November should be a sleepy time of the offseason, with qualifying offers and 40-man roster shenanigans the main focuses. However, this year has had a few nice surprises. First, Josh Naylor returned to the Mariners on a five-year contract, which is less of a surprise in terms of destination than timing – these types of contracts normally wait until December. Now we have a bona fide challenge trade: sending the Orioles Grayson Rodriguez to the angels in return Taylor district.
Rodriguez, one of the best pitchers in baseball a few years ago, is also one of the toughest players to evaluate in the Majors. The potential is there. He has multiple secondaries, a lively fastball that he can send to multiple parts of the zone, and he’s athletic enough that his command has evolved from marginal to average, with the kind of trajectory that makes you expect more to come. If you’re looking for a top performer, you’re probably looking for someone whose skills look something like this.
On the other hand, unavailability is the worst possibility, to twist the tired old adage even just a little. Rodriguez has struggled to stay on the field during his time in the Majors, and that’s putting it lightly. He missed much of 2022, his final minor league season, with a lat strain. He then missed half of 2024 with two separate shoulder injuries, while another lat strain and bone spurs in his elbow cost him the entire 2025 season. Currently, three of his last four seasons have been severely curtailed by serious injuries, including recurring shoulder problems.
That means much of this trade depends on medical imaging that we can’t see, and probably wouldn’t be able to read if we could. It’s not controversial to say that Rodriguez has the tools to be one of baseball’s best pitchers when healthy; he has solid Major League numbers and excellent peripherals, and when you look at him it becomes clear that there is room for more growth. But the volume aspect of the rate times volume value proposition is undoubtedly terrifying. Will Rodriguez throw a full number of innings in 2026? Certainly not. Will it be staged by 2027? That seems more likely, but given recent history it’s hard to count on that.
From Baltimore’s perspective, that was a big problem. The O’s have secured two starters at the top of the rotation, Trevor Rogers And Kyle Bradishbut the rest is up in the air. Daan Kremer led the team in innings pitched in 2025, but his career 4.35 FIP and 4.26 ERA don’t give me much confidence. All things considered, the team’s top priority this season will be adding several reliable starters to stretch the rotation.
As tempting as Rodriguez’s promise is, he doesn’t fit into that puzzle. Even if he doesn’t have any injury setbacks, he will certainly be on a tight innings limit next year. He could even be a good candidate for a temporary move to the bullpen. Moreover, ‘no setbacks due to injuries’ is a difficult assumption given his history. In other words, Baltimore needed more starters and couldn’t count on Rodriguez to cover many of those innings.
Then why trade him for an outfielder? Baltimore’s outfield situation is as unsettled as its rotation. No current Orioles outfielder posted even 1.0 WAR in 2025. Sure, maybe Colton Cowser And Tyler O’Neill what they would have done if they had not suffered injuries. Maybe Dylan Bevers would have with more playing time, or Heston Kjerstad would have with… okay, no, he was pretty bad out there. The thing is, they couldn’t really get away with leaving the offseason without a meaningful addition to the outfield.
Enter Ward, who bounced back from a slow start to his career and turned into a reliable power bat. This was a good season for him – he hit .228/.317/.475, good for a 117 wRC+ and 2.9 WAR in 157 games. In that regard, it was similar to many of his recent seasons. He has a 118 wRC+ since finally finding his feet in the majors in 2021. He walks, strikes out more than you’d like, and hits a lot of home runs. He’s even right-handed, which will serve the Orioles well considering their roster of left-handed sluggers.
In other words, Ward looks a lot like the kind of free agent Baltimore would go after to revamp their outfield. They attempted a similar signing last winter, but O’Neill, a righteous slugger with power, didn’t check the availability box. Ward, on the other hand, is quite durable. He has only hit the IL once in the past three years, and that was because he was hit in the face with a pitch and required reconstructive surgery. For a team with a lot of moving parts and a lot of uncertainty, stability is important, and Ward provides just that. Would it be ideal if he could play in midfield? It certainly would be, as Cowser is probably better suited as a cornerback Leody Taveras is nothing more than a depth option. But while it’s not a perfect solution, it’s a pretty good solution, and sacrificing a bit of outfield defense in exchange for offense feels like a reasonable trade-off to me.
However, there is one glaring problem with my analysis so far. Ward, who is about to turn 32, will hit free agency after the 2026 season. Rodriguez, 26, has four years of team control remaining. You don’t need an analytical consultant Count of Count to know that four is greater than one, ah hah hah. Even if we heavily discount Rodriguez’s future projections due to uncertainty, he’s a good bet to provide more overall value than Ward did in his team-control years.
Of all teams, why would the Orioles make this trade? They are the team that guards their prospects instead of trading them for rentals, the team that tries to extract years of team control and future value in their trades whenever possible. It’s completely out of character for them to trade any of their young players, let alone move one when that player’s value is at a low ebb. But I think it’s really a money issue, and I sympathize with the situation they’re in.
Mike Elias didn’t mince his words when he lay down his offseason plans. “My goal is to see if we can add someone who fits that level,” Elias said of adding one of the best starting pitchers on the market. “That would be plan A for our rotation.” He also added that he wanted to bring in an experienced closer and an experienced hitter. Finally, he suggested the Orioles would spend up to their 2025 payroll, but perhaps no more. According to RosterResource, that gives the O’s about $65 million to reach their goals.
But $65 million isn’t what it used to be. One top starter and one mid-rotation starter will likely net you around $45 million in 2026, with plenty of future commitments as well. And shutters aren’t cheap; even if Elias plans to sign a land reclamation project Devin Williams or Ryan Helsleythey will command eight-figure salaries in a weak market for elite weapons. A hitter of Ward’s caliber? There aren’t many options, and none of them expect to be as good as Ward for as little as he makes — he made $7.8 million last year and is entering his final year of arbitration.
Could the Orioles execute some bargain version of that plan without trading for anyone? Maybe, but I don’t think it would do anything good for their chances in 2026. When you have to add as much pitching as they do, half measures don’t cut it. And if they went all out on the pitching front and didn’t add any outfielders, their offense would have a glaring hole, which isn’t optimal in what is expected to be the toughest division in baseball.
Some teams may try to solve this problem by trading from their farm system. However, that’s not the Oriole way. They like to trade from depth instead of trading top prospects, and prospect depth probably won’t get you a plus hitter all year at this point. At the trade deadline, that kind of return may be easier to achieve, but two-thirds of the season takes place before the trade deadline. Sitting still until the end of July is not a reasonable response to the status of the O’s roster.
So I understand why Baltimore made this trade, and I also think it’s pretty clear that they “lost” it in the sense that they gave up more value than they got back. By the way, that explains the Angels side of the deal perfectly: they got more value than they gave up, so why wouldn’t they say yes?
Sure, Rodriguez is a mysterious box, but the angels need mysterious boxes. If all their players hit their projections exactly, they won’t be very good. They need variety, unexpected benefits, guys who can perform well beyond their average expectations. That’s almost an exact description of Rodriguez. I think he’s more likely to be out of baseball in three years than Ward just because of the inherent attrition that comes with arm injuries, but he’s also a lot more likely to compete for key hardware.
Ultimately, I think I like this trade for both teams, although I think it’s a symptom of the Orioles’ previous behavior that they found themselves in this position. Years of inactivity and bargain hunting in the outfield and starting a rotation put them in a place where they had to act decisively. Years of playing for the future means sacrificing expected value now to enhance the present. I find it funny that the Orioles are the team making the win-now move while the Angels are building for the future, but that doesn’t change the fact that this is the kind of deal that contenders and rebuilders often make. I’d take the Los Angeles side of this pick, but I think Baltimore was more or less forced into it, and while this individual trade could be a net loss in the long run, what matters now is making the team better. I think it was smart to overpay.
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