The trade market is heating up, or at least it's heating up everywhere except in Baltimore, where the Orioles are one of nine teams who have yet to make a trade this deadline season. Maybe one reason why they have yet to make a trade is because at least "a couple of teams with big bats" have come into potential trade discussions asking for Manny Machado. That's according to ESPN's Jerry Crasnick.

That sounds like a ridiculous thing to have happened, because it is ridiculous in general. In the context of trade discussions, there's really no harm in asking as you never know what kind of dialogue it might start. I'm guessing whatever GM the Orioles spoke to didn't really think they were going to trade Manny Machado, but there might have been something interesting to learn in what kind of counter-offer the Orioles proposed, if they proposed one at all.

Obviously they won't trade Machado, but if the Orioles came back and said, "Well, we'll think about giving up Kevin Gausman if you give us X, Y, and Z," then something interesting could happen.

Crasnick also reports that teams continue to ask about Gausman as well as Mychal Givens, both players whom the Orioles have been unwilling to move in any possible deal for an impact bat. I have to admit it seems a bit puzzling that even Givens seems to be in the "reluctant to move" category, but I guess it makes more sense if the Orioles really do view him as part of their 2016 bullpen. As for Gausman, well, good for the Orioles for being unwilling to move him, because come on. That would be crazy.

When you hear stuff like this it sure makes it sound like we shouldn't expect that the Orioles will make any big trades in the next 48 hours before the trade deadline. When you take the top guys off the table, you can't get other teams' top guys, and the Orioles system outside of the top guys is really not all that interesting to anybody who wants to improve for the future.