Another chapter has closed for a pitcher drafted by the Orioles in the first round. After Mike Mussina, the Hall of Famer selected in 1990, this has often been the case for Baltimore — hope, potential and an ending that leaves much to be desired.

The latest case is Grayson Rodriguez, the big-armed fireballer who showed promise but suffered injuries that prevented him from blossoming. The Orioles traded him Tuesday to the Los Angeles Angels, cutting ties with the 26-year-old in exchange for power-hitting outfielder Taylor Ward.

Before Rodriguez, there were Cody Sedlock, Matt Hobgood, Adam Loewen and more. Those pitchers, drafted in the first round, had varying degrees of success, in Baltimore or elsewhere.

Overwhelmingly, however, Baltimore’s hit rate is near the bottom of Major League Baseball since 1991. According to data from Baseball Reference, the cumulative wins above replacement produced by pitchers the Orioles drafted in the first round from 1991-2025 while they played for Baltimore ranks 27th out of 30 teams.

WAR measures a player’s impact in terms of how many more wins that player brings a team than would a replacement player from the minors. It’s helpful to make apples-to-apples comparisons between teams and positions.

The only teams who have generated fewer WAR from pitchers drafted in the first round in that time frame are the Atlanta Braves, New York Yankees and Arizona Diamondbacks (who began as a franchise in 1998). The Braves built their stellar 1990s rotation largely through trades and hits later in the draft; the Yankees have never been shy to spend money in free agency.

So there are many ways to build a winning rotation. In general, though, first-rounders have the best chance to make the majors, which is why The Banner is looking at that round specifically. Baseball America reported that, from 1981-2010, 73% of all players taken in the first round made it to the majors.

Baltimore has drafted 20 pitchers in the first round since taking Mussina in 1990, and only 45% of those players wound up appearing for the Orioles. (Wade Townsend, the team’s first-round pick in 2004, didn’t sign; he was taken by Tampa Bay the following year but never made the majors).

The average career WAR per pitcher drafted by the Orioles during his time in Baltimore is 0.995. Nearly half of that cumulative WAR belongs to right-hander Kevin Gausman, who generated 9.7 WAR across six seasons in Baltimore.

Gausman reached greater heights after departing. He became a first-time All-Star for the San Francisco Giants in 2021 and made the American League team for the Toronto Blue Jays in 2023. He helped lead Toronto’s staff to the World Series in 2025.

Right-hander Dylan Bundy’s 6.3 WAR for Baltimore is the second most. Left-hander Brian Matusz, selected fourth overall in the 2008 draft, edged Rodriguez in WAR. In parts of two seasons Rodriguez built 2.3 WAR, but injuries prevented him from taking the mound further. He last pitched for the Orioles on July 31, 2024.

The Orioles’ track record spans multiple front office regimes, and the current leadership group fronted by president of baseball operations Mike Elias hasn’t chosen a pitcher in the first round. The factors that play into the lackluster results are multifold.

For one, there is no such thing as a slam dunk in baseball, even when picking in the first round.

Some organizations struck gold once or twice, and their high cumulative WAR reflects not a widespread success rate but a few outliers. The Los Angeles Dodgers, who lead with 115.6 WAR from first-round pitchers they draft and develop, owe much of that to left-hander Clayton Kershaw’s career 78.1 WAR.

The same goes for the Blue Jays. Right-hander Roy Halladay is responsible for 48.4 of Toronto’s 107.6 WAR.

But you don’t need to land a future Hall of Famer. Even a modest hit from one or two first-round pitchers is a franchise-altering outcome, and it’s one the Orioles haven’t experienced.

“It’s hard to swing and miss on a pitcher in the first 10 picks in the country,” said Buck Showalter, Baltimore’s manager from 2010-18, who noted the Orioles often weren’t picking that high during his tenure. “But they do, and I think the injury factor, the health factor, is what people are having a hard time getting their arms around, projecting it. And now, with everybody chasing velocity and maximum torque and maximum spin and maximum grip-it-and-rip-it, I can kind of see how there’s going to be a real crapshoot on health of players.”

Pinpointing whether spin and velocity considerations spoiled the development of Baltimore’s starters is difficult, but injuries did strike. Loewen dealt with a stress fracture in his left elbow. Hobgood needed shoulder surgery. Bundy and Hunter Harvey had Tommy John elbow reconstruction surgery.

Rodriguez missed 2025 due to elbow and lat injuries. Left-hander DL Hall, drafted in the first round in 2017, has had oblique and elbow issues, even after he was traded to the Milwaukee Brewers as part of the deal for right-hander Corbin Burnes.

When Showalter reflected on Sedlock, a 2016 first-rounder who wound up pitching just three innings for the Orioles, he recalled a “red flag” of a delivery.

“There was a lot of things he did with his arm action that was a lot of strain,” Showalter said. “Grayson doesn’t show that as much, but I’m sure they [the Orioles] have a theory on it [his injuries]. I would love to be a fly on the wall.”

Showalter said teams often hesitate to push pitchers to produce large inning totals in the minors as they attempt to prevent injuries. When Showalter talks with a friend who is the director of pitching for a major league club, though, the friend says there is a growing trend to allow minor league pitchers to work deeper into games.

In doing so, they believe, those pitchers learn to handle fatigue and to perform when throwing at a 90% level rather than full throttle each pitch.

“The ability to project health is always a moving target, but I think the methodology, I think sometimes, a lot of these teams are figuring out, you have to let these guys pitch innings in the minor leagues,” Showalter said.

Of course, drafting is not the only way to acquire high-end starters. Teams can sign them in free agency (the Orioles may show aggressiveness in that area this winter), sign them from international markets or trade for them.

The general philosophy under Elias has been to trade for starters, including Burnes and left-hander Trevor Rogers. The Orioles also traded for right-hander Dean Kremer, who has built 6.4 career WAR, and right-hander Kyle Bradish (7.2 WAR).

The only homegrown pitcher in Baltimore’s rotation picture currently is right-hander Brandon Young, and he joined as an undrafted free agent in 2020 due to the shortened draft.

The Orioles aren’t in need of starters solely because of their reluctance to use high-end draft capital on pitchers. If anything is apparent in baseball, its unpredictable nature is a centerpiece.

But, in trading Rodriguez, Baltimore moved on from another first-round pitcher. It only underscores the long history of underperformance from those chosen with high hopes surrounding them.