There was a flurry of moves across Major League Baseball on Tuesday as teams had to lock in their 40-man rosters before the Rule 5 Draft. However, the biggest move of the day came when many people were sleeping, as the Baltimore Orioles and Los Angeles Angels pulled off a surprising trade that featured one of baseball’s previous top pitching prospects.
On the surface, this seems like a confusing trade since we know the Orioles need top-end pitching and, for a time, that’s exactly what we expected Grayson Rodriguez to be. So let’s try to make sense of this deal both from a real-life and a fantasy standpoint.
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D.J. Short
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Why would the Orioles make this trade?
I’m not sure. You tell me.
OK, well, any discussion about this trade has to start with Grayson Rodriguez‘s health. The 26-year-old has yet to pitch over 122 innings in any professional season and has battled myriad arm injuries since the second half of 2024. Since August of 2024, Rodriguez has dealt with right lat discomfort, right tricep soreness, right shoulder soreness, right elbow discomfort, and then right elbow surgery to remove damaged cartilage and bone spurs. That’s a CVS receipt of injuries to his pitching arm, and you have to think that the Orioles would not have made this trade if they felt confident in his ability to return to his previous levels of production.
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We also know that the Orioles felt they needed a power-hitting right-handed outfielder to complement left-handed hitters like Colton Cowser, Gunnar Henderson, Samuel Basallo, Jackson Holliday, Dylan Beavers, and switch-hitting Adley Rutschman. The Orioles do have Tyler O’Neill, who is a power-hitting right-handed outfielder, but they are potentially too worried about his health to rely on him as a full-time starter. Acquiring Ward means one of O’Neill and Beavers has to be pushed to the bench, or the two of them will be a platoon in right field.
In a vacuum, Ward is certainly a hitter any team would want to add. He hit 36 home runs and drove in 103 runs last season and has hit at least 23 home runs in all of his fully healthy MLB seasons. Of course, health is a bit of an issue for him as well. Ward only has two seasons with over 135 games played (his last two), but his significant injuries have been less consistent than O’Neill’s. In 2023, Ward missed a large chunk of the season after being hit in the face and suffering a facial fracture. The last two seasons, he has battled lat discomfort, elbow inflammation, more lat discomfort, and a facial laceration, but he played through most of that. However, he also had neck, hamstring, and adductor injuries before 2023, so there are some valid durability concerns.
While his batting average has also fallen in every season since 2022, he’s a .247/.327/.439 hitting for his career with a .192 ISO and 11.5% barrel rate, and that has value in the middle of a lineup. He has a solid understanding of the strike zone, not chasing much off the plate, and posting a career 9.1% swinging strike rate, so there aren’t too many holes in his game from an offensive standpoint, even if the batting average will never be super high.
Defensively, he has been at least league average or better in left field in each of the last three seasons and was an above-average right fielder back in 2022, so the Orioles can use him in either corner outfield spot. With Cowser patrolling centerfield and Beavers/O’Neill in the other corner outfield spot, that’s a pretty solid four-outfielder group for Baltimore. However, giving up four more years of Grayson Rodriguez for one season of Ward, who will be a free agent at the end of the year, is super risky, and the Orioles better hope they land one of the top starting pitchers on the market to help lead this rotation.
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Why would the Angels make this trade?
In short, Grayson Rodriguez is only 26 years old and was once the top pitching prospect in all of baseball.
I know that all seems like a long time ago, but Rodriguez was MLB Pipeline’s 6th overall prospect entering the 2022 season, which ranked him ahead of other pitching prospects like Hunter Greene, George Kirby, Jackson Jobe, Eury Perez, Shane Baz, and Nick Lodolo. That ranking was warranted too. In his 333.1 minor league innings, Rodriguez posted a 2.40 ERA, 0.97 WHIP, and had 475 strikeouts to just 117 walks. He was dominant.
After some inconsistent production in his first 11 MLB starts as a 23-year-old, Rodriguez seemed to figure things out. He posted a 2.58 ERA, 1.10 WHIP, and 73/21 K/BB ratio in 76.2 innings to end the season. He then carried that into 2024, where he registered a 3.86 ERA, 1.24 WHIP, and 130/36 K/BB ratio in 116.2 innings before a lat strain sidelined him for the season.
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While there have been some concerns about the amount of hard contact he gives up and the consistency of his execution of his secondary pitches, Rodriguez’s ace upside is unquestioned. If he’s healthy. He posted 259 strikeouts in 238.2 MLB innings while showcasing a changeup that eats up both righties and lefties, an upper-90s four-seam fastball, and a slider that registered a 21.7% swinging strike rate against righties in 2024.
Rodriguez is also under contract through the 2029 season, so he could be a big-time addition to this Angels rotation if he remains healthy. As of now, he would slot in as the team’s ace alongside Yusei Kikuchi, Jose Soriano, Reid Detmers, and one of Caden Dana, Sam Aldegheri, George Klassen, or Jack Kochanowicz.
While the Angels may have hated to part with Ward, who has been in their organization for his entire career, moving him allows them to shift Jo Adell back to a corner outfield spot where he is more comfortable and then play one of Mike Trout or Jorge Soler at the other corner spot. We should expect them to go out and add a center fielder this offseason as well.
What’s the fantasy baseball impact?
This is a nice boost for Taylor Ward just because of the improved lineup around him. He’s now going to be hitting somewhere in the middle of an order that includes Gunnar Henderson, Jordan Westburg, Adley Rutschman, and Colton Cowser. That should improve his RBI and runs totals; however, he might see a dip in power production. Angel Stadium is the third-best park for right-handed hitters, according to Statcast Park Factors, and is specifically fourth for right-handed power. Meanwhile, Oriole Park at Camden Yards is 22nd overall for right-handed hitters and is 23rd for right-handed power.
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Oriole Park ranks better for base hits, due to its more spacious outfield, so we could see a batting average and counting stats boost for Ward with some home run regression. Maybe that puts him closer to the .246/.323/.426 line from 2024 with 25 home runs; however, if you also give him about 80-90 runs scored and 100 RBI, that’s a pretty solid overall season and one you’re happy to get from your OF3 in fantasy baseball.
Grayson Rodriguez’s value is harder to quantify because it’s so contingent on his health.
For starters, the Angels have not proven to be an organization that can develop pitching or get the most out of its pitchers, so this is not a great landing spot for him in hopes of unlocking the ace upside and fixing some of the command issues with his secondaries. I wouldn’t bank on him taking a major leap here in terms of skills development. He also gets a team context hit since the Angels are likely to produce fewer wins than the Orioles in 2026.
Perhaps that means a season that’s closer to Rodriguez’s current career averages than a step forward. That would be an ERA around 4.00 with an elevated 1.25 WHIP, and a 25-26% strikeout rate. Getting 130-140 innings out of him would be a major win for the Angels after his last two seasons, so that overall line sounds a lot like what Brady Singer did this year on the Reds. We can give Rodriguez more strikeouts, but Singer also had 14 wins, which Rodriguez isn’t likely to duplicate, so it could even out. Singer finished as the SP47 on FanGraph’s Player Rater, and given Rodriguez’s extensive injury history, it would be hard to rank him much higher than that heading into 2026.
