Seth Rosin Gone

Lance Iversen-USA TODAY Sports

I know, I know, we’re all a little bit sad that Seth Rosin was lost to the Rangers via waivers. And some of us kinda are sad about Javy Guerra, but t’was inevitable. Deep down inside, who’s going to root against someone that unites us dodger fans against Brandon League? But really, in the end that’s really all he was. Just an excuse to spend more time burning Ned Colletti on his 3 year 22.5 million disaster. And let’s get something out of the way right now. Maybe there’s a chance we overrated Rosin a bit. Remember when the organization sang Rosin praises? Saying they really, really liked him? Well, they were probably overrated a tad. I mean the Dodgers did put him on waivers in the end, didn’t they? 

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say relievers are a bit overrated. Overrated in the sense they can’t have the same impact as a position player. So Rosin really has this working against him from the start. Anything short of being a closer type pitcher, and it’s not worth eating 17 million dollars for his services.
We like using the “you’re already spending anywhere from 235-270 million dollars on this team, what’s 7.5 more!?” But let’s remember, these decision makers are businessmen, paying a reliever 17 million is dumb, but paying him that much at no chance of getting a return on your investment is something that you just can’t do. So right off the bat Rosin is in a huge hole.

Yeah, Rosin had a really, really good spring. Striking out professional hitters, but judging a rule 5 Draft pick off of spring training innings is borderline irresponsible. This guy is competing for a job on a major league roster versus stars who have a spot on lockdown and couldn’t really care less about spring stats (Yasiel Puig, Hanley Ramirez, Clayton Kershaw etc…) so his spring stats looked nice, but they’re not real games.

Now there’s Rosin’s past performance that we need to take into consideration. He has been anything but impressive statistically in the minors. His 6.8 K/9 against double A hitting was pretty underwhelming, and his home run rates have been anything but great, (.8 in 2012 .9 in 2013). And as inept as the Phillies are, there’s a reason they didn’t even think to protect him, it’s because they probably didn’t think he’d make for a decent major league reliever. And yes, I am aware of Johan Santana, and yep, I do know who Roberto Clemente is, but for every Clemente and Santana, there are thousands of non major league type players. There’s a reason they’re rule 5 picks.

So could Rosin have been a good major league relief pitcher for the Dodgers? Yes, but taking into account the volatility of relief pitchers, and the fact that he was placed on waivers in the first place, I don’t think the Dodgers will regret this much.