{"id":300596,"date":"2025-11-22T23:38:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T23:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/300596\/"},"modified":"2025-11-22T23:38:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T23:38:07","slug":"grayson-rodriguez-says-hes-healthy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/300596\/","title":{"rendered":"Grayson Rodriguez Says He’s Healthy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Right-hander Grayson Rodriguez<\/a> said in an interview on the show Foul Territory that he\u2019s \u201cthrowing and feeling good\u201d following August surgery to remove bone spurs in his elbow (h\/t Andy Kostka of the Baltimore Banner for reporting on Rodriguez\u2019s comments<\/a>). The newly minted Angel added that he considered surgery in Spring Training, but decided against it, only for the discomfort to become unbearable. \u201cIt got to a point where I was like, \u2018I can\u2019t take it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Rodriguez has battled injuries for the majority of his career. He missed the entire 2025 campaign with shoulder and lat issues. He was sidelined for part of the 2024 season with a shoulder injury. A lat strain capped Rodriguez at 17 starts in 2022 and likely pushed his MLB debut back a season.<\/p>\n

According to Rodriguez, the bone spurs have been an issue for quite some time. \u201cThey\u2019ve been in there for three or four years. This is something that I\u2019ve dealt with for a while, ever since I was in Double-A, Triple-A.\u201d The righty added that the bone spurs seemed to have led to the recurring lat problems, as the muscle was working harder to slow his arm after releasing each pitch.<\/p>\n

Los Angeles is betting on better health for Rodriguez. The Angels landed the talented righty in a straight swap<\/a> for outfielder Taylor Ward<\/a> earlier this week. Ward is coming off a career-best 36-homer season. He\u2019s been a mainstay in the middle of LA\u2019s lineup for the past four seasons. Ward will be a free agent after 2026, while Rodriguez is under team control through 2029. The trade helped the Angels free up some capital, as Ward is projected<\/a> to earn $13.7MM in his last year of arbitration.<\/p>\n

Rodriguez said he was caught off guard by the move, but is \u201cpumped\u201d to head to his new team. \u201cI didn\u2019t think the Orioles would trade me. But, obviously, the Angels wanted me bad enough, and it\u2019s kind of a cool feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the bone spur removal gets Rodriguez back on track from a health perspective, Los Angeles could have their ace of the future. The 26-year-old is just a few years removed from being the top pitching prospect in the league. After scuffling in his first taste of big-league action, he put together a 13-start stretch with a 2.58 ERA to close his rookie season. Rodriguez was on his way to a breakout 2024 before the shoulder injury cut his season short. The righty improved his strikeout rate to 26.5% while cutting his hard-hit rate by 4%. His xFIP (3.57) and SIERA (3.61) backed up his 3.86 ERA.<\/p>\n

Rodriguez\u2019s health update is in line with the info<\/a> relayed by Orioles president of baseball operations Mike Elias back in September. The executive told reporters that Rodriguez was on track for 2026 Spring Training.<\/p>\n

If the righty is indeed good to go for the spring, it\u2019ll mark the first time he\u2019s pitched competitively since July 2024. Rodriguez\u2019s velocity will be important to monitor once he gets back on the mound. He averaged 97.4 mph on his fastball in his rookie season, but that number fell to 96.1 mph in 2024. Rodriguez\u2019s arsenal will also be something to keep an eye on. He threw six different pitches in 2023, but trimmed that to four pitches the following season. Rodriguez ditched the cutter and sweeper in 2024, while throwing the curveball a bit harder and the slider slightly softer.<\/p>\n

Rodriguez will slot in behind Yusei Kikuchi<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Jose Soriano<\/a> for the Angels. While Rodriguez\u2019s health will be a main focus, there are plenty more questions to be answered in the rotation. Reid Detmers<\/a> seems like he\u2019ll get another shot as a starter after putting together a strong season out of the bullpen.\u00a0Caden Dana<\/a>\u00a0and Mitch Farris<\/a> closed 2025 in the rotation and are candidates for spots, though both had ERAs over 6.00 last year. Prospects George Klassen<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Samuel Aldegheri<\/a>, acquired<\/a> from the Phillies in the Carlos Estevez<\/a> trade, could also factor into the equation.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Tommy Gilligan, Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Right-hander Grayson Rodriguez said in an interview on the show Foul Territory that he\u2019s \u201cthrowing and feeling good\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300597,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,32004,462,82],"class_list":["post-300596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-grayson-rodriguez","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}