The Orioles announced that outfielder Tyler O’Neill has been placed on the seven-day injured list for concussion-related injuries, retroactive to April 9. Outfielder Johnathan Rodriguez was called up from Triple-A to take O’Neill’s spot on the active roster.
O’Neill was scratched from Friday’s lineup due to illness and he also didn’t play Saturday. Nausea is a common concussion symptom, so it could be that O’Neill’s head issue was initially confused for just a normal sickness. Due to the uncertain nature of concussion symptoms, O’Neill could be feeling fine well before his seven-day stint is over or he might be facing an extended absence.
With 11 other players already on the regular IL, the Orioles can only hope that O’Neill won’t miss much time. Among position players, O’Neill joins Jordan Westburg, Jackson Holliday, Heston Kjerstad, and Adley Rutschman on the IL, with Rutschman sidelined yesterday by left ankle inflammation. If that wasn’t enough, Ryan Mountcastle hurt his left foot in last night’s game, and both Mountcastle and Rutschman were slated to undergo MRIs today.
Rodriguez was placed on Baltimore’s medical taxi squad earlier today, seemingly aboard as a replacement for Mountcastle before news surfaced of O’Neill’s IL placement. Acquired from the Guardians a couple of weeks ago, Rodriguez has hit .176/.282/.304 over 117 career plate appearances in the majors, all with Cleveland during the 2024-25 seasons.
The first season of O’Neill’s three-year, $49.5MM contract with the O’s was basically a bust, as he hit only .199/.292/.392 over 209 plate appearances. Neck, wrist, and shoulder injuries limited O’Neill to 54 games, continuing the string of injuries that has plagued the outfielder over his nine Major League seasons. While O’Neill couldn’t continue his streak of Opening Day home runs this year, he was off to a better start in 2026, hitting .241/.353/.345 for a 114 wRC+ over his first 34 PA.
Who has missed more time with injury in their careers, tyler oneill or royce lewis?
Do the Orioles get a quarterly bonus for placing players on the injured list? My gosh the injuries
The Blue Jays are out-pacing them at the moment so maybe…
Rsox – Amazing how everyone thought the AL East would be a stacked division, and right now it’s looking like the weakest.
The unpredictability of baseball, injuries can change everything.
I think it eventually will be, but so far the American league in general is wide open
Mike Elias was concussed when he signed him
Elias had to be hoping O’Neill would belt another 30 Home Runs and opt-out after the season, it’s the only reason I can think of for giving him a multi-year deal in the first place
That is precisely what he was hoping for. A 30 HR season, offense to replace the lost production from Santander and then an opt out and comp pick. This is the signing that continues to bite him in the backside and likely will continue until the end of the 2027 season – I doubt he’ll find any takers for him, even if a lot of the salary is covered.
O’Neill for Yoshida, straight up. Who says no?
I say no Dorothy. I’m happy with the one year we got from O’Neill. The same way we had one year from Renfroe. Yoshida could still turn out the best me not made by keeping him. I
Fan – At the time of the signing I kept saying it was a horrible decision, yet several O’s fans came down on me for it. The Red Sox didn’t even offer him a QO despite desperately needing a RH bat, that goes to show Baltimore was probably bidding against itself.
At least Tyler isn’t the highest paid Oriole anymore ;O)
He thought it was a brilliant move. “We just got a premium power hitter for a bargain price!”
He was hoping it would be essentially a 1 year deal to re-establish his market with a good, healthy season and be done with it. I looked at it as stupid, he’s going to loaf around for 2 seasons and really only try in the last season.
It really was a dumb signing to begin with. Elias is good at certain things ; but I don’t think he is so good at identifying then signing free agents that fit his roster. I don’t remember one person praising that signing when it happened.
Tyler praised the signing
Can’t spell “O’Neill” without IL…
I rank this signing along with the Chris Davis one. Not sure what they were thinking
Shocking it took so long for O’Neil to hit the IL. Does he make 150 ABs this year?
Well considering that it was two different front offices that made each signing, as bad as they were, you can’t put them both on one group.
The Davis signing was essentially bidding against themselves and this O’Neill signing was a huge swing and a miss at an attempt to parlay a potential one year of good offensive production into an opt out and comp pick. In both instances the team is stuck with subpar player performances and subsequently “under water” on the contracts.
I’d like to correct you, because the Chris Davis deal was not done by the front office. Duquette made Chris the richest Orioles contract in history, and Davis declined. He lingered on the market with nobody biting. Apparently Detroit’s GM was going to offer Chris $200M, but his GM was able to talk him out of that crazy idea. Davis came back to the O’s and said, “Okay, I’ll take that deal now.” Duquette said, “Sorry, that contract offer expired when you declined it, the market has changed, nobody else has even offered you a contract, so that’s not the deal anymore.”
Boras went directly to Peter Angelos and he worked out the new deal which was for even more money than originally offered, and tons of deferred payments which I think the Orioles finally stop paying in 2027. The deal was re-worked once Chris was forced to retire, so I can’t recall the reworked figures off the top of my head.
Even his head is swole.
White it’s not a great contract. It’s not a disaster. It doesn’t cripple the franchise or involve luxury tax. Still he has been more productive than the man he replaced with a shorter contract. Never know he might have a good year and try his luck in FA this year.
Nos – For a team that is typically tight when it comes to spending, $16.5M absolutely does impact the team’s ability to address other areas of need.
It isn’t just simply fainting. It is losing consciousness directly from a series of events that are caused by the Plandemic. It is often accompanied by the same exact symptoms as has been reported that O’Neill was suffering from. He felt ill, like he was sick. He got dehydrated. He passed out. This can be a short term effect of the Plandemic, or a long term one.
I agree with you on the premise that he can’t seem to stay healthy, and I would speculate it is because he works out with some special sauce.