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The Rumor
According to Jon Morosi on Twitter, the Diamondbacks received calls from the Orioles about their two young left handed outfielders, Ender Inciarte and David Peralta and with the Orioles apparent surplus of MLB catchers, these two teams certainly do match up.
Or do they? With 5 catchers on their 40-man roster and another already DFA'd to make room for Delmon Young (Ryan Lavarnway), the Orioles are in a tough spot. With Matt Wieters' coming off Tommy John surgery, do they stay with Caleb Joseph and Steve Clevenger or hope the Blue Jays version of J.P Arencibia shows up? Either way, the Orioles depth charts from Fangraphs, which incorporate some of the projection systems such as STEAMER and ZiPS, is not a fan of any of their options with only Caleb Joseph expected to do much with the playing time they receive.
| Name | PA | AVG | OBP | SLG | wOBA | Bat | BsR | Fld | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Matt Wieters 
|
416 | .246 | .311 | .418 | .321 | 1.5 | -1.4 | 6.2 | 3.1 |
| Caleb Joseph | 160 | .222 | .271 | .345 | .274 | -5.1 | -0.3 | 1.5 | 0.5 |
| Steve Clevenger | 32 | .252 | .310 | .364 | .300 | -0.4 | -0.1 | 0.0 | 0.1 |
| Mike Ohlman | 19 | .220 | .284 | .320 | .273 | -0.6 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Ryan Lavarnway | 13 | .246 | .317 | .379 | .310 | -0.1 | 0.0 | -0.1 | 0.1 |
From the Diamondbacks point of view, Dave Stewart addressed the potential high cost of acquiring a catcher late last week,
"We've not made a whole lot of headway in that area yet," Stewart said. "Without really giving up something that's going to cost us a player that we don't want to give away, we don't have a whole lot of motion yet."
Fortunately for Dbacks fans, Dave Stewart is "not going to give away a player that we hold in high regard to get a catcher" and since he "feel[s] that offensively we're going to be decent enough that we can give away some offense at a position" we can assume catcher is a position where they can give away some offense.
The Deal
Baltimore is probably looking for a leadoff hitter, given their interest in Nate McLouth so that would assume Ender Inciarte is the guy they are targeting. It also helps the Dbacks as Inciarte would seem to have more value as the defensive stud and leadoff hitter the Orioles are looking for. With Inciarte under team control for another 6 years, the return would be Ryan Lavarnway or Steve Clevenger and also a young arm, maybe someone like a Hunter Harvey? It may seem like too much, but Ender Inciarte is coming off a 3.7 WAR season and will be under team control until the 2021 season. If the Diamondbacks do feel the need to shop him, they should not settle for an underwhelming deal.
While David Peralta isn't as skilled a defender as Ender is, he can hold his own in the outfield and is a much better hitter. He's under control until the 2021 season and should be in high demand as well for his prowess against RHP. Like the deal with Ender, it would start with the catcher you fancy, then progress to a young pitcher.
Unfortunately for us (and the Orioles I guess) outside of Bundy and Hunter, they really don't have any pitchers the Dbacks seem to be targeting these days. The Orioles' farm system is filled with back of the rotation types and with our system crawling with them, it's probably best to hold out for Hunter. If they won't budge or counter with someone like Tim Berry or Zach Davies do you make the deal? Or do you wait the 10 days and try to pick Lavarnway on waivers? However the Diamondbacks proceed, they hold all the cards and should not be pressured into accepting a deal that could easily be topped only to fill a hole.