{"id":651346,"date":"2026-03-29T22:54:24","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T22:54:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/651346\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T22:54:24","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T22:54:24","slug":"orioles-acquire-johnathan-rodriguez-from-guardians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/651346\/","title":{"rendered":"Orioles Acquire Johnathan Rodriguez From Guardians"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Orioles acquired outfielder Johnathan Rodriguez<\/a> from the Guardians in exchange for minor league right-hander Carter Rustad<\/a>, MLB.com\u2019s Tim Stebbins<\/a>. reports.\u00a0 The two teams have each officially announced the trade, and the Orioles optioned Rodriguez to Triple-A.<\/p>\n

Rodriguez is a veteran of 44 big league games, all with the Guardians in 2024-25.\u00a0 A third-round pick for Cleveland in the 2017 draft, Rodriguez has been crushing minor league pitching for four years now, and he has a .301\/.390\/.535 slash line and 56 homers over 1083 plate appearances at the Triple-A level.\u00a0 In the majors, however, Rodriguez has hit only .176\/.282\/.304 with 36 strikeouts over his 117 PA in a Guards uniform, as his struggles with advanced spin rates have been highlighted against upper-level pitchers.<\/p>\n

It was enough for the Guardians to designate Rodriguez for assignment in advance of Opening Day, and Baltimore stepped up with a trade offer to bring the 26-year-old outfielder into the organization.\u00a0 Rodriguez has a minor league option remaining, so he\u2019ll provide the O\u2019s with some depth at the very least, even if it remains unclear where exactly Rodriguez could fit onto their 26-man roster unless an injury arises.<\/p>\n

Baltimore is already juggling Taylor Ward<\/a>, Tyler O\u2019Neill<\/a>, Dylan Beavers<\/a>, Leody Taveras<\/a>, and utilitymen Jeremiah Jackson<\/a> and Blaze Alexander<\/a> as candidates for outfield duty.\u00a0 Jackson and Alexander will probably see more time on the infield with Jackson Holliday<\/a> and Jordan Westburg<\/a> still on the injured list, however, creating more need for an optionable outfielder like Rodriguez to be part of the mix at Triple-A.\u00a0 It could also be that the Orioles\u2019 evaluators see Rodriguez as a project to be fixed, as his hitting potential and strong throwing arm make him an interesting player to watch if he learns how to handle movement.<\/p>\n

Rustad is a few weeks away from his 25th birthday, and the righty was a 15th-round pick for Baltimore in the 2024 draft.\u00a0 The Mizzou product has worked almost exclusively as a reliever in pro ball, and he posted a 3.23 ERA, 24.6% strikeout rate, and 10.1% walk rate across 53 total minor league innings in 2025, moving from A-ball to high-A to Double-A before the year was out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Orioles acquired outfielder Johnathan Rodriguez from the Guardians in exchange for minor league right-hander Carter Rustad, MLB.com\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":651347,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2290],"tags":[5,21472],"class_list":["post-651346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-baseball","tag-baseball","tag-johnathan-rodriguez"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116314929955066538","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651346","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=651346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/651347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}