The Cleveland baseball team is close to signing Eddie Rosario, according to MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand.
Free-Agent OF Eddie Rosario and the Indians close a deal per source.
– Mark Feinsand (@Feinsand) January 30, 2021
According to Paul Hoynes, Rosario is already in Cleveland and getting in shape. So this one could officially be faster than César Hernández’s deal, hinted at on Tuesday and signed today as a one-year $ 5 million deal with a $ 6 million team option for 2022.
I heard that Eddie Rosario might have got a physical in Cleveland. Stay tuned.
– Paul Hoynes (@hoynsie) January 30, 2021
The deal is reportedly for $ 8 million. From Jon Becker (whose sources also stated Cleveland was interested in signing him earlier today):
Source: Eddie Rosario’s contract with Cleveland is for a year and is guaranteed for $ 8 million.
– Jon Becker (@jonbecker_) January 30, 2021
Rosario has spent every six years of his career with the Minnesota Twins, terrorizing Cleveland pitching an OPS over 1,000 progressive fields. He enters 2021 with 12 games with four or more hits; Three of them came against Cleveland.
He has a career slash of .277 / .310 / .478 with 119 home runs and 106 wRC + – a modest upgrade for most offenses, but he’s easily Cleveland’s best outfielder on day one. That could change as Nolan Jones gets called up and gets used to pitching in the Major League (or when Daniel Johnson takes off), but he should get a boost right away.
Dampfer predicts that the 29-year-old will beat .270 / .316 / .485 with 26 home runs in 123 games, while ZiPS brings him to a .277 / .314 / .488 slash with 28 home runs in 143. Both are equal to a 105 wRC +, which is a huge improvement on the makeshift lifeboat Cleveland wanted to deploy at the start of the season in April.
Rosario has played every outfield position in his career but has focused on left field with the Byron Buxton Roaming Center in Minnesota. He’s by no means a stallion out there, but even here (and I can’t stress this enough) he can actually hit the ball. Right now that’s good enough.
Welcome to Cleveland, Eddie!
