BALTIMORE — For the Orioles sake, lets hope us fans don't rue the day they traded Grayson Rodriguez to the Angels.
Granted, Rodriguez has been injury prone during his short big league career.
The 26-year-old missed all of last season with shoulder inflammation and a lat strain.
Shoulder problems sidelined him for a chunk of the 2024 campaign as well.
Lets not forget that same season, in the 20 games he did start, Rodriguez notched a 13-4 record with a sub-4 ERA.
Assuming Rodriguez would be ready to go at the start of 2026, he would've been part of an exciting 123 punch atop a starting rotation that includes Trevor Rogers and Kyle Bradish.
Not to mention, Rodriguez was under team control through 2029, whereas Taylor Ward, the 31-year-old outfielder the O's received in return, is entering his final year of arbitration, meaning he's set to hit the free agent market years before Rodriguez.
While there's no dispute Ward provides much needed power at the plate, his .228 batting average and 175 strikeouts last season is highly concerning.
Personally, I'm skeptical why the team would risk giving up on one of their potential strengths in homegrown starting pitching, which is hard to come by, to acquire a player that's five-years older, whose likely already hit his ceiling, and quite possibly won't even be here after next season.
In my humble opinion Ward sounds like another Tyler O'Neill situation, that's so far turned out disastrous.
O'Neill was signed to a three-year, nearly $50 million deal for his pop. Unfortunately the often injured outfielder ended 2025 batting under .200 with just nine home runs.
Although Ward's proven to be a lot more durable than O'Neill, he could still cost the team nearly $14 million in 2026.
Why not allocate that money to a more proven talent like Kyle Tucker?
I guess to surrender a 2018 first round draft pick like Rodriguez, just a few years after he was ranked one of baseball's best prospects, seems a bit premature.
That's my two cents. Here's to hoping I'm wrong!
