WHY DID THE ORIOLES SEND DOWN GRAYSON RODRIGUEZ? TOP PROSPECT'S SPRING TRAINING STRUGGLES KEEP HIM OFF OPENING DAY MLB ROSTER

There's a lot for Orioles fans to be excited about in 2023. Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson look ready to make an impact at the MLB level, Anthony Santander has the potential to take a big step, and Baltimore shocked the world last season by making a legitimate run at an AL wild card spot.

One name, however, is missing from the Opening Day roster: pitcher Grayson Rodriguez, MLB.com's No. 7 overall prospect.

The 23-year-old Rodriguez, who was drafted 11th overall by the Orioles in 2018, spent spring training with the team. However, he wasn't ultimately picked up for the 26-man roster the Orioles will field Thursday.

While there will understandably be some murmuring of the Orioles trying to keep Rodriguez off the roster until April 15, when they can call him up without him accruing a full year of service time, there are some less cynical reasons to think the Orioles are holding him back for the time being. Whether or not that's the right decision is, of course, a different conversation entirely.

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Why the Orioles (may have) optioned Grayson Rodriguez to Triple-A

Needless to say, nothing is definitive about why the Orioles would have sent Rodriguez back to Norfolk to start the season.

There is a simple potential reason: Rodriguez didn't look good in the spring.

He threw 15 1/3 innings in five starts with the Orioles, allowing 12 earned runs (and three unearned runs) for an ERA 7.04. He also walked seven batters and struck out 19.

Rodriguez, who thrives on his high-90s cutter that drifts away from righties and a changeup that has screwball action to it, just didn't seem to have his best stuff in the spring. 

Is there room for Rodriguez in the Orioles rotation? There's no question. Kyle Gibson and Cole Irvin were offseason signings who will head things up for Baltimore. Dean Kremer, who broke out to a degree in 2022 with a 3.23 ERA following an 0-7 record in 2021, will be behind them. And Kyle Bradish and Tyler Wells will round things out. John Means, for his part, is still recovering from Tommy John surgery he underwent in May of last year.

So Rodriguez isn't being held because of a logjam. They want him to work on something.

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Did the Orioles make a mistake sending Grayson Rodriguez down?

This is a difficult question, because it's hard to ignore the evidence in front of the team in spring.

With that being said, Rodriguez has very little to prove in the minor leagues at this point.

He went 6-1 with a 2.20 ERA in 14 starts in Norfolk last season, with 12.5 strikeouts per nine. He was promoted at age 21 from High-A to Double-A in 2021, dominating at both levels then. The only time Rodriguez has struggled was in two starts in Double-A Bowie in 2022, but even that is such a small sample size as to be insignificant.

Rodriguez doesn't have the stuff of a Quad-A pitcher. This isn't some fringe prospect. And the Orioles are arguably in a position to let him get some work and even take some licks at the MLB level. No one in their rotation absolutely needs to be in it to hold Rodriguez out.

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Orioles executive vice president and GM Mike Elias had some sharp criticism of Rodriguez.

“He just didn’t really have a good start this spring, and kind of didn’t get out of the fourth inning,” Elias said of holding Rodriguez back, per The Baltimore Banner. “It seemed like the second time through the order, that third inning, was an issue. I thought he didn’t establish his slider as well as we’ve seen him do in the past. Command wasn’t as good as we’ve seen him do in the past.”

Elias did also give Rodriguez a half-hearted vote of confidence wrapped in another small jab.

“We know what he’s capable of," he said. "I wasn’t expecting this. We were hoping he would show up as a better version of himself than I think we got here, and we just had five other guys who were more deserving at this point in time.”

Keep in mind, Elias made his bones in St. Louis and Houston, two places where the mentality is championship or bust. However, he saw some lean years with the Astros, and he thinks the Orioles are ready to make a similar leap as the Astros did from 2014 to 2015, when they became a greater than .500 team, eventually winning a World Series in 2017 despite a slight regression in 2016.

“I believe that our rebuild is behind us,” Elias said in February of the Orioles, per The Baltimore Banner. “We’ve got an incredible chance now to be a very, very competitive team for years.”

That's an optimistic prognosis on Elias' part. But optimism is part of the deal when a team has its first greater than .500 season since 2016.

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What was Grayson Rodriguez's injury?

There's one other lingering question with Rodriguez: The right lat muscle strain that sidelined him in June last season.

Giving the Orioles the benefit of the doubt, it's possible his pitching hasn't returned to the state it was pre-injury. If Elias and company saw that in spring training, they could be forgiven for wanting to see him return to the level he was pitching at Norfolk before that injury. His fastball and changeup are electric, but his curveball and slider are going to be important to him at the next level.

If Rodriguez goes to Norfolk, dominates, and is still held down, then questions will arise about the Orioles' intentions. Norfolk opens its season Friday against Durham, and then it will have a six-game set against Gwinnett from April 4 to April 9. The date to watch is April 15, at which point Rodriguez can be called up without accruing a season of service time.

An important point to put on this is if Rodriguez comes up to MLB after April 15 and finishes top three in Cy Young voting (a ridiculously tall order) or top two in Rookie of the Year voting (still tall but not impossible), he would still get a year of service. That was what happened to Rutschman last season when the was AL Rookie of the Year runner-up to the Mariners' Julio Rodriguez.

Rodriguez's timeline now becomes extremely murky, and the Orioles have to make some decisions on him soon. Don't be surprised, however, if he's on the roster sooner than later this season. He has the stuff. Perhaps the Orioles just want him to gain the confidence in it.

2023-03-30T10:05:04Z dg43tfdfdgfd