the year with playoff aspirations and all of them will be making moves at the trade deadline to improve their rosters. 

Orioles management has a lot of decisions to make here in the next few weeks as the trade deadline approaches so while we wait for the All Star Break to end I thought I’d explore the possibilities of who gets called up, who gets traded and who gets traded for.