How about we look at it like this...
This Guardians team would not be where they are at right now without the contributions of one Amed Rosario, period.
Put that into your stats, and minimize his contribution all you want.
While the game isn’t going on.
Love what Amed has done in a Cleveland uniform. Has become a much more efficient player and the boost in quality of coaching staff has patched up a lot of his holes he showed while he was in NY. He’s developed and taken the next step as a player in Cleveland and should use that to find himself a fairly secure and lucrative contract moving forward.
I do not believe that will be in Cleveland unless it’s for borderline unrealistic team friendly figures.
But he isn’t leaving Cleveland now and there is a chance he just plays through his contract next year as well, and no one is saying he didn’t contribute anything to the 2022 Guardians success as a team.
Cleveland is a team that strategically spends its money. They have to be, because they operate so tightly on their payroll. It is hard to see them locking up a below average SS defensively, average SS offensively for longterm post-arb figures taking that into consideration. Especially when you look at the crop of talent that can play SS either already at the MLB level (Gimenez, Arias) or are in the upper levels of the minors and knocking on the door (Rocchio, Martinez).
A .715 OPS is replaceable. Someone who can field balls hit right at them at SS is replaceable. And it can be replaced by someone making 1/15th of what Rosario might soon be making as a free agent still in his 20s, allowing them to spend elsewhere (Bieber, McKenzie, Gimenez, etc.).
No one is saying Amed is a bad player. No one is saying Amed contributes nothing to the teams success.
It’s just hard to see how it makes sense to sign him longterm considering his production and the talent coming up behind him that can potentially replace him making a fraction of a cost.
Now, a good portion of the board might not like that risk, the risk of potential and the unknown player, but again, a .715 OPS is nothing in the modern MLB. And replacing the worst side-to-side defensive SS in baseball shouldn’t be that hard. And with the shift ban coming into play that becomes more of a concern.
To me there is too much Dee Gordon to Amed’s game. Lot of singles, lot of speed, no power, no on-base skills, high risk of the skill set aging poorly. Those aren’t the kind of guys front offices with a very analytical approach in how they target players and pay players would invest longterm money in. It’s just hard to see the logic in it.
