Amed Rosario is aggressively average for the Cleveland Guardians but trading him right now isn’t an option

Fans want Amed Rosario gone from the Cleveland Guardians but there’s no one behind him

The Cleveland Guardians missed a prime chance to sweep the Kansas City Royals on Thursday, dropping the last game in the series to them 4-3. The Royals mounted two comebacks against the Guards bullpen, and Emmanuel Clase and Trevor Stephan are rightfully getting the brunt of the fandom’s rage for blowing the game, and consequently dropping their half-game lead over the Minnesota Twins to a direct tie.

Another player who is getting hounded on is Amed Rosario, who went 0-5 with one strikeout against a very weak Royals pitching staff. The team had 13 hits, and the only player(s) who didn’t get a hit besides Rosario was whoever was playing catcher. Cam Gallagher and Bo Naylor went a combined 0-4 against the Royals, but no one on the team who had five at-bats failed to get a hit.

Rosario’s outing has been pretty indicative of his season for the team. He’s having a very average year but he’s seemingly fails to produce during the team’s toughest stretches. Due to this, fans have begun to express (or intensified in some cases) a desire to see him traded.

The only problem with that, is who is there to replace him?

The Cleveland Guardians can’t afford to trade Amed Rosario

I’m a proponent of trading Shane Bieber for a variety of reasons. He’s not what he once was, his contract is expiring and the team has so much depth at starting pitching, that Logan Allen was optioned down to Triple-A to make room for Cal Quantrill.

The team can afford to move Bieber, the team,  however, can’t afford to move Rosario.

On the current Major League roster alone, the team has Tyler Freeman, who is hitting .291 in limited at-bats (55), and Gabriel Arias, who has been so bad at hitting consistently that it’s a wonder why he wasn’t demoted to Triple-A a long time ago.

Beyond them, you have Brayan Rocchio, who is only hitting .279 in Triple-A, which is a strong indicator that he wouldn’t produce much better than Rosario currently. After all, look at how Bo Naylor has struggled to keep up with Major League hitting. Usually, when players get called up from the minors, they drop off a bit against big-league hitting. It’s not an insult, just a fact of life; they’re facing better pitching at this level.

So you can expect a 30 or 40-point dip from most call-ups like Rocchio. There is Daniel Schneemann, who is hitting well with Columbus but isn’t a big-name prospect.

It may not be what fans want to hear, but riding with Rosario is the best option for the club.

• Published on 06/29/2023 at 22:45 PM
• Last updated at 06/30/2023 at 22:18 PM