Safe to say that Ryan O’Hearn was one of the biggest personal winners of last month’s trade deadline. Rather than riding out the stretch run of a lost season with the Baltimore Orioles, he now gets to head toward free agency in the middle of a dogfight atop the NL West with the red-hot San Diego Padres.

Alongside teammate Ramon Laureano, plus other new additions like Mason Miller, Freddy Fermin and Nestor Cortes, San Diego has won five in a row and nine of 12 so far in August, rocketing into sole possession of first place ahead of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Miller further upgrades what was already MLB’s best bullpen, the returns of Michael King and Yu Darvish have helped stabilize the rotation and O’Hearn, Fermin and Laureano have patched the glaring hoes in San Diego’s lineup. Suddenly, this is a shockingly complete team, and O’Hearn sure seems like he’s having a blast in his new digs.

“The lineup is probably the best lineup I’ve ever been a part of,” O’Hearn told reporters after Thursday’s sweep of the San Francisco Giants, per MLB.com. “And I was on some really good offensive teams in Baltimore. We have great hitters up and down the lineup. Freddy Fermin in the nine hole has been extremely productive. [Jake] Cronenworth, great hitter, hitting in the eight hole. You look up and down the lineup, there’s not a weak link.”

You can’t fault a guy for being excited about getting dropped into the middle of a pennant chase, and there was always going to be a bit of a honeymoon period here. But complimenting your new partner is one thing; comparing them favorably to your ex is another, and O’Hearn’s review of the Padres lineup was the ultimate backhanded compliment to the O’s and GM Mike Elias.

Ryan O’Hearn’s review of his new team should sting a bit for Orioles fans

Baltimore began the 2025 season expecting to be where the Padres are sitting right now. Instead, a nightmare first half forced them to sell O’Hearn, Laureano and other pieces at the trade deadline. Now, they’re just hoping to play out the string and regroup ahead of 2026.

It’s a colossal failure on Elias’ part. The O’s young core was once the envy of the league, and while injuries and bad luck factored into what went wrong this year in Baltimore, it’s also telling that O’Hearn thinks more highly of Fernando Tatis Jr., Manny Machado and Co. than he does of his old team. With Gunnar Henderson, Adley Rutschman, Jackson Holliday and others under team control for years to come, Orioles fans fully expected to have an elite lineup at this point. But it hasn’t worked out that way, as Elias has been asleep at the wheel instead of putting the pedal to the metal.

Which is really the ultimate irony. Preller is the anti-Elias in so many ways; it’s impossible to see this Baltimore regime signing off on the trade that sent top prospect Leo de Vries to the A’s in exchange for Miller, given how much surplus value a player like that can accrue if he blossoms into a star.

But Preller doesn’t care much about surplus value years down the line. He cares about doing whatever he can to win a World Series right now, and it seems to be working out for the Padres so far this season.