The way the Baltimore Orioles have handled Grayson Rodriguez this season may be one of the biggest failures of the entire season. Rodriguez hasn’t taken the mound for the Orioles since July of last season and has been dealing with a variety of shoulder and elbow injuries. Initially sidelined at the end of spring training with a shoulder injury, the Orioles finally pulled the plug on Rodriguez’s comeback attempt earlier this week, revealing that he was undergoing elbow debridement surgery.

First and foremost, this was an egregious outcome for Orioles’ general manager Mike Elias. As Rodriguez was trying to work his way back this season, it seemed clear that surgery was going to be the most likely outcome. With the Orioles’ season going off the rails almost immediately, it would’ve made sense for the team to elect for surgery the moment it became a possibility.

Instead, Elias and the Orioles’ training staff had this misguided plan of trying to get Rodriguez back before the end of the 2025 season. The result is Rodriguez having surgery in August, and he almost certainly won’t be ready at the start of the 2026 season.

It’s getting harder for Orioles to count on Grayson Rodriguez at all

One thing is clear: the Orioles can not pin their hopes on Rodriguez’s return boosting their starting rotation the way they had hoped it would be in 2025. Elias will never admit this publicly, but his avoidance of stabilizing the starting rotation last offseason seems to be tied to the team thinking Rodriguez’s return would be the arrival to the pitching staff that the team needed. It was flawed logic and exposed Elias’ ability to construct a contending roster for the 2025 season.

The stated plan for Elias is to contend in 2026, and as painful as it is to admit, Rodriguez can’t be part of that plan. After the various setbacks and arm injuries Rodriguez has suffered since he last pitched, there is no telling what version of the former first-round pick the Orioles will be getting when he does return. At this point, anything production Rodriguez provides for the Orioles moving forward should be viewed as a bonus.