The Baltimore Orioles clearly have a deficit of pitching.
After the front office tried to put a couple bandaids on the problem during the offseason, that deficit became and Achilles’ heel and was a big reason why the Orioles found themselves in such a hole in the first half.
With things seemingly trending towards being sellers at the trade deadline, Baltimore may have found a novel short-term solution at the expense of the Brewers.
Unless a team was willing to part with an arm that came with team control beyond 2025, the idea that the Orioles should strike any significant trade for pitching at the deadline feels like a stretch.
However, the Brewers did DFA Elvin Rodriguez about a week ago and the Orioles scooped him up on a waiver claim.
Orioles just claiming an intriguing arm off waiver from the Brewers in Elvin Rodriguez
While putting actual investment into a player to help this 2025 roster may not make much sense, it seems like the Orioles are taking a worthy (and cheap) gamble with claiming Rodriguez.
He is making peanuts this season and had a minor league option, so Baltimore could immediately stash him away at Triple-A to see what they can make of him.
If things break right, Rodriguez could be an asset for the Orioles the rest of the season.
He only throws in the mid-90’s, but his fastball has a lot of life at the top of the zone, his curve has a good amount of spin and is an out pitch when he is on, and his sweeper has some decent horizontal break to it.
The problem is that when Rodriguez makes mistakes, and he has made them pretty frequently, he ends up making mistakes in the strike zone.
Against advanced hitters, that is a recipe for disaster and the numbers bear that out as he has given up 14 homers in 48.1 innings combined from the majors and minors in 2025.
Again, this is a pretty low risk minor league deal for the Orioles. If Rodriguez can keep the ball in the park with Baltimore, we could see him come up to the majors and be helpful. If not, they can move on while incurring little actual cost.
