The Orioles are known to be looking for an impact, middle-of-the-order hitter, but according to Jeff Zrebiec of The Baltimore Sun, team president Andy MacPhail says he has no plans to part with any of his top young players to acquire such a hitter.
"Personally, I don't see us giving up any key building blocks going forward at this stage of the game," MacPhail said. "I'm pretty optimistic that we're going to be able to acquire guys that are going to be meaningful improvements for us without having to sacrifice key guys."
Zrebiec says this effectively takes the O's out of the running for Adrian Gonzalez, should the Padres put him on the market this winter. This year's free agent class lacks proven middle-of-the order guys beyond Matt Holliday and Jason Bay, although the Orioles are set in the outfield for the foreseeable future with Adam Jones, Nick Markakis, and Nolan Reimold.
"It could come either way. You just don't know how the offseason is going to evolve. One trade might start a set of dominoes going in a direction that you really can't anticipate in September. We're going to take a look at what options are available to us in terms of a bat."
"The important thing for us is pretty simple — you identify a pretty wide spectrum of players that are free agents or you think might be available and you make sure you have adequate scouting coverage on them," MacPhail said. "But every offseason, there are things that come about that you just don't anticipate. Our job right now is to make sure we got our scouts in the right places."
