Amed Rosario has always had a nice hit tool, supported by speed and his position on the diamond. He’s struggled to find consistency at the dish, and for years it’s been thought that he has gotten by more on talent, than on having a plan. That seemed to change at the end of the 2018 campaign which marks Rosario as someone to seriously consider adding to your squad in the coming season.
23 years old
Bats/Throws: B
Height/Weight: 6’1”, 205 lbs
Position: Shortstop
THE NUMBERS
| Level | Games | AVG | HR | RBI | Runs | SB | OPS | |
| 2013 | RK | 58 | .241 | 3 | 23 | 22 | 2 | .637 |
| 2014 | A | 75 | .274 | 2 | 27 | 41 | 7 | .691 |
| 2015 | A+, AA | 105 | .253 | 0 | 26 | 42 | 13 | .631 |
| 2016 | A+, AA | 120 | .324 | 5 | 71 | 65 | 19 | .833 |
| 2017 | AAA | 94 | .328 | 7 | 58 | 66 | 19 | .833 |
| 2017 | MLB | 46 | .248 | 4 | 10 | 16 | 7 | .665 |
| 2018 | MLB | 154 | .256 | 9 | 51 | 76 | 24 | .676 |
| Per | 162 | .255 | 11 | 49 | 75 | 25 | .674 |
| Baseball America | Baseball Prospectus | MLB.com | |
| 2015 | 98th | 78th | |
| 2016 | 58th | 96th | 79th |
| 2017 | 8th | 8th | 5th |
THE SKILLS
To this point of his big-league career, Rosario has been an average offensive performer. Honestly, he’s been a bit worse than that with a career wOBA (.288) and wRC+ (83) with those numbers being below the league average by a substantial amount.
Despite a depressed overall game, Amed was able to keep his fantasy value afloat last season as he unleashed his wheels on the base paths leading to 24 steals on 35 attempts. Even more impressive than that was the fact that 18 of his steals came in the second half in a mere 63 games while he swiped 15 bases over the last 52 games. We’re talking about a guy who could easily garner 30 thefts in 2019 if he just keeps moving on the base paths. Of course, it would help if he improved his poor 69 percent success rate last season, but take note that Amed was caught on five of his first 11 steal attempts but only six times on his last 24. If we look at his Speed Score mark of 7.0 last season (see Speed, Basepath Effectiveness), we find the man with the 7th best mark in the game in 2018. The man has speed to burn, remember there were only 15 men who stole 25 bases last season, and he unleashed it on the opponent late last season.
Let’s move to the bat.
For his career he’s hit .255. Is he a league average type at this point of his development?
Rosario hit .303 last season over his final 47 games. Even when having that success last season, Rosario still had a 0.23 BB/K ratio over those 47 games, meaning his average was largely fueled by his .357 BABIP. This position is strengthened a bit given that his hard-hit rate in that time was a mere 27 percent. OK, let’s say he’s not a .300 hitter, but it’s not at all unreasonable, especially when you consider his speed, that we could see his average end the year closer to the .303 he hit down the stretch than the .256 average he posted last season.
I would offer support for that last statement thusly.
1 – He hit .303 his last 47 games.
2 – Though his 4.9 percent walk rate is poor, it was an improvement over his pathetic 1.8 percent mark from 2017.
3 – He cut his K-rate as a second-year player down from 28.8 to 20.1 percent causing his BB/K rate to improve 400 percent (still a terrible 0.24).
4 – He increased his line drive rate by one percent from his first season (to 20.9 percent).
5 – He increased his hard-hit rate from 24 to 28 percent. Still a bad number, but an improvement.
6 – He added three mph to his exit velocity in year two (87.3 mph).
7 – He has a career number of .257 against starting pitchers and .251 against relievers showing some relative reliability.
One factor that must be addressed is his relative importance at home. Here are his career numbers at home and on the road.
Home: .210/.251/.329 with a .251 wOBA
Road: .294/.323/.431 with a .321 wOBA
As our Park Factors piece describes, the Park in New York does right-handed batters no favors, but there is no logical way to explain just how awful Rosario has been to this point.
It would also be beneficial for Rosario to pick things up a bit against righties as he has a poor .244/.281/.364 slash line. Still, all three of those three numbers did slightly improve in year two (.247/288/.366). He also went from two walks in 128 at-bats against righties to a ‘we’re trending toward palatable’ 22 in 413 at-bats last season. OK, truth is that the number last year still blew frickin’ chunks, but it was a massive improvement that we have to give him credit for.
I would also point out that with his speed it’s certainly fair to posit a few extra points in batting average this season on the ground ball. The league average last year on grounders was .243 and for his career Rosario is at .249. Again, with that speed, a wee bit of growth there seems logical.
Rosario hit just nine homers last season, and he’s no threat to go launch angle crazy and lift 20 balls into the seats this season. The reasons are many, but the most obvious follow. (1) It’s just not who he is or who he is trying to be. (2) He has a mere 29.5 percent fly ball rate in his young career, six percentage points below the league average. (3) His career launch angle is more than three percentage points below the league average. He did pull the ball nearly four percent more last season at 35 percent, but he’s still content – as he should be – with hitting the ball back up the middle (41 percent of his batted balls last season). With his growing contact rate, and overall game, he’s way better off keeping his ground ball rate right where it is at 49.8. What I’m saying is, please do not become Billy Hamilton. Stay with what works for you, and who you are Amed.
Rosario might actually have a slightly better path to RBI this season as it seems like he will hit lower in the order (more on that below). Alas, a drop in the order would cause roughly the same amount of gain in RBI to be removed from his runs scored column. Further, at least potentially, whittling away his runs scored outlook, in addition to the lost plate appearances, is the fact that as of now his OBP isn’t good. For his career the mark is .290, nearly thirty points below the league average, and that hurts. His OBP did improve over that final 47 game run last year, but as I noted, he just doesn’t walk and that means his OBP was just .335 or .032 points above his batting average during that final push. What I’m saying is that Rosario is going to have to improve his batting average for him to have a legit shot at surpassing the league on-base percentage this season, that is unless he shows a much more patient approach, which he is working on, but still very much a work in progress.
PLAYING TIME
A player loses 15-20 plate appearances per spot in the order over the course of an entire season. That matters a lot in the case of Rosario. The current plans seem to be to have Brandon Nimmo (Player Profile) hit leadoff. That makes a lot of sense. Will Rosario hit second? Doesn’t seem like a great bet after the club brought in Jed Lowrie, an ideal second place hitter. Who knows is Jed can stay healthy, he’s already dealing with a knee issue, but for now it would seem that Rosario is destined for the bottom third of the order, potentially even as low as eighth, so keep a close eye on how the Mets choose to play this thing out.
AVERAGE DRAFT POSITION DATA
As of this writing, here is the ADP data for Rosario (since February 1st).
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Overall |
Position Rank |
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143.1 |
16th |
The Fantasy Guru Rankings can be found by clicking on the link.
CONCLUSION
Despite a relatively loaded shortstop position, the cost on Rosario at the moment is so muted that he represents a potentially significant ROI. The average should improve some, and even if his power doesn’t develop, the chance to nab a potential 30 steal bat up the middle should intrigue everyone given that, even in 15-team mixed leagues, he’s being drafted as a middle infielder.
10-Team Mixed: The lack of batting average certainty, and the likelihood that his power will cause you to fall well behind the average starting shortstop in this format, means that you only draft him if you need a middle infielder, and speed.
12/15 Team Mixed: Shortstop is so loaded this year that Rosario can be drafted as your backup. At that cost, he’s not overly expensive, and the risk isn’t very high given that his wheels alone should earn him enough value to at least break even with his cost.
NL-Only League: Speed, daily spot in the lineup, you’re in. Pretty simple, right?
Ray Flowers can be heard Monday-Friday, 8-10 PM EDT on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). Follow Ray’s work on Twitter (@baseballguys) and be sure to listen to his podcast work too.
