The Baltimore Orioles Made the Right Call on Grayson Rodriguez

There are multiple situations or events in which you hear the phrase “don’t judge a book by its cover,” and the offseason trade that sent former top prospect Grayson Rodriguez to the Los Angeles Angels for outfielder Taylor Ward further proves that point.

I do not believe it is far-fetched to say that we all quickly judged that trade as a major loss for the Baltimore Orioles. A team that had been so desperate for pitching trading away someone who was once one of the most highly regarded pitching prospects in baseball simply didn’t make sense.

As of today, it seems as if we are the crazy ones, not the Orioles front office.

It has been a little over a week since the Angels placed Grayson Rodriguez on the 15-day injured list with a back injury that had lingered through his last few starts. Though a recent report suggests he is progressing from the ailment, he is just now starting to throw off flat ground after being designated a “no-throw.”

It likely isn’t a stretch to say that the Angels would prefer he take his time and fully recover rather than rush back into the rotation.

In his six starts for the Angels this year, Rodriguez has an 8.06 ERA in 25.2 innings. He’s sporting a 52 ERA+(100 is league average) and a -0.8 bWAR. Meanwhile, in 84 games played so far, Taylor Ward is currently hitting .256/.388/.361 with five home runs, a 120 wRC+, and 1.4 fWAR.

Though he hadn’t truly lived up to the lofty expectations placed on him while progressing through the minors, his projected return from a full season of recovery and the four years of team control he still had at the time of the trade were the biggest reasons many believed he could bounce back and help the Angels emerge as the winners of the deal.

The Angels obviously had doctors check Grayson’s medicals prior to executing the trade, right?

Think again.

It was clear the Orioles knew something that no one else seemed to identify during the trade process. It should also be noted that Grayson’s start to the season was delayed after he was placed on the injured list. He didn’t make his debut until May 17, when he pitched against the Dodgers.

It was a true Jekyll-and-Hyde start for the right-hander. After allowing seven runs across 3.2 innings in his first start, he allowed “just” four earned runs across 5.2 innings in his debut. He bounced back with a strong five-inning outing, allowing just one run against the Tigers in his next turn in the rotation.

A seven-run outing followed, but he again rebounded with another two earned-run performance across 5.1 innings. It was during his next start, which was cut short, that the back injury became too much for him to handle.

The incredibly worrisome part — which we should have paid more attention to given the 7.11 BB/9 rate he posted in spring training — is that he hasn’t walked fewer than two hitters in each start. It probably stands out more than most issues because he isn’t going deep into games.

He hasn’t been able to touch the upper-90s with his fastball, which he was averaging in his rookie season, but he is still sitting around 96 mph, which tells us that there’s still something there when he reached back. It’s everywhere else that he is struggling.

There isn’t one pitching stat, per Baseball Savant, where he ranks above the 32nd percentile outside of pure fastball velocity.

It doesn’t end there. While he is still throwing his four-pitch mix, consisting of the four-seamer, changeup, curveball, and slider, every single one of those pitches is generating a neutral or negative run value.

That shouldn’t come as a surprise when you take a gander at the heat maps of his pitch location. Despite walking a career-high 12.2% of batters, he’s leaving pitches right down the heart of the plate:

Grayson is either throwing batting practice or struggling mightily to find the strike zone. Either way, allowing an average exit velocity of nearly 92 mph isn’t going to help him get out of the rut he is in.

Grayson was a pitcher who was able to rely on all four of his pitches as putaway offerings back in 2024 when he was establishing himself as a major league starter. Now, he’s lucky to generate a whiff on either. Aside from an opponent’s batting average of .188 against his changeup — the pitch with the second-highest usage — every other pitch is allowing a batting average above .300.

Simply looking at the numbers, there seems to be a lack of confidence. It is evident from the splits in usage across the board, especially when comparing 2024 and 2026:

Hand up, I was not only a big believer in Grayson Rodriguez as one of the future faces of young pitchers in the game, but also in the idea that a change of scenery was exactly what he needed. A chance to join a new team, shed the top-prospect label, and lock himself into a big-league rotation for years to come.

The Angels are trying to drag themselves to the trade deadline and, somehow, remain in a position where delusion continues to take over and they believe they are still in a spot to hold or buy. To put it lightly, this roster has been mismanaged for years, and nothing they have done would convince me otherwise.

Taylor Ward may have been viewed as a one-year rental coming into the season, but there is no doubt in my mind that they could have gotten a strong return for him from a contender at the deadline. The continued injury issues were, and still are, the Angels’ worst nightmare.

There simply isn’t much value left in Grayson Rodriguez at this point, as sad as that is to say. All the Angels, Grayson, and those still holding out hope for a bounce-back can hope for is that he takes the time to fully recover, regain his confidence, and show flashes that the “stuff” is still there.