It’s only April 11 but we’ve already reached the nadir of the Orioles season.

We spent all winter wondering how the O’s would address the starting rotation and as it turns out, a couple back-end veteran pitchers likely isn’t going to cut it.

Losing Grayson Rodriguez during spring training was tough. Losing Zach Eflin to shoulder fatigue is too.

Couple those two issues with the fact that top prospect Chayce McDermott is still unavailable, veteran Kyle Gibson isn’t stretched out yet, and Trevor Rogers and Albert Suarez are both out for the foreseeable future and you can see the gravity of the problem.

With any luck, Rodriguez will return before June. And Kyle Bradish is slated to return at some point later this year.

But as it stands, the Orioles have four question marks in the rotation, one open spot thanks to Eflin’s absence, and a whole truckload of remorse about not addressing an area of the roster that the entire baseball world knew was a weakness heading into the season.

So what are the Orioles to do? In a vacuum, they need to trade one of their highly regarded prospects for a pitching upgrade.

In practice, it’s going to be difficult to get a deal done, as the vast majority of teams aren’t ready to sell just two weeks into the season.

It’s well past time for the Orioles to trade a top prospect for a starting pitcher

Why didn’t the Orioles want to make this kind of move during the winter? Well, there are probably two reasons. First is that they believe in the group they’ve assembled.

Unfortunately, injuries have decimated their plans. Second is that they are deeply beholden to prospect value and have a difficult time moving those highly regarded players, even when those theoretical moves would make the team better in the short term.

But we’re now well past the time where it’d be a good idea for the Orioles to try to move a top prospect in order to get another pitcher.

Now, it’s more of a necessity. With all due respect to the group currently in Baltimore, those four guys just aren’t good enough to carry the team into the postseason.

And anything less than a postseason appearance in 2025 is going to be a problem for Mike Elias and Brandon Hyde.

As of this morning, the Orioles are in fifth place in the AL East.

They’re just 2.5 games behind the first place Yankees, but that gap will surely keep growing the longer the Orioles wait to find a replacement.

It won’t be easy to find a willing trade partner this early in the season but Elias can’t afford to sit on his heels and wait for things to get better.

The Orioles need to get aggressive in the trade market, and they’ll likely have to overpay for someone to get a deal done.

If they don’t, and the plan is to wait for Eflin, Rodriguez, and Bradish to return, we’re in for a long summer, and more likely another wasted year for the O’s young core.