Since Jesse Winker was dealt to the Seattle Mariners after the 2021 MLB season, the Cincinnati Reds have leaned hard into refusing to address their corner outfield situation long-term. Instead, they’ve
relied on a steady stream of over-30 guys brought in for one year (if that), the likes of Tommy Pham, Wil Myers, and most recently Austin Hays serving as hopeful stop-gaps while the players behind them kept developing.
Jake Fraley hit a wall. Will Benson seemingly has, too, while Rece Hinds hasn’t ever truly taken hold. Austin Slater couldn’t patch anything out there, nor could Harrison Bader or Hunter Renfroe.
The hope as of August of 2025 is that Noelvi Marte, a 3B by trade, will continue to take hold of the RF job going forward. The early returns out there were mostly positive, and his bat looks like it’ll hopefully be good enough to play out there. That’s a solid-enough option in one corner beside TJ Friedl, but the Reds leave the 2025 season with no Hays and a pretty clear need for additional help in left, even if the infield dominos fall in a way that pushes Spencer Steer into LF duty more often than last year.
Taylor Ward had been a popular name brought up for said role for 2026. He just bashed 36 homers for the Los Angeles Angels as part of a 116 OPS+ season, doing so after having socked 25 in 2024 with a 110 OPS+. He’s entering his final year of team control for an Angels team going nowhere (once again), precisely the kind of rental bat who would typically be available on the trade block for a team like the Reds who, in theory, is planning to contend in 2026.
That option is firmly off the table as of Tuesday night, however, as the Baltimore Orioles swooped in to acquire Ward in a deal that sent once-promising and oft-injured starter Grayson Rodriguez the other way. It’s a fascinating trade in many ways, Rodriguez possessing four years of team control but fresh off four years of awful injury history, a story about an Orioles promising pitching prospect that’s becoming as old as time.
In many ways Rodriguez’s career path has mimicked that of his now teammate Robert Stephenson, who was once the prize of the Reds farm before injuries derailed his career as a starter. Los Angeles, obviously, is hoping for more from Rodriguez and was much more willing to take a flier on him rather than on an unproven (yet more pristine) prospect, and that throws a wrench in trying to evaluate just how much this deal sets the market for the kind of bats that may be available in trade this winter akin to Ward.
There isn’t really a Rodriguez-esque arm in the Cincinnati system with which to make a comp here. He’s one part Brandon Williamson, one part Graham Ashcraft, and one part Chase Burns – he’s missed an entire big league year after some impressive work, he’s still just 26 with elite stuff, and he was once the top pitching prospect in all of baseball. If that’s what the Angels were looking for – a dice roll on ready-made big league pitching help that could very well blow up in their face on day one – I’m not sure the Reds really had a piece that fit that bill. Maybe, just maybe, this is a unicorn deal that only came together because each side had precisely the one piece the other desired, but the fact remains that if the Reds are going to try to address their corner outfield situation (and team-wide lack of power), it’s not going to be Taylor Ward riding in to fix it.
