Orioles president of baseball operations Mike Elias held a video conference with reporters (including Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com) on Friday to discuss both the team’s decisions at the non-tender deadline and several other topics, most notably the major one-for-one swap earlier this week that sent Grayson Rodriguez to the Angels in exchange for Taylor Ward.
The trade represented something of a long-term goal for the front office, as Elias said Ward is “somebody that we’ve been chasing for at least for a couple years, just because of the profile, the big right-handed power.