The Orioles shouldn't have any untouchables, however ...

When a member of the Miami Marlins front office said the club would listen to trade offers for Giancarlo Stanton, it set off a mild firestorm around baseball. To me, all it meant was the Marlins' brass was doing its job. I am not a believer in the concept that certain players are "untouchable" meaning they are 100 percent unavailable via a trade. How can a team say never? Every GM has a price on every player and if some team overwhelms the Marlins with a deal too good to pass up, maybe they wouldn't pass it up for Stanton. But while they may listen, it is probably near 100 percent unlikely that they actually do trade the player. Some Orioles fans rushed to message boards to propose that Dylan Bundy be the centerpiece of a package for Stanton. This makes for good message board and fantasy trade fodder but probably has about zero chance of happening in the real MLB world. By the way, should Dan Duquette even listen if a team calls about Bundy? Of course he should listen, that is his job. Is there a better chance of a foot of snow today in Miami than the O's trading Bundy? Yes, there almost certainly is. Bundy was rated as MLB's No. 1 prospect at midseason last year by Baseball America. The player ranked third on that list, Wil Myers, was traded last month by the Kansas City Royals in the deal that sent pitcher James Shields from Tampa Bay to KC. But KC has other good hitting prospects, and I put a higher value on a top pitching prospect over a hitter, especially one that may be No. 1 in all of baseball. The argument some fans have made is that Bundy is still just a prospect at this point, and look at all the Orioles pitching prospects that have not lived up to the hype over the years. But that has nothing to do with Bundy. What if he truly is better than all the rest and an ace in the making? None of those other pitchers were rated as highly or talked about by scouts as Bundy is. They just were not. It's possible that Bundy and Kevin Gausman could be mentioned one day in the same breath with Daniel Cabrera, but I doubt it. I'd like the club to see it through with this pair that could lead the club's pitching rotation for years and years to come. Yes, they might not pan out. But the Orioles can't let their poor recent history of producing pitchers impact what they do with this talented duo. They should always listen about any player in trade talks. But sometimes the gap between listening and actually trading can be as large as the Grand Canyon. No mas for Duran: Meanwhile, according to this story from Baseball America's Ben Badler, the Orioles have released 18-year-old, Dominican-born pitcher Elvis Duran after he pitched just eight innings for their Dominican Summer League team last summer. Badler reports that the Orioles signed Duran to a $150,000 signing bonus. That was the largest bonus the Orioles paid to an international amateur free agent in 2011. Badler cites a source that said Duran was released due to an elbow injury. According to the O's media guide, Duran was signed on Aug. 30, 2011 by David Stockstill and Ernst Meyer.