On Tuesday night, the Orioles pulled off a shocking deal by trading their longtime top pitching prospect Grayson Rodriguez to the Los Angeles Angels for outfielder Taylor Ward.
Rodriguez, whose 2025 season was derailed by injures, said on “Foul Territory” that he had heard some chatter about a possible deal over the weekend, but his agent brushed it off. He received a text from Orioles president of baseball operations Mike Elias on a flight to Sarasota to call him ASAP.
He didn’t pitch in 2025 and had surgery to remove bone chips in August. Rodriguez hasn’t thrown a big league pitch since July 31st, 2024. That season ended because of a teres/lat injury. He said he’s feeling better since the surgery.
“They had been in there for like three or four years,” Rodriguez said. “It was something that I dealt with for a while ever since I was probably in Double- A, Triple-A. It would kind of come and go. It was nothing that was really serious.
“It kind of flared up, spring training, beginning of the season and go away, come back, go away. Last year was the first time it came and stayed with me. We knew it was something I was going to have to battle. It’s always in the back of your mind having to deal with something like that, having those tweak injuries in the lat. The spurs weren’t helping the situation.
“We decided to not get the surgery in spring training and it got to a point where it was, ‘I just can’t take it.”
In Elias’ video conference call on Friday night, he declined to get specific about Rodriguez’s history of injuries.
“That’s not something I want to talk about directly. I will say what I said publicly weeks ago, he’s missed well over a year, and there’s obvious ramifications from that,” Elias said. “But like I said, this was a tough trade on both sides. There’s value given up in any trade, particularly in this one.”
Elias said there wasn’t any frustration with Rodriguez and his spate of injuries.
“No, not in the handling,” he said. “I mean, there’s frustration about the bad luck of it and that’s disappointing. Grayson’s a great kid. We loved bringing him up in this organization and rearing him, and he’s got a bright future. And sometimes, trades are a part of baseball.”
Had the Orioles kept Rodriguez, they would have had three starters who have had limited innings since 2024. Kyle Bradish and Tyler Wells, who combined to start 10 times in late 2025, had elbow surgeries in June 2024.
It gave Elias some concern, he acknowledged.
“Yeah, a little bit. I think that both of those guys will be able to increase their innings totals quite a bit next year, [Trevor] Rogers, too. He was hurt from the beginning of the year as well, but really Dean [Kremer] is the only guy from the returning group that had a full, huge innings load.
“Obviously, we’re working very hard to import some more people this winter that would help check that box but, yeah, it factors in. Workload management, especially for 2026, was a factor in the thinking.”
Rodriguez is under team control for four additional years. Ward will be a free agent after 2026.
“Look, I think we’re certainly aware in the mismatch in the amount of potential team control remaining on these two guys,” Elias said. “Ward is going into his free-agent year. He also has the potentiality to generate a qualifying offer. I think if he does what he did in 2025, that’s a real possibility, so that could change that equation a little bit.
“But, yeah, we look at this stuff, we talk about it, we look at the market, we look at our needs, we look at our strategic priorities, and we look at our talent evaluation, and ultimately it’s my decision to pull the trigger on trades or not, and this is one I felt … and we felt was going to benefit the organization, and mainly by bringing in an impact bat like that in the 2026 context of our lineup, in that shape and size, plays the outfield every day and has that kind of right-handed power.
“I wasn’t confident where else somebody like him would come from on the free-agent and trade market right now that has the sort of bat that we think he has and what he did last year, and we leaned into the trade. It’s uncomfortable to make trades, usually. It’s hard to line up, and you’re going to give something up. That is always going to be difficult and interesting, and this is one that we did and I think is the right move, and I’m looking forward to watching Taylor Ward in this lineup next year with this team and this ballpark.”
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