Baltimore Orioles Make A Trade With Philadelphia Phillies

The Baltimore Orioles and Philadelphia Phillies have made a swap.

After defeating the Detroit Tigers by a score of 14-1 on Monday afternoon, Baltimore Orioles beat reporters announced that the team has sent International Bonus pool money to the Philadelphia Phillies for catcher Lenin Rodriguez.

After devoting the franchise to more scouting and activity in the international market too late in the game, Mike Elias has been wisely spending his international dollars to collect depth pieces and lottery tickets to add to the system.

Over the past few weeks, the Orioles have sent international money to add pitchers David Lebron (from Texas) and Xavier Moore (Minnesota) and outfielder Dwight Smith Jr.(Toronto). Add soon-to-be 21-year-old catcher Lenin Rodriguez to the list.

Listed at 5’9″ and 165 pounds, the right-handed hitting Rodriguez has spent all four of his professional seasons with the Phillies since the organization signed him out of Venezuela in July of 2014.

After spending three years in low-level rookie ball, Rodriguez made his New York-Penn League debut in 2018 (low-A ball), hitting .213 with a .342 on-base percentage in just 21 games of action.

Across 137 career minor league games and 373 at-bats, Rodriguez has posted a slash line of .263/.369/.367 with six home runs and 21 doubles. Without the ability to take much away from lower-level minor league statistics, Rodriguez does have one very positive stat line. He has walked 53 times while striking out in just 40 at-bats.

More from Birds Watcher

• Should the Baltimore Orioles Consider Signing Nathan Eovaldi?
• Orioles News: Predicting the Opening Day Infield and More MLB News
• Last Chance O’s Fans: Bet $40, Win $700 if ONE POINT is Scored in ANY NFL Game This Week
• Predicting the Baltimore Orioles Opening Day Infield
• Orioles News: O’s Sign Adam Frazier and Other MLB News

There isn’t much information out there on the Orioles’ newest catcher, but this report from 2016, courtesy of The Good Phight, a blog dedicated to the Philadelphia Phillies, describes Rodriguez as an “offense-first catcher.”

Likely just organizational depth at a position every team needs in the minors, anything Rodriguez brings to the organization is better than money that becomes useless in a short amount of time.

This move is another opportunity for general manager Mike Elias to spend his international dollars responsibly. Other than Dwight Smith Jr. we haven’t seen the other players recently traded for, so we don’t know the quality of these players, but if Elias can find quality international players and spend his bonus pool money wisely during the next cycle, another small part of the rebuild will be off to a positive start.

Welcome to Birdland, Lenin Rodriguez!