As a result of their play so far this season, the Orioles are effectively obligated to trade their best player, Manny Machado, before July 31. There is no way to get around this. In May, Dan Duquette deflected with his “see where we’re at on Memorial Day” line. Two weeks beyond that, although he’s not coming out and saying Machado is guaranteed to be traded, he finally has discussed the obvious publicly.
Duquette held court with Orioles reporters, including MASN’s Roch Kubatko and MLB.com’s Brittany Ghiroli, on Tuesday afternoon, apparently at the same time that other Orioles reporters were attending the introductory press conference of first round pick Grayson Rodriguez.