The first significant trade of the MLB offseason went down late Tuesday night and it was a stunner. The Baltimore Orioles sent righty Grayson Rodriguez to the Los Angeles Angels for slugging outfielder Taylor Ward. It’s a 1 for 1 trade. Once seen as the O’s future ace, Rodriguez was instead traded for a rental outfielder. A very good rental outfielder, but still a rental outfielder.
For the Angels, the trade is a no-brainer. Rodriguez is the sort of young, high-upside starter who is almost impossible to acquire, and they control him through 2029. The trade also clears up their corner outfield logjam. Jo Adell can man left field full-time while Jorge Soler and Mike Trout split right field and DH duties. They have to figure out center field, but there’s plenty of offseason left to do that.
The Orioles, to be sure, received a very good player. Ward slugged 36 home runs this season and has been a comfortably above-average hitter his entire career, plus he’s rated as a quality left field defender. He will also help balance out an O’s lineup that still leans very left-handed (Samuel Basallo, Dylan Beavers, Colton Cowser, Gunnar Henderson, Jackson Holliday, etc.).
Taylor Ward-Grayson Rodriguez trade grades: Orioles raise rotation questions, Angels take a health risk
R.J. Anderson
Still, it’s stunning to see a team trade away a just-turned-26 year old who is not too far removed from being one of the game’s top pitching prospects, if not the top pitching prospect. Rodriguez was supposed to be part of the young core that returned the Orioles to prominence. Instead, Baltimore decided to move on before he even qualified for arbitration.
Why did the O’s trade a pitcher who was once projected to be their ace? Here are three possible reasons, starting with the most obvious.
1. They aren’t comfortable with his medicals
That might be putting it lightly too. The fact of the matter is that, while Rodriguez is young and very talented, he hasn’t pitched in an official game at any level since July 31, 2024. He was supposed to make a start on Aug. 5, 2024, in Toronto, but had to shut things down during his warm up because of a lat strain. He hasn’t pitched since, not even in a minor-league rehab game.
Rodriguez’s injury history is length. He missed three months with a lat strain in 2022. He had shoulder inflammation early in 2024 and then another lat strain late in 2024. Then, this past season, Rodriguez had an elbow issue in spring training, then another lat flare up in April, and another elbow issue in July. Eventually, Rodriguez had debridement surgery on his elbow in August.
Rodriguez is expected to be ready for the start of spring training, but gosh, that’s a lot of arm injuries. Serious arm injuries too. Lat strains can be season killers and elbow surgery is never good, even when it’s not Tommy John surgery. What good is talent if you’re not on the field and able to tap into it? The best ability is availability and Rodriguez hasn’t had it yet in his career.
Injuries are one of those things where the public will never have all the information. I do think it’s fair to say though that the pitching-needy Orioles trading four (!) years of Rodriguez for one year of Ward is an indication they’re not comfortable with the former’s medicals and don’t anticipate him holding up in a way that allows him to meaningfully contribute moving forward.
If the Orioles are right, that means one of two things. Rodriguez could simply get hurt again and not be able to pitch. It could also be that all these arm injuries will take a toll, diminish his stuff and/or command, and render Rodriguez less effective than we all thought he would be a year or two ago. Injuries have ruined many a pitcher. The O’s have seemingly bet on Rodriguez being one of them.
2. Rodriguez was not one of Elias’ guys
That is not to say this was personal. Not at all. It’s just that Rodriguez was a holdover from the previous front office regime. He was the No. 11 overall pick in the July 2018 draft, and the Orioles hired current president of baseball operations Mike Elias to run their front office in November 2018. Elias inherited Rodriguez from the previous Dan Duquette-led front office.
It is only natural for executives to have more attachment to their players. The guys they draft, the guys they sign, the guys they trade for, etc. You see it all the time when a general manager takes over a new team and immediately trades for a player(s) he had at his previous stop. (Just look at how many former Tampa Bay Rays prospects Peter Bendix brought to the Miami Marlins.)
Because Elias did not draft Rodriguez, it’s possible it was easier for him to trade him. Maybe he even undervalued him. I don’t want to say Elias is anti-pitcher — he knows you need them — but he’s very risk-averse with pitchers (likely to a fault based on 2025). I don’t think this trade was personal. I just think it was a little easier for Elias to make because Rodriguez wasn’t “his” guy.
3. This was the best the O’s could do
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with trading Rodriguez. Very few players should ever be truly off limits and pitchers with long injury histories are not among them. The question isn’t so much why did the Orioles trade Rodriguez, but was this the best they could do? Was one year of Ward really the best four years of Rodriguez could fetch?
I’m certain Elias did his homework and shopped around for the best deal. It’s not like Rodriguez’s injury history is a secret, and it could be that once teams reviewed his medicals, they said a polite thanks but no thanks. Again, injuries are one thing that we’re just never going to have all the information. Rodriguez’s trade value might have been much lower that it appeared from the outside.
Also, it could be that Elias and the O’s value Ward very highly. There’s also position scarcity in play. The Orioles are loaded with lefty-hitting outfielders and needed a righty to help balance the lineup. Here are the top free-agent right handed-hitting outfielders by projected 2026 FanGraphs WAR:
- Harrison Bader: +1.5 WAR
- Willi Castro: +1.3 WAR (switch-hitter)
- Miguel Andujar: +1.2 WAR
- Lane Thomas: +0.7 WAR
- Rob Refsnyder: +0.6 WAR
This is a good offseason to need a lefty-hitting outfielder. Cody Bellinger, Kyle Tucker, and others are available as free agents. If you want a righty-hitting outfielder, though, it’s almost Bader or bust, and 2025 was the first time in four years the 31-year-old was healthy and effective at the same time. I can understand wanted to steer clear of the righty-hitting free-agent market.
Perhaps the Chicago Cubs would have entertained Seiya Suzuki for Rodriguez or the San Francisco Giants would have listened on Heliot Ramos. Ward is a pretty darn good player though, one who fills a need for the Orioles very well. I’m sure Elias would have preferred to trade Rodriguez for an outfielder with long-term control. It could be that player just wasn’t available to him.
Given his injuries, the Orioles couldn’t really count on Rodriguez in 2026. If he stayed healthy and pitched well, great, but they were not going to be able to pencil him into the Opening Day rotation and be confident he’d give them 25 effective starts. There’s a good chance Rodriguez’s trade value was never going to be higher than it is right now. The injury history is that scary.
To be sure though, four years of Rodriguez for one year of Ward qualifies as a shocking trade. Rodriguez was Baltimore’s Game 2 starter in the 2023 ALDS and all signs pointed to him being a mainstay atop the rotation. Injuries have derailed him the last two years and the O’s know his medicals better than anyone. They believed the trade was the way Rodriguez would be most valuable to them moving forward and that’s why it was made. It really is that simple.
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