Indians: Despite Eddie Rosario’s postseason hot streak for the Braves, trading him was the right call

The Braves’ Eddie Rosario remains a trade that made sense for the Indians

Eddie Rosario was one of the new additions the Indians had hoped would lead the team to success in 2021. He was coming off a big season in Minnesota and was coming in relatively inexpensive at just $8 million for a single year. At just 29-years-old and coming off of many seasons with the Twins where he hit close to 30 homes (or more) every year, it was seen as a nice get.

The only problem that the team ran into with Rosario was that he played exactly to his contract, which is not a compliment. The two-time Top 20 AL MVP candidate was anything but during his 78 game stretch with the Tribe.

In those 78 games, Rosario had 283 at-bats and splits of .254/.296/.389, while slugging just .685. The worst of his career. He had just 23 extra-base hits; breaking down to just 15 doubles, just seven home runs, and one triple.

Eventually, the Indians had enough of his poor play and wanting to free up some cash and roster space for minor league talent, opted to ship Rosario to the Atlanta Braves for Pablo Sandoval. The move wasn’t about maximizing Rosario’s value with a return, but about clearing him off the books and opening up a spot for Myles Straw, who was acquired in a separate trade on the same day.

Despite his postseason success, trading Eddie Rosario was the right move

With the Rosario trade, one thing may have changed that the Indians had no control over; where he wanted to play. There was much speculation that Rosario didn’t like playing in Cleveland, with a hypothesis that he only came in due to them offering the best deal. Cleveland.com’s Paul Hoynes has suggested that Rosario appeared he didn’t want to play in Cleveland.

Hoynes also points out that since arriving in Atlanta, Rosario hasn’t changed his mechanics at all, and despite that is hitting better. If Rosario wasn’t fully engaged in Cleveland, that alone would make trading him justifiably.

While some will point to his play in the National League Championship Series, where he was named the MVP for having an offensive split of .560/.607/1.040 and a slugging of 1.647; it’s important to remember that’s the only time all year he hit like that. His three home runs from that series are good, but it was one series, against one team, that struggled to keep the Braves from scoring.

Rosario will likely be on the move again this offseason and if he does it’s unlikely he gets more than a seven-figure contract. After all, all of this Rosario talk is coming just from one series. The Indians can’t afford to waste that much money on such an average hitter. Not right now, anyway.

So in the grand scheme of things, the Tribe made the right move as Myles Straw looks to be the perfect player for the team going forward.