{"id":27602,"date":"2025-05-15T01:08:10","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T01:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/27602\/"},"modified":"2025-05-15T01:08:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T01:08:10","slug":"dave-roberts-reacts-to-dodgers-designating-austin-barnes-for-assignment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/27602\/","title":{"rendered":"Dave Roberts Reacts to Dodgers Designating Austin Barnes For Assignment"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Los Angeles Dodgers designated their longest-tenured position player for assignment on Wednesday in Austin Barnes. In a corresponding move, top prospect Dalton Rushing was called up from Triple-A Oklahoma City<\/a> to bring his notorious bat to the lineup.<\/p>\n

Read more: Dodgers Designating Austin Barnes for Assignment to Call Up Dalton Rushing in Shocking Move<\/a><\/p>\n

Manager Dave Roberts said it was a \u201ctough conversation\u201d surrounding the veteran\u2019s departure from the team.<\/p>\n

\u201cAustin is a guy that\u2019s far beyond the numbers,\u201d Roberts said to reporters Wednesday. \u201cHe\u2019s a glue guy. He held guys accountable. He was tough. He had a very innate ability to get big hits, and he was respected across the board.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the future of L.A.\u2019s catcher role, the team felt Rushing was doing too well to pass up the opportunity of letting him waste his talents in the minors.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just think for us right now, with what Dalton Rushing is doing on the performance side, it\u2019s an opportunity to challenge him,\u201d said Roberts.<\/p>\n

Barnes, the Fullerton, CA native, was batting just .214 this season with 14 strikeouts in 42 at-bats. His team has recently shown that there is a need for more of a boost on offense and will look to try and achieve that through Rushing.<\/p>\n

Barnes first appeared in a Dodgers uniform in 2015 after being acquired in a deal that sent Dee Gordon and Miguel Rojas, among other pieces, to the Miami Marlins, and brought in the catcher and Kik\u00e9 Hern\u00e1ndez, among others players in the trade.<\/p>\n

Little did the Dodgers know at the time that Barnes would be the longtime backup catcher for over a decade. <\/p>\n

Over his career \u2014 with all 11 seasons in MLB being in Los Angeles \u2014 Barnes batted .223 with an OPS of .660. Although never a home run hitter, he had 35 in a Dodgers uniform, and an extremely important one in the 2020 World Series.<\/p>\n

With the Fall Classic tied at one game apiece, Barnes ended up hitting a long ball to separate the two teams further and break the series tie. Barnes proved to be a pivotal player in both the 2020 World Series and in the 2024 regular season on the way to another title. <\/p>\n

More news: What Does Dalton Rushing, Austin Barnes News Mean for Chris Taylor, Michael Conforto and Other Struggling Dodgers?<\/a><\/p>\n

Photo Credit: Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n

Have you joined our\u00a0Discord Channel<\/a>\u00a0yet? Be a part of the ultimate Dodgers Nation community and get VIP Nation Access! Don\u2019t miss out on real-time Dodgers talk, call-in access to Dodgers Dougout, behind-the-scenes content, exclusive interviews, giveaways, and more!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Los Angeles Dodgers designated their longest-tenured position player for assignment on Wednesday in Austin Barnes. In a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27603,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2406],"tags":[1146,5,10900,1560,39,1165,4332,4333,774,57,3224,4331,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-27602","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-dodgers","8":"tag-austin-barnes","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-dalton-rushing","11":"tag-dave-roberts","12":"tag-dodgers","13":"tag-la","14":"tag-la-dodgers","15":"tag-ladodgers","16":"tag-los-angeles","17":"tag-los-angeles-dodgers","18":"tag-losangeles","19":"tag-losangelesdodgers","20":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114509178740949943","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}