{"id":643416,"date":"2026-03-25T22:40:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T22:40:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/643416\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T22:40:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T22:40:20","slug":"guardians-make-roster-moves-on-eve-of-opening-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/643416\/","title":{"rendered":"Guardians Make Roster Moves on Eve of Opening Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the Cleveland Guardians<\/a> prepare to take the field for the first time in 2026, the organization made a handful of roster moves on Wednesday as it finalized the Opening Day roster.<\/a><\/p>\n

Even though Rhys Hoskins is an accomplished veteran with plenty of playoff experience, he signed a Minor League deal with the Guardians at the beginning of March.<\/p>\n

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With Hoskins making the Opening Day roster, the Guardians had to select his contract from Triple-A Columbus, which they did on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Hoskins had a relatively slow start to camp, which was expected considering he signed after Spring Training began, but the veteran slugger found his groove midway through camp. He ended up hitting three home runs and three doubles in 39 at-bats, which came out ot a .968 OPS.<\/p>\n

Hoskins has the potential to be a massive addition to Cleveland\u2019s lineup in 2026, especially against left-handed pitching.<\/p>\n

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In order to make room for Hoskins on the 40-man roster, the Guardians announced that they had designated Johnathan Rodriguez for assignment.<\/p>\n

Rodriguez once showed promise and potential of being a right-handed power threat in Cleveland\u2019s lineup, and had the Minor League numbers to back that up. However, in 102 at-bats over the last two years, the 26-year-old on;y hit two home runs and struck out 36 times.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019ll be interesting to see where Cleveland\u2019s playoff cleanup hitter from a year ago ends up.<\/p>\n

\"Feb<\/p>\n

Feb 24, 2026; Phoenix, Arizona, USA; Cleveland Guardians outfielder George Valera against the Los Angeles Dodgers during a spring training game at Camelback Ranch-Glendale. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the Guardians have some injuries among key players to monitor at the beginning of the season.<\/p>\n

Hunter Gaddis will open up the season on the injured list after his Spring Training was cut short due to forearm soreness. The reliever did undergo imaging, and thankfully, it came back clean. Gaddis is back to throwing bullpen sessions, but he still hasn\u2019t pitched in a live game on February 27th.<\/p>\n

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Hopefully, Gaddis isn\u2019t on the injured list too long, and his symptoms aren\u2019t something that linger throughout the season.<\/p>\n

George Valera starting the season on the injured list was also an expected move leading up to Opening Day. He suffered a calf strain in camp, which has kept him out since March 9. The good news is that Valera recently played in a Minor League game<\/a>, so he may not be sidelined from the big league team for much longer.<\/p>\n

The Guardians also placed Andrew Walter on the 15-Day injured list. He is still recovering from the right lat surgery that he underwent at the beginning of the 2025 season.<\/p>\n

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Guardians Roundtable also offers a fan community and message board. We\u2019d love to have you join us to talk all things Guardians. Click the \u201cJoin\u201d button at the top of the page to join our community for free.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the Cleveland Guardians prepare to take the field for the first time in 2026, the organization made…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643417,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2380],"tags":[10986,5,135,51,2565,42301,538,947,24011,57,6522,4,1406,47989,130,9685,151],"class_list":["post-643416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cleveland-guardians","tag-andrew-walters","tag-baseball","tag-cleveland","tag-cleveland-guardians","tag-clevelandguardians","tag-george-valera","tag-guardians","tag-hunter-gaddis","tag-jonathan-rodriguez","tag-los-angeles-dodgers","tag-minor-league","tag-mlb","tag-opening-day","tag-playoff-experience","tag-rhys-hoskins","tag-roster-moves","tag-spring-training"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643416","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=643416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}