{"id":413375,"date":"2026-01-14T23:32:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T23:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/413375\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T23:32:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T23:32:11","slug":"orioles-outright-jhonkensy-noel-mlb-trade-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/413375\/","title":{"rendered":"Orioles Outright Jhonkensy Noel – MLB Trade Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Orioles announced that outfielder Jhonkensy Noel<\/a> has cleared outright waivers and been assigned to Triple-A Norfolk. He will stay in Baltimore\u2019s system but without taking up a spot on the roster.<\/p>\n

The O\u2019s are one of the most aggressive clubs when it comes to claiming players from the waiver wire and then putting them back out there shortly thereafter. The desired result is that the player clears, allowing the club to keep the player in a non-roster capacity, which has happened in this case.<\/p>\n

From there, the best-case scenario is that the player follows in the footsteps of Ryan O\u2019Hearn<\/a>. The O\u2019s acquired O\u2019Hearn from the Royals in January of 2023 and then passed him through waivers. He hit his way back onto the roster a few months later. He spent more than two years as a productive member of the club before being traded to the Padres alongside Ram\u00f3n Laureano<\/a> for a package of prospects at the 2025 deadline.<\/p>\n

Noel, 24, has flashed big power in his career but has been a poor hitter apart from that. In 351 plate appearances with the Guardians over the past two seasons, he launched 19 home runs but his 4.8% walk rate and 32.8% strikeout rate were both significantly worse than league average. He had a .193\/.242\/.401 batting line and 79 wRC+ in that time. Since he\u2019s not an especially strong defender or baserunner, that offense was untenable.<\/p>\n

He exhausted his final option season in 2025, which pushed him off the edges of Cleveland\u2019s roster and onto the waiver wire. The O\u2019s were able to grab him and then pass him through unclaimed today. He\u2019ll return to the Triple-A level, where his offense has been more encouraging. He stepped to the plate 536 times at that level over the past two years with a 7.5% walk rate and 23.7% strikeout rate, still not great numbers but better than his big league work. His combined .285\/.349\/.538 Triple-A slash line in that time led to a 130 wRC+.<\/p>\n

Even if Noel succeeds in Norfolk, he doesn\u2019t have an amazing path back to the majors. Baltimore\u2019s outfield mix currently includes Colton Cowser<\/a>, Taylor Ward<\/a>, Dylan Beavers<\/a>, Tyler O\u2019Neill<\/a>, Jeremiah Jackson<\/a>, Leody Taveras<\/a>, Reed Trimble<\/a>, Heston Kjerstad<\/a> and Marco Luciano<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Ken Blaze, Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Orioles announced that outfielder Jhonkensy Noel has cleared outright waivers and been assigned to Triple-A Norfolk. He…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370174,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,79480,591,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-413375","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-jhonkensy-noel","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}