Grayson Rodriguez To Begin Season On Injured List
TODAY: Suzuki told reporters (including Jack Janes) today that Rodriguez will indeed be placed on the IL. This sets Kochanowicz and Johnson up as rotation members, and Walbert Urena will also make the team in a long relief role. The 22-year-old Urena will be making his big league debut whenever he makes his first appearance for the Halos.
MARCH 19: Angels right-hander Grayson Rodriguez may begin the season on the injured list. Manager Kurt Suzuki told reporters, including Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register and Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com, that Rodriguez has a “dead arm” and will be slowed down. With Opening Day now just a week away, that makes it possible Rodriguez starts the season on the 15-day injured list, depending on how things progress in the coming days.
At this point, it doesn’t appear to be a major issue. Rodriguez isn’t even being shut down, with Fletcher noting that he still threw today, but it’s concerning nonetheless. Injuries have been in the spotlight for Rodriguez in recent years. He made 43 starts for the Orioles in 2023 and the first half of the 2024 season. He hasn’t made an official start since July of 2024, primarily due to shoulder issues.
He underwent elbow debridement surgery in August of last year. He was flipped to the Angels early this offseason in a one-for-one-trade for outfielder Taylor Ward. After that deal, Rodriguez spoke about his health and seemed optimistic. He said that he had been dealing with bone spurs in his elbow for three or four years. He believed this was adding stress to his shoulder and causing his numerous problems with that part of his arm.
For Rodriguez to now be dealing with arm problems once again is less than ideal. Perhaps it will remain a fairly minor issue but the Angels don’t have a lot of margin for error. They came into camp with a rotation projected to include José Soriano, Yusei Kikuchi, Reid Detmers, Alek Manoah and Rodriguez. Soriano and Kikuchi are fine but the group is fairly questionable after that.
Detmers had a 3.96 ERA in relief last year but a 6.70 ERA as a starter the year prior. He has a 7.27 ERA in spring training so far. Like Rodriguez, Manoah is looking to bounce back after a lengthy injury absence, but he has a 9.39 ERA this spring.
If Manoah gets optioned or Rodriguez needs to spend some time on the IL, that could open a spot for Jack Kochanowicz. He’s having a good spring but posted a 6.81 ERA in the big leagues last year. Fletcher suggested yesterday that Ryan Johnson has a chance to earn a spot, getting an aggressive Opening Day nod yet again. The Angels gave him a spot in their bullpen to begin last season even though he hadn’t yet played a game as a professional. He posted a 7.36 ERA through early May, at which point he was optioned down to High-A.
It’s worth reiterating that there’s still nothing to indicate Rodriguez is dealing with any kind of major issue. He may still avoid the IL if he feels better in the coming days. Even if he lands on the shelf, Opening Day IL stints can be backdated three days, so he could be back in less than two weeks.
But the Angels are going into a season where they hope to contend but need a lot of things to go right in order to that to be possible. They went 72-90 last year and didn’t make strong moves to upgrade the roster this winter. The Playoff Odds at FanGraphs give them just a 4.9% chance of cracking the postseason. The PECOTA Standings at Baseball Prospectus are even more pessimistic, giving the Halos just a 0.1% chance.
A minor setback for a club’s fourth starter wouldn’t always be a cause for worry but it looms larger for the Angels than with other clubs since any setback can further diminish already-slim those odds.
Photo courtesy of Allan Henry, Imagn Images
Angels Select Walbert Ureña
The Angels announced Tuesday that they’ve selected the contract of righty Walbert Ureña. He’s now on the 40-man roster and ineligible to be selected by another club in next month’s Rule 5 Draft. His addition bumps the Angels’ 40-man roster count up to 35 players.
Ureña, 21, signed as an amateur out of the Dominican Republic back in 2021 and just split the 2025 season between Anaheim’s Double-A (135 1/3 innings) and Triple-A (5 2/3 innings) affiliates. He pitched to a combined 4.34 ERA in his 141 innings, fanning 20.7% of his opponents against a 12.1% walk rate. He sits mid-90s with a hard sinker that can climb as high as 100 mph. That power offering helped him post a superlative 57.6% ground-ball rate in the minors this year.
As things stand, this is the Angels’ lone 40-man addition of the day. Nothing is stopping them from making further moves to protect additional players, but the bulk of the top-ranked prospects in their thin farm system are either already on the 40-man roster or aren’t eligible to be selected in the Rule 5 Draft until 2026 or 2027. Righties Joel Hurtado and Samy Natera Jr. are notable exceptions, though both are coming off so-so seasons in the minors; Hurtado posted a bleak 15.5% strikeout rate as a 24-year-old in Double-A, while Natera walked 17% of his opponents out of the bullpen between Double-A and Triple-A.