Philadelphia Phillies at Baltimore Orioles

The buzz continues to grow surrounding the Orioles, one of the most interesting teams to monitor ahead of Monday’s 6 p.m. ET Trade Deadline. Will they buy? Will they sell? Will they do a mixture of both? WIll they stand pat? President of baseball operations Mike Elias met with the media prior to Friday’s series-opening 6-4 comeback win over the Phillies at Camden Yards to provide a bit of clarity regarding where Baltimore stands. And it doesn’t sound as if the O’s (who improved to 54-56 thanks to Gunnar Henderson's two-run triple) will be buyers or sellers, from a traditional Deadline sense. Elias wants to make good trades, and what that will look like is still to be determined. “We’re not going to have a strong bias toward being in one of those buckets, buyer or seller. I think we put ourselves in a position where we can’t have a bias in either direction,” Elias said. “So we are out in the market, on the phones, finding out what’s going on out there and looking at things on a case-by-case basis -- looking for trades that we like, looking for exchanges of talent that we think makes sense for the organization. “Maybe those are short-term moves where we bring players in that are going to help us right now, or next year. Maybe those are longer-term moves where we’re sending out guys that are on this team right now and bringing in players for the future of the organization. I think we put ourselves in a position where we’re not declaring ourselves to be in one bucket or the other, and we are going to be kind of assessing moves as the market dictates.” Doesn’t that make the Orioles’ Trade Deadline plans and preparations a bit complicated? Yes, and Elias admitted as much. But it’s been a slow-developing market this summer, largely in part due to the crowded mix of teams in the American League Wild Card hunt.