Cleveland Sports Forum

Further consequences of signing Pirate reject:

No room on the roster for Johnathan Rodriguez
Managerial candidates will doubt any serious intent to make moves to improve team for 2024.

Some further analysis of the greatness of the new guy:

Meanwhile, the Guardians claimed a person named Alfonso Rivas from the Pirates. Rivas is not a good hitter with a career wRC+ of 90 in 459 major league plate appearances.

Well, surely he’s young enough to expect some improvement?

He’s 27.

Well, he’s probably a right-handed hitter who hits lefties well?

No, he’s a lefty with a career wRC+ against left-handed pitching of 1. You read that right: ONE.

Well, he plays centerfield, right? 90 wRC+ from a player who can play good defense in center would make perfect sense for u...

Rivas is a first baseman. He has played 370+ innings in the minors in the corner outfield though and a handful in the Majors. His numbers look like a worse defending Will Brennan out there.

The best news is that this is just the offseason. Maybe the Guardians, famous hitter-fixing team, have identified something about Rivas’s swing and approach they think can unlock the player who had a 156 wRC+ at Triple-A last year with a .582 slugging percentage. Or, maybe this is an ominous sign of an offseason of making underwhelming waiver wire claims to try to fix the roster. We shall see.

civ ollilavad wrote: Fri Nov 03, 2023 10:44 am Further consequences of signing Pirate reject:

No room on the roster for Johnathan Rodriguez
Managerial candidates will doubt any serious intent to make moves to improve team for 2024.

First thing I thought of when I read the signing. Rivas could still be taken off the 40 before the roster deadline.

More and more this personnel department looks like a monkey throwing darts.

I hope he's taken off the roster before the deadline, but I can't see any point in adding him now. Not like there's a massive demand for his services.
He certainly did hit well in AAA at age 27 But why should anyway care?

he was Cubs #29prospect in 2020
No 23 in 2021
no 26 i n 2022
obviously never expected to be very good

Here's one thing that would draw the Gs to him:
Rated Best Strike-Zone Discipline in the Oakland Athletics in 2020
Rated Best Strike-Zone Discipline in the Oakland Athletics in 2019
and he walked 49 times in 290 plate appearances in AAA this year'
in the majors he's walked 42 in 460 appearances.
Whoopee
He;s struck out 139. 30% of his at bats. 26 extra base hits. Big swing, little success.

Looks like another one of those 5 year-old scouting reports that gave someone the "hots" five years ago and when he popped up now, they couldn't resist.

Rodriguez added today; brings the roster up to 40.
Obviously they will make room for Espino; Gallagher is the easy choice to one more spot.

Guardians add power-hitter from minors to 40-man roster
By Paul Hoynes, cleveland.com
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- It’s no secret that the Guardians need power to help a weak-kneed offense that finished last in the big leagues in homers and 27th in runs.

No, they didn’t make a trade for a bat, and free agents can’t be signed until Monday. So the Guardians did the next best thing -- they added Jonathan Rodriguez to the 40-man roster on Friday.

Guardians third baseman José Ramírez a finalist for Silver Slugger Award in the American League
Rodriguez, who turns 24 on Saturday, received an early birthday present with the promotion. The Guardians currently have 39 players on the 40-man, not including right-hander Tanner Bibee (right hip), who is on the injured list.
Free agents Kole Calhoun, Reynaldo Lopez and Lucas Giolito were taken off the 40-man after the last out of the World Series.

The Guardians needed to add Rodriguez to the 40-man by Tuesday or risk losing him to free agency. Forty-man rosters must be set by Nov. 14 to protect players from the Rule 5 Draft in December. [does he mean the following Tuesday, which is the 14th?]

Deadline is November 14. Hoynes is running ahead of us.

I guess Rodriguez had to be added by Monday or he would have become a minor league free agent. Rivas might have had a similar situation.

Guardians Select Johnathan Rodriguez
By Anthony Franco | November 3, 2023 at 6:11pm CDT

The Guardians announced they’ve selected outfielder Johnathan Rodriguez onto the 40-man roster. He lands a spot for the first time in his career.

Cleveland selected Rodriguez in the third round of the 2017 draft. A right-handed hitter out of Puerto Rico, Rodriguez moved slowly through the minors. He spent his first four-plus seasons at various rookie or A-ball levels. He reached Double-A late in 2022, struggling in his first 28 games there.

Rodriguez unsurprisingly went unselected in last winter’s Rule 5 draft. He put himself on the radar for a 40-man spot with a breakout year in his first full season at the upper levels. Rodriguez spent the bulk of the season at Double-A Akron, hitting .289/.364/.512 in 88 games. He continued that pace after a bump to Triple-A Columbus, where he ran a .280/.376/.560 slash. Overall, the 23-year-old (24 tomorrow) hit .286/.368/.529 with 29 home runs over 565 trips to the plate. While a 28.8% strikeout rate is an alarming figure, he hit for enough power and drew sufficient free passes to earn a 40-man spot.

The impetus for Cleveland is the looming minor league free agent period. Players who have spent parts of seven seasons in the minors will qualify for free agency on Monday unless they’re on a 40-man roster. Cleveland ensured they wouldn’t lose Rodriguez via that process. He has a full slate of option years and could still be sent back to Columbus for the foreseeable future. If he holds the 40-man spot all offseason, he’d have a good chance of making his MLB debut at some point next year.

Sure looks like an average player to me. You don't improve protecting average players.

he hit a lot of homers the last couple of years. He was always rated a very good RF with strong arm. He bats RH. All of that is appealing for this team.
Never been rated especially high so you're probably right, but who knows.

Steven Vogt is hired.

Former catcher Stephen Vogt named next Guardians skipper

CLEVELAND -- The search is over.

The Guardians announced on Monday that former catcher Stephen Vogt has been named the 45th manager in franchise history.

Throughout a rigorous interview process that also included candidates like Brewers manager Craig Counsell, Yankees bench coach Carlos Mendoza and Dodgers first-base coach Clayton McCullough, the Guardians were looking for a person who shared the same values that the organization has already established, while also bringing in a new perspective that challenges this group to think about things a little differently.

Despite the list of more than 40 names that the Guardians believed could fill these desires, it was Vogt who stood out among the rest.

"We're thrilled to welcome Stephen and his family to Northeast Ohio and to name him the next manager of the Cleveland Guardians," said Guardians president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti. "Stephen earned a reputation as one of the best teammates in the game across his 16-year career as a player, and we've greatly enjoyed the opportunity to get to know him over the past several weeks.

"Stephen has thought critically about the type of leader and manager he wants to be. His deep care for others, his ability to build meaningful relationships with those around him, and his open-mindedness and curiosity make him an ideal fit to lead our club moving forward. We couldn’t be more excited to partner with Stephen."

Former manager Terry Francona left with big shoes to fill. He won the most games by a skipper in franchise history (921) and was the team’s longest-tenured manager. After 11 seasons with someone like Francona, who came to Cleveland with eight years of big league managerial experience and two World Series rings under his belt, the Guardians are now turning to someone in a much different position.

The 39-year-old Vogt ended his playing career after the 2022 season. At that time, he already knew he wanted to be a big league manager one day; he just didn’t know what the journey would look like. He spent the 2023 season as the bullpen and quality control coach with the Mariners and when multiple managerial openings popped up across Major League Baseball, he threw his name into as many hats as he could.

Vogt was beloved by every coaching staff he played for. He spent six seasons with the A’s, two with the D-backs and one apiece with the Rays, Giants, Braves and Brewers over his 10-year big league career. The former catcher has an excellent baseball IQ, and as a player, he was a leader in every clubhouse he stepped into. Like Francona, Vogt is known to rely on his sense of humor to connect with players of all ages. And for a young group like Cleveland, this approach may prove to be a perfect fit.