A's Make First Cut of Camp

The A's are playing just their third spring game today, and they have already trimmed the roster by a lone minor league relief pitcher. On Monday, ahead of the team's matchup with the San Francisco Giants, the club announced that they had reassigned right-handed pitcher Gustavo Rodriguez to their minor league camp.

The A's spring roster now sits at 71 players in camp, which includes 40 players on the 40-man roster and 31 non-roster invitees. The breakdown includes 40 pitchers, six catchers, 14 infielders and 11 outfielders.

In baseball, all this means is that the A's have moved him to the backfields of spring training, where he will continue to do work around the team, just not with the big-league guys like Nick Kurtz and Jacob Wilson. Essentially, this means that he will not be making the Opening Day roster, but he is still a member of the organization.

Rodriguez can still make impact in 2026

Rodriguez signed with the A's last offseason after some time with the St. Louis Cardinals, and he made a big impression in his time in the minors. When he signed with the A's, he had yet to make it past High-A at the age of 24.

The A's started him in Lansing, but he moved up quickly to Double-A, then again to Triple-A Las Vegas where he spent most of the season. In total, he racked up a 1.64 ERA across 44 innings of work, while also boasting a .160 batting average against coupled with a 1.09 WHIP. Those are all tremendous numbers.

The one small cause for concern is that his FIP was a bit higher, sitting at 3.82, and his BABIP against on the year suggested some potential luck going his way, with it sitting at .223. Typically the average is about 50 points higher.

FanGraphs rated his fastball as a 60 on the 20-80 scouting scale, and even gave him a solid curveball grade (50/55), but his changeup (30/40) and command (20/35) were rated as well below average.

Rodriguez hit free agency this past offseason as well, but ended up re-signing with the A's on another minor-league deal with an invite to camp.

The interesting part of this decision is that Rodriguez had a solid season last year and was invited to big-league camp as a non-roster invitee, but he was also sent to the backfields before making an appearance in a game.

This doesn't necessarily mean that we won't see him pitch for the A's this spring at some point, either. There are often players that aren't in big-league camp that get brought in to make an appearance in a game or two over the course of camp. That could be the direction they head with him, while getting him more regular work on the minor-league side of things in the meantime.

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