Ronny Rodriguez

Rodriguez reached the majors for the first time last season as a 26-year-old and played quite a bit with the Tigers not competitive and mostly in evaluation mode. He didn't do much with his opportunities at the big-league level but did hit an impressive .338/.365/.558 in 63 games for Triple-A Toledo last season. Rodriguez was never particularly well-regarded as a prospect and has a career minor-league walk rate of just 4.1%. Jose Iglesias became a free agent, but the team brought in Jordy Mercer to take the reins at shortstop. Rodriguez appears to be best suited for a utility role anyway, though he may not even be good enough for that as his glove graded out as a fairly significant negative at every infield position except second base, according to both UZR and DRS.

In four professional seasons, Rodriguez has never posted an OBP higher than .300, which was his mark at High-A in 2012. He repeated Double-A last season, and his offensive numbers were down across the board compared to his 2013 campaign, so his prospect stock is in significant decline. A former shortstop prospect, Rodriguez played 45 games at second base, 40 games at third base, and 23 games at first base in 2014, and considering his plus arm and the makeup of the big league roster, third base would seem like the best fit. However, he has just 10 home runs in 234 games at Double-A over the past two seasons, which won't be enough for him to profile as a big league third baseman. That makes it difficult to envision a path to the major leagues for Rodriguez without significant offensive improvement in 2015.

Rodriguez saw his home-run output drop in his Double-A debut which isn't surprising given his inability to control the strike zone (16:76 BB:K in 498 plate appearances). He'll need to do a much better job of that as he moves up the ladder, otherwise he will get carved up by more advanced competition. His main fantasy tool is the potential to provide plus-power for a middle infielder, making it imperative that he begins to develop a more refined approach and improved plate discipline. The middle infield is very crowded in Cleveland, which should offer Rodriguez plenty of extra development time and a return to Akron to begin the season if the Indians choose to go that route.