Josh Rojas

Joshua Luke Rojas

• Bats Left, Throws Right
• Height 6' 1", Weight 185 lb.
• School University of Hawaii at Manoa
• High School Millennium High School (Goodyear)
• Debut August 12, 2019

• Born June 30, 1994 in Litchfield Park, AZ USA

BR page

Biographical Information

Infielder Josh Rojas was drafted by the Houston Astros in the 26th round of the 2017 amateur draft, from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. However, he is originally from Arizona and grew up and went to high school in the Phoenix, AZ metropolitan area.

He began his pro career in 2017 with the Quad Cities River Bandits of the Midwest League where he hit .256 in 52 games; he was also promoted briefly to the AAA Fresno Grizzlies where he played 4 games while filling in for an injured player. In 2018, he started the season with the Buies Creek Astros of the Carolina League but soon earned a promotion to the AA Corpus Christi Hooks of the AA Texas League after hitting .311 in his first 24 games. He filled in at six different positions for Corpus Christi but played basically every day, logging 106 games. Overall, between the two stops, his batting line was .263/.351/.408 in 130 games, with 34 doubles and 8 homers.

Belying his low draft status, he continued to hit extremely well in 2019, batting .322 in 44 games with Corpus Christi and .310 in 53 games for the Round Rock Express in AAA. This caught the attention of scouts and on July 31st he was included in the package of players sent to the Arizona Diamondbacks in return for starting pitcher Zack Greinke. The others, Seth Beer, J.B. Bukauskas and Corbin Martin, were all top draft picks and blue chip prospects, but joining his hometown team, the less heralded Rojas had performed as well as any of them during his three years as a pro thus far. It did not take him long to make it to the Show after the trade, as he made his debut on August 12th, going 2-for-4 as the starting left fielder against the Colorado Rockies.

On May 20, 2022, he had a three-homer game in a 10-6 win over the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field. It was a game when balls were flying out of the park, as the D-Backs hit 7 homers and the Cubs hit 2, tying the ballpark record for a single game with 11. Those were his first three long balls of the season, as he had started the year on injured list and had played his first game on May 6th. He had had a couple of multi-homer games the previous season, but had never hit three in one game. The game did not foreshadow any fundamental change in his hitting production as he ended the season with just 9 long balls in 125 games, to go along with an average of .269, 66 runs scored and 56 RBIs. His OPS+ was a solid 112 as Arizona's regular third baseman.

He fell back in 2023 however, as he lost his starting job for a much-improved Diamondbacks team, getting just 189 at-bats over the first four months of the season while appearing in 59 games. His production was way down, with an average of .228, no homers and an OPS+ of 64. On July 31st, he was included in a package with two prospects, Ryan Bliss and Dominic Canzone, sent to the Seattle Mariners to acquire reliever Paul Sewald.

Related Sites

• Josh Rojas on mlb.com
• BR Minors page