earlier this week<\/a> was certainly intriguing. Baltimore traded 26-year-old right-hander Grayson Rodriguez \u2014 once viewed as one of the organization’s most promising starters \u2014 for Ward. Rodriguez hasn’t pitched since July 31, 2024, because of various injury issues. Ward, meanwhile, is coming off a 36-homer season. But Ward can become a free agent after the 2026 season, whereas Rodriguez isn’t even eligible for arbitration yet.<\/p>\n\u201cWe\u2019re certainly aware of 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\u2019s a real possibility. So that could change that equation a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Orioles still have a couple other starters \u2014 Kyle Bradish and Tyler Wells \u2014 who returned from major operations this year, and their innings could need to be monitored. Rodriguez, meanwhile, didn’t pitch at all in 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will say what I said publicly weeks ago, that he\u2019s missed well over a year. There\u2019s obvious ramifications from that,” Elias said. “This was a tough trade. On both sides, there\u2019s value given up in any trade, and particularly in this one.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Friday, the Orioles reached a $2.25 million agreement for 2026 with injured closer F\u00e9lix Bautista, avoiding salary arbitration. They also non-tendered right-hander Albert Su\u00e1rez, although Elias suggested the team could still try to bring him back as a free agent.<\/p>\n
Baltimore appears to have quite an expansive wish list this offseason. The Orioles haven’t been terribly aggressive in free agency of late, but after falling from a division title in 2023 to a wild card in 2024 and then a last-place finish in the AL East in 2025, Baltimore may be ready to show more urgency.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been pretty clear and direct. We\u2019re trying to find, whether it\u2019s \u2018top\u2019 or \u2018front\u2019 or \u2018top half\u2019 of the rotation, all those buckets,” Elias said. “We\u2019re trying, and there are guys out there, and we are in pursuit of every one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elias said the Orioles are also trying to add a ninth-inning reliever to replace Bautista, who is expected to miss most of next season after surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff and torn labrum.<\/p>\n
Elias also said Baltimore might not be done trying to add impact hitters, although the Orioles obviously have high hopes for the 31-year-old Ward.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe’s actually somebody that we’ve been chasing for at least a couple years,” Elias said. \u201cI think it brings a lot of stability to our outfield picture.”<\/p>\n
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Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Baltimore Orioles viewed outfielder Taylor Ward as something of a scarce commodity. So much so that they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":306868,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[159024,1558,363,2008,99,24324],"class_list":{"0":"post-306867","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-baltimore-orioles-mike-elias","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-mlb-baseball","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-sports-transactions"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/306868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}