The Braves announced Friday that they’ve reinstated deadline acquisition Eddie Rosario from the 10-day injured list and opened a spot on the roster by designating fellow outfielder Abraham Almonte for assignment. Rosario has been out since July 7 due to an abdominal strain.
Almonte, 32, appeared in 63 games and tallied 174 plate appearances for Atlanta, batting .218/.333/.401 along the way. He’s cooled off quite a bit after a hot start, however, with just a .184/.270/.350 output over his past 115 plate appearances — including a current 0-for-12 skid at the plate.
The Braves were the sixth big league club for the journeyman Almonte, who has also appeared at the MLB level with the Padres, Indians, Mariners, Diamondbacks and Royals. In 1325 career plate appearances, he’s a .235/.302/.374 hitter. Atlanta will place Almonte on outright waivers or release waivers in the coming days, at which point he’ll be available for any other club to claim. If he goes unclaimed, Almonte has more than enough service to reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency.
Rosario, 29, enjoyed a solid run as the Twins’ everyday left fielder from 2017-20, hitting at a combined .281/.317/.493 clip while averaging 32 home runs and 33 doubles per 162 games. The free swinger’s OBP trended downward in his final couple seasons in Minnesota, however, and the Twins passed him through waivers last November before non-tendering him rather than paying a raise on his $7.75MM salary. That made Rosario, who would’ve been arbitration-eligible one final time, a free agent a year sooner than expected.
The Indians signed their former division rival to a one-year, $8MM contract late in the offseason, hoping he’d add some pop to a lineup with a rather muddled outfield outlook. Instead, however, Rosario turned in a career-worst showing at the plate, batting .254/.296/.389 in 306 trips to the plate. The Braves effectively acquired Rosario for cash, sending only Pablo Sandoval to the Indians in the swap. Sandoval was immediately released by Cleveland.
Part of the Braves’ deadline approach in the wake of so much turnover in the outfield this season was to acquire a bundle of once-productive outfield options in the midst of middling seasons in hope that a change of scenery would bring about a rebound. It worked out brilliantly with Jorge Soler, who’s been on a tear since joining the Braves. Joc Pederson and Adam Duvall have continued at slightly below-average paces, though each has delivered some timely hits since arriving in Atlanta. Rosario now joins that group as the Braves look to stave off the reeling Mets and Phillies and secure another division title.
Braves outfield probably looking like:
vR – Rosario and Pederson with one of Duvall or Soler
vL – Duvall and Soler with one of Rosario or Pederson
With the way Soler has been hitting, Duvall probably get shafted the most.
Duvall has been crushing Rh pitchers though (.244/.295/.505) as opposed to Lh ones (.175/.260/.377).
Pederson actually has the 2nd best OPS (.713, .757 with Atlanta) vs Lefties among the Braves OF crop , so he is likely to be mostly excused from a platoon assignment.
Plus Rosario is a 4th Outfielder, not someone you want as a regular in any capacity with his current offensive and defensive output.
So, imo:
vR-Duvall and Pederson with Soler, occasionally Rosario
vL-Soler and Pederson with one of Duvall or Rosario
So a couple issues with that.
1. While Duvall has been better against righties this year. He has, over the course of his career, been a better hitter against lefties. He has had a ridiculously low babip this season against lefties while his batted ball data suggest he should be a lot better. Even with this low babip, his BB% and ISO is higher versus lefties which makes me think his success against righties is far more luck based than sustainable.
2. Same thing with Pederson. He has been notoriously better versus righties than lefties throughout his career. He has an elevated babip against lefties this season that is not sustainable given his flyball approach. His ISO and BB% versus righties is higher with his ISO being much higher. Just two good examples of why using recency as reasoning may not lead to the best outcomes.
3. You have Rosario only hitting versus lefties who has a 25 point higher wRC+ over his career versus righties. Talk about getting the worst out of your players.
Duvall has been worse then Rosario vs Lh this year, regardless of luck. I say that because their is no means of knowing WHEN the shoe drops for either split performance. Playing him UNTIL he shows signs of deviating from his current performance, luck or otherwise, is what I consider to be best moving forward.
Rosario’s exclusion from VS Rh has less to do about favorable splits and everything to do with preference for starting better players.
I won’t disagree at all with your thoughts on the Braves OF platoon as of now, so long as the thought is that Rosario gets used sparingly ;lest he show reason to do otherwise.
.244 is crushing?
@Dennis: His ISO is .261. He doesn’t hit it very often, but when he does, he crushes it.
I’m not even remotely into the newer statistics, but I hope Rosario will be a upgrade over Almonte.
You are right. The bad part is, none of these guys can play CF! Has not hurt the braves so far. We will see in the playoffs!
Heredia has done an excellent job in CF & Duvall has amazed me with his defense in LF. All you naysayers are starting to bore me. AA has done something right, shut up & appreciate it. Rosario is the cherry on top.
Joc Pederson has a lot of history playing center field; Adam Duvall actually started some games in center field for the Marlins.
Remember with the Braves with Jorge Soler in right field and others they feel they position the defense well enough that any short comings in range etc. are not a huge issues on routine plays.
Just because a guy has played CF doesn’t mean he’s any good at it. Fangraphs has Pederson with a -18 DRS, and Baseball Savant gives him -13 OAA playing CF.
Duvall is exceptional in LF, but CF is an different thing. Plus he’s played only 54 innings there. If he could CF he would have played more than that over his career now in his 8th season.
I would agree to a certain point; a lot of teams are in to positioning the defense more so that the regular plays our made. I would rather have Pederson in CF with his bat than Heredia with better defense.
I think a lot of stats were made by agents to get their players more money on contracts. Example look at the money the Cubs are playing Jason Hayward and he was never a great offensive player
And all these stats are showing they’re pretty much useless. It’s still a coin flip if they’re going to be good or not. Basic stats are all that’s needed besides all the other abbreviated stat categories. Either they’re good or not. Quite frankly it comes down to if they hit or not.
I’m sure that why every team uses these useless stats right?
@LarryJ4, “Either they’re good or not”. Why didn’t I think of that? Silly me. AA doesn’t get the credit he deserves for the moves he made. Braves are hot for the NLE title.
Stats give you a idea of whether they can hit or do this or just get lucky. Like a few years back the Braves didn’t pay attention to the fact that Chris Johnson had a crazy average of balls in play before they signed him to a extension. Than when that came back to normal the next year he couldn’t hit any where close.
Stars give you a idea if what to expect
I am glad he was DFA’d couldn’t hit at all. I wish Heredia would be next, solid cf defensively but awful at bats. Need to win some game for the series with SF LA and Colorado. Mets and Philly easy part of schedules.
Heredia is only on the team for his defense at this point. I’d say Rosario plays tonight Sept. call-up is going to be interesting. Only can bring up 2. I’d say, Camargo and Anderson on Wed. I’d say they would want to see Newk. maybe. Tomlin could be the odd man out on that.
Only guy who is an average CF!
Is this the end of Pablo Sandoval in the majors? I wonder if he has even a tiny chance of reinventing himself as a pitcher. He has made two appearances of one inning each. Perfect except for one hit batter.
Yeah and it doesn’t get them anywhere. At the end of the day it still comes to production! Not what analytics say!!!! Get off your trolling high horse!
Those statistics are production. They are just other ways of interpreting that production that more accurately allow people to judge future success. I don’t know why you want to protest so loudly about how ignorant you are. But for fun let’s take a look at the teams that have large emphasis on analytics and teams that don’t.
Big emphasis:
NL
Dodgers, Giants, Cardinals, Brewers, Mets, Braves, Nationals
AL
Astros, Athletics, Indians, Yankees, Redsox, Rays
Small emphasis:
NL
Rockies, Diamondbacks, Pirates, Marlins
AL
Angels, Rangers, Royals, Orioles
The other teams fall somewhere in the middle without leaning more or less one way. Seems to be some sort of correlation with success and analytic investment, huh? If you respond to this post, please just click the reply button so you don’t look like you’re 200 years old.
Sometimes the responce button does not work on this site. And, I am 500 years old!
At least tonight it will be CF- Peterson LF- Duval RF – Rosario
Man, I was hoping Heredia was gone.
DFA not good enough for you? Hell, why stop at releasing him. Let’s just kill him.
Almonte was DFAd. Not Heredia. Do you just think all Afro-Latino players are the same guy?
SalaryCapMyth just tried to be a hero and try to quickly jump in to disagree with me. It is okay though, they both should be gone and ate too much time with the Braves.
Heredia puts out terrible at-bats. The Braves already have a flawed hitter in Albies who shouldn’t be leading off. Stop trying to hit home runs every a-bat. Heredia should be gone and Albies should be removed from the leadoff spot.
Duval will play. People never talk about his glove but he is one of better LF’s and he has a strong arm too. When you are in the Top ten RBI’s “86” btw you will play. Dude is a Brave they better pick up his option this winter.
Duvall has a mutual option contract; with his solid season going have around 30 home runs and over 100 runs batted in my best guess would be he declines his option and goes looking for a multi year deal. I could see him getting a 3 year / 40 million deal or 2 year with a vesting option.
I don’t think Atlanta will re-sign him after he used his mutual option decline
We need Heredia because of his defense and arm. Even if it’s only for late games. This isn’t a video game where you can fill your outfield with 5 power hitting LFs and RFs