Eddie Rosario: Nats dominate market for cheap lefty power vets

[imref]

Nats sign Eddie Rosario.

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2024/03/nationals-sign-eddie-rosario.html

Speculation is that Meneses' days are numbered. Rosario could play LF, perhaps splitting time with Garrett, with Gallo going to 1B.

[Natsinpwc]

NLCS MVP baby. 

[imref]

Rosario's deal is a minor league contract plus incentives that could pay him up to $4M

[welch]

Better Rosario than Joey Gallo. Didn't we mention Rosario, during the off-season, as a good match for the Nats?

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/rosared01.shtml

[Slateman]

Except Gallo is also still on the team.

[imref]

Gallo to 1B, Rosario to LF.  I saw earlier that Rosario would have had the third highest OBP on the team last year.

[Natsinpwc]

Gallo to 1B, Rosario to LF.  I saw earlier that Rosario would have had the third highest OBP on the team last year.

True but he was getting lots of pitches to hit in that Braves lineup.  Now he is one of the expected big guns. 

Good deal.  Does well and flip him. 

[Natsinpwc]

Except Gallo is also still on the team.

Darnell is going to turn them both into slap contact hitters. 

[nobleisthyname]

Gallo to 1B, Rosario to LF.  I saw earlier that Rosario would have had the third highest OBP on the team last year.

Oof, he had an OBP of .305 last season. That's better than Gallo's .301 to be fair.

[imref]

Oof, he had an OBP of .305 last season. That's better than Gallo's .301 to be fair.

sorry, meant OPS.

[rbw5t]

sorry, meant OPS.

I hope you meant OBP and not OPS!!  edit: oops, sorry, different posters between the prior two messages -- i'm tracking now.  glad he didn't have a .305 OPS -- that would be bad even for us!   

[JCA-CrystalCity]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2024/03/06/eddie-rosario-nats-deal/

Rosario, 32, is a career .268 hitter who spent the first six years of his major league career with the Minnesota Twins before he joined Cleveland in 2021. A left-handed hitter, he was traded to the Braves that July and helped Atlanta to the World Series title, earning National League Championship Series MVP honors along the way. He spent the past two seasons with the Braves, who declined a $9 million option for Rosario this offseason. In 142 games for the Braves last season, Rosario hit .255 with 21 home runs and a .755 OPS.

Golden can read Fangraphs player pages, too:

Rosario’s expected batting average, expected slugging percentage and expected weighted on-base average last season were all above league average, which bodes well for him heading into 2024. But he did have an alarming 43.5 percent chase rate, which was the highest since his 2015 rookie season. He swung at 57.4 percent of pitches last season, higher than the league average, but struggled to make contact.

Golden points out that, not only is Garrett recovering from his injury, but also that Gallo has been dealing with a quad injury that should push him to 1st, at least initially. Rizzo said on 106.7 that Gallo will be playing mostly 1B early on. This probably blocks Wood at the start of the year, which I/M/O is ok. I have not bought into the thought he could make the team even with a dominant spring.

Golden also suggests only one of Winker and Rosario may break camp with the Nats as their offensive profiles are similar. Unlike Winker, who is definitely a negative in the field, Rosario has been an average defensive OF for all of his career by a lot of measures.

 

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Oof, he had an OBP of .305 last season. That's better than Gallo's .301 to be fair.

this is a play for pop, not OBP. And it's also a bit of a spaghetti at the wall kind of move, too.

[imref]

Seems like the perfect minimal risk / high potential upside signing for a team that isn't contending.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

For now, I'm going to assume one of Robles or Young end up in CF. In that scenario, you could see a righty backup outfielder making the team as the short side of a platoon in left with Rosario, with Gallo, Winker, and Meneses also on board predominantly at 1st and DH. 2 catchers, 4 OF, 7 IFs/DHs. Senzel, Thomas, and CF would be the regular righties, Ruiz the regular switch, Abrams, Gallo, and Garcia as regular lefties, and Winker / Meneses and Rosario / backup righty bat as
<----------

If there's a fail from Meneses or the righty OFs, then Garrett pushes them back to the minors when he's healthy. Otherwise, I think Rosario or Winker would be the next likely guys to be pushed out.

[welch]

Rosario. Good pickup. (Why not sign Rosario earlier? Instead of Gallo?)

[varoadking]

Rosario. Good pickup. (Why not sign Rosario earlier? Instead of Gallo?)

Boras...

[Five Banners]

Rosario. Good pickup. (Why not sign Rosario earlier? Instead of Gallo?)

Why not sign Absolutely no one instead of him and let Ruiz and Manisses ping-pong as to who covers first base and who DHs? it seemed not only pointless book likely to drop in anchor in the middle of the lineup and scrappy Nats potential.

[aspenbubba]

Rosario. Good pickup. (Why not sign Rosario earlier? Instead of Gallo?)

IIRC several years ago several posters lobbied for Rosario to be signed. There was no reason to sign Gallo or Senzel  EVER.

[blue911]

IIRC several years ago several posters lobbied for Rosario to be signed. There was no reason to sign Gallo or Senzel  EVER.

Except we live in the 21st century and the brass wants us to walk in front of our cars with a warning flag.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Rosario Scenario for team's first HR.  deal him!

[Smithian]

Career high OPS! Trade him for prospects

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Rosario's pop that dropped makes Ben Clemens list of 5 things he liked or didn't in the past week.
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/five-things-i-liked-or-didnt-like-this-week-april-5/

Pop ups are death for hitters. Infield pop ups are particularly so. Every other type of hit has some chance of finding a hole, but the combination of short distance and long hangtime mean that if you hit the ball straight up and it doesn’t go far, you’re going to be out. Batters hit .006/.006/.006 on infield fly balls from 2021 through 2023 – 12,583 pop ups led to 74 hits. You generally need some wild wind, a collision, or perhaps an overzealous pitcher trying to field for himself to have any shot at a hit. Mostly, though, it just turns into an out.

So far, 2024 has had other ideas. In the first five days of games, two infield pop ups turned into singles. One even turned into a double. It’s silly season for bad contact, in other words. It all started with Eddie Rosario:
[pic of pop falling in]
That’s one of the hardest-hit infield pop ups of the year, one of only two hit at 95 mph or harder. That meant that the Reds had all day to camp under it, but unfortunately for them, it was a windy day in Cincinnati on Saturday. Gameday reported 17 mph winds from right to left, and you can see Santiago Espinal and Christian Encarnacion-Strand struggle to track the ball. If your infield pop up is going to drop, that’s a common way for it to happen.

[GataNats]

This guy doesn’t need to be playing

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Jon Becker at FG takes a shot at playing Rosario in CF instead of Gallo or even thomas:
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/top-of-the-order-trevor-storys-injury-tests-bostons-thin-infield-depth/

Despite keeping Victor Robles around instead of non-tendering him, he was relegated to the bench to start the year, only picking up a couple of starts (one against a lefty, and one with Jesse Winker out due to illness) before hitting the IL after suffering a hamstring injury in that second game. Instead, the Nationals not only rostered two lefty-hitting, outfield-playing non-roster invitees in Winker and Eddie Rosario, but they’re starting them both — with Rosario in center!

Rosario is 32, not fleet of foot (13th-percentile sprint speed), and not a very good outfielder; he was solid last year in left field but graded out negatively there in 2022, and of course center requires covering more ground. Even with Robles hurt and Jacob Young (who profiles more as a fourth outfielder-type) on the roster in his stead, playing Rosario up the middle doesn’t really make much sense. Offseason signee Joey Gallo is only 30, and he is more experienced and has performed better out there than Rosario has in his career — Gallo has five defensive runs saved in 463 innings patrolling center — but he has been relegated to first base entirely so far, with Joey Meneses as the regular designated hitter.

In a vacuum, I can understand why Washington wants to keep Lane Thomas in one spot; he’s the only outfielder on the roster who starts against righties and lefties alike, and his strong arm plays well in right. I can also understand, in a vacuum, wanting Meneses at DH, leaving Gallo (the only other player with extensive experience there) at first; Meneses isn’t a good first baseman! But if those decisions lead to playing an average-at-best left fielder in center field, one of the most consequential defensive positions on the diamond, they’re not the right ones.