Braves Sign Eddie Rosario, Option Jarred Kelenic

The Braves announced Monday that they’ve signed veteran outfielder Eddie Rosario to a major league contract and optioned fellow outfielder Jarred Kelenic to Triple-A Gwinnett. In order to clear a spot on the 40-man roster, Atlanta designated righty Zach Thompson for assignment.

Kelenic’s demotion comes amid a calamitously poor start for the 25-year-old former top prospect. He’s opened the season with a .167/.231/.300 batting line and a massive 23 strikeouts in his first 65 plate appearances (35.4%). Those struggles come despite Kelenic being shielded almost entirely from left-handed pitching. The Braves have let him face a southpaw just six times in 2025. He’s hitless in those six plate appearances and has gone down on strikes in four of them.

Atlanta took on a series of underwater contracts through a convoluted sequence of trades in the 2023-24 offseason, effectively eating all of that dead money in order to purchase Kelenic from the Mariners. Seattle unloaded the remainder of its commitments to first baseman Evan White and left-hander Marco Gonzales in the original trade. Atlanta flipped Gonzales to the Pirates for a bit of cash and shipped White to Anaheim while taking back the unwanted contracts of David Fletcher and Max Stassi (the latter of whom was sold off to the White Sox). Atlanta took on more than $20MM in that sequence, and that’s before factoring in the luxury tax penalties required to do so.

It was an expensive gambit, and thus far, it simply hasn’t paid off. Kelenic had a below-average offensive output in 2024 and has clearly taken a further step back in 2025. Since coming to Atlanta, he’s turned in a .222/.279/.381 line with a 30.4% strikeout rate. The Braves, sitting last place in the NL East after a surprisingly poor start, cannot afford the luxury of a more patient approach with Kelenic. They’ve also seen Alex Verdugo and Eli White handily outperform Kelenic on the young season. That pairing will join Michael Harris II, Stuart Fairchild and the newly signed Rosario in the outfield mix while Kelenic hopes to benefit from a reset in Triple-A.

The 33-year-old Rosario will head to Atlanta’s big league roster for a fifth straight season. The Braves originally acquired him from the Guardians in a salary-dump deal at the 2021 trade deadline and watched the longtime Twins outfielder catch fire down the stretch. Rosario played a major role in the Braves’ 2021 World Series run, and they rewarded him with a two-year, $18MM deal to return to Atlanta that offseason. It didn’t pay dividends. Rosario had a brutal 2022 season and was league average at the plate in 2023. He signed with the Nationals as a free agent and wound up back in Atlanta after Washington cut him loose.

The Braves will be Rosario’s second big league stop this year. He very briefly played with the Dodgers, going hitless in four plate appearances before being designated for assignment. Rosario hasn’t had a full above-average season at the plate since 2020, his final year in Minnesota. In 1521 plate appearances for four teams since that time, he’s slashed .232/.278/.396 (82 wRC+). He could conceivably platoon with the righty-swinging White in one corner spot while the Braves await Ronald Acuña Jr.’s return from the injured list.

More to come.