Eddie Rosario elected free agency on Friday, according to his transaction log on MLB.com (h/t . The Dodgers designated the veteran outfielder for assignment last weekend when they activated Shohei Ohtani from the paternity list. After Rosario cleared waivers, the Dodgers sent him outright to Triple-A Oklahoma City, but he exercised his right to reject the outright assignment in favor of free agency.
The lefty-batting Rosario made it into two games during his brief stint with the Dodgers while Ohtani was away, starting at DH against a pair of tough right-handed pitchers: Jacob deGrom and Nathan Eovaldi. Both times, he was lifted for a pinch-hitter after two plate appearances when a left-handed reliever entered the game. He went 1-for-4, knocking a single against Eovaldi. While he ultimately didn’t make much of an impact in either game, Rosario put the ball in play in each of his four trips to the plate. All four batted balls registered as hard-hit, and three had an expected batting average above .500, per Statcast.
Rosario has played in 11 big league seasons for the Twins, Guardians, Braves, Nationals, and Dodgers. As recently as 2023, Rosario was a perfectly capable major leaguer, putting up a .755 OPS and a 100 wRC+ in 142 games for Atlanta. However, that season was sandwiched between two abysmal performances; Rosario ranked among the bottom five players in FanGraphs WAR in both 2022 and ’24. His 2024 season was so rough that he lost jobs in three separate organizations (Nationals, Braves, and Mets).
Rosario is still just 33 and not so far removed from a 1.3 fWAR season in 2023. The best team in baseball saw enough to like in his bat to bring him into the organization and let him take his hacks against a pair of high-end starting pitchers. He also put up impressive numbers in 14 games for Oklahoma City, batting .339 with a 137 wRC+. That’s a tiny sample size (and his .419 BABIP was hardly sustainable), but eight of his 20 hits went for extra bases, and his 8:16 strikeout-to-walk ratio was solid. That should be enough for Rosario to land another minor league deal, provided he’s willing to be flexible about where he ends up.