{"id":568577,"date":"2026-03-27T21:06:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T21:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/568577\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T21:06:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T21:06:07","slug":"mets-outright-vidal-brujan-ben-rortvedt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/568577\/","title":{"rendered":"Mets Outright Vidal Bruj\u00e1n, Ben Rortvedt"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Mets have sent infielder\/outfielder Vidal Bruj\u00e1n<\/a> and catcher Ben Rortvedt<\/a> through waivers unclaimed, per Anthony DiComo of MLB.com<\/a>. The two were designated for assignment when the Mets set their Opening Day roster earlier this week. Both players have the right to elect free agency but would have to walk away from the money on their contracts. That means they are likely to report to Triple-A and stick around as depth.<\/p>\n

A player with at least three years of service time has the right to reject an outright assignment in favor of electing free agency. However, he needs five years of service to both reject an assignment and also keep his salary commitments in place. Both Bruj\u00e1n and Rortvedt are between three and five years. That means they would have to be willing to leave money on the table to choose free agency.<\/p>\n

Bruj\u00e1n was once a top prospect but hasn\u2019t clicked in the major leagues. He has a lot of defensive versatility but has a career batting line of just .199\/.267\/.276. He has exhausted his options and been bumped into fringe roster territory. He bounced from the Cubs to Baltimore and Atlanta last year. He finished the season with Atlanta and qualified for arbitration.<\/p>\n

The team and Bruj\u00e1n avoided arbitration by agreeing to a split deal for 2026 which pays him $850K in the majors and $500K in the minors. They later tried passing him through waivers but the Twins claimed him. A week later, the Twins designated him for assignment and traded him to the Mets for cash. Presumably, Bruj\u00e1n won\u2019t want to walk away from that deal. The minor league salary on that pact is actually not too far from this year\u2019s major league minimum, which is $780K.<\/p>\n

Assuming he reports to Triple-A Syracuse, he\u2019ll try to position himself for a call-up at some point. He has experience all over the diamond but has spent a lot of his time in the middle infield. The Mets are currently rolling without a backup middle infielder. If something happens to Francisco Lindor<\/a>, the fallback plan would be for third baseman Bo Bichette<\/a> to slide over. If they decide to bring someone up later, it could be Bruj\u00e1n, though Ronny Mauricio<\/a> is on the 40-man and will be playing in Triple-A on an optional assignment.<\/p>\n

Rortvedt\u2019s situation is fairly comparable. He has a good defensive reputation but has hit .190\/.279\/.270 in his career. He finished last year with the Dodgers and quickly avoided arbitration by signing a $1.25MM deal for 2026. The Dodgers tried to pass him through waivers but he was claimed by the Reds. The Dodgers later claimed him back but a second attempt to get him through waivers led to the Mets claiming him.<\/p>\n

For the Mets, they probably never planned to have Rortvedt on the Opening Day roster, since they have Francisco Alvarez<\/a> and Luis Torrens<\/a> as their catching tandem. They held Rortvedt as injury insurance but had to bump him from the roster this week because he is out of options. Now that he has cleared, he can continue to be injury insurance without taking up a roster spot. The Mets also have Hayden Senger<\/a> on the 40-man, so he\u2019ll be in Triple-A as optionable depth.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Sam Navarro, Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Mets have sent infielder\/outfielder Vidal Bruj\u00e1n and catcher Ben Rortvedt through waivers unclaimed, per Anthony DiComo of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":568578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,33157,591,85,75984],"class_list":["post-568577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-ben-rortvedt","tag-mlb","tag-sports","tag-vidal-brujan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=568577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/568578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=568577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=568577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}