The Orioles acquired outfielder Johnathan Rodriguez from the Guardians in exchange for minor league right-hander Carter Rustad, MLB.com’s Tim Stebbins. reports. The two teams have each officially announced the trade, and the Orioles optioned Rodriguez to Triple-A.
Rodriguez is a veteran of 44 big league games, all with the Guardians in 2024-25. A third-round pick for Cleveland in the 2017 draft, Rodriguez has been crushing minor league pitching for four years now, and he has a .301/.390/.535 slash line and 56 homers over 1083 plate appearances at the Triple-A level. In the majors, however, Rodriguez has hit only .176/.282/.304 with 36 strikeouts over his 117 PA in a Guards uniform, as his struggles with advanced spin rates have been highlighted against upper-level pitchers.
It was enough for the Guardians to designate Rodriguez for assignment in advance of Opening Day, and Baltimore stepped up with a trade offer to bring the 26-year-old outfielder into the organization. Rodriguez has a minor league option remaining, so he’ll provide the O’s with some depth at the very least, even if it remains unclear where exactly Rodriguez could fit onto their 26-man roster unless an injury arises.
Baltimore is already juggling Taylor Ward, Tyler O’Neill, Dylan Beavers, Leody Taveras, and utilitymen Jeremiah Jackson and Blaze Alexander as candidates for outfield duty. Jackson and Alexander will probably see more time on the infield with Jackson Holliday and Jordan Westburg still on the injured list, however, creating more need for an optionable outfielder like Rodriguez to be part of the mix at Triple-A. It could also be that the Orioles’ evaluators see Rodriguez as a project to be fixed, as his hitting potential and strong throwing arm make him an interesting player to watch if he learns how to handle movement.
Rustad is a few weeks away from his 25th birthday, and the righty was a 15th-round pick for Baltimore in the 2024 draft. The Mizzou product has worked almost exclusively as a reliever in pro ball, and he posted a 3.23 ERA, 24.6% strikeout rate, and 10.1% walk rate across 53 total minor league innings in 2025, moving from A-ball to high-A to Double-A before the year was out.
Do the Orioles even have room for another right handed hitting corner OF?
i think so, specially with O’neill healthy always a concern & not knowing exactly how much you gonna get out of Beavers” good gamble guy still young & absolutly smash
The edge of a 40 man is more about options and value. Especially for a team not expected to make the playoffs
The Os don’t think of themselves as NOT making the playoffs. They’re very much built to be in the playoff hunt.
The Os are always searching for depth and flexibility. They learned the hard way last year how that depth can get tested with a spate of injuries.
The Orioles are absolutely expected to make the playoffs.
Not expected to make the playoffs? They are absolutely expected to make the playoffs. The bias for the Orioles amazes me. Give this same Orioles roster to the Yankees, Red Sox, Mets, Phillies, Etc, and the “experts” would be ready to hand them the World Series trophy.
I have them as 4th or 5th in their own division
@slayer86 @ ba$eba||F@n21
Listen, you want to be credible, stop acting like fans.
Fangraphs and Pecota have no bias in their modeling. I may not agree with their conclusions, but computer models play out seasons millions of times and according to objective outcomes, the Orioles went into 2026 with a 44.5% chance of making the playoffs according to Fangraphs (currently 48.6%) and Pecota as of today has Baltimore with a 38.8% chance of making the playoffs.
Those are hardly the marks of a team “expected” to make the playoffs. If a team is “expected” to make the playoffs, that number should be around 65% at least, and probably higher.
Yeah, because these computers are never wrong right? They are wrong all the time. I don’t pay attention to any of that nonsense. Just look at political polling for example or the computers for weather. Wrong all the time. Fangraphs or whoever else you want to use make the most ridiculous predictions on how teams are going to finish the season and are always way off. If you want to listen to what the “computers” are telling you, have at it. Did the computer tell you the Orioles were going to win 101 games in 2023? Of course they didn’t. They are a joke. I’ll study a team’s roster, understand what each player brings to the team, understand what the team was missing the previous season, and what they brought in to fill in that hole. I’ll watch how the season plays off, not what the computer says.
Hilarious. So you “study a team’s roster” and that’s how you come to the conclusion that the Orioles are generally “expected” to make the playoffs? Wow, you are quite the baseball scholar.
Meanwhile, as you continue your studying, the Orioles’ chances have dipped to 43.1 % in Fangraphs and tumbled to 37.2% according to PECOTA. Just hovering above that 1 in 3 mark for a team that is “expected” to make the playoffs. Better keep studying.
I think they’re going to reconfigure Waltimore so that it’s a polygon and will add several more corners and need of outfielders to cover it.
lol
Optionable depth never hurts. Take a ticket,.see where it goes. Just as Elias is happy to fish in the waiver pond, he is also fine with catch and release back into the pond. Nothing to get too amped up about.
Another dinky move. Can’t wait for the dog days of summer to pass
I wish him luck. If he can learn to hit the ball in the air, he should be an Ortiz type. He is also Ortiz in the field. The Ripken statue has more range…
Once again mlbtraderumors writes about Johnathan Rodriguez and misses his best attribute — the fact that he absolutely murdered LHP in AAA for 3 years. He had big splits, something like .820/1.060 over that time. His problem handling spin was mostly of the RH sort, his K rate went up another 10% vs rhp and he had a terrible time vs MLB RHP. Last year his ops vs lhp in MLB was .769. The Guardians current lefty masher only managed .731 last year but he is a better fielder. That’s something Rodriguez has to work on. Good luck.
I think CLE did well to get a serviceable reliever for Rodriguez. Next DFA down the pike SHOULD be Gabriel Arias, and it won’t be a moment too soon.