Uh...I dont know what you are looking at, but according to fangraphs, his dWAR has been...
2.8
1.3
5.9
2.7
CATS, I saw those numbers under DEF column right next to the WAR column over at Fangraphs and they don't really make a lot of sense to me at all. The column header explanation doesn't help, nor does the glossary. If the values shown in the OFF and DEF categories were to be taken at face value, Amed Rosario is an all-field, no-hit guy and that's not credible.
Instead, I went to Fangraphs glossary to see what they lean on for defensive stats and this was what is contained there:
Recently, we’ve settled on defensive metrics measured in “runs saved.” The two most popular ones are Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) and Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR), but there are other efforts to capture the same idea. How many runs does a player prevent while playing the field? That fundamental question sets up everything we’re doing with respect to defensive statistics. There may be other ways to measure skill, and skill certainly predicts the future better than past results, but if we want to measure how well we believe a player has performed, we want to measure the runs he has prevented.
From that perspective, this is how Amed Rosario has fared in the DRS (defensive runs saved) and UZR/150 (Ultimate Zone Rating normalized over 150 games) categories during his time with the Mets:
{apology for the awkward graph; columns are impossible in this format}
2017 Innings @ SS 375 DRS -6 UZR/150 3.5
2018 Innings @ SS 1272 DRS -16 UZR/150 -5.6
2019 Innings @ SS 1337 DRS -10 UZR/150 -0.6
2020 Innings @ SS 322 DRS -3 UZR/150 3.5
What this indicates to me is that Amed Rosario is not the butcher at shortstop I was led to believe. His reputation as a poor defender is most likely entirely due to being thrown into the job full time in 2018 and scuffling at age 22 with high expectations. He has improved at the position since, to the point where he was likely a net neutral defender at short in 2020.
Now, let me say, I'd prefer an unambiguously positive defender at shortstop, which Rosario likely is not, and, to be honest, Andres Gimenez may be, but only due to reputation and reports (he played only 182 innings at SS for the Mets last year and his DRS and UZR/150 aren't much better than Rosario's).
So, looking at these numbers, I'm inclined to say that if the Tribe wants to go with Rosario at short to start the year and stash Gimenez at AAA, I'm OK with it. Given his extensive major league seasoning, an argument could be made that Amed might handle the expectations of a new season better than Andres would, making any defensive difference between them negligible. And not only would this allow the Tribe to realize an additional year of control over Gimenez, increasing his asset value, but if Amed Rosario proves a capable everyday shortstop and hits as well, wouldn't that restore his shine and increase his trade value dramatically?