Pittsburgh Pirates Latest Roster Rumors: Sean Rodriguez Returns
Sean Rodriguez will be returning to his old team, the Pittsburgh Pirates, when baseball action returns next season. The free-agent utility player reportedly liked the contract offer provided to him by team officials.
The deal, according to multiple reports, is worth about $2.5 million for base salary, not to mention the incentives that can reach up to $500,000. But the deal hasn't been announced as of yet because Rodriguez will still have to pass the physical exam.
The 30-year-old previously played for the Los Angeles Angels and the Tampa Bay Rays, wherein he is a .228 hitter with a .666 OPS.
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He also hit .246 with Pittsburgh, playing 139 games in total for them. The main selling point of a player like him is versatility, which only a few can boast of in this league. He has proven he can play several positions in the MLB, excluding the pitching and catching positions.
Before deciding to return to Pittsburgh, there were several teams who signified their intention of signing the veteran, the most notable were the Detroit Tigers.
Rodriguez is actually best known not for his accomplishments but for that one incident in a wild-card game where he lost to the Cubs. There was a bench-clearing scene that was typical of baseball teams venting out their frustrations, but Rodriguez took it a little further by throwing a punch while in the middle of the scuffing.
He became a social media trend when he punched a water cooler in the dugout, appearing to have let go of his frustration to it. It's quite weird too that he actually tweeted an apology of what he did to the water cooler.
Adding Rodriguez became a necessity for the club after Neil Walkers' departure and the injury to another player, Jung-ho Kang. He will be playing in a team that will certainly need his services at this point, but he sure does have a lot of to prove to earn his spot in the Pirates rotation.
