{"id":937920,"date":"2026-10-18T18:40:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T18:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/937920\/"},"modified":"2026-10-18T18:40:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T18:40:08","slug":"ben-rortvedt-elects-free-agency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/937920\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Rortvedt Elects Free Agency"},"content":{"rendered":"

Catcher Ben Rortvedt<\/a> has chosen to become a minor league free agent, according to his MLB.com profile page<\/a>.\u00a0 This was the expected outcome after Rortvedt was outrighted off the Dodgers\u2019 40-man roster in September, as that outright assignment (without being selected again to the active roster) plus Rortvedt\u2019s three-plus years of career MLB service time qualified him for minor league free agency.<\/p>\n

Rortvedt earned a World Series ring for his 18 regular-season games and four playoff games with the 2025 Dodgers, and a rather circuitous route took him back to Los Angeles at this year\u2019s trade deadline.\u00a0 A series waiver claims saw Rortvedt go from the Dodgers to the Reds in November, back to the Dodgers in early February, then to the Mets in mid-February.\u00a0 New York designated Rortvedt for assignment prior to Opening Day and he accepted the outright to Triple-A, where the catcher played until the Dodgers re-acquired Rortvedt yet again on deadline day<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Injuries to both Will Smith<\/a> and Dalton Rushing<\/a> prompted L.A. to trade for both Rortvedt and another ex-Dodger in Hunter Feduccia<\/a> at the deadline, in order to bolster the catching depth chart.\u00a0 Rortvedt ended up playing in 16 games for Los Angeles in August, posting the easy-to-remember batting line of .185\/.185\/.185 over 28 plate appearances.<\/p>\n

Over 243 games and 661 PA with the Twins, Yankees, Rays, and Dodgers, Rortvedt has hit .189\/.275\/.266 with nine home runs as a big leaguer.\u00a0 A journeyman at age 29, Rortvedt is likely to sign a minor league deal and head to Spring Training to compete for a backup job, though a Triple-A depth role might be the likelier outcome.\u00a0 Given how the Dodgers clearly like Rortvedt in such a role, a new contract with Los Angeles certainly seems possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Catcher Ben Rortvedt has chosen to become a minor league free agent, according to his MLB.com profile page.\u00a0…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":937921,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[27875,49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-937920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ben-rortvedt","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=937920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/937921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=937920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=937920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=937920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}