{"id":511894,"date":"2026-01-08T20:40:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T20:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/511894\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T20:40:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T20:40:11","slug":"orioles-avoid-arbitration-with-taylor-ward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/511894\/","title":{"rendered":"Orioles Avoid Arbitration With Taylor Ward"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Orioles and outfielder <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/w\/wardta01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-08_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Taylor Ward<\/a> have agreed to a $12.175MM salary for the 2026 season, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ByRobertMurray\/status\/2009326914524336146\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">FanSided\u2019s Robert Murray<\/a> reports.\u00a0 The two sides avoided arbitration with a figure that comes in lower than Ward\u2019s $13.7MM projection from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlbtraderumors.com\/2025\/10\/projected-arbitration-salaries-for-2026.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz<\/a>, but it\u2019s still a big raise over the $7.825MM Ward earned in 2025.\u00a0 Ward is represented by Wasserman.<\/p>\n<p>In what ended up as his final season with the Angels, Ward hit .228\/.317\/.475 over 663 plate appearances, with a career-high 36 home runs and 103 RBI.\u00a0 Ward\u2019s 117 wRC+ in 2025 wasn\u2019t much higher than his 112 wRC+ in 2024, and his batting average and OBP actually declined from the previous year.\u00a0 However, since arbitors tend to favor traditional counting stats over advanced metrics, Ward\u2019s big increase in homers and RBI meant that he was in line for a hefty increase.<\/p>\n<p>Since Ward is a Super Two player, he had four years of arbitration eligibility instead of the standard three.\u00a0 With his 2026 figure now established, Ward will have made $27.5MM over his four arb years, which included winning an arbitration hearing with the Angels entering the 2024 season.\u00a0 (The panel gave Ward his desired $4.8MM salary rather than the Angels\u2019 price of $4.3MM.)<\/p>\n<p>Ward will hit free agency next winter in advance of his age-33 season, and on the heels of what Ward hopes is a productive first season in Baltimore.\u00a0 After years of trade rumors, the Angels finally dealt Ward in an intriguing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlbtraderumors.com\/2025\/11\/orioles-trade-grayson-rodriguez-to-angels-for-taylor-ward.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">one-for-one deal<\/a> in November that sent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/r\/rodrigr01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-08_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Grayson Rodriguez<\/a> to Anaheim.\u00a0 The move to a more hitter-friendly ballpark may well boost Ward\u2019s numbers in his platform year, and he\u2019ll surely welcome the chance to play for a potential contender after never playing on a winning team over his eight years with the Angels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Orioles and outfielder Taylor Ward have agreed to a $12.175MM salary for the 2026 season, FanSided\u2019s Robert&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2290],"tags":[5,5694],"class_list":{"0":"post-511894","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-baseball","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-taylor-ward"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115861417226117411","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=511894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}