The Orioles will enter 2026 relying on a 26-year-old former top prospect with a hard fastball, multiple years of team control, tantalizing upside and an injury history.
Five weeks ago, that pitcher was Grayson Rodriguez. Now it’s Shane Baz.
The Orioles’ decision in November to trade for a hitter like Taylor Ward wasn’t surprising. His right-handed bat is a fit in the top half of Baltimore’s lineup and in the corner outfield. But giving up on Rodriguez, once the top pitching prospect in baseball, while he has four years of team control was a massive risk.
In acquiring Baz, the Orioles have replaced Rodriguez with a pitcher who possesses a more reliable floor with a ceiling just as high.
Orioles president of baseball operations Mike Elias was asked Saturday during a virtual news conference whether trading for a pitcher like Baz — a controllable starting pitcher with a high ceiling — was a priority after he gave one up in Rodriguez.
“I think I had to hope that we would find a trade like this, but it’s very hard to hang your hat on that happening,” Elias said. “The availability of these kind of guys is fleeting, and then you have to line up on trade. We knew we’d be out in the market for starting pitching, that was something that we were very confident in.”
Rodriguez and Baz, of course, are not the same pitcher, despite their similarities. Both are former top prospects. Both have high-90s mph fastballs. Both have injuries histories — Baz a Tommy John elbow reconstruction surgery, Rodriguez a litany of arm ailments.
Rodriguez struggled to begin his MLB career, but from the time he was recalled in July 2023 until he suffered a season-ending lat muscle injury in August 2024, he was one of the top starting pitchers in MLB. His 3.35 ERA over that 193 1/3-inning stretch ranked eighth among starters with at least as many innings.
But the reason the Orioles likely felt comfortable trading him away given that upside is the persistent injury issues that have hampered the early part of Rodriguez’s career. It began in 2022 when he suffered a lat muscle strain that delayed his MLB call-up. In 2024, he missed time early in the season with shoulder inflammation and then another lat strain cost him the final two months and a chance to pitch again in the postseason. Then he didn’t throw a single pitch in the regular season after dealing with multiple instances of elbow impingement and another lat strain.
He opted to undergo surgery to remove bone spurs in his elbow that were causing the impingement, and Rodriguez’s belief, which he stated on “Foul Territory” after he was traded to the Angels, is that fixing his elbow will also fix the issue with his lat muscle.
Orioles’ Mike Elias explains decision to trade for pitcher Shane Baz
That is quite possible, but it doesn’t change the uphill battle Rodriguez faces to contribute in 2026. After not pitching any innings in 2025, even if he’s able to remain healthy this upcoming season, he won’t be able to fulfill a starter’s workload of 30-plus starts and 150-plus innings.
That is where Rodriguez and Baz differ.
Baz underwent two surgeries in 2022. First, it was arthroscopic surgery in March to remove loose bodies from his elbow. After he recovered from that, he tore his ulnar collateral ligament and underwent Tommy John surgery in September, and he didn’t throw another pitch in an MLB game until July 2024.
But Baz has been healthy since. He ended 2024 strong with a 3.06 ERA in 79 1/3 innings, and despite worse headline numbers (4.87 ERA, 1.34 WHIP), he increased his velocity, strikeout rate and chase percentage in 2025 while starting 31 games and pitching 166 1/3 innings.
“He’s at a really good juncture after the Tommy John surgery and sort of platforming into 2026,” Elias said. “So we kind of think he’s ready to go and we’re really expecting we’re going to get the best chunk of his career here coming up.”
The futures of Baz and Rodriguez are uncertain, and Elias certainly doesn’t have a crystal ball. But operating an MLB team is making a series of bets, and Baz is a better bet to help the Orioles in the short term than Rodriguez.
Elias said he opted to trade prospects — four players ranked inside Baltimore’s organizational top 30, according to MLB Pipeline — instead of major league talent to acquire Baz because his focus is on the 2026 and 2027 clubs. That mindset has been constant this offseason with the signing of closer Ryan Helsley and the $155 million deal handed out to Pete Alonso.
“This is a trade that’s going to benefit us for years with Shane, but 2026 and 2027, the first couple of years, they’re a big part of that equation,” Elias said. “If we’re bringing him in to help the team, and then in the trade return, we’re losing other parts of the team, it definitely takes away from the logic. Not saying it’s impossible to do a trade like that and maybe we do something later, but in our view, we were willing to put a lot of value on the table given that it was a few years off, in our eyes, from impacting the 2026 scene.”
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