The Braves announced Friday that they’ve designated outfielder Eddie Rosario for assignment. His spot on the roster will go to infielder Luke Williams, whose contract has been selected from Triple-A Gwinnett.
Rosario’s latest Braves stint will last under two weeks. He signed a big league deal back on April 28 after being cut loose by the Dodgers. Atlanta gave him only four plate appearances across three games this time around. The 33-year-old veteran went hitless in that minuscule sample. He’s 1-for-8 with a single between his limited stints with the Dodgers and Braves in 2025.
Of course, Rosario is no stranger to Atlanta. The Braves acquired him from the Guardians in a salary-dump deal at the 2021 trade deadline, and Rosario caught absolute fire down the stretch, helping to fuel an improbable World Series victory for an Atlanta club that was under .500 at the trade deadline. He re-signed on a two-year deal and also returned for a short stint in 2024. He’s spent the better part of the past five years in a Braves uniform but carries a tepid .235/.283/.413 batting line in that time — with most of his damage coming during that sizzling 2021 run.
Rosario was a solid regular with the Twins for the majority of his early career, but his best full-season production since leaving in 2021 have been league-average performances in 2021 and 2023. He’s struggled immensely outside those two seasons and carries an overall .231/.277/.394 slash in his past 1525 major league plate appearances (81 wRC+). The Braves will have a week to resolve Rosario’s DFA, though the likely outcome is that he’ll either be released or reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency.
As for Williams, he’s also returning for a third go-around with Atlanta. He appeared with the Braves in each of the past two seasons but turned in a .164/.233/.218 showing in 61 plate appearances. He’s struggled even more than that in Gwinnett this season, hitting only .132/.205/.145 in 83 trips to the plate. He’ll add a right-handed bat with experience at all four infield positions and all three outfield positions to manager Brian Snitker’s bench.
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Why let him pinch hit the other night in a huge spot if he was just going to be DFAed 2 days later? Made no sense then and less now.
“Why let him pitch hit..huge spot”…I don’t see an issue with the Rosario DFA or with letting him pinch hit.
They did want to win that game and Rosario has come thru for them many times in the past. He hasn’t come thru this year in a limited sample size and the Braves decided to move on from him.
I hated seeing him pinch hit for White there, but the handedness decision is defensible. The metrics guys drone on about “process over results.” Pinch hitting a lefty vs a rh pitcher is right up their alley—–until they (some of them anyway, not all) don’t get the result they want.
@Nashvillejeff…Agreed. Plus, Getting a PH opportunity doesn’t even guarantee you’ll be on the team bus headed home. And that’s as it should be.
Murphy was sitting on the bench, unused. I don’t care about righty-lefty if 1 of my 2 options has been raking and the other option is a lefty who’s barely been able to put the ball in play the last 3 years. Context matters.
Pinch hitting for arguably your hottest hitter with the worst position player in baseball over the last 4 years isn’t defensible regardless of handedness. Guaranteed he was DFA’d so dumbest snit would stop using him.
@jswanny: AA could have stopped Snit from using Rosario by not signing him in the first place.
That doesn’t make the decision to pinch hit Rosario over Murph any better.
I don’t disagree and expecting Snit not to Snit is foolish. Rosario should never have had a bat in his hands regardless.
They had Murph just sitting on the bench. Sorry, that’s not a good excuse
Should have just let White hit. He’s been good vs rh pitchers so far this season.
Getting worse! Snit has Fairchild batting .048 in tonight instead of Verdugo!
@AL: Verdugo’s been a ground ball to the infield out machine recently. Also has NO power. Give him a day—–or more—– off. At least Fairchild can run, plays good defense, and has enough plate discipline to take a walk. Besides, this may be nothing more than just a day off for Verdugo to clear his head. Relax AL.
Stacking righties against the lefty tonight and giving Verdugo a night while he’s in an 0-15 slump. Smart move, prolly Weiss’ idea
Why replace Rosario with a player (Williams) who is hitting worse than Rosario was in AAA? I understand why they moved on from him but I really don’t understand why they are calling up Luke Williams to replace him.
There are different roles that decide to DFA him (GM/PBO) and pinch hit him (manager).
Weird move seeing how Luke Williams is the worst player in AAA. I guess he will strictly be a pinch runner.
He’s probably ok with getting a few days of MLB pay,..and then the rest of the process DFA’d, released, resigned to a minor league deal.
He is just a Bush League Whacker.
Yeah, Stupid move. Just like pinch hitting. 125 Rosario for then .303 Eli White! Snitker doesn’t know the difference between shelled and unshelled peanuts! Of course they can DFA Rosario for a .123 hitter in AAA.!
Figured. He provides nothing of value right now. This team needs a big retool to be competitive.
Now trade Acuna and Albies
Ridiculous. Interesting you want the non white players traded. Big fan of Snitker I assume
You are the biggest poser for a fan. Why would you trade ozzie and acuna but you say they need to retool.
I bet you were hoping the braves would go 0-162 to prove a point right.
I wish we would trade fans like you away to a loser fan base like philadelphia.
Well loser get out here because you do not belong here.
What are you racist and i was right by the picture you have on your profile.
It’s absolutely time for you to get out of your mom’s basement and get some fresh air. Your constant posting of trading Acuna gives you absolutely no credibility.
You look dumber every time you repeat this BS. Just admit that you don’t like the black players at this point
I’m no racial expert, but I think they are Hispanic.
Can they be both?
Ridiculous is blackpink showing up w/yet another screen name. Never Remember? Is that name change because you’ve trolled under so many screen names that you can’t remember who you are? Btw—-no one should assume I’m defending the garbled babbling of TradeAcuna. I’m not, but he hates Murphy, Olson, and most of the pitching staff too—-not just Acuna and Ozzie. He just rants about them the most.
@Never remember…”non white players”…Liberals are desperate to find some new “woke” racist propaganda that resonates with the public and won’t backfire on them yet again. Right Black pink, I mean “Never Remember”?
lol. Just a thought. The biggest backfire the modern world has ever seen is happening on your side.
Way to prove his point. The biggest backfire in modern history? You couldn’t get more ridiculous if you tried.
Dude. Citizens of the world are tripping over themselves in the rush to get left. Fact. You go overseas and start talking “woke”, the person you are talking too will point at you before falling to the ground belly laughing at the “ignorant American”. But by all means, continue fighting your imaginary enemies. You people and your childish pig headed BS are hilarious.
You are delusional. Nothing you said was a fact. They might have called you an ignorant American but that was just you.
Ha ha. Ok. Carry on.
Baldwin needs to get more ABs. Period. Platoon Verdugo/White. Ozuna back to LF. Dont care that you have 2 C’s in the lineup. I’d rather watch Ozuna stumble around in LF than see Bladwin on the bench.
Keep thinking that they won’t re-sign Ozuna after the season so they can use Murphy and Baldwin in a catching/DH timeshare next season. Hope so anyway. Spend Ozuna’s salary relief on a SS—-if there’s a decent one available. If they decide to play Ozuna in lf again, seeing less of Verdugo would be better. He’s an infield groundout machine. Rather see White w/the majority of the playing time. Speed, more power, defense w/White.
There really isn’t a good shortstop on the FA market this year. You have Bo Bichette, Willi Castro, Dylan Moore, IKF, and Miguel Rojas as the top five at the position.
@1225: You’re right. Think the Braves would be better off trying to pry away a decent SS prospect from a pitching needy clubs.
Eddie sure is getting bounced around a lot lately.
As a Braves fan there was absolutely no reason to sign Eddie Rosario for the second year in a row. Also if Luke Williams can continue to get major league chances then we all have a great chance of receiving a call
I think Eddie is cooked. Might be time to try the Mexican Baseball League…
Dude needs to start signing with AL teams now to double his odds at a WS ring.
Is he that much worse than Fairchild? I can’t figure out how he’s still on the roster….
@Obnoxiuos: Fairchild? Has to be due to his speed, good defense, and zero decent options at the AAA level. Now that Williams has been called up, it’s 50/50 between him and Fairchild over who gets dfa when Acuna returns. My money’s on Fairchild getting dfa because Williams plays both outfield and infield. Neither can hit.
So the Braves figured out a way to have a 45-man roster. Just keep recycling the extra five guys through DFA.
He could pick up another World Series ring if the Dodgers win it all
The Braves are notorious for recycling players.