{"id":651474,"date":"2026-03-30T00:12:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T00:12:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/651474\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T00:12:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T00:12:17","slug":"analyzing-the-newest-guardian-carter-rustad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/651474\/","title":{"rendered":"Analyzing the Newest Guardian: Carter Rustad"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The Guardians put another big right-handed hitter on the Orioles today, getting right-handed reliever Carter Rustad for Johnathan Rodriguez.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Rusted is 24 years old, about to turn 25, and spent his last season on Double-A for the Orioles, putting up a 3.23 ERA and 3.25 FIP with a 9.51\/3.91 K\/BB\/9 in 53 innings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Erik Longenhagen wrote him up for FanGraphs <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.fangraphs.com\/baltimore-orioles-top-50-prospects\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>, pointing out he is sitting 94-96 with his fastball, with a high graded sinker, a low 80\u2019s slider and a changeup that looks like a split. He swapped to a reliever role last season, so it seems like there is still some developing to do there. Gaining some additional control would go a long way.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Rustad has above average extension as seen in this metric posted by cdlenthusiast on Twitter from TJStats<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Follow Thomas Nestico @TJStats on Twitter for more excellent insights.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Rustad is a solid return for a player who had no position and was blocked by several more promising prospects. Now, to see if the Guardians pitching factory can sprinkle some magic dust on him and get him to take a further step toward fewer walks and a spot in a major league pen.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Rodriguez, we barely knew ye. But, I will always remember you as the worst major league outfielder I have ever encountered. Wouldn\u2019t be surprised to see him be a decent DH for a while at some point, however, and I wish him the best.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Guardians put another big right-handed hitter on the Orioles today, getting right-handed reliever Carter Rustad for Johnathan&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":651475,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2380],"tags":[5,135,51,38552,2589,4926,2565,538,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-651474","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-guardians","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-cleveland","10":"tag-cleveland-guardians","11":"tag-cleveland-guardians-news","12":"tag-cleveland-guardians-analysis","13":"tag-cleveland-guardians-prospects","14":"tag-clevelandguardians","15":"tag-guardians","16":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116315235692347783","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651474","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=651474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/651475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}