The Reds have claimed infielder Amed Rosario off waivers from the Dodgers, according to Jon Heyman of the New York Post. The move was subsequently announced by both clubs. Cincinnati had a vacant spot on the 40-man roster, so no corresponding move was necessary to claim Rosario although one will be necessary to make room for him on the active roster once he’s activated.
Rosario, 28, was designated for assignment by the Dodgers last week to make room for Mookie Betts when the latter returned from the injured list. The utilityman is now on to his third team of the season. The versatile hitter began the season with the Rays after signing a one-year deal with the club this past offseason but was dealt to the Dodgers ahead of the trade deadline last month to provide the club with positional depth amid injuries to Betts, Max Muncy, Chris Taylor, and the newly-acquired Tommy Edman that had left the club scrambling for infield depth.
Despite the Dodgers’ decision to part ways with Rosario, however, he’s been an above average offensive contributor overall this year. In 287 trips to the plate this year between Tampa and Los Angeles, Rosario has slashed a solid .305/.331/.415 (114 wRC+) this year while splitting time between second base, shortstop, third base, and right field. For the Reds, Rosario could offer an alternative to Noelvi Marte at the hot corner, as Marte has struggled badly with a .181/.217/.292 slash line in 40 games since returning from an 81-game PED suspension earlier this year. That said, Rosario’s versatility could also allow him to act as a right-handed complement to the club’s lefty outfield bats like Jake Fraley and Will Benson or perhaps even spell Jonathan India and Elly De La Cruz up the middle as necessary.
While Rosario’s numbers are solid enough to warrant playing time as a regular, he’s been particularly effective against left-handed pitching both throughout his career and this season. In 110 trips to the plate against southpaws this year, Rosario has posted a fantastic 134 wRC+ compared to roughly league average numbers against right-handed pitching. It’s a similar story for his career, as Rosario is a career 122 wRC+ hitter against lefties but has posted just an 85 wRC+ against same-handed pitching. Of course, it’s worth noting that the Reds already have Stuart Fairchild (122 wRC+ against southpaws this year) available as a lefty-mashing outfield option, which could give the club more incentive to instead utilize Rosario as a regular on the infield in place of Marte.
As for the Dodgers, the return of Mookie Betts and the impending returns of both Tommy Edman and Max Muncy leave them flush with quality infield options, even as they face some level of uncertainty regarding the status of first baseman Freddie Freeman. The Reds have agreed to take on the infielder’s remaining salary by claiming Rosario, but that’s unlikely to have a significant impact on either club. After all, Rosario is only due around $350K for the remainder of the 2024 campaign. That relative minor sum is practically a rounding error in a big league team’s budget, and neither the low-budget Reds nor the big-spending Dodgers are close enough to a luxury tax threshold for that figure to have a significant impact.
Why are the reds still playing for the playoffs?
Krall just awoke from a coma and thinks it’s still July.
Bc it’s not over til it’s over. And why not?
It ain’t over till it’s over.
How dare the reds make a move.
Fans are the worst gms, if you’re 3 games under .500 after 123 games of the season you’re team isn’t good and the season is over so therefore you should be playing younger players trying to prepare for next year. Tanking I don’t think really does anything for the reds because of their draft position last year but most fans don’t understand that anyway.
They’re 5 games out of a WC berth and need to leapfrog four teams. Impossible? No. Improbable? Yes. They’re stuck in the middle and tanking at this point you gives very marginal gains in draft position. Adding Rosario at minimum cost gives fans something to cheer for. If they were truly awful, then Rosario doesn’t make sense.
ThatsIT
“Fans are the worst gms”
Fans have no accountability – especially on this site
They can have hot takes on every player, be wrong 90% of the time, and no one will remember.
Say “so-and-so is washed up” in April when they aren’t hitting, and it’s forgotten by July when they’ve reverted to form
If a fan actually had to live with their decisions they might actually temper their takes a little bit.
Like those saying Aaron Judge was a bust signing back in early May?
YBC
Yes like that
Or everyone who wanted to ditch Gavin Lux on July 8th
Since then .417 OBP/.617 SLG/187 wRC+
Exactly right. There is one blowhard on the Reds thread who is constantly criticizing every move our FO makes without ever offering alternatives other than some vague reference to someone better.
Krall trying to save face for being an awful GM or whatever he is..
Awful ball player
Versatile defense, league average offense. Why the hate?
Ask the four teams that dumped him
davidk1979 tells me you didn’t know anything about baseball
Sometimes teams move on because of where their team is developmentally, and its just a matter of timing, and fit. David Ortiz was “dumped” by the Twins. JD Martinez cleared waivers before signing with the Tigers. Matt Carpenter changed his swing after getting “dumped” and took NY by storm. Rosario is not a superstar, but he is a helpful player.
actually only 1 team dumped him the dodgers twice. The rest traded him away to get depth or in the case of the Mets and MVP caliber SS and a former Cy Young as part of the deal with Gimenez.
Never seen such a passionate defense of what’s essentially a replacement level player.
Is he a big league player? Sure. Wouldn’t surprise me if he was in AAA either.
How is he an AAA player? njbirdsfan, Are you talking about American baseball?
Four teams haven’t dumped him.
“Essentially a replacement level player”…Not that I disagree, but with the brutally long season and crippling injuries to nearly every team, you’d be surprised how helpful a HEALTHY “replacement level” player can be throughout the long season. In my opinion, Ahmed Rosario is a “useful” level type of player who plays a premium position.
He’s roughly average, meaning if he’s a AAA player so is another half the league.
I agree. Send Marte back down to AAA. The move will help the offense at least to some degree. The Reds have so many injured and poorly performing, it is hard to question this move. It cost no players in return.
Better option than JC too
They should have sent Marte and Benson down weeks ago.
Why not just play Candelario at third? Why waste money on another infielder they need like a hole in the head? Why not fill the real holes on the team?
Oh my freaking god. You just complain to complain.
I remember this one being against signing Candelario. Now I see he wants him at third every day. It’s exhausting trying to understand his logic or lack there of.
Defensive versatility doesn’t have value if you play all those positions extremely poorly.
He’s hitting .305 which is better than anyone on this Reds team.
Right! If nothing else he can show their position players how to hit.
Batting average isn’t a great way to evaluate a hitter.
I’m starting to like BA. Put the ball in play. Too many .210 non hitters in MLB.
On average, putting the ball in play results in a BA in the .280-.300 range. That’s been pretty consistent over at least several decades.
It’s those darn pitchers trying to strike batters out that drag down overall BA because Ks result in a .000 BA, and pitchers are doing that more and more.
If you’re not down with someone hitting .305 you should find a new sport to follow.
“Batting average isn’t a great way to evaluate a hitter”.
No, it’s one way to find out if the player can HIT. Absolutely no reason to splash cold water on a .305 hitter.
it’s,
I didn’t say anything negative about a .305 batting average. I’m saying citing that stat alone to demonstrate his value is leaving out a lot of available information. His OBP, SLG, and wRC+ all were listed along with his BA, and each does a better job of providing helpful information about evaluating his performance at the plate.
“Batting average isn’t a great way to evaluate a hitter”.
If you were willing to add to your silly comment in a reply to me, how about you do it the first time so we know you meant it. You have a habit of typing something ill advised and then walk it back by saying, “oh I didn’t intend it”.
You didn’t saying anything negative, you just barely said anything. And you downplayed the average based on your one line.
I didn’t walk anything back. Batting average isn’t a great way to evaluate a hitter. I do intend that because it doesn’t correlate with run scoring nearly as well as OBP or SLG.
I initially replied to a comment that only cited BA, so I only disagreed with that statement. I didn’t realize I needed to write a dissertation in response to a single sentence.
The Dodgers are loaded with Jason Heyward, Kiki Hernandez, Kevin Kiermaier, Nick Ahmed, Miguel Rojas on the roster, and Chris Taylor on the way…
Just impossible for the Dodgers to squeeze Rosario on the roster.
They’d probably be better off keeping Rosario and sending Taylor on his way, but they’d have to eat most of his remaining contract that not even the Dodgers have an appetite for.
A year ago the Reds had an abundance of infielders – particularly middle infielders.
Don’t follow them closely and it’s been a few months since I’ve seen a game of theirs, as it’s just of hodge podge of players that pretty much play like one another except for a few pitchers that are very good.
What happened that they would want to sign Amed Rosario for 5-6 weeks? Does someone in their FO actually think the team can rocket past 5 teams in the NL and get a Wild Card spot? Why do I think that before the end of the season I’ll be reading that the Reds DFA’d him? How ’bout dem Bengals!
Rosario is destined to join Austin Slater and Hunter Renfroe in the pantheon of recent Reds stalwarts.
Reds should sign Elias Diaz to replace Luke Maile and his .500 OPS.
Amed Rosario is one of the must underated players in the game. Chris Taylor, Nick Ahmed and Kike Hernandez must have dirt on the GM. How these guys are still in the majors, I’ll never understand
Disagree with you on Kike Hernandez. Can’t disagree with the other two, when compared to Rosario.
Lots of spares on the Reds bench, Guys below the Mendoza line, Marte, Benson, Maile, Fairchild only hits lefty’s. Perfectly fine with this add.
yeah you have to hit under .220 to stick w the Dodger infield.
Just to be clear, those stats cited are from “this year,” right?
Just the two of us then?
Dodgers are just so rich they can pay a millie for some scrub team’s every day player to play for a week. That said I like Rosario, I saw him play in Binghamton when McNeil was there also and saw they would make it to the bigs from that game, a good memory.
Poor lonely Mickey…I just Muted him.
The question for the Reds is, was it worth it to possibly sacrifice a young player off the 40 man to make room for this guy for probably only six weeks.
If you are a hitter in minors for the Reds and haven’t hit much(most), I have to wonder exactly how much is being sacrificed., I don’t see them everyday, but the numbers are kind of telling. If you hitting in the .230 – .250 range at class A or high A,, chances are you aren’t going to do even as well the higher up you advance. I mean you should be hitting much higher at that low level. Any falling off should be at AAA or the majors.. Unless we believe the B. S. some come up with on here that .240 is now considered a good hitter.
Really should be the majors, as there are a lot of .250 hitters in the minors who never got called up.
True. It doesn’t matter how well you hit at any level in the minors if you can’t hit in the majors. I meant to say they should hit well at all levels in the minors before advancing to the majors. Some of the hitters are young but it is a red flag of sorts they aren’t taking off with their hitting thus far..
That’s what I was getting at too. They really should tear it up there in the minors if they expect to do decently in the majors.
I hate to paraphrase Will Smith (the Fresh Prince, not the catcher) but they should indeed be the best of the best because that is who they will be facing.
If they aren’t hitting much at A ball, then it is hard to see them making an impact in the majors.
Did you not read the first couple sentences? They had an open 40 man slot. You obviously just like to complain.
They just came up with a sudden injury to add the starting pitcher to the active roster and the 40 to take Greene’s place.
Maybe know the whole situation before firing off Twitter rants.
Man, was really hoping he’d get to the Crew…
pretty solid troll by the reds tbh
Bench or send down Noelvi Marte. a -1..1bWAR is pretty hard to do in just 144AB’s. He’s been terrible this year sorry. He’s Jose Barrero level terrible…*shudder*
Rosario is a loaner. If he takes PA away from Espinal, I don’t like the move. If thsy send Marte down to AAA as a result, I’m ok with it. Rosario can improve Reds offenseif he plays for Marte (.185 since ASB), Candelario (.180 since ASB), India (.177 since ASB), even Benson (.205 since ASB).
Why not take a look at him? Good pickup Reds