It’s in there! The talent is in there somewhere! That’s what a lot of baseball people and fans are saying about Johan Rojas and have been for a while. All those baseball folks need to figure out is how to tap into that talent at the major league level.
Rojas is doing it again. The guy is a superstar in winter leagues, but struggles to hit at the major league level. The Dominican Winter League is still early in the season and Rojas has just six games to his credit. Even with the small sample size, consider that Rojas is batting .409 (9-for-22) with two of his hits going for extra bases (double, home run). The 25-year-old has scored six runs and has driven in four for the Gigantes del Caibo. In addition to the .409 average, Rojas has a .519 on-base percentage and a .591 slugging percentage for a 1.110 OPS. Last season with the Gigantes, Rojas hit .295/.382/.389/.771 in 111 plate appearances, so the 2025 numbers are not an outlier. When the Phillies sent him to the Arizona Fall League in 2022, Rojas hit .310/.423/.452/.875 in 52 plate appearances.
At Triple-A and Double-A in his career, Rojas is a combined .289 hitter. It might surprise some people to realize that in the majors, Rojas has a career line of 6-73-.252/.294/.340/.634 as it seems that he has struggled much more than those numbers signal. The winter leagues do not feature the talent level of the majors, so we may just have to accept that he is not going to be that type of hitter. We forget that Rojas debuted at the major league level in 2023 and hit .302/.342/.430/.772 in 164 plate appearances. His MLB debut in July of 2023 came when Cristian Pache was placed on the IL with elbow irritation. At the time, MLB.com rated Rojas the sixth best overall prospect in the Phillies organization and the third best hitting prospect in the organization. The surprise surrounding the move what that he had never played above Double-A Reading where he was when the move was made. When pundits and fans looked at his numbers that season at Reading – a .306 average, .845 OPS, nine home runs, 45 RBI, and 30 stolen bases, the move wasn’t as surprising.
The question is: Where does Johan Rojas fit in the Phillies plans? He finished the season at Triple-A Lehigh Valley thanks to an average that had sunk to .224 with the Phillies, sealing Rojas’ fate at least for the rest of the season. With the Phillies destined to make a number of changes to their outfield, whether or not Rojas – who has one option year remaining – fits into their plans or how. Platooning Rojas makes little sense; he hit .224 against both right-handers and left-handers last season and Brandon Marsh, who would be his likely platoon partner, showed that he can hit lefties as the 2025 season went on and Rob Thomson gave him a chance to play versus southpaws.
If the Phillies were to bring up Justin Crawford and play him in center field, platooning him doesn’t make much sense, either. Crawford, who bats left-handed, does hit right-handed hitters better than he does lefties, but he is no slouch against right-handers. In 2025, the 21-year-old hit .376 against left-handed pitchers and .324 against right-handers for Lehigh Valley.
This could be one of those situations where the best thing for Rojas would be the old “change of scenery.” Unfortunately, it could also be one of those situations where the Phillies would trade him at a low value only to watch him develop into a solid everyday player for another team.
With an option year remaining, it’s likely that the Phillies will keep Rojas stashed at Triple-A as somewhat of an insurance policy. A second potential outcome would be for the Phillies to package him as part of a deal.
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