Surprise! Paco Rodriguez Is Gone, but Emilio Bonifacio Is Staying for the Atlanta Braves

Paco Rodriguez is gone. Emilio Bonifacio is not. The Atlanta Braves Opening Day roster always has a surprise or two.

With Tuesday’s release of Paco Rodriguez, the Atlanta Braves have officially rid themselves of all vestiges of the 2015 Hector Olivera trade. At last.

(Not including Joey Wentz, obviously and thankfully.)

Rodriguez’s Atlanta tenure will be most remembered for promise unfulfilled.

After being picked by the Dodgers in the second round of the 2012 MLB draft, he reached the majors that same September—the first player from the 2012 draft class to reach the big leagues.

He became a valuable member of the bullpen in 2013 (3-4, 2.32 ERA in 76 games), but an injury (vague idea of whatever the Dodgers may have been up to, goes here) saw him shuttled back and forth from Triple-A to Los Angeles in 2014.

After only 18 appearances in 2015, he was shut down. Then, at the trade deadline, Paco was traded to the Atlanta Braves.

Whereupon he has yet to throw another pitch in the major leagues.

It’s hard to romanticize what may have been missed here from a fan’s perspective—for those who watch the Braves exclusively, your last extended look at Paco Rodriguez came during the 2013 postseason.

A lot has changed since then—like the Atlanta Braves being postseason contenders, for one thing, and Rodriguez’s left arm working functionally for extended periods of time, being another.

Paco Rodriguez was supposed to be a part of the future. Now he’s part of the past. Life, as it does, goes on.

Never a fireballer, Rodriguez got by on guile, a sharp slider and a strangely deceptive motion. With the left-handed bullpen options now being Eric O’Flaherty, Ian Krol and Kevin Chapman, one assumes Rodriguez will be missed. Or…

While Rodriguez’s departure opened the door for the Ghost of Opening Days Past, Eric O’Flaherty, to make the big-league roster for what seems like the 43^rd consecutive season, it bears no accounting for the on-going inclusion of Emilio Bonifacio.

Like O’Flaherty, Bonifacio was informed Tuesday that he would be making the trip north to Atlanta. Unlike O’Flaherty, there’s no real reason to do so.

By nearly every metric, Emilio Bonifacio is a sub-par ballplayer.

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He’s had one above-average season at the plate, when he hit .296 (with a wRC+ of 109) for the Marlins in 2011—and the featured 129 strikeouts for a guy who started the season batting leadoff and ended it hitting eighth. He’s had a negative Win Probability Added in each season of his career save two (2010, 2016) and had an incredible (in a bad way) wRC+ of 2 for the White Sox in 2015.

“But his versatility!” I can hear some of you shouting. “He can play lots of positions!”

He can be put in lots of positions, but he can’t play any of them particularly well. For all that caterwauling about multiple positions, Bonifacio was relegated to outfield duty last season and was a negative-grade across the board (-1 Defensive Runs Saved, -3.3 UZR). He is not a very good baseball player.

I repeat: Emilio Bonifacio. Not great. Does all the things Jace Peterson does, only less-goodly. And Jace is already on the roster.

Next: The Enigma of EOF

Neither of these moves make sense in a vacuum, but baseball is not played in a vacuum. The Atlanta Braves may be right in divesting themselves of Paco Rodriguez. Maybe they have no better options than Emilio Bonifacio. Jose Constanza once made an Opening Day roster, after all.