The Orioles announced this morning that the club had optioned right-hander Grayson Rodriguez to Triple-A and recalled left-hander Keegan Akin.
The move brings to an end Rodriguez’s first taste of big league action in his career. The club’s first-round pick in 2018 and a consensus top-10 prospect entering the season, Rodriguez has struggled badly to this point in the majors. The hard-throwing righty sports a ugly 7.35 ERA, 41% worse than league average by measure of ERA+, and a 5.94 FIP in ten starts this season. While a 26.5% strikeout rate is excellent, Rodriguez’s 10% walk rate is well below league average. Most concerning of all, however, is the frequency with which Rodriguez has given up hard contact. The youngster’s average exit velocity, HardHit%, and Barrel% are all in the tenth percentile or worse among qualified players this season.
Rodriguez’s struggles this season have been particularly pronounced since the calendar flipped to May. In five starts this month, Rodriguez has allowed 27 runs (26 earned) with nearly as many combined walks (10) and home runs (11) as strikeouts (22) while pitching into the sixth inning just once and failing to finish the fourth inning three times. All that adds up to a brutal 11.14 ERA with a 20.8% strikeout rate and a 9.43 FIP in 21 innings of work.
Given Rodriguez’s deep struggles, it’s impossible to know when his next big league opportunity will be. That said, Rodriguez obviously has incredible talent, and is far from the only starter struggling for the Orioles this season. Offseason acquisition Cole Irvin is currently in Triple-A himself after posting a 10.38 ERA in 13 innings of work, while Tyler Wells sports a FIP north of 5.00 despite his solid 3.47 ERA. Dean Kremer (94 ERA+) and Kyle Bradish (100 ERA+) have both been roughly league average to this point in the season, leaving offseason signing Kyle Gibson as the club’s only properly above average starter, with a 3.82 ERA and 4.18 FIP in 66 innings of work.
Replacing Rodriguez on the active roster is Akin, who turned in a quality season as a reliever last year, with a 3.20 ERA and 3.59 FIP in 81 2/3 innings of work. The 28-year-old lefty struggled somewhat with a 5.91 ERA in 10 2/3 innings of work at the big league level this season, but a 3.76 FIP indicates his underlying performance may have been better than the results would indicate. In seven innings of work at the Triple-A level, Akin has dominated to a 1.29 ERA with thirteen strikeouts.
Was hoping he came out of the gate firing on all
cylinders but it looks like he will have to straighten some things out before he has a real shot at being the ace for years to come in Baltimore
Or it’s time to adjust the expectations and hope that he can just be an effective no. 3 or 4 starter. Or maybe he’s just not that great. It happens.
Or 23 year old pitchers don’t settle in right away and become immediate success stories.
Like the tens of thousands before him……But yeah—I like what the Blue Baron is selling!
Not selling anything. Just stating facts. More prospects don’t become stars than do.
Although, typically, it is notoriously tough to peg the amount of success a pitching prospect will have at the ML level, Rodriguez has shown alot of signs that would make one think he’d be able to find some success.
It could be nerves, it could be him tipping his pitches, or it could be him being a rookie and not working with an experienced catcher that can help guide him. It could be a myriad of things going wrong with G-Rod, but I think after his demotion, the Orioles should let him find some success at AAA, and then and only then should they call him back up.
If he can go down, work on his sequencing, get in a groove at the AAA level, and regain his confidence, then I think that could do him alot of good moving forward.
Yeah, might as well just DFA him now and get it over with.
If it didn’t all click after one third of one season, it obviously never will.
Your words, not mine. Learn to read or grow a thicker skin.
Looks like the trolls are back.
@mgraub00: Nobody is a troll. People just expressing thoughts and opinions in an open forum.
Why do you have a problem with that?
Just stop making such bad posts and people will stop laughing at you.
@King Floch: What’s a bad post? One you disagree with? And laugh all you want. I don’t give a rat’s a$$.
That’s ridiculous. The guy is throwing an easy 99 – and when he’s commanding his pitches he’s unhittable – just needs to get his secondary pitches more consistent and stay out of the middle of the plate.
As the others – steady improvement for Kremer and Bradish – watch a game instead of focus 100% on stats in May.
As for Wells – it’s awesome how this piece ignores that he had the lowest WHIP in the league going into his last start.
The Orioles certainly are an impressive young team. No argument from me.
What kind of idiot condemns GrayRod to 3rd or 4th starter after only ten big league starts? Foolish.
What kind of idiot assumes a pitcher is going to be a star after only ten big league starts? Foolish.
A smart person does not lower expectations based on a small sample size as a player graduates to the highest level of play after abject dominance at all previous levels.
Fools leap to conclusions based on recency bias.
Sometimes. But thoughtful people consider many alternative possibilities.
On the Internet, fools leap to conclusions about people they know nothing about based on a few words they disagree with or don’t like. Speaking of recency bias and small sample size.
Thoughtful people don’t refer to others as “idiots.” You may benefit from taking your own advice.
Meanwhile, there is no justification for writing off GrOD as a failed prospect any more than one would have been justified writing off Greg Maddux or Max Scherzer or nearly every other top Starting Pitcher after two handfuls of appearances.
You are correct. But when someone calls me an idiot, I reserve the right to respond in kind.
DL will/should be a more successful starter than Grayson, change my mind.
Wouldn’t be surprised at all.
Why? Hall has massive control issues and Grayson is projected to be better at literally everything.
Consistently high strikeout rate in the minors. A lefty. More seasoning, less hype. Not necessarily saying DL is gonna be Cy Young; simply that he could very well end up being better than the hype train Grayson.
Plus, you’re making your manager gray, son.
):0o
Nowhere to Hyde.
DL’s K rates are essentially the same as Grayson’s while sporting higher walk rates, WHIP, HR/9…
As for seasoning, he has a year head start on Grayson but only about 30 more innings pitched, so that’s negligible.
Oh you’re totally right; I just said I wouldn’t be surprised; more so based on how hyped Grayson is. I’ve seen so many guys with nasty stuff that don’t make it. And, so many times, the unheralded prospect comes from nowhere and ends up being the real prize.
DL has good stuff, and potential too.
I’d be happy if DL could go a couple innings without walking someone….His home is a bullpen.
I’d read a report (this site or other) on Grayson mentioned that the type of injury he had during the middle of last season (based on other SP’s w/ same injury), means a prolonged (1-2 years) return to the previous levels of performance.
The Grayson we’ve seen this year is pretty far removed from his minor league self (Statcast wise), that’s it’s fair to wonder if he has indeed fully recovered.
I love DL, but Grayson has been a whole tier of pitcher better than DL for his whole carrer. I’m a BIG DL Hall fan (the fast ball alone on a lefty SP is pretty exciting), but he’s just not what Grayson was in the minors. (yes yes, usual caviots about MLB vs. AAA, etc).
Toronto should do the same with Manoah.
His mouth and weight are obviously his problem
Manoah & Kirk for the buffet-buster-battery.
“Lipids are Us”
@sacrifice Manaoh complained before the season started that saying that if fans thinks he should lose weight, they are fatphobic. These big fat players don’t last long in this league, just look at Pablo Sandoval and Prince Fielder. Their weight problems ruined their careers. Manaoh needs to lose around 25 pounds
After the problems the Jays had with Guererro and his weight early in his career I was surprised the team appears to have been less forceful with Manoah getting into proper shape. I would have thought the moment they saw him arrive in Dunedin in February it would have been all hands on deck helping him get back into game shape before the season was underway. It wouldn’t be a stretch to see Guerrero taking Manoah aside and having a few words.
Manoah is in the midst of a career worst season so perhaps he should be open to the criticism. Kirk also is nowhere as Close to as good as he was last year. Very few players enjoy lengthy careers being overweight. Cecil Fielder comes to mind because of his prodigious power and Bartolo Colon because he actually knew how to pitch, not just throw hard but there are many more who ate themselves out of the league
Manoah’s favorite meal is the next one.
I like Akin, but this isn’t exactly reciprocity here
You’re Akin for a breakin’.
Probably Voth takes his old spot in the rotation. He has earned it.
Actors clawed Akins back in the day.
“Hi, Kansas City? Hey, it’s Mike Elias. How’s Jordan Lyles?”
“He’s 0-9 with an ERA over 7, send us a bushel of crabs and he’s yours”
The bad news for KC is Lyles is very durable, so he’ll go to 0-20 if you keep running him out there.
The worse news for KC is there is no one to take his place if they wanted to get rid of him
Lyles signed for two years and leads the league in homeruns and runs allowed. Not happening..
Grayson has to fix his mechanics so he can better command the FB. All about FB command at the ML level.
Are the Orioles planning to form two teams or do you think Elias might finaly trade some of the 20 good position player prospects he has for some decent starting pitching?
It’s crazy. They could go deep into the playoffs if they had even an average rotation.
The trade deadline is August 2nd or 3rd this year. At best, such trades happen end of June, but more likely July 20 to the deadline. Rotation is better than you may think.
Definitely a bummer, but probably the right call to get him away from the bright lights and let him reset.
He’ll be back. He showed signs of brilliance and more signs of a lack of control. He just hasn’t been able to repeat his mechanics.
Orioles fans except me are saying Baumann should take his spot. Absolutely not. Took Baumann a while to figure it out. Britton 2.0 Jim Johnson 2.0
If we were sitting at .500 at the trade deadline I’d say let him figure out up here but as we are seriously contending right now you really need the starting pitching to get it going. I think I remember a number of years back where the O’s would come from behind to win games on the regular. Not a sustainable way to get a championship though.
And this comment section is again proof that being a fan doesn’t make someone qualified to work in baseball operations. Some really horrific takes here.
He’ll be fine. He’s young and just starting out. I’m not saying he’ll win 250 games, but he should be a solid #2 starter at worst.
Was probably the pressure of pitching in front of 18k. Or wearing that awful city connect uniform. He’s young and very talented, he will figure it out
Oh jeez that city connect uniform. I dig the hat, but the rest is just so bland.
Trade some of these prospects for a Bieber or giolito and let’s keep these wins going
Whenever I see a highly touted prospect struggle at the beginning, I always remember Mike Trout’s first 40 games in 2011. Obviously an extreme example but a good reminder that sometimes guys can flip that switch really fast.
Verlander was 0-2 w/era north of 7 his 1st 2gms in MLB, sum guys take awhile to turn that corner, rmbr Glavine n Smoltz getn roughed up when they 1st came up, gota figure it out
“Kremer, who recorded a 6.67 ERA in six April starts, had a 2.45 ERA in five May outings.”
Kyle Bradish ERA down to 3.89. He’s given up more than 3 runs two starts including the 7 runs in 2.1 innings in his second start on 4/25. The other was 4 runs against the Yankees in a game they won. Just facts rather than uninformed comments from people like Steve Phillips – who probably hasn’t watched an Os game this year.