The Orioles traded Grayson Rodriguez last night. Even with a little time to digest this maneuver, that was still a surprising sentence to write out. Mike Elias really went and did it, whatever “it” might turn out to be, bringing in 31-year-old outfielder Taylor Ward from the Angels. The righty-batting Ward has one year remaining before becoming a free agent. That, in the end, is what the market deemed Rodriguez to be worth.

This is a difficult pill for any Orioles fan to swallow who has been invested in Rodriguez’s success for the past several seasons. He was an exciting pitching prospect to have had in the system for several years while he developed, a consensus top 10 prospect in the game who seemed to have the potential to anchor the top of the rotation for years. That’s tough to let g

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